“Ay, grin away, sir,” the mortified dominie of Thrums said to him sourly, “the joke is on your side.”

“You are right, sir,” replied Mr. Ogilvy, mysteriously, “the joke is on my side, and the best of it is that not one of you knows what the joke is!”

And then an odd thing happened.  As they were preparing to leave the school, the door opened a little and there appeared in the aperture the face of Tommy, tear-stained but excited.  “I ken the word now,” he cried, “it came to me a’ at once; it is hantle!”

The door closed with a victorious bang, just in time to prevent Cathro—­

“Oh, the sumph!” exclaimed Mr. Lauchlan McLauchlan, “as if it mattered what the word is now!”

And said Mr. Dishart, “Cathro, you had better tell Aaron Latta that the sooner he sends this nincompoop to the herding the better.”

But Mr. Ogilvy giving his Lauchlan a push that nearly sent him sprawling, said in an ecstasy to himself, “He had to think of it till he got it—­and he got it.  The laddie is a genius!” They were about to tear up Tommy’s essay, but he snatched it from them and put it in his oxter pocket.  “I am a collector of curiosities,” he explained, “and this paper may be worth money yet.”

“Well,” said Cathro, savagely, “I have one satisfaction, I ran him out of my school.”

“Who knows,” replied Mr. Ogilvy, “but what you may be proud to dust a chair for him when he comes back?”

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE END OF A BOYHOOD

Convinced of his own worthlessness, Tommy was sufficiently humble now, but Aaron Latta, nevertheless, marched to the square on the following market day and came back with the boy’s sentence, Elspeth being happily absent.

“I say nothing about the disgrace you have brought on this house,” the warper began without emotion, “for it has been a shamed house since afore you were born, and it’s a small offence to skail on a clarty floor.  But now I’ve done more for you than I promised Jean Myles to do, and you had your pick atween college and the herding, and the herding you’ve chosen twice.  I call you no names, you ken best what you’re fitted for, but I’ve seen the farmer of the Dubb of Prosen the day, and he was short-handed through the loss of Tod Lindertis, so you’re fee’d to him.  Dinna think you get Tod’s place, it’ll be years afore you rise to that, but it’s right and proper that as he steps up, you should step down.”

“The Dubb of Prosen!” cried Tommy in dismay.  “It’s fifteen miles frae here.”

“It’s a’ that.”

“But—­but—­but Elspeth and me never thought of my being so far away that she couldna see me.  We thought of a farmer near Thrums.”

“The farther you’re frae her the better,” said Aaron, uneasily, yet honestly believing what he said.

“It’ll kill her,” Tommy cried fiercely.  With only his own suffering to consider he would probably have nursed it into a play through which he stalked as the noble child of misfortune, but in his anxiety for Elspeth he could still forget himself.  “Fine you ken she canna do without me,” he screamed.