Tommy’s behavior seemed beautiful to the impressionable Miss Ailie, but it infuriated Aaron, and on the fourth day he set off for the parish school, meaning to put the truant in the hands of Cathro, from whom there was no escape.  Vainly had Elspeth implored him to let Tommy come to the Dovecot, and vainly apparently was she trotting at his side now, looking up appealingly in his face.  But when they reached the gate of the parish school-yard he walked past it because she was tugging him, and always when he seemed about to turn she took his hand again, and he seemed to have lost the power to resist Jean Myles’s bairn.  So they came to the Dovecot, and Miss Ailie gained a pupil who had been meant for Cathro.  Tommy’s arms were stronger than Elspeth’s, but they could not hare done as much for him that day.

Thus did the two children enter upon the genteel career, to the indignation of the other boys and girls of Monypenny, all of whom were commoners.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HANKY SCHOOL

The Dovecot was a prim little cottage standing back from the steepest brae in Thrums and hidden by high garden walls, to the top of which another boy’s shoulders were, for apple-lovers, but one step up.  Jargonelle trees grew against the house, stretching their arms round it as if to measure its girth, and it was also remarkable for several “dumb” windows with the most artful blinds painted on them.  Miss Ailie’s fruit was famous, but she loved her flowers best, and for long a notice board in her garden said, appealingly:  “Persons who come to steal the fruit are requested not to walk on the flower-beds.”  It was that old bachelor, Dr. McQueen, who suggested this inscription to her, and she could never understand why he chuckled every time he read it.

There were seven rooms in the house, but only two were of public note, the school-room, which was downstairs, and the blue-and-white room above.  The school-room was so long that it looked very low in the ceiling, and it had a carpet, and on the walls were texts as well as maps.  Miss Ailie’s desk was in the middle of the room, and there was another desk in the corner; a cloth had been hung over it, as one covers a cage to send the bird to sleep.  Perhaps Miss Ailie thought that a bird had once sung there, for this had been the desk of her sister, Miss Kitty, who died years before Tommy came to Thrums.  Dainty Miss Kitty, Miss Kitty with the roguish curls, it is strange to think that you are dead, and that only Miss Ailie hears you singing now at your desk in the corner!  Miss Kitty never sang there, but the playful ringlets were once the bright thing in the room, and Miss Ailie sees them still, and they are a song to her.

The pupils had to bring handkerchiefs to the Dovecot, which led to its being called the Hanky School, and in time these handkerchiefs may be said to have assumed a religious character, though their purpose was merely to protect Miss Ailie’s carpet.  She opened each scholastic day by reading fifteen verses from the Bible, and then she said sternly, “Hankies!” whereupon her pupils whipped out their handkerchiefs, spread them on the floor and kneeled on them while Miss Ailie repeated the Lord’s Prayer.  School closed at four o’clock, again with hankies.