CHAPTER XIX

CORP IS BROUGHT TO HEEL—­GRIZEL DEFIANT

Corp Shiach was a bare-footed colt of a boy, of ungainly build, with a nose so thick and turned up that it was a certificate of character, and his hands were covered with warts, which he had a trick of biting till they bled.  Then he rubbed them on his trousers, which were the picturesque part of him, for he was at present “serving” to the masons (he had “earned his keep” since long before he could remember), and so wore the white or yellow ducks which the dust of the quarry stains a rarer orange color than is known elsewhere.  The orange of the masons’ trousers, the blue of the hearthstones, these are the most beautiful colors to be seen in Thrums, though of course Corp was unaware of it.  He was really very good-natured, and only used his fists freely because of imagination he had none, and thinking made him sweat, and consequently the simplest way of proving his case was to say, “I’ll fight you.”  What might have been the issue of a conflict between him and Shovel was a problem for Tommy to puzzle over.  Shovel was as quick as Corp was deliberate, and would have danced round him, putting in unexpected ones, but if he had remained just one moment too long within Corp’s reach—­

They nicknamed him Corp because he took fits, when he lay like one dead.  He was proud of his fits, was Corp, but they were a bother to him, too, because he could make so little of them.  They interested doctors and other carriage folk, who came to his aunt’s house to put their fingers into him, and gave him sixpence, and would have given him more, but when they pressed him to tell them what he remembered about his fits, he could only answer dejectedly, “Not a damned thing.”

“You might as well no have them ava,” his wrathful aunt, with whom he lived, would say, and she thrashed him until his size forbade it.

Soon after the Muckley came word that the Lady of the Spittal was to be brought to see Corp by Mr. Ogilvy, the school-master of Glen Quharity, and at first Corp boasted of it, but as the appointed day drew near he became uneasy.

“The worst o’t,” he said to anyone who would listen, “is that my auntie is to be away frae hame, and so they’ll put a’ their questions to me.”

The Haggerty-Taggertys and Birkie were so jealous that they said they were glad they never had fits, but Tommy made no such pretence.

“Oh, Corp, if I had thae fits of yours!” he exclaimed greedily.

“If they were mine to give awa’,” replied Corp sullenly, “you could have them and welcome.”  Grown meek in his trouble, he invited Tommy to speak freely, with the result that his eyes were partially opened to the superiority of that boy’s attainments.  Tommy told him a number of interesting things to say to Mr. Ogilvy and the lady about his fits, about how queer he felt just before they came on, and the visions he had while he was lying stiff.  But though the admiring Corp gave attentive ear, he said hopelessly next day, “Not a dagont thing do I mind.  When they question me about my fits I’ll just say I’m sometimes in them and sometimes out o’ them, and if they badger me more, I can aye kick.”