Torridon laid the slate upon his desk, face down.
“Jack Brett!” he said.
Jack Brett rose slowly to his feet. One hand was gripped into a fist, not to strike, but to endure.
“There’s a lot of the wood in the shed that needs splitting. You’d better go and do that today.”
Vast silence seized upon the schoolroom. They waited as for a thunderbolt to strike. Then a faint sigh of amazement came from those who watched, for Jack Brett, his fine face crimson to the throat, turned and stalked from the room.
Still they waited, until from the rear of the school they heard the loud, crisp ring of an axe as it was driven home into hard wood. At that sound every eye in the schoolroom became empty, blank with submission, like the eye of a penned calf. Torridon knew that the great battle was fought and won.
All morning he worked. By noon he understood rather clearly what each one in the room knew, and it was pathetically little. There was hardly a girl there who could not sew, spin, manage a creamery, cook. There was not a boy who could not bring one of the massive, soft-iron rifles to his shoulder and shoot a squirrel out of a treetop. But about books they knew little or nothing. Only Nancy knew.
To read, to write, to spell, to do arithmetic. Those were the tasks for which he must prepare them, and he went about it methodically, patiently, hopefully. Nancy helped at once. She took the little girls about her and started their small hands to work on the copies that she furnished them.
Noon came. Lunch was eaten. Then for a half hour the place echoed with shouts as the children played. And afterward, the long afternoon went by almost to dusk. For John Brett had set down the hours that the school should endure.
Many a weary, suffering face had Torridon to look at before the school was dismissed. He went to the door and thanked Nancy. If she would ask her father if he would permit her to help in the mornings, then in the afternoon he would teach her what he could.
“And how old are you, Nancy?”
“I’m fourteen.”
He watched her go off after the others. He could tell her from the rest as long as she was in sight. Her clothes were as rough as those of the others, but she wore them differently. And her step was different. She was a harmony of pleasant music to Torridon.
Then the great shadow of Jack Brett stood before him.
“Well?” said Jack.
Torridon smiled frankly at him, although it was a twisted smile, for one side of his face was very swollen and sore.
“I thought it would be better if you stayed after school and worked with me,” he said simply.
They sat by the stove. So long as the day lasted, Jack Brett worked. It seemed impossible that he should cramp down his big fingers enough to hold the pencil. He leaned his head low and grimly set his teeth. Gross were his untrained muscles, but in his mind there was the same steady patience that had made him, at twenty, the finest shot in all that close-shooting clan.
Afterward, they locked the door of the school. Dusk was falling. The blueness stood close at hand, with the frosty trees only dimly etched. The freezing ground crackled under their feet. For a moment they looked around at this.
Then: “Well, good night, Paul.”
“Good night, Jack.”
They separated and went home, but something more than words had passed between them. The thin legs of Torridon bore him up lightly all the way to the house and he found himself singing, although with a faint voice.
He soaked his swollen face with a cold compress, but it seemed as swollen as ever when he went in to supper and sat down at the great table. Curious glances fell on him. Little Ned, opposite him, stared frankly, as though at a stranger never before seen, and suddenly the great voice of John Brett boomed: “Paul!”
He started to his feet. In that house everyone rose when addressed by the master.
“Yes, sir,” said Paul.
“What’s happened to your face, eh?”
He had half expected that question. He had turned the answer in his mind half a dozen times. It was the expectation of that answer that had made Jack Brett so pale and grave when he said good bye that evening, for, when the wrath of terrible John Brett descended upon the boy, it would be a thing to remember, to tell of in the clan for three generations.
He said slowly: “I had a fall today.”
All heads lifted. All heads turned toward him. There was a peculiar wonder in every eye.
“You had a fall?” echoed John Brett in a voice of thunder. “Where?”
“On the ground,” said Torridon.
“Come here to me.”
He went obediently, fear cold and heavy in his heart.
“You fell on the ground, did you?”
“Yes.”
“What made you fall?”
Torridon was silent.
The voice of John Brett rose to a terrible thunder that shook the room. “What made you fall?”
And still Torridon, cold and sick, was silent, and kept his eyes desperately fixed upon the eyes of the questioner. So he stood for hours of dread, as it seemed.
“Go back to your place,” said John Brett suddenly.
And Torridon went slowly back and sat down, stunned.
Opposite him he saw the malicious grin of Ned. Sly glances passed between the other boys. But only Aunt Ellen dared to speak, after a while, saying: “Standing up and defyin’ the head of the house . . . that’s what it’s come to, eh? There’s the Torridon in him speakin’.”
“Be quiet!” commanded John Brett.
Aunt Ellen raised her brows. “I was teachin’ him some manners,” she muttered.
The tyrant growled: “I’ll teach the young men of this house their manners. You . . . what’ve you been tryin’ to do with Paul? Dress him up like a scarecrow? Ain’t there enough clothes in this here house to dress him like . . . a man?”
It was a crushing blow for Aunt Ellen. Fiercely she scowled down at her plate, but her lord and master had spoken, and she dared make no reply. As for Torridon, he could not believe that he had heard correctly.
That meal ended. When the others filed out, he waited until the last, half expecting that the harsh voice of John Brett would summon him again, but no summons came. He was allowed to go free.
He went out to the barn. Every evening it was his habit to do that, and to slip into the big stall where Ashur was kept like a young prince. He had a feeling of possession in connection with that colt, for, having given it a name, and through it having come to some note in the house of the Bretts, he retained a sense of kindness toward it. So, in the warm darkness of the barn, he gave the colt a carrot and remained a moment while Ashur sniffed at him and nibbled at his pockets, in hope of something more. Like silk was the muzzle of Ashur, silken was the skin of his neck where the boy stroked it, and by degrees peace came slowly down upon Paul’s soul, so troubled today, and so uplifted from the burden of the fear of man.
V
For several days he waited in expectation of punishment from John Brett, because he had stood before the king of the clan and refused to give an answer to his question, but the blow did not fall. And then, on the third day, Aunt Ellen clothed him in new, stout homespun. John Brett viewed him with evident pleasure.
“Now you look like something,” was all he said.
And the boy went off to his school.
Books had been ordered, books were arriving. Every evening young Torridon struggled eagerly ahead through the texts, making sure that he was perfect in them. For he himself must know before he could teach, and, above all, there was the necessity of keeping well ahead of Nancy. She learned rapidly, smoothly. Her mind was like clear crystal, and imagined all things well. In the mornings she helped him with the little ones. In the afternoon, she was a careful student.