Chapter 29

TOMMY THE SCHOLAR

So Miss Ailie could be brave, but what a poltroon she was also! Three
calls did she make on dear friends, ostensibly to ask how a cold was or
to instruct them in a new device in Shetland wool, but really to
announce that she did not propose keeping school after the end of the
term--because--in short, Mr. Ivie McLean and she--that is he--and so on.
But though she had planned it all out so carefully, with at least three
capital ways of leading up to it, and knew precisely what they would
say, and pined to hear them say it, on each occasion shyness conquered
and she came away with the words unspoken. How she despised herself, and
how Mr. McLean laughed! He wanted to take the job off her hands by
telling the news to Dr. McQueen, who could be depended on to spread it
through the town, and Miss Ailie discovered with horror that his simple
plan was to say, "How are you, doctor? I just looked in to tell you that
Miss Ailie and I are to be married. Good afternoon." The audacity of
this captivated Miss Ailie even while it outraged her sense of decency.
To Redlintie went Mr. McLean, and returning next day drew from his
pocket something which he put on Miss Ailie's finger, and then she had
the idea of taking off her left glove in church, which would have
announced her engagement as loudly as though Mr. Dishart had included it
in his pulpit intimations. Religion, however, stopped her when she had
got the little finger out, and the Misses Finlayson, who sat behind and
knew she had an itchy something inside her glove, concluded that it was
her threepenny for the plate. As for Gavinia, like others of her class
in those days, she had never heard of engagement rings, and so it really
seemed as if Mr. McLean must call on the doctor after all. But "No,"
said he, "I hit upon a better notion to-day in the Den," and to explain
this notion he produced from his pocket a large, vulgar bottle, which
shocked Miss Ailie, and indeed that bottle had not passed through the
streets uncommented on.

Mr. McLean having observed this bottle afloat on the Silent Pool, had
fished it out with his stick, and its contents set him chuckling. They
consisted of a sheet of paper which stated that the bottle was being
flung into the sea in lat. 20, long. 40, by T. Sandys, Commander of the
Ailie, then among the breakers. Sandys had little hope of weathering the
gale, but he was indifferent to his own fate so long as his enemy did
not escape, and he called upon whatsoever loyal subjects of the Queen
should find this document to sail at once to lat. 20, long. 40, and
there cruise till they had captured the Pretender, _alias_ Stroke, and
destroyed his Lair. A somewhat unfavorable personal description of