Chapter 35 - Page 2

bogles at the sense."

But the next time Ivie called for a report--!

In his great days, so glittering, so brief (the days of the penny Life)
Tommy, looking back to this year, was sure that he had never really
tried to work. But he had. He did his very best, doggedly, wearily
sitting at the round table till Elspeth feared that he was killing
himself and gave him a melancholy comfort by saying so. An hour
afterwards he might discover that he had been far away from his books,
looking on at his affecting death and counting the mourners at the
funeral.

Had he thought that Grizel's discovery was making her unhappy he would
have melted at once, but never did she look so proud as when she
scornfully passed him by, and he wagged his head complacently over her
coming chagrin when she heard that he had carried the highest bursary.
Then she would know what she had flung away. This should have helped him
to another struggle with his lexicon, but it only provided a breeze for
the kite, which flew so strong that he had to let go the string.

Aaron and the Dominie met one day in the square, and to Aaron's surprise
Mr. Cathro's despondency about Tommy was more pronounced than before.
"I wonder at that," the warper said, "for I assure you he has been
harder 'at it than ever thae last nights. What's more, he used to look
doleful as he sat at his table, but I notice now that he's as sweer to
leave off as he's keen to begin, and the face of him is a' eagerness
too, and he reads ower to himself what he has wrote and wags his head at
it as if he thought it grand."

"Say you so?" asked Cathro, suspiciously; "does he leave what he writes
lying about, Aaron?"

"No, but he takes it to you, does he no'?"

"Not him," said the Dominie, emphatically. "I may be mistaken, Aaron,
but I'm doubting the young whelp is at his tricks again."

The Dominie was right, and before many days passed he discovered what
was Tommy's new and delicious occupation.

For years Mr. Cathro had been in the habit of writing letters for such
of the populace as could not guide a pen, and though he often told them
not to come deaving him he liked the job, unexpected presents of a hen
or a ham occasionally arriving as his reward, while the personal matters
thus confided to him, as if he were a safe for the banking of private
histories, gave him and his wife gossip for winter nights. Of late the
number of his clients had decreased without his noticing it, so
confident was he that they could not get on without him, but he
received a shock at last from Andrew Dickie, who came one Saturday night
with paper, envelope, a Queen's head, and a request for a