II.
I went to Richmond to-day, hired a skiff, and rowed up to Teddington. I tied the painter to a tuft of grass on the bank and lazed in the sunshine. For a time I watched the boats go by, and I smiled at the windmill rowing of a boatload of young Italians. Then a gilded youth went by feathering beautifully ... and I smiled again, for the Italians seemed to be getting ever so much more fun out of their rowing than this artist got.
By and by the passers-by wearied me, and I thought of my village up north. The kirk would be in. Macdonald would probably be there, and the bairns would be glancing at him sidelong, while I, the failure, lay in a boat among strangers. I began to indulge in the luxury of self-pity; feeling oneself a martyr is not altogether an unpleasant sensation.
I turned my face to the bank and thought of what had taken place. The villagers accused me of wasting their children's time, but when I asked them what they would have me make their children do they were unable to answer clearly.
"Goad!" said Peter Steel the roadman, "a laddie needs to ken hoo to read and write and add up a bit sum."
"Just so," I said. "When you go home to-night just try to help your Jim with his algebra, will you? I'll give you five pounds if you can beat him at arithmetic."
"Aw'm no sayin' that he doesna ken his work," he protested, "but Aw want to ken what's the use o' a' this waste o' time pluckin' flowers and drawin' hooses. You just let the bairns play themsells."