Next Saturday afternoon Speug and Nestie were out for a ramble in the country, and turning into a lane where the hedgerows were breaking into green, and the primroses nestling at the roots of the bushes, they came upon a sight which made them pause so that they could only stand and look. Down the lane a man was dragging an invalid-chair, a poor and broken thing which had seen its best days thirty years ago. In the chair a woman was sitting, or rather lying, very plainly but comfortably dressed, and carefully wrapped up, whose face showed that she had suffered much, but whose cheeks were responding to the breath of spring. As they stood, the man stopped and went to the bank and plucked a handful of primroses and gave them to the woman; and as he bent over her, holding up the primroses before her eyes, and as they talked together, even the boys saw the grateful pleasure in her eyes. He adjusted the well-worn cloak and changed her position in the chair, and then went back to drag it, a heavy weight down the soft and yielding track; and the boys stood and stared and looked at one another, for the man who was caring so gently for this invalid, and toiling so manfully with the lumbering chair, was Moossy.
"C-cut away, Speug," said Nestie; "he wouldn't like us to see him. I say, he ain't a bad sort—Moossy—after all. Bet you a bottle of g-ginger-beer that's Moossy's wife, and that's why he's so poor."
They were leaving the lane when they heard an exclamation, and going back they found that the miserable machine had slipped into the ditch and there stuck fast beyond poor Moossy's power of recovery. With many an "Ach!" and other words, too, he was bewailing the situation and hanging over his invalid, while she seemed to be cheering him and trying if she could so lie in the chair as to lessen the weight upon the lower side, while every minute the wheel sank deeper in the soft earth.
"What are you st-staring at, you idle, worthless v-vagabond?" said Nestie to Speug. "Come along and give a hand to Moossy," who was so pleased to get some help in the lonely place that he forgot the revealing of his little secret. With Speug in the shafts, who had the strength of a man in his compact little body, and Moossy pulling on the other side, the coach was soon upon the road again, amid a torrent of gratitude from Moossy and his wife, partly in English, but mostly in German, but all quite plain to the boys, for gratitude is always understood in any language. They came bravely along the lane, Speug pulling, Moossy hanging over his wife to make sure she had not been hurt, and Nestie plucking flowers to make up a nosegay in memory of the lane, while Moossy declared them to be "Zwei herzliche Knaben."
When they came to the main road, Speug would not give up his work, but brought the carriage manfully to the little cottage, hidden in a garden, where Moossy lodged. When she had been carried in—she was so light that Moossy could lift her himself—she compelled the boys to come in, too, and Moossy made fragrant coffee, and this they had with strange German cakes, which were not half bad, and to which they both did ample justice. Going home, Nestie looked at Speug, and Speug looked at Nestie, and though no words passed it was understood that the days of the troubles of Moossy in the Seminary of Muirtown were ended.
During the remaining year of Moossy's labours at the Seminary it would not be true to say that he became a good or useful master, for he had neither the knowledge nor the tact, or that the boys were always respectful and did their work, for they were very far removed from being angels; but Moossy did pluck up some spirit, and Speug saw that he suffered no grievous wrong. He also took care that Moossy was not left to be his own horse from day to day, but that the stronger varlets of the Seminary should take some exercise in the shafts of Moossy's coach. Howieson was a young gentleman far removed from sentiment, and he gave it carefully to be understood that he only did the thing for a joke; but there is no question that more than once Jock brought Moossy's carriage, with Moossy's wife in it, successfully along that lane and other lanes, and it is a fact that, on a certain Saturday, Speug came out with one of his father's traps, and Mistress Moossy, as she was called, was driven far and wide about the country around Muirtown.
"You are what the papers call a ph-philanthropist, Speug," said Nestie, "and I expect to hear that you are opening an orphan asylum." And Speug promptly replied that, if he did, the first person to be admitted would be Nestie, and that he would teach him manners.
It was a fortunate thing for Moossy that some one died in Germany and left him a little money, so that he could give up the hopeless drudgery of the Seminary and go home to live in a little house upon the banks of the Rhine. His wife, who had been improving under Dr. Manley's care, began to brisk up at once, and was quite certain of recovery when one afternoon they left Muirtown Station. Some dozen boys were there to see them off, and it was Jock and Speug who helped Moossy to place her comfortably in the carriage. The gang had pooled their pocket-money—selling one or two treasures to swell the sum—that Moossy and his wife might go away laden with such dainties as schoolboys love, and Nestie had a bunch of flowers to place in her hands. They still called him Moossy, as they had done before, and he looked, to tell the truth, almost as shabby and his hair was as long as ever; but he was in great spirits and much touched by the kindness of his tormentors. As the English mail pulled out of Muirtown Station with quickening speed, the boys ran along the platform beside the carriage shaking hands with Moossy through the open window and passing in their gifts.
"Take care o' mices!" shouted Jock, with agreeable humour, but the last sight Moossy had of Muirtown was Speug standing on a luggage-barrow and waving farewell.