“Same here. But I wudna ask him,” said John, becoming grave. “Wud you?”
She shook her head, “I tried to, on Sunday, but some way I coudna. He’s changin’.”
“I suppose ye’re richt,” she said reluctantly, and resumed her knitting.
* * * * *
From the darkest spot he could find on the opposite pavement Macgregor saw Christina come out of the shop, pass under a lamp, and disappear. He felt sorely depressed during the return journey. The dictionary had failed to increase either his knowledge or his self-esteem. He wondered whether History or Geography would do any good; there were books on these subjects in the house. He realised that he knew nothing about anything except his trade, and even there he had to admit that he had learned less than he might have done. And yet he had always wanted to be a painter.
The same night he started reading the History of England, and found it a considerable improvement on the Dictionary. He managed to keep awake until the arrival of Julius Cæsar. Unfortunately he had taken the book to bed, and his mother on discovering it in the morning indiscreetly asked him what he had been doing with it. “Naething special,” was his reply, indistinctly uttered, and here ended his historical studies, though for days after Lizzie left the book prominent on the chest of drawers.
* * * * *
The day being Saturday, the afternoon was his own. Through the rain he made his way furtively to a free library, but became too self-conscious at the door, and fled. For the sum of threepence a picture house gave him harbourage, and save when the scenes were very exciting he spent the time in trying not to wonder what Christina would think of him, if she thought at all. He came forth ashamed and in nowise cheered by the entertainment.
In the evening he went once more to watch her leave the shop. M. Tod came to the door with her, and they stood talking for a couple of minutes, so that he had more than a glimpse of her. And a spirit arose in him demanding that he should attempt something to prove himself, were it only with his hands. It was not learning, but earning, that would make him “guid enough yet”; not what he could say, but what he could do. There would be time enough for speaking “genteel English” and so on after—well, after he had got up in the world.