Allison Bain; Or, By a Way She Knew Not

by Margaret M. Robertson

This was a sore subject with the mistress, who was no needle-woman, and she turned, ready with a sharp answer. But the smile on the woman’s face, and the look of expectation on the more friendly face of Mistress Sim, served as a warning, and calling her discretion to her help, she turned at once into the manse.

It was peaceful enough there. No one was in the kitchen, and after a moment’s hesitation she crossed the little passage and knocked at the parlour-door. No response being given, she pushed it gently open and looked into the room. The two youngest boys were amusing themselves with their playthings in a corner, and Marjorie lay on her couch with her doll and her doll’s wardrobe, and a book or two within reach of her hand. The tiny little face brightened at the sight of the mistress.

“Come away in, Mistress Jamieson. I am very glad to see you,” said she, with a tone and manner so exactly like what her mother’s might have been, that the mistress could not but smile a little with amusement as well as with pleasure. “My father and mother are both away from home to-day; but they will soon be back now, and you’ll just bide till they come, will you not?”

Mistress Jamieson acknowledged herself to be in no special haste, and sitting down, she made advances toward an interchange of greetings with the little boys. Wee Wattie, not quite four years old, came forward boldly enough, and submitted to be lifted to her knee. But Norman, aged five, had been once or twice sent to the school, with his brothers, when his absence was convenient at home, and certain unpleasant recollections of such times made him a little shy of meeting her friendly advances. Even Robin and Jack had been in their day afraid of the mistress and her tawse. But Marjorie had never been at the school, and had always seen her in her best mood in the manse parlour. She had had rather a dull afternoon with but her little brothers for company, for Allie was busy, and had only looked in now and then to see that the little ones had got into no mischief. So the child was truly pleased to see the mistress, and showed it; and so Mistress Jamieson was pleased, also, and in the best of humour for the afternoon.

And this was a fortunate thing for Marjorie. For she had many questions in her mind which no one could answer so well as the mistress—questions about the reading of one child and of the “weaving” of another, and of the well-doing or ill-doing of many besides. For though she did not see the bairns of the town very often, she knew them all, and took great interest in all that concerned them.

She knew some things about the bairns of the school which the mistress did not know herself, and which, on the whole, it was as well she should not know. So when, in the case of one of them, they seemed to be approaching dangerous ground, and Mrs Jamieson’s face began to lengthen and to take the set, which to Marjorie, who had only heard about it, looked ominous of trouble to some one, the child turned the talk toward other matters.

“I must show you my stocking,” said she, opening a basket which stood within reach of her hand. “It is not done so ill for a beginner, my mother says. But it is slow work. I like the flowering of muslin better, but mother says too much of it is no’ good for the een. And it is quite proper that every one should ken how to make stockings, especially one with so many brothers as I have.”

The stocking was duly examined and admired. It had been the work of months, done in “stents” of six or eight times round in a day, and it was well done “for a beginner.” There were no mended botches, and no traces of “hanging hairs and holey pies,” which so often vexed the very heart of the mistress in the work of some of the “careless hizzies” whom she was trying to teach. She praised it highly, but she looked at the child and wondered whether she would live to finish it. There was no such thought in the mind of Marjorie.

“Mother says that making stockings becomes a pleasant and easy kind of work when one grows old. And though I canna just say that I like it very well. I must try and get on with it, for it is one of the things that must be learned young, ye ken.”

“Ay, that’s true. And what folk can do weel, they ay come to like to do in course o’ time,” said the mistress encouragingly. “I only wish that Annie Cairns and Jeannie Robb could show work as weel done.”