“Did you ever hear of Robert Bruce, him that watched the spiders?”
Here, too, the naughty Bud protested ignorance.
“He was the saviour of his country,” said Bell. “Mind that!”
“Why, Auntie, I thought it was George Washington,” said Bud, surprised. “I guess if you’re looking for a little wee stupid, it’s me.”
“We’re talking about Scotland,” said Miss Bell severely. “He saved Scotland. It was well worth while! Can you do your sums?”
“I can not,” said Bud emphatically. “I hate them.”
Miss Bell said not a word more; she was too distressed at such confessed benightedness; but she went out of the parlour to search for Ailie. Bud forgot she was beautiful and tall and old in Ailie’s cloak; she was repeating to herself Man’s Chief End with rolling r’s, and firmly fixing in her memory the fact that Robert Bruce, not George Washington, was the saviour of his country and watched spiders.
Ailie was out, and so her sister found no ear for her bewailings over the child’s neglected education till Mr Dyce came in humming the tune of the day—“Sweet Afton”—to change his hat for one more becoming to a sitting of the Sheriff Court. He was searching for his good one in what he was used to call “the piety press,” for there was hung his Sunday clothes, when Bell distressfully informed him that the child could not so much as spell cat.
“Nonsense I don’t believe it,” said he. “That would be very unlike our William.”
“It’s true,—I tried her myself!” said Bell. “She was never at a school: isn’t it just deplorable?”