The first school to which he was sent was a dame’s school. It was kept by an old woman called Bell Hill. It was for the most part a girls’ school, but Bell consented to take the boy because she knew his mother, and wished to oblige her. The schoolroom was situated at the top of a long stair. In fact, it was the garret of an ordinary dwelling-house.
We have said that Tom did not like school. He could not be reconciled to spend his time there. Thus he often played the truant. He was sometimes arrested on his way to school by the fish-market. It was then held in the Shiprow, where the post-office now stands. There were long rows of benches on which the fish were spread out. The benches were covered in, and afforded an excellent shelter on a rainy day.
THE FISH-MARKET.
Tom was well known to the fishwives. “Here comes the queer laddie,” they would say as they saw him approaching. And when he came up, they would ask him, “Weel, man, fat are ye gaun to speer[14] the day?” Tom’s inquiries were usually about fish—where they came from, what their names were, what was the difference between the different fishes, and so on. The fish-market was also a grand place for big blue flies, great beetles with red and yellow backs (burying beetles), and daylight rottens. They were the tamest rats he had ever seen, excepting two that he used to carry about in his pockets. His rats knew him as well as a dog knows his master.
But Tom’s playing the truant and lingering about the fish-market soon became known to his mother; and then she sent for her mother, Tom’s grannie, to take him to school. She was either to see him “in at the door,” or accompany him into the school itself. But Tom did not like the supervision of his grannie. He rebelled against it. He played the truant under her very eyes. When grannie put him in at the door, calling out “Bell!” to the schoolmistress upstairs, Tom would wait until he thought the old woman was sufficiently distant, and then steal out, and run away, by cross streets, to the Denburn or the Inches.
But that kind of truant-playing also got to be known; and then grannie had to drag him to school. When she seized him by the “scruff o’ the neck,” she had him quite tight. It was of no use attempting to lie down or sit down. Her hand was like a vice, and she kept him straight upon his feet. He tried to wriggle, twist, turn himself round as on a pivot, and then make a bolt. She nevertheless held on, and dragged him to school, into the presence of Bell Hill, and said, “Here’s your truant!” Tom’s only chance was to go along very quietly, making no attempt to escape grannie’s clutches, and then, watching for an opportunity, he would make a sudden dart and slip through her fingers. He ran, and she ran; but in running, Tom far outstripped her, for though grannie’s legs were very much longer than his, they were also very much stiffer.
ATTRACTIONS OF THE DENBURN.
The boy was sent one morning to buy three rolls for breakfast; but after he had bought the rolls, instead of going home, he forgathered with three loons, and accompanied them to the Denburn. He got a lot of horse-leeches, and was in the act of getting another when, looking in the water, he saw the reflection of grannie approaching. When he felt her fingers touching his neck, he let go the stone under which the horse-leech was, and made a sudden bound to the other side of the burn. He heard a heavy splash in the water. His comrades called out, “Tam, Tam, yer grannie’s droonin’!” But Tam neither stopped nor looked back. He flew as fast as he could to the Inches, where he stopped to take breath. The tide coming in, drove him away, and then he took refuge on the logs, near the Middens; after which he slunk home in the evening.
His mother received him thus: “Ye’re here again, ye ne’er-do-well! creepin in like a thief. Ye’ve been wi’ yer raggamuffins: yer weet duds tell that. That’s wi’ yer Inches, an’ tearin an’ ridin on the logs, an’ yer whin bushes. But ye may think muckle black shame o’ yersel, man, for gaun and droonin yer peer auld grannie.” “I didna droon her,” said Tom. “But she may hae been drooned for you; ye didna stay to tak her oot.” “She fell in hersell.” “Haud yer tongue, or I’ll take the poker t’ye. Think shame, man, to send her hame in sic a filthy state. But where’s the bread I sent ye for?” “It’s a’ eaten.” “We wad hae had a late breakfast if we had waited till now, and sine ye’ve no gottin it after a’. But yell see what yer faither ’ill say to ye when he gets hame.”
TOM AND HIS GRANNIE.