FullReads

As the minister came to one of these dykes, treading softly on a noiseless cushion of heather and moss, he put his foot on a projecting stone and vaulted over with one hand lightly laid on the top stone. He alighted with a sudden bound of the heart, for he had nearly leapt on the top of a boy, who lay prone on his face, deeply studying a book. The boy sprang up, startled by the minister’s unexpected entrance into his wide world of air, empty of all but the muirfowls’ cries.

For a few moments they remained staring at each other–tall, well-attired minister and rough-coated herdboy.

“You are diligent,” at last said the minister, looking out of his dark eyes into the blue wondering orbs which met his so squarely and honestly. “What is that you are reading?”

“Shakespeare, sir,” said the boy, not without some fear in telling the minister that he was reading the works of the man who was known among many of the Cameronians as “nocht but the greatest of the play-actors.”

But the minister was placable and interested. He recognised the face as that of the boy who came to church on various occasions; but with whom he had found it so difficult to come to speech.

“How many plays of Shakespeare have you read?” queried the minister again.

“Them a’–mony a time,” said the boy. The minister marvelled still more. “But ye’ll no’ tell my gran’mither?” said the boy beseechingly, putting the minister upon his honour.

Mr. Cameron hesitated for a moment, and then said–

“I will not tell your grandmother unless you are doing something worse than reading Shakespeare, my boy. You are from Drumquhat, I think,” he continued. “What are you doing here?”

The boy blushed, and hung his head.

“Cutting thistles,” he said.

The minister laughed and looked about. On one hand there was a mown swathe of thistles, on the other they still grew luxuriantly all down the slope to the burnside.

“I suppose you are cutting down the thistles in Shakespeare? There are a good many of them,” he said; “but is that what your master keeps you for?”

The boy looked up quickly at this imputation on his honesty.

“I’m on piecework,” he said, with a kind of defiance in his tone.

“On piecework?” asked the minister, perplexed; “how is that?”

“Weel, sir, it’s this way, ye see. Gran’faither used to pay me a penny an hour for cuttin’ the thistles. He did that till he said I was the slowest worker ever he had, an’ that by the time that I was done wi’ ae side o’ the field, the ither was ready to begin owre again. I said that I was quite willin’ to begin again, but he said that to sit doon wi’ a book and cut as far roon’ ye as the hook could reach, was no’ the kind o’ wark that he had been accustomed to on the farm o’ Drumquhat. So he took me off working by time and put me on piecework. I dinna get as muckle siller, but I like it juist as weel. So I can work and read time aboot.”

“But how do you know how the time goes?” asked the minister, for watches were not at that date to be found in the pockets of herdboys on the Galloway hills.

The boy pointed to a peeled willow-wand which was stuck in the ground, with a rough circle drawn round it.

“I made that sun-dial. Rab Affleck showed me,” he said simply, without any of the pride of genius.

“And are ye sure that the working hour is always the same length as the reading time?” asked the minister.

Walter looked up with a bright twinkle in his eye.

“Whiles when I’m workin’ at the thistles, she may get a bit kick forrit,” he said.

The minister laughed a low, mellow laugh. Then he quoted a text, as was customary with him:

“‘And Hezekiah said, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees in the dial of Ahaz.'”