l that night and thereafter would be harsh discipline,
and because his Uncle Robin had known he was on the point of crying, he
had been allowed to wander around Belfast by himself for a few hours
with a silver shilling in his pocket. And wee Shane had made for the
quays....

The four of them had sat in a cold, precise room that morning, his Uncle
Robin, his mother, wee Shane, and the principal, a fat, gray-eyed,
insincere Southerner, with a belly like a Chinese god's, dewlaps like a
hunting hound's, cold, stubby, and very clean hands, and a gown that
gave him a grotesque dignity. And he had eyed wee Shane unctuously. And
wee Shane did not like fat, unctuous men. He liked them lean and active,
as glensmen are.

And the principal had spoken in stilted French to his mother, who had
responded in French that cracked like a whip. And the principal had
licked the ground before Uncle Robin. It was "Yes, Dr. Campbell!" And,
"No, Dr. Campbell!" where the meanest glensman would have said "Aye,
maybe you're right, Robin More," or, "Na, na, you're out there, Robin
Campbell."

"The old hypocrite!" It was the only word wee Shane could describe the
master by, a favorite word of his Uncle Alan's.

And in the corridors he had met some of the scholars, white-faced
fellows; and the masters--they had mean eyes, like the eyes of badgers.

"I dinna want to go!" He blurted out on the quays of Belfast.

"Where dinna you want to go, wee laddie?" A black, curly-headed man with
gray eyes and a laugh like a girl's stopped short. He had blue clothes
and brass buttons and stepped lightly as a cat.

"I dinna want to go to school."

"Sure, all wee caddies go to school."

"I ken that. But I don't want to go to school with a bunch of whey-faced
gets, and masters lean and mean as rats, and a principal puffed out like
a setting hen."

"Oh, for God's sake! is that the way you feel about it? Laddie, you
don't talk like a townsman. Where are you from?"

"I'm from the Glens of Antrim. From Cushendhu."

"I'm a Raghery man myself. _Tha an Gaidhlig agad?_

"_Tha, go direach!_"

"So you've got the Gaidhlig too? Who are your people, wee laddie?"

"I'm a Campbell of Cushendhu."

"For God's sake! you're no' a relation of Alan Campbell's, wha sailed
with Sir John Franklin for the pole?"

"I'm his nephew."

"I've sailed under your Uncle Alan. He's the heart o' corn. And so
they're going to make a scholar out of you, like your Uncle Robin. Oh,
we