rd would have liked to leave the dominie in his white-washed
dwelling-house to enjoy his old age comfortably, and until he learned
that he had intended to retire. Then he changed his tactics and
removed his beard. Instead of railing at the new school, he began to
approve of it, and it soon came to the ears of the horrified
Established minister, who had a man (Established) in his eye for the
appointment, that the dominie was looking ten years younger. As he
spurned a pension he had to get the place, and then began a warfare of
bickerings between the Board and him, that lasted until within a few
weeks of his death. In his scholastic barn the dominie had thumped the
Latin grammar into his scholars till they became university bursars to
escape him. In the new school, with maps (which he hid in the
hen-house) and every other modern appliance for making teaching easy,
he was the scandal of the glen. He snapped at the clerk of the Board's
throat, and barred his door in the minister's face. It was one of his
favourite relaxations to peregrinate the district, telling the farmers
who were not on the Board themselves, but were given to gossiping with
those who were, that though he could slumber pleasantly in the school
so long as the hum of the standards was kept up, he immediately woke if
it ceased.

Having settled himself in his new quarters, the dominie seems to have
read over the code, and come at once to the conclusion that it would be
idle to think of straightforwardly fulfilling its requirements. The
inspector he regarded as a natural enemy, who was to be circumvented by
much guile. One year that admirable Oxford don arrived at the school,
to find that all the children, except two girls--one of whom had her
face tied up with red flannel--were away for the harvest. On another
occasion the dominie met the inspector's trap some distance from the
school, and explained that he would guide him by a short cut, leaving
the driver to take the dog-cart to a farm where it could be put up.
The unsuspecting inspector agreed, and they set off, the obsequious
dominie carrying his bag. He led his victim into another glen, the
hills round which had hidden their heads in mist, and then slyly
remarked that he was afraid they had lost their way. The minister, who
liked to attend the examination, reproved the dominie for providing no
luncheon, but turned pale when his enemy suggested that he should
examine the boys in Latin.

For