"What?" demanded Renwick.
In reply, the other took the sheet of paper from his desk and, examining it for a moment, handed it to his friend, saying slowly:
"It is a strange coincidence, but I was studying this when you came in. What do you make of it?"
Renwick took the paper, and perceiving that it was a translation of Latin prose Cicero, probably, he imagined written in a smooth yet unformed hand, he began to read the free and ingenuously worded rendering, when suddenly his eye was arrested. Interpolated between two sentences of the interesting and artless interpretation lay the words, written in the doric, and in a cramped and almost
distorted hand, "Stick in, Nessie! What's worth doing is worth doing well. Ye maun win the Latta or I'll know the reason why." Then the easy flow of the translation continued undisturbed. Renwick looked up at the other in astonishment.
"Sent along by her form master this morning," explained Gibson, "from Nessie Brodie's exercise book."
"Was this done at home or in school?" enquired the doctor sharply.
"In school! She must have written these words, unconsciously, of course, but none the less written them with her own hand. What does it mean ? Some reversion to these famous Scottish ancestors we used to hear so much about from the old man? Or is it dual personality? You know more about that sort of thing than I do."
"Dual personality be hanged!" retorted Renwick in some consternation. "This is a pure lapse of mind, a manifestation of nervous overstrain induced, I'm positive from the nature of these words, by some strong force that has been driven into her. Don't you see, man? She became fatigued in the middle of this exercise, her attention wavered and instantly that something beneath the surface of her mind leaped up tormenting her forcing her on, so that, indeed before she resumed coherently, she had unconsciously written this passage," He shook his head. "It reveals only too clearly, I'm afraid, what she fears!"
"We don't work her too hard here," expostulated Gibson; "she's spared in many ways!"
"I know! I know," replied Renwick. "The mischief is being done outside. It's that madman of a father she has got. What are we to do about it? You say you've spoken to him and I'm like a red rag to a bull where he's concerned. It's difficult." Then, as he laid the paper again on Gibson's desk, he added, "This really alarms me. It's a symptom that I've seen before to presage a thundering bad breakdown. I don't like it a bit."
"You surprise me," said the headmaster after a pause, during which he regarded his friend shrewdly. "Are you sure you're not taking an extreme view from from prejudice perhaps?" Then, as the other silently shook his head, he continued tentatively, "Would you like to see the child? only for a moment of course otherwise we'll alarm her."
The doctor considered for a moment, then replied decisively:
"Indeed I would! I would like to see for myself. It's good of you to suggest it."
"I'll fetch her along then," said Gibson, getting to his feet and adding, as he went to the door, "I know you'll not scare her! I want nothing of this slip in her exercise mentioned on any account."
Renwick agreed silently with a motion of his head, and when the other had gone out of the room remained motionless, his brow slightly bent, his eye clouded and fixed upon the writing across the square of paper, as though the strange, incoherent, intruding words had shaped themselves before his gaze into a vision which startled and distressed him. He was aroused by the return of the headmaster, now accompanied by Nessie, whom Renwick had never seen before; and now, as he observed her thin, drooping body, her mild placating eye, her white, fragile neck, the irresolution of her mouth and chin, he was not surprised that she desired to lean clingingly on Mary, nor that Mary on her part should desire to protect her.
"This is one of our prize pupils," said Gibson diplomatically, turning towards Renwick as he resumed his chair. "We show her off to all the visitors. She has the best memory in the upper school. Is that not so, Nessie?" he added, touching her lightly with his gaze.
Nessie flushed proudly, filled in her small spirit by a profound gratification and a deep awe, amongst which mingled, also, some confusion as to the obscure purpose which had compelled her suddenly before the combined majesty of Doctor Renwick and the Rector. She was, however, silent, and remained with lowered eyes, her thin legs shaking a little in her long well-worn boots and coarse woollen stockings not from fear, but from the mere agitation of their imposing presence knowing that the question had been rhetorical. Not for her to speak unless directly addressed!
"You're fond of your work?" enquired Renwick kindly.
"Yes, sir," replied Nessie timidly, raising her eyes to his like a young and startled doe.
"Does it never tire you?" he continued mildly, afraid to shape his question in a more definite form.
She looked at the Rector for permission to speak, and reassured by his look, replied:
"No, sir! Not much! I get a headache sometimes." She announced this fact diffidently as though it might be a presumption on her part to have a headache, but she continued with more assurance, "My father took me to Doctor Lawrie about six months ago and he said it was nothing." She even added naively, "He said I had a good head on me."
Renwick was silent, conscious of Gibson's slightly satiric eye upon him, yet although he felt the weak, evasive answers of this timid child to be as unreliable as the opinion of his pompous colleague, just quoted, his impression of Nessie's strained and over-driven nerves was further strengthened by her bearing.
"I hear you're going up for the Latta," he at length remarked "Would you not like to wait another year?"
"Oh! No, sir! I couldn't do that," she replied quickly. “I must take it this year. My father has said " a shadow fell and deepened upon her brow; she added more reticently, "He would like me to win it and it's a great thing for a girl to win the Latta. It's never been done, but I think I can do it!" She again blushed slightly, not at this sudden exhibition of her own small self-complacency, but at her hardihood in making such a long speech before them.
"Don't work too hard then," replied Renwick finally, turning towards Gibson to indicate that he had concluded his observations.
"That's right then, Nessie," said the headmaster, dismissing her with a cheerful glance. "Run away back to your form now! And remember what Doctor Renwick here has said. The willing horse never needs the spur. Don't overdo the homework."
"Thank you, sir," replied Nessie humbly, as she slipped out of the room, wondering vaguely in her mind what it had all been about; feeling, despite her uncertainty, that it had been a mark of honour for her to be singled out for attention like this, and remembering warmly the encouraging look in his omnipotent eye that she must stand high in the Rector's favour. It would, she considered, as she reentered her classroom with a conscious air, give that impertinent and inquisitive young Grierson something to think about when he knew she had been hobnobbing with the Rector himself.
"I hope I didn't keep her too long," said Renwick, looking at his friend. "It was enough for me to see her."
"You were the epitome of discretion," replied Gibson lightly; "the governors will not throw me out for allowing my discipline to be tampered with." He paused, then added in the same tone, "She gave you a shrewd one about Lawrie."
"Pshaw!" replied Renwick. "To put it bluntly, 'It doesn't do to cry stinking fish', but as one old friend to another, I don't give a snap of the fingers for Lawrie's opinion. He's a pompous ass! That child is not right by a long way."
"Tuts! Renwick," remarked Gibson soothingly. "Don't get a bee in your bonnet. I could see nothing wrong with the girl to-day. She's at a bad age and she's got a beastly old sot of a father but she'll do, she'll do. You're exaggerating. You were always the incorrigible champion of the oppressed, even if it were an ailing white mouse."