and well regulated. The local paper had a paragraph headed
"Drumtochty," written by the Muirtown architect, describing the
whole premises in technical language that seemed to compensate the
ratepayers for the cost, mentioning the contractor's name, and
concluding that "this handsome building of the Scoto-Grecian style
was one of the finest works that had ever come from the accomplished
architect's hands." It has pitch-pine benches and map-cases, and a
thermometer to be kept at not less than 58 and not more than 62 ,
and ventilators which the Inspector is careful to examine. When I
stumbled in last week the teacher was drilling the children in Tonic
Sol-fa with a little harmonium, and I left on tiptoe.

It is difficult to live up to this kind of thing, and my thoughts
drift to the auld schule-house and Domsie. Some one with the love of
God in his heart had built it long ago, and chose a site for the
bairns in the sweet pine-woods at the foot of the cart road to
Whinnie Knowe and the upland farms. It stood in a clearing with the
tall Scotch firs round three sides, and on the fourth a brake of
gorse and bramble bushes, through which there was an opening to the
road. The clearing was the playground, and in summer the bairns
annexed as much wood as they liked, playing tig among the trees, or
sitting down at dinner-time on the soft, dry spines that made an
elastic carpet everywhere. Domsie used to say there were two
pleasant sights for his old eyes every day. One was to stand in the
open at dinner-time and see the flitting forms of the healthy, rosy
sonsie bairns in the wood, and from the door in the afternoon to
watch the schule skail till each group was lost in the kindly shadow,
and the merry shouts died away in this quiet place. Then the Dominie
took a pinch of snuff and locked the door, and went to his house
beside the school. One evening I came on him listening bare-headed