The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-05-04
The Old SehooImaster,
Ely DAVID LYAlL.

. w.
No one would have thought, look
ing at his benign face, or listening to
the calm and measured tones OF his
voice, that the wind of tragedy had
once swept across the old schoolmas-
ter's life.
When the beginning actually was,
nobody seemed exactly to know. The
place without the old schoolmaster
would have been inadequate, incom-
plete; in fact, altogether inconceiv-
able. 80.
:. Those who had been his contempor-
aries had died out one by one and
the only one who remembered the
coming of the schoolmaster in the
far back days was Captain Drew OF
the White House, where he had lived
for seven and fifty years.
The schoolmaster had arrived in
winter, dropping down suddenly from
nowhere, a tall, slender, dark-eyed
man, with youth in his step, but ex-
perience and sadness on his face. 1t
was long before the advent of the
School Board, in the days when edu-
cation was for the few, and not for
the many. The Loaning was glad to
welcome the ~pale-faced stranger,
when it was discovered that he had
store of knowledge-classica knowl-
edge, too, which he was willing to
inpart at a modest fee.
These were the days when great
men we're Graded in village homes,
and trained in unpretentious schools
by. men who loved learning for its
Gown sake, and impaired that love to
Others with thoroughness and care.
There was no standard then save
love alone, and the few for whom
books had the immortal message went
out when the time came to deliver
that message to the world with all the
power that was in them.
Of such men, whose names are now
upon the roll of history and of fame,
the old ~schoolmaster had trained not
q few.
His pride in the gallant boys who
. passed through his hands was only
equalled by their affection for him.
Indeed, he had a singular power of
winning hearts, and many wondered
how it was that one so gentle and yet
so strong, so fitted in every way for
the making of a home, should have
elected to walk solitary through life.
The school was a broad, low build
ing of the black whinstone peculiar
to the neighborhood. 1t stood in an
ample playground in which a few
sparse trees that had survived the
hard usage of many generations of
Loaning boys made some slight shade
in summer, and broke the force of
the moorland gale in winter.
The schoolhouse was hard by, a
small, low, picturesque, though high
ly inconvenient dwelling, embowered
among green, its outside a picture at
which many paused to look.
Here the old schoolmaster had
lived for nearly forty years, minis
tered unto for three parts of that
time by one Christina Fellows, a ca
pable serving woman of the better
sort, who alternately mothered and
ruled him and hoped to close his eyes
in death.
Christina had a hard face and did
not wear her heart on her sleeve; but
she had had her tragedy, too, and
had peritably been a brand plucked
from the burning by the schoolmas-
ter's benefcent hand.
Accused of theft in her previous
place she had been set adrift and
might have gone under had not the
schoolmaster taken her, without a
character, when the hand of every
man and every woman in the parish
was against her, and she had literally
not a place wherein to lay her head.
She had repaid that Christ-like act
with a lifelong devotion, but even
Christina knew very little of her mas
ter's inner life.
"Gie him buiks," she would say;
'he's a terrible man for buiks. If it
wasna for me he wad read hissel Until
his grave
The School Board and all its new
tangled ways. which in fulness OF
= time robbed the old schoolmaster OF
! his official position and placed him
on the retired list, was the main OBJ
ject of Christmas hatred and con-
tempt. 1t was noticeable that from
the day when the schoolmaster gave
up his active duties to another and :
younger man he ~perceptibly declined
both in health and in spirits. Hap
PLY for him they suffered him to re-
main in the little house, which did
not meet modern requirements OF
satisfy the aspirations of the new
schoolmaster, who wished everything
I'D to date. This was a very happy
thing for the old man Dig up the
old tree, root and branch, and there
is small chance of its safe or success
full transportation.