No More Learning

'

After dinner he went again into the tool-house. This time he did not
sort seeds--only watched the spiders.


III

Towards evening he went out. The pale sunshine of winter flickered
on his path. The wind blew the straws about. He grew more and more
melancholy. A dog of his acquaintance was chasing rabbits in a field.
He had never been known to catch one, and since his youth had never
seen one, for he was almost wholly blind. They were his form of the
eternal chimera. The dog left the field and followed with a friendly
sniff.

They came together to the rectory. Mary Carton was not in. There was a
children's practice in the school-house. They went thither.

A child of four or five with a swelling on its face was sitting
under a wall opposite the school door, waiting to make faces at the
Protestant children as they came out.
Catching sight of the dog she
seemed to debate in her mind whether to throw a stone at it or call
it to her. She threw the stone and made it run. In after times he
remembered all these things as though they were of importance.

He opened the latched green door and went in. About twenty children
were singing in shrill voices, standing in a row at the further end. At
the harmonium he recognised Mary Carton, who nodded to him and went on
with her playing. The whitewashed walls were covered with glazed prints
of animals; at the further end was a large map of Europe; by a fire at
the near end was a table with the remains of tea. This tea was an idea
of Mary's. They had tea and cake first, afterwards the singing. The
floor was covered with crumbs. The fire was burning brightly. Sherman
sat down beside it. A child with a great deal of oil in her hair was
sitting on the end of a form at the other side.

'Look,' she whispered, 'I have been sent away. At any rate they are
further from the fire. They have to be near the harmonium.