CHAPTER III


The school-room at Glenfernie gave upon the hill's steepest, most
craglike face. A door opened on a hand's-breadth of level turf across
from which rose the broken and ruined wall that once had surrounded
the keep. Ivy overgrew this; below a wide and ragged breach a pine had
set its roots in the hillside. Its top rose bushy above the stones.
Beyond the opening, one saw from the school-room, as through a window,
field and stream and moor, hill and dale. The school-room had been
some old storehouse or office. It was stone walled and floored, with
three small windows and a fireplace. Now it contained a long table
with a bench and three or four chairs, a desk and shelves for books.
One door opened upon the little green and the wall; a second gave
access to a courtyard and the rear of the new house.

Here on a sunny, still August forenoon Strickland and the three
Jardines went through the educational routine. The ages of the pupils
were not sufficiently near together to allow of a massed instruction.
The three made three classes. Jamie and Alice worked in the
school-room, under Strickland's eye. But Alexander had or took a wider
freedom. It was his wont to prepare his task much where he pleased,
coming to the room for recitation or for colloquy upon this or that
aspect of knowledge and the attainment thereof. The irregularity
mattered the less as the eldest Jardine combined with a passion for
personal liberty and out of doors a passion for knowledge. Moreover,