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Updated: June 7, 2025
There are times, however, when even a savage forgets himself, and one spring day the saturnalia in Moossy's room reached an historical height. It had been discovered that any dislike which Moossy may have had to a puppy in his desk, and a frog in his top-cloak pocket, was nothing to the horror with which he regarded mice.
He adjusted the well-worn cloak and changed her position in the chair, and then went back to drag it, a heavy weight down the soft and yielding track; and the boys stood and stared and looked at one another, for the man who was caring so gently for this invalid, and toiling so manfully with the lumbering chair, was Moossy. "C-cut away, Speug," said Nestie; "he wouldn't like us to see him.
Howieson was a young gentleman far removed from sentiment, and he gave it carefully to be understood that he only did the thing for a joke; but there is no question that more than once Jock brought Moossy's carriage, with Moossy's wife in it, successfully along that lane and other lanes, and it is a fact that, on a certain Saturday, Speug came out with one of his father's traps, and Mistress Moossy, as she was called, was driven far and wide about the country around Muirtown.
For ten minutes there was nothing heard but the drone of the class mangling German sentences, and then Howieson cried aloud in consternation, "A mouse!" "Vat ees that you say? Ah! mices! vere?" and Moossy was much shaken. "Yonder," said Speug, pointing to where a mouse was just disappearing under the desk; "and there's another at the fireplace.
Bulldog looked round with that calm composure which sat so well upon him, taking in Moossy perched upon his desk, Howieson on his form, Speug sitting with easy dignity on the top of Thomas John, and half a dozen worthies still tied together in a scrimmage, as if this were a sight to which he was accustomed every day in Muirtown Seminary.
He dared not stand in those days between two forms, with his face to the one and his back to the other, because of the elastic catapults and the sharp little paper bullets, which, in spite of his long hair, would always find out his ears; and if he turned round to face the battery, the other form promptly unmasked theirs, and between the two he was driven to the end of the room; and then, in his very presence, without a pretence of concealment, the two forms would settle their differences, while, in guttural and uncultured German, Moossy prayed for peace.
Poor Moossy would apologise for what he had said, and beseech the school neither to say it themselves nor to tell what they had heard; and for days afterwards Speug would be warning Thomas John that if he, Speug censor of morals caught him cursing and swearing like Moossy, he would duck him in the lake, and afterwards bring him before the Lord Provost and magistrates.
Some dozen boys were there to see them off, and it was Jock and Speug who helped Moossy to place her comfortably in the carriage. The gang had pooled their pocket-money selling one or two treasures to swell the sum that Moossy and his wife might go away laden with such dainties as schoolboys love, and Nestie had a bunch of flowers to place in her hands.
If one boy was set up to do a verb, the form, reading from their books and pronouncing on a principal of their own, would do the verb with him and continue in a loud and sonorous song, till Moossy had to stop them one by one, and then they were full of indignation at being hindered in their studies of the German language.
There are men living who look back on that day with modest, thankful hearts, finding in its remembrance a solace in old age for the cares of life; and the scene on which they dwell most fondly is Nestie, whose face had been whitened for his abominable trick, standing on the top of Bulldog's desk, and singing a school song with the manner of the Count and the accent of Moossy, while Speug with a cane in his hand compelled Dowbiggin to join in the chorus, and Byles could be heard bleating from the closet.
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