Produced by MWS, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) +-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+ A DOMINIE DISMISSED WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT. In consequence of the Dominie's go-as-you-please methods of educating village children, the inevitable happens--he is dismissed, giving place to an approved disciplinarian. The unhappy Dominie, forced to leave his bairns, seeks to enlist--but the doctor discovers that his lungs are affected, and he is ordered an open-air life. He returns as a cattleman to the village where he has previously been a schoolmaster. Incidentally, he watches the effect of his successor's teaching, the triumph of his own methods and the discomfiture of his rival at the hands of the children, in whom the Dominie cultivated personality and the rights of bairns. _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ A DOMINIE ABROAD 7s. 6d. net. A DOMINIE'S LOG 2s. 6d. net. A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 2s. 6d. net. THE BOOMING OF BUNKIE 2s. 6d. net. CARROTY BROON 2s. 6d. net. A DOMINIE DISMISSED BY A. S. NEILL HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED YORK STREET ST. JAMES'S S.W.1. [Illustration: A HERBERT JENKINS' BOOK] _Printed in Great Britain at the Athenæum Printing Works, Redhill_ TO THE ORIGINAL OF MARGARET A DOMINIE DISMISSED I. I have packed all my belongings. My trunk and two big boxes of books stand in the middle of a floor littered with papers and straw. I had my typewriter carefully packed too, but I took it from out its wrappings, and I sit amidst the ruins of my room with my wee machine before me. It is one of those little folding ones weighing about six pounds. The London train goes at seven, and it is half-past five now. It was just ten minutes ago that I suddenly resolved to keep a diary ... only a dominie can keep a Log, and I am a dominie no longer. I hear Janet Brown's voice outside. She is singing "Keep the Home Fires Burning" ... and she was in tears this afternoon. The limmer ought to be at home weeping her dominie's departure. Yet ... what is Janet doing at my window? Her home is a good two miles along the road. I wonder if she has come to see me off. Yes, she has; I hear her cry to Ellen Smith: "He's packit, Ellen, and Aw hear him addressin' the labels on his typewriter." The besom! Well, well, children have short memories. When Macdonald enters the room on Monday morning they will forget all about me.