The book Arran; - Cook Clan

162 THE BOOK OF ARRAN
cleaned out. In the summer the scholars cooled their feet
by covering them up to the ankles in the accumulated dust
of years. The fees were very small, the schoolmaster being
usually boarded among the principal crofters.
The Presbytery of Kintyre before the Disruption gave
a small grant to some of those who acted as dominies.
Until about that period there was no settled schoolmaster
in Shisken.
Dominie Currie, a well-educated person, was about that
time settled in Birchbum, and made some very good
scholars.
After the Disruption, the Free Church placed the wellknown
Dominie Craig at Balmichael. His kindness and
humour made him a great favourite.
The big cave on Kilpatrick shore was often, till the Disruption,
used as a schoolroom, being warm and roomy.
About the year 1845 a sad accident happened to a
temporary schoolhouse. A Mr. Charles M'Gregor kept a
school one spring in an old potato bothy in Feorline. One
morning a thaw set in after a keen frost, and the wall
suddenly collapsed. The scholars made a mad rush for the
door, but five little girls were crushed and burned to death.
What made the matter worse, the larger scholars observed
symptoms of the walls giving way and wished to get out,
but M'Gregor would not allow it, and he ran a narrow risk
of being lynched.
A strange story has always been told in connection with
this accident. A young girl, Mysie Bannatyne, was on her
way home one night from Blackwaterfoot. When crossing
the bridge beside the schoolhouse she distinctly saw five
coffins laid along the parapet. On entering her father's
house she fainted and lay over a month through the fright
she got. A few days after, the accident happened, and the
five little bodies were laid on the bridge.
In Arran, as in other western isles, St. Bride's Day