“For the rector don’t live on his living like other Christian sort of folks.”—T. Hood.
The sisters found on coming home that a very handsome chestnut horse was being walked up and down before the front door, and their man-servant, William, informed them that it belonged to the clergyman.
As they advanced to the verandah, Captain Carbonel and his visitor came out to meet them, and Mr Ashley Selby was introduced. He looked more like a sportsman than a clergyman, except for his black coat; he had a happy, healthy, sunburnt face, top boots, and a riding-whip in his hand, and informed Mrs Carbonel that his father and mother would have the honour of calling on her in a day or two. They had an impression that he had come to reconnoitre and decide whether they were farmers or gentry.
“We have been trying to make acquaintance with some of your flock,” said Mary.
“The last thing I would advise you to do,” he answered; “there are not a worse lot anywhere. Desperate poachers! Not a head of game safe from them.”
“Perhaps they may be improved.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “See what my father has to say of them.”
“Is there much distress?”
“There ought not to be, for old Dr Fogram and my father send down a handsome sum for blankets and coals every Christmas, and Uphill takes care to get its share!” He laughed. “No sinecure distributing!”
“We have not been to see the school yet.”
“A decrepit old crone, poor old body! She will soon have to give in. She can’t even keep the children from pulling off her spectacles.”
“And Sunday School?”
“Well, my father doesn’t approve of cramming the poor children. I believe the Methodists have something of the kind at Downhill; but there is no one to attend to one here, and the place is quite free of dissent.”
“Cause and effect?” said Captain Carbonel, drily.
“Would you object if we tried to teach the poor children something?” asked Mrs Carbonel, cautiously.
“Oh no, not at all. All the good ladies are taking it up, I believe. Mrs Grantley, of Poppleby, is great at it, and I see no harm in it; but you’ll have to reckon with my father. He says there will soon be no ploughmen, and my mother says there will be no more cooks or housemaids. You’d better write to old Fogram, he’ll back you up.”
Mary had it on her lips to ask him about Widow Mole, but he had turned to Edmund to discuss the hunting and the shooting of the neighbourhood. They discovered, partly at this time, and partly from other visitors, that he was the younger son of the squire of Downhill, who had been made to take Holy Orders without any special fitness for it, because there was a living likely soon to be ready for him, and in the meantime he was living at home, an amiable, harmless young man, but bred up so as to have no idea of the duties of his vocation, and sharing freely in the sports of his family, acting as if he believed, like his father, that they were the most important obligations of man; and accepting the general household belief that only the Methodistical could wish for more religious practice.
Be it understood that all this happened in the earlier years of the century, and would be impossible under the revival of the Church that has since taken place. No one now can hold more than one piece of preferment at a time, so that parishes cannot be left unprovided. Nor could Ashley Selby be ordained without a preparation and examination which would have given him a true idea of what he undertook, or would have prevented his ordination. This, however, was at a time when the work of the church had grown very slack, and when a better spirit was beginning to revive. The father of Mary and Dora had been a zealous and earnest man, and both they and Edmund had really serious ideas of duty and of the means of carrying them out. In London they had heard sermons which had widened and deepened their views, but they had done no work, as the relation with whom they lived thought it impossible and improper for young ladies there. Thus they were exceedingly desirous of doing what they could to help the place where their lot was cast, and they set forth to reconnoitre. First, they found their way to the school, which stood on the border of the village green, a picturesque thatched cottage, with a honeysuckle and two tall poplars outside. But strange sounds guided them on their way, and the first thing they saw was a stout boy of four or five years old in petticoats bellowing loudly outside, and trying to climb the wicket gate which was firmly secured by a rusty chain. Mary tried to undo the gate, speaking meanwhile to the urchin, but he rushed away headlong back into the school, and they heard him howling, “They bees a-coming!”
A big girl in a checkered pinafore came out and made a curtsey, assisting to undo the chain.
“What has he been doing?” asked Dora.
“He be a mortial bad boy!” answered the girl. “He’ve been getting at Dame Verdon’s sugar.”
“And what is your name?” asked Mrs Carbonel.
“Lizzie Verdon, ma’am. I helps Grannie.”
Grannie did seem in need of help. There she sat in a big wooden chair by the fire, the very picture of an old dame, with a black bonnet, high-crowned and crescent shaped in front, with a white muslin cap below, a buff handkerchief crossed over her shoulders, a dark short-sleeved gown, long mittens covering her arms, and a checkered apron; a regular orthodox birch-rod by her side, and a black cat at her feet. But her head was shaking with palsy, and she hardly seemed to understand what Lizzie screamed into her ear that, “Here was the ladies.”
But the door which they had shut in the face of their spaniel was thrust open. Up went the cat’s back, bristle went her tail, her eyes shot sparks, and she bounded to the top of her mistress’s chair. Dandy barked defiance, all the children shouted or screamed and danced about, and the old woman gasped and shook more. Lizzie alone was almost equal to the occasion. She flew at the cat who was standing on tiptoe on the tall back of the chair, with huge tail and eyes like green lamps, swearing, hissing, and spitting, and, regardless of scratches, caught him up by the scruff of his neck and disposed of him behind the staircase door; while Dora at the same moment secured Dandy by the collar, and rushing out, put him over the garden gate and shut both that and the door. Mary, afraid that the old lady was going to have a fit, went up to her with soothing apologies, but the unwonted sight seemed to confuse her the more, and she began crying. Lizzie, however, came to the rescue. She evidently had all her wits about her. First she called out: “Order, children. Don’t you see the ladies? Sit down, Jem Hewlett, or I’ll after you with the stick!” Then, as the children ranged themselves, she stamped at some to enforce her orders, shook the rod at others, and set up the smallest like so many ninepins, handling them by the shoulder on one small bench, interspersing the work with consolations to granny and explanations to the ladies, who were about to defer their visit.
“Granny, now never you mind. Tip is all right upstairs. Benny, you bad boy, I’ll be at you. Don’t go, please, lady. Bet, what be doin’ to Jim? Never mind, granny! Susan Pucklechurch, you’ll read to the lady, so pretty.”
About five children, more tidily dressed than the others, had a whole and sound form to themselves near the fire and the mistress. The other two benches were propped, the one on two blocks of wood, the other on two sound and two infirm legs, and this was only balanced by a child at each end, so that when one got up the whole tumbled down or flew up, but the seat was very low, and the catastrophe generally produced mirth.
Susan Pucklechurch, granddaughter to the old bailiff and his Betty, was evidently the show scholar. “She be in her Testament, ma’am,” explained Lizzie; and accordingly a terribly thumbed and dilapidated New Testament was put into the child’s hand, from which she proceeded to bawl out, with long pauses between the words, and spelling the longest, a piece of the Sermon on the Mount, selected because there were no names in it. It was a painful performance to reverent ears, and as soon as practicable Mrs Carbonel stopped it with “Good child!” and a penny, and asked what the others read. Those who were not “in the Testament” read the “Universal Spelling-book,” provided at their own expense, but not in much better condition, and from this George Hewlett, son and heir to the carpenter, and a very different person from his cousin Jem, read the history of the defence of that city where each trade offered its own commodity for the defence, even to the cobbler, who proposed to lay in a stock of good l-e-a-t-h-e-r—lather!
These, and three little maidens who had picture spelling-books not going beyond monosyllables, were the aristocracy, and sat apart, shielded from the claws and teeth of their neighbours in consideration of paying fourpence, instead of twopence, a week. The boy was supposed to write large letters on a slate, and the bigger girls did some needlework, and not badly—indeed, it was the best of their performances. The dame went on mumbling and shaking all the time, and it was quite evident that she was entirely past the work, and that Lizzie was the real mistress; indeed, Mrs Carbonel was inclined to give her credit for a certain talent for teaching and keeping order, when the sisters emerged from the close little oven of a place, hardly knowing whether to laugh or cry, but full of great designs.
Captain Carbonel, however, to their disappointment, advised them to wait to set anything on foot till Dr Fogram, the President of Saint Cyril’s, came down in the summer holidays, when counsel could be taken with him, and there would be more knowledge of the subject. Dora did not like this at all. She was sure that the Son of Mist, as she was naughty enough to call the doctor, would only hamper them, and she was only half consoled by being told that there was no objection to her collecting a few of the children on Sunday and trying to teach them, and in the meantime acquaintance might be made with the mothers.