THE TUTOR'S PROPOSAL—A TEACHERS' MEETING I think it was Mr. Clerke who first suggested that we should take the Sunday scholars and teachers for a holiday trip. Such things are matters of course now in every parish, but in my childhood it was considered a most marvellous idea by our rustic population. The tutor had heard of some extraordinarily active parson who had done the like by his schools, and partly from real kindness, and partly in the spirit of emulation which intrudes even upon schemes of benevolence, he was most anxious that we at Dacrefield should not "be behindhand" in good works. Competition is a feeling with which children have great sympathy, and I warmly echoed Mr. Clerke's resolve that we would not "be behindhand."
 
"Let us go to the Rectory at once," said I; "Mr. Andrewes said we might have some of those big yellow raspberries, and we must ask him about it. It's a splendid idea. But where shall we go?"
 
The matter resolved itself into this question. The Rector was quite willing for the treat. My father gave us a handsome subscription; the farmers followed the Squire's lead. Mr. Andrewes was not behindhand. The tutor and I considered the object a suitable one for aid from our alms-box.[152] There was no difficulty whatever. Only—where were we to go?
 
Finally, we all decided that we would go to Oakford.
 
It was not because Oakford had been the end of our consultation long ago, after my illness, nor because Nurse Bundle had any voice in the matter, it was a certain bullet-headed, slow-tongued old farmer, one of our teachers, who voted for our going to Oakford; and more by persistently repeating his advice than by any very strong reasons there seemed to be for our following it, he carried the day.
 
"I've know'd Oakford, man and boy, for twenty year," he repeated, at intervals of three minutes or so, during what would now be called a "teachers' meeting" in the school-room. In fact, Oakford was his native place, though he was passing his old age in Dacrefield, and he had a natural desire to see it again, and a natural belief that the spot where he had been young and strong, and light-hearted, had especial merits of its own.
 
Even though we had nothing better to propose, old Giles' love for home would hardly have decided us, but he had something more to add. There was a "gentleman's place" on the outskirts of Oakford, which sometimes, in the absence of the family, was "shown" to the public: old Giles had seen it as a boy, and the picture he drew of its glories fairly carried us away, the Rector and tutor excepted. They shrugged their shoulders with faces of comical despair as the old man, having fair............