My business-like readers have, I dare say, found fault with me for
representing a business conference on which so much depended as having
taken place on the front doorstep of Galloway House, and without
occupying much more than five minutes in the transaction. How did
Jeffreys know what sort of person Mrs Trimble was? She might have been
a Fury or a Harpy. Her house might have been badly drained. Mr Fison
might have left her because he couldn't get his wages. And what did
Mrs Trimble know about the Bolsover cad? She never even asked for a
testimonial. He might be a burglar in disguise, or a murderer, or a
child-eater. And yet these two foolish people struck a bargain with one
another five minutes after their first introduction, and before even the
potatoes which Mrs Trimble had left on her plate when she went to the
door had had time to get cold.
I am just as much surprised as the reader at their rashness, which I can
only account for by supposing that they were both what the reader would
call "hard up." Jeffreys, as we know, was very hard up; and as for Mrs
Trimble, the amount of worry she had endured since Mr Fison had left
was beyond all words. She had had to teach as well as manage, the thing
she never liked. And her son and assistant, without a second usher to
keep him steady, had been turning her hair grey. For three weeks she
had waited in vain. Several promising-looking young men had come and
looked at the place and then gone away. She had not been able to enjoy
an afternoon's nap for a month. In short, she was getting worn-out.
When, therefore, Jeffreys came and asked for the post, she had to put a
check on herself to prevent herself from "jumping down his throat."
Hence the rapid conference at the hall door, and the ease with which
Jeffreys got his footing in Galloway House.
"Come and have a bite of mutton," said Mrs Trimble, leading the way
into the parlour. "Jonah and I are just having dinner."
Jonah, who, if truth must be told, had been neglecting his inner man
during the last five minutes in order to peep through the crack of the
door, and overhear the conference in the hall between his mother and the
stranger, was a vulgar-looking youth of about Jeffrey's age, with a
slight cast in his eye, but otherwise not bad-looking. He eyed the new
usher as he entered with a mingled expression of suspicion and contempt;
and Jeffreys, slow of apprehension though he usually was, knew at a
glance that he had not fallen on a bed of roses at Galloway House.
"Jonah, this is Mr Jeffreys; I've taken him on in Fison's place. My
son, Mr Jeffreys."
Jonah made a face at his mother, as much as to say, "I don't admire your
choice," and then, with a half-nod at Jeffreys, said,--
"Ah, how are you?"
"Jonah and I always dine at twelve, Mr Jeffreys," said Mrs Trimble,
over whom the prospect of the afternoon's nap was beginning to cast a
balmy sense of ease. "You two young men will be good friends, I hope,
and look well after the boys."
"More than you do," said the undutiful Jonah; "they've been doing just
as they please the last month."
"It's a pity, Jonah, you never found fault with that before."
"What's the use of finding fault? No end to it when you once begin."
"Well," observed the easy-going matron, "you two will have to see I
don't have occasion to find fault with you."
Jonah laughed, and asked Jeffreys to cut him a slice of bread.
Presently Mrs Trimble quitted the festive board, and the two ushers
were left together.
"Lucky for you," said young Trimble, "you got hold of ma and pinned her
down to taking you on on the spot. What's she going to pay you?"
The question did not altogether please the new assistant, but he was
anxious not to come across his colleague too early in their
acquaintanceship.
"She pays me nothing the first month. After that, if I suit, I'm to
have a pound a month."
"If you suit? I suppose you know that depends on whether I like you or
not?"
"I hope not," blurted out Jeffreys--"that is," added he, seeing his
mistake, "I hope we shall _get_ on well together."
"Depends," said Trimble. "I may as well tell you at once I hate stuck-
uppedness (this was a compound word worthy of a young schoolmaster). If
you're that sort you'd better cry off at once. If you can do your work
without giving yourself airs, I shall let you alone."
Jeffreys was strongly tempted after this candid avowal to take the
youthful snob's advice and cry off. But the memory of yesterday's
miserable experiences restrained him. He therefore replied, with as
little contempt as he was able to put into the words,--
"Thanks."
Trimble's quick ear detected the ill-disguised scorn of the reply. "You
needn't try on that sort of talk," said he; "I can tell you plump, it
won't do. You needn't think because ma took you on for the asking,
you're going to turn up your nose at the place!"
"I don't think so," said Jeffreys, struggling hard with himself. "How
many boys are there here?"
"Forty-four. Are you anything of a teacher? Can you keep order?"
"I don't know; I haven't tried yet."
"Well, just mind what you're about. Keep your hands off the boys; we
don't want manslaughter or anything of that sort here."
Jeffreys started. Was it possible that this was a random shot, or did
Trimble know about Bolsover and young Forrester? The next remark
somewhat reassured him.
"They're looking sharp after private schools now; so mind, hands off.
There's one o'clock striking. All in! Come along. You'd better take
the second class and see what you can make of them. Precious little ma
will put her nose in, now you're here to do the work."
He led the way down the passage and across a yard into an outhouse which
formed the schoolroom. Here were assembled, as the two ushers entered,
some forty boys ranging in age from seven to twelve, mostly, to judge
from their dress and manners, of the small shopkeeper and farmer class.
The sound of Trimble's voice produced a dead silence in the room,
followed immediately by a movement of wonder as the big, ungainly form
of the new assistant appeared. Jeffreys' looks, as he himself knew,
were not prepossessing, and the juvenile population of Galloway House
took no pains to conceal the fact that they agreed with him.
"Gordon," said Trimble, addressing a small boy who had been standing up
when they entered, "what are you doing?"
"Nothing, sir."
"You've no business to be doing nothing! Stand upon that form for an
hour!"
The boy obeyed, and Trimble looked round at Jeffreys with a glance of
patronising complacency.
"That's the proper way to do with them," said he. "Plenty of ways of
taking it out of them without knocking them about."
Jeffreys made no reply; he felt rather sorry for the weak-kneed little
youngster perched up on that form, and wondered if Mr Trimble would
expect him (Jeffreys) to adopt his method of "taking it out" of his new
pupils.
Just then he caught sight of the familiar face of Master Freddy, one of
his friends of the morning, who was standing devouring him with his eyes
as if he had been a ghost. Jeffreys walked across the room and shook
hands with him.
"Well, Freddy, how are you? How's Teddy?"
"I say," said Trimble, in by no means an amiable voice, as he returned
from this little excursion, "what on earth are you up to? What did you
go and do that for?"
"I know Freddy."
"Oh, do you? Freddy Rosher, you're talking. What do you mean by it?"
"Please, sir, I didn't mean--"
"Then stay in an hour after school, and write four pages of your copy-
book."
It took all Jeffreys' resolution to stand by and listen to this
vindictive sentence without a protest. But he restrained himself, and
resolved that Freddy should find before long that all his masters were
not against him.
"That's your fault," said Trimble, noticing the dissatisfied look of his
colleague. "How are we to keep order if you go and make the boys break
rules? Now you'd better get to work. Take the second class over there
and give them their English history. James the Second they're at. Now,
you boys, first class, come up to me with your sums. Second class, take
your history up to Mr Jeffreys. Come along; look alive!"
Jeffreys thereupon found himself mobbed by a troop of twenty of the
youngest of the boys, and haled away to a desk at the far end of the
room, round which they congregated book in hand, and waited for him to
commence operations.
It was an embarrassing situation for the new usher. He had never been
so fixed before. He had often had a crowd of small boys round him,
tormenting him and provoking him to anger; but to be perched up here at
a desk, with twenty tender youths hanging on the first word which should
fall from his lips, was to say the least, a novel experience. He
glanced up towards the far end of the room, in the hopes of being able
to catch a hint from the practised Jonah as to how to proceed. But he
found Jonah was looking at him suspiciously over the top of his book,
and that was no assistance whatever. The boys evidently enjoyed his
perplexity; and, emboldened by his recent act of friendliness to the
unlucky Freddy, regarded him benevolently.
"Will some one lend me a book?" at last said Jeffreys, half desperate.
A friendly titter followed this request.
"Don't you know it without the book?" asked one innocent, handing up a
book.
"I hope you do," said Jeffreys, blushing very much as he took it.
"Now," added he, turning to the reign of James II, "can any one tell we
what year King James II came to the throne?"
"Please, sir, that's not the way," interposed another irreverent
youngster, with a giggle. "You've got to read it first, and then ask
us."
Jeffreys blushed again.
"Is that the way?" said he. "Very well. James II succeeded his brother
Charles in 1685. One of his first acts on coming--"
"Oh, we're long past that," said two or three of his delighted audience
at a breath; "we've done to where Monmouth's head was cut off."
This was very uncomfortable for the new master. He coloured up, as if
he had been guilty of a scandalous misdemeanour, and fumbled nervously
with the book, positively dreading to make a fresh attempt. At last,
however, he summoned up courage.
"The death of this ill-fated nobleman was followed by a still more
terrible measure of retribution against those who had--"
"Please, sir, we can't do such long words; we don't know what that
means. You've got to say it in easy words, not what's put in the book."
Jeffreys felt that all the sins of his youth were rising up against him
that moment. Nothing that he had ever done seemed just then as bad as
this latest delinquency.
"After Monmouth's death they made it very--(hot, he was going to say,
but he pulled himself up in time), they made it very (whatever was the
word?)--very awkward for those who had helped him. A cruel judge named
Jeffreys--"
That was a finishing stroke! The reader could have sunk through the
floor as he saw the sensation which this denunciation of himself caused
among his audience. There was not a shadow of doubt in the face of any
one of them as to his identity with the ferocious judge in question.
What followed he felt was being listened to as a chapter or
autobiography, and nothing he could say could now clear his character of
the awful stain that rested upon it.
"A cruel judge condemned more than three hundred persons--"
"You forgot to say his name, please, sir," they put in.
"Never mind his name; that is, I told you once, you should remember,"
stammered the hapless usher.
"I remember it. Jeffreys, wasn't it, Mr Jeffreys?" said one boy
triumphantly.
"He condemned more than--"
"Who, Jeffreys?"
What was the use of keeping it up?
"Yes; this wicked judge, Jeffreys, condemned more than three hundred
people to death, just because they had helped Monmouth."
There was a low whistle of horror, as every eye transfixed the speaker.
"Did he repent?" asked one.
"It doesn't say so," said the wretched Jeffreys, turning over to the
next page in a miserable attempt to appear as if he was not involved in
the inquiry.
"How dreadful!" said another.
"Besides this, 849 people were transported."
"By Jeffreys, sir?"
"Yes," replied the owner of the name, finally throwing off all disguise
and giving himself up to his fate, "by this wicked Jeffreys."
"Yes, sir; and what else did he do?"
Trimble, as he looked every now and then down the room, was astonished
to notice the quiet which prevailed in the lower class, and the interest
with which every boy was listening to the new master.
He did not like it. He couldn't manage to interest his class, and it
didn't please him at all that this casual newcomer should come and cut
him out before his face.
After a while he walked down the room and approached the assistant's
desk.
He was convinced this, unwonted order could not result from any
legitimate cause.
"You don't seem to be doing much work here, I must say," said he. "Give
me the book, Mr Jeffreys: I want to see what they know of the lesson.
Where's the place?"
Jeffreys handed the book, putting his finger on the place.
Trimble glanced through a paragraph or two, and then pointing to a boy,
one of the least sharp in the class, said,--
"Now, Walker, what happened after Monmouth's death?"
"Oh, if you please, sir, a cruel judge, called Jeffreys, condemned--"
"That will do. You, Rosher, how many people did he condemn to death?"
"More than three hundred, sir," answered Freddy promptly.
"What for, Bacon?"
"Because they helped Monmouth."
Trimble felt perplexed. He never had a class that answered like this.
He tried once more.
"Pridger, what else did he do?"
"He had 849 transported, sir."
Trimble shut the book. It was beyond him. If Pridger had said 848 or
850, he could have made something of it. But it floored him completely
to find the second class knowing the exact number of convicts in one
given year of English history.
"Don't let me catch any of you wasting your time," he said. "Farrar,
what do you mean by looking about you, sir? Stand on the form for half
an hour."
"Farrar has been very quiet and attentive all the afternoon," said
Jeffreys.
"Stand on the form an hour, Farrar," said Trimble, with a scowl.
Jeffreys' brow darkened as he watched the little tyrant strut off to his
class. How long would he be able to keep hands off him?
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. An unconscious bond of
sympathy had arisen between the new master and his pupils. His
historical importance invested him with a glamour which was nearly
heroic; and his kind word on Farrar's behalf had won him an amount of
confidence which was quick in showing itself. "We like you better than
Fison, though he was nice," said Bacon, as the class was about to
separate.
"I hope Trimble won't send you away," said another.
"I wish you'd condemn young Trimble to death, or transport him, Mr
Jeffreys," said a third confidentially.
"Good-bye, Mr Jeffreys," said Freddy, with all the confidence of an old
friend. "Did you like that parliament cake?"
"Awfully," said Jeffreys. "Good-bye."
Every one insisted on shaking hands with him, greatly to his
embarrassment; and a few minutes later the school was scattered, and
Jeffreys was left to go over in his mind his first day's experience.
On the whole he was cheerful. His heart warmed to these simple little
fellows, who thought none the worse of him for being ugly and clumsy.
With Mrs Trimble, too, he anticipated not much difficulty. Young
Trimble was a rock ahead undoubtedly, but Jeffreys would stand him as
long as he could, and not anticipate the day, which he felt to be
inevitable, when he would be able to stand him no longer.
"Well, Mr Jeffreys," said Mrs Trimble, as the dame and her two
assistants sat down to tea, "how do you manage?"
"Pretty well, thank you, ma'am," replied Jeffreys; "they are a nice lot
of little boys, and I found them very good and quiet."
"Of course you would, if you let them do as they like," said Jonah.
"You'll have to keep them in, I can tell you, if you expect to keep
order."
It did occur to Jeffreys that if they were good without being kept in,
Jonah ought to be satisfied, but he was too wise to embark on a
discussion with his colleague, and confined his attentions to Mrs
Trimble.