THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER
One day, when her uncle was at home busy about his accounts, which
engaged him frequently without greatly enlightening him, but serving
rather to involve his mind in confusion, Kate was assisting her aunt in
preparing for the early dinner, when a tap at the door announced a
caller.
Pasco shouted to the person outside to come in, and a young man
entered--tall, with fair hair, and clear, steady grey eyes.
“I am the new schoolmaster,” said he frankly. “I have thought it my duty
to come and see you, as you are church-warden and one of the managers of
the National School.”
“Quite right; sit down. I have been busy. I am a man of the commercial
world. This is our meal-time. I am disengaged from my accounts; you can
sit and eat, and we will converse whilst eating.”
Mrs. Pepperill entered, and her hard eye rested on the young man.
“The new schoolmaster,” she said. “Do you come from these parts?”
“No; I am a stranger to this portion of England.”
“That’s a misfortune. If you could be born again, and in the west
country, it would be a mercy for you. From where do you come?”
“From Hampshire.”
“That’s right up in the north.”
The schoolmaster raised his eyebrows. “Of course--in the south of
England.”
“It doesn’t follow,” said Zerah; “by your speech I took you to be
foreign.”
“And what may your name be,” said Pasco, “if I may be so bold as to ask?
I have heard it, but it sounded French, and I couldn’t recollect it.”
“My name is very English--Walter Bramber.”
“Never heard anyone so called before. Brambles, and Bramptons, and
Branscombes. It don’t sound English to our ears. I may as well tell
you--sit down, and take a fork--that we liked our last schoolmaster
uncommon much. He was just the right sort of man for us; but the rector
took against him.”
“I thought he was rather given to the”--
“Well, what of that? We have, all of us, our failings. A trout is an
uncommon good fish, but it has bones like needles. You have your
failings, my wife has hers. I will say this for Mr. Solomon
Puddicombe--he never got tight in our parish. When he was out for a
spree, he went elsewhere--to Newton, or Teignmouth, and sometimes to
Ashburton. He couldn’t help it. Some folks have fits, others have
bilious attacks. When he wasn’t bad, he was very good; the children
liked him, the parents liked him. I liked him, and I’m the churchwarden.
He had means of his own, beside the school pence and his salary. A man
has a right to spend his money as he chooses. If he had got tight on the
school pence, I can understand that there might have been some kind of
objection; but when it was on his private means, then I don’t see that
we have anything to do with it. Have you means of your own?”
“I am sorry to say--none.”
“We always respect those who have means. If you have none, of course you
can’t go on the spree anywhere, and oughtn’t to do so. It would be wrong
and immoral. Take my advice, and call on the old schoolmaster. The
parish will be pleased, as it has been terribly put about at the rector
giving him his dismissal.”
“But--I thought there had been an unhappy scandal; that, in fact, he had
been committed to”--
“Well, well, he was locked up,” said Pasco. “There was a cock-fight
somewhere up country. Not in this country, but at a place called
Waterloo.”
“There is no such place in England,” said Bramber. “Waterloo is in
Belgium; it lies about five miles from Brussels.”
“You are a schoolmaster, and ought to know. But of this I am quite
sure--it was in England where he got into trouble, and the name of the
place was Waterloo.”
“He may have been at some inn called the Waterloo, but positively there
is no place in England so designated,” said Bramber.
“I know very well the place was Waterloo, and that Mr. Solomon
Puddicombe got into trouble there. We are all liable to troubles. I have
lost my daughter. Troubles are sent us; the parson himself has said so.
Puddicombe got locked up. You see, cock-fighting is a pursuit to which
he was always very partial. You go and call on him, and he’ll sing you
his song. It begins--
‘Come all you cock-fighters from far and near,
I’ll sing you a cock match when and where,
On Aspren Moor, as I’ve heard say,
A charcoal black and a bonny bonny grey.’
That is how the song begins. But it is about another cock-fight; not
that at Waterloo. Cock-fighting is Mr. Puddicombe’s pursuit. We have all
got our pursuits, and why not? There’s a man just outside Newton is
wonderful hot upon flowers. His garden is a picture; he makes it blaze
with various kinds of the finest coloured--foreign and English plants:
that’s his pursuit. Then there is a doctor at Teignmouth who goes out
with a net catching butterflies, and he puts ale and treacle on the
trees in the evening for catching moths: that’s his pursuit. And our
parson likes dabbling with a brush and some paints: that’s his pursuit.
And business is mine: that’s my pursuit and my pleasure--and it’s profit
too.”
“Sometimes; not often,” threw in Zerah.
“Well, I don’t know what your pursuits be, Mr. Schoolmaster,” said
Pepperill. “Let us hope they’re innocent as those of Mr. Puddicombe.”
The young man glanced round him, staggered at his reception, and caught
the eye of Kate. She was looking at him intently, and in her look were
both interest and pity.
“We won’t argue any more,” said Pasco. “I suppose you can eat starigazy
pie?”
“I am ashamed to say I never heard of it.”
“Never heard of it? And you set to teach our children! Zerah, tell Mr.
Schoolmaster what starigazy pie is.”
“There is nothing to tell,” said Zerah ungraciously. It was her way to
be ungracious in all she said and all she did. “It is fish pie--herrings
or pilchards--with their heads out of the crust looking upwards. That is
what they call star-gazing in the fishes, and, in short, starigazy pie.
But if you don’t like it, there is our old stag coming on presently.”
“Do you know, I shall have made two experiences to-day that are new to
me. In the first place, I shall make acquaintance with starigazy pie,
that promises to be excellent; and in the next place, I may add that it
never has been my luck hitherto to taste venison.”
“What’s that?” asked Mrs. Pepperill sharply; she thought Bramber was
poking fun at her.
“I never have had the chance before of tasting venison--the meat of the
rich man’s table.”
“No means, you know,” said Pasco. “Without private means you can’t
expect to eat chicken.”
“Our old stag is hardly chicken,” said Zerah. “You see, now we’ve got a
young stag, we didn’t want the old one any more.”
“Solomon Puddicombe married my second cousin,” observed Pepperill. “Her
name was Eastlake. Are you single?”
“Yes, that is my forlorn condition.”
“Well, look sharp and marry into the parish. It’s your only chance. You
see, the farmers are all against you. They were partial to Puddicombe,
and I hear he is intending to set up a private school. The farmers and
better-class folk will send their children to him. They don’t approve of
their sons and daughters associating with the labourers’ children,
though they did send some to the National School so long as Solomon
Puddicombe was there; but that was because he was so greatly respected.”
“Do you mean to say that Mr. Puddicombe is still in
Coombe-in-Teignhead?”
“Certainly. When he returned from Waterloo, as the place was called
where was that cock-fight, and he got into some sort of difficulty, he
came back to his own house. He got it through his wife, who was an
Eastlake--my cousin. It is his own now, and he has private means, so he
intends setting up a school. It will be very select; only well-to-do
parents’ children will be admitted. When they let Mr. Puddicombe out of
gaol at Waterloo, which is somewhere in the Midlands,--leastways in
England,--then the people here were for ringing a peal to welcome him
home. The parson put the keys in his pocket and went off. They came to
me. I am churchwarden, and I knocked open the belfry door. We gave
Puddicombe a peal, and the rector wasn’t over-pleased. I am
churchwarden, and that is something. You see, Mr. Puddicombe has means,
and a house he got through my cousin Eastlake. I don’t know how the
school will be kept up now that the rector has had Puddicombe turned out
of it. None of the farmers will subscribe. We have no resident squire.
He will have to make up your salary out of his own pocket. He is not
married, so he can well afford it. If he don’t consult our feelings, I
don’t see why we should consider his pocket. None of us wished to lose
Solomon Puddicombe; everyone trusted him, and he was greatly respected.”
Again the schoolmaster looked round him. A sense of helplessness had
come over him. Again his eye encountered that of Kate, and he
instinctively understood that this girl felt for him in his difficulties
and humiliation, and understood how trying his position was.
“Now for a bit of our old stag,” said Pasco.
“Stag?” exclaimed Bramber; “that is fowl!”
“What you call fowl, is stag to us. He crowed till his voice cracked. He
may be tough because old, but he’s been long boiling.”
“Oh, a cock!” Bramber learned that day that a cock in Devonshire is
entitled stag.
The meal ended, Pasco Pepperill stood up and said, “Mr.
What’s-your-name, I daresay you would like to look over my stores.
You’ll be wanting coals, and I sell coals by the bushel. You drink
cider, I daresay; I can provide you with a hogshead--or half, if that
will do. If you want to do shopping--I speak against my interests--but
Whiteaway deals in groceries; you’ll find his shop up the street. If
there be anything he hasn’t got, and you need to go into Teignmouth,
why, this is the ferry, and we charge a penny to put you across, and it
is a penny back. If you desire to be polite to friends, and would like
to entertain them, there are cockles and winkles, tea or coffee, to be
had here, six-pence a head; but if the number were over twenty, we might
come to an arrangement at fourpence-ha’penny. And if you desire a
conveyance at any time, I have a cob and trap I let out at a shilling a
mile, and something for the driver. And if you smoke and drink, I
have--I mean, I dare-say I could provide for you tobacco and spirits
that--you know--haven’t seen the Customs, and are accordingly cheap. And
if you should happen to know of a timber merchant who wants a lot of
oak, I’ve dropped over a hundred pounds on some prime stuff I shall sell
only to such as know good oak from bad. And if you’ve any friends in the
weaving trade, I do some business in wool, and am getting first-class
fleeces from Dartmoor. If you can oblige me in any way like this--well,
I daresay I shan’t be so prejudiced for Mr. Puddicombe.”
Pasco Pepperill conducted the schoolmaster about his premises in an
ostentatious manner, showed him his stores, his stable, the platform on
which tea and coffee, winkles and cockles were served. He named the
prices he had paid, and gave the new-comer to understand that he was a
man who had plenty of money at his disposal.
Then an idea occurred to Pasco. Perhaps this schoolmaster might help him
with his accounts. He himself could not disentangle them and balance his
books. He was shy of letting anyone else see them; but this Bramber was
a complete stranger, a man whom he could reduce to dependence on
himself; he had no private means, no friends in the place; he had given
the man a dinner, and might make of him a very serviceable slave.
“Look here,” said Pepperill in a haughty tone, “Mr. Schoolmaster, I
suppose you know something of accounts and book-keeping?”
“Certainly I do.”
“I shouldn’t mind now and then paying you a trifle, giving you a meal,
and favouring you with my support--I am churchwarden, and consequently
on the committee of the National School. Me and the bishop, and the
archdeacon and rector, and Whiteaway as well. I mean, I’ll stand at your
back, if you will oblige me now and then, and hold your tongue.”
“I will do anything I can to oblige you,” said Bramber. “And as to
holding my tongue, what is it you desire of me?”
“Merely to help me with my accounts. My time is so occupied, and I do
business in so many ways, that my books get somewhat puzzling--I mean to
a man who is taken up with business.”
“I am entirely at your service.”
“But--you understand--I don’t want my affairs talked about. People say I
have plenty of money, that I’m a man who picks it up everywhere; but I
don’t desire that they should know how much I have, and what my
speculations are, and what they bring in.”
“I can hold my tongue.”
“Would you look at my books now?”
“Certainly.”
Accordingly, Walter Bramber re-entered the house, and was given the
books in a private sitting-room, and worked away at them for a couple of
hours. The confusion was great: Pepperill might have had a genius for
business, but this was not manifest in his books. Presently Pasco came
in.
“Well,” said he, “make ’em out, eh?”
“You must excuse my saying it,” said Bramber; “but--if these are
all--your affairs are in a very unsatisfactory condition.”
“Unsatisfactory? oh, pshaw! Of course, I have other resources; there’s
the Brimpts forest of oaks. There’s--oh, lots; winkles and cockles, tea
and coffee not entered.”
“Sixpence a head; over twenty, fourpence ha’penny,” said Walter Bramber
drily.
“Oh, lots--lots of other things. I haven’t entered all.”
“I sincerely hope it is so.”
“It is so, on my word.”
“Because--you seem to me to be losing seriously on every count.”
“Losing? You don’t know creditor from debtor account. That comes of
education; it is never of use. Nothing like business for teaching a man.
I don’t believe in your book-learning.”
“I’ll come again to-morrow and go more carefully into the accounts.”
“Oh, thank you, not necessary. It is clear to me you do not understand
my system--and mistake sides.” Pasco became red and angry. “Look here,
Mr. Schoolmaster, let me give you a word. You don’t belong to the
labourers--you won’t be able to make friends of them. You don’t belong
to the gentry; there are none here--so you need not think of their
society. You don’t belong to the middle class--you are not a farmer, or
a tradesman, or a merchant; so they will have nothing to do with you.
You make my accounts all right, and the balance on the right side; give
up your foolish book-keeping as learned at college, and set my accounts
right by common sense, and I’ll see what I can do to get you taken up by
some respectable people. And, one thing more. Don’t go contradicting men
of property, and saying that there was no cock-fighting at Waterloo,
because there was; and people don’t like contradictions. When I broke
open the belfry door that the ringers might give Mr. Puddicombe a peal,
I let the world see I wasn’t going to be priest-ridden; and we are not
going to be schoolmaster-ridden neither, and told our accounts are
wrong, and that Waterloo, where the cock-fight was, is not in England.”