DISCORDS
Walter Bramber left Coombe Cellars greatly discouraged. He had
unintentionally ruffled the plumes of the churchwarden by disputing his
knowledge of the situation of Waterloo, and mainly by discovering that
his affairs were in something worse than confusion, that they wore a
complexion which indicated the approach of bankruptcy. And Pasco
Pepperill was one of the magnates of the village, and full of
consciousness that he was a great man.
Bramber walked to the little village shop belonging to Whiteaway, the
second churchwarden, who was also on the committee of management, and
trustee for the school under the National Society.
Here also his reception was not cordial. It was intimated to him that
his presence in the village and tenure of the mastership of the school
would be tolerated only on condition that he supplied himself with
groceries, draperies, boots, and lollipops from Whiteaway’s shop. He
walked to his lodgings.
Such were the men with whom he was thrown. From two instances he
generalised. They were to be gained through their interests. Unless he
got one set of things at one store and another set at another, the two
mighty men who ruled Coombe-in-Teignhead would turn their faces against
him, and make his residence in the place intolerable.
As he walked slowly along the little street, he encountered a cluster of
children, talking and romping together, composed of boys and girls of
all ages. Directly they saw him, they became silent, and stood with eyes
and mouths open contemplating him. Bramber heard one boy whisper to the
next--
“That’s the new teacher--ain’t he a duffer?”
He nodded, and addressed a few kindly words to the children; expressed
his hope that they would soon be well acquainted and become fast
friends. To which no response was accorded. But no sooner was he past
than the whole crew burst into a loud guffaw, which set the blood
rushing into the young man’s face.
A moment later a stone was hurled, and hit him on the back. He turned in
anger, and saw the whole pack disappear behind a cottage and down a side
lane. He considered a moment whether to pursue and capture the offender,
but believing that he would have great difficulty in discovering him,
even if he caught the whole gang, he deemed it expedient to swallow the
affront.
On reaching his lodgings, Bramber unpacked his few goods; and as he did
this, his heart ached for his Hampshire home. Old associations were
connected with the trifles he took out of his box, linked with the
irrevocable past, some sad, others sunny. Then he seated himself at his
window and sank into a brown study.
Young, generous, he had come to this nook of the West full of enthusiasm
for his task, eager to advance education, to lift the children out of
the slough of ignorance and prejudice in which their fathers and
forefathers had been content to live. That his efforts would meet with
ready and enthusiastic support, would be gratefully hailed by parents
and children alike, by rich and by poor, he had not doubted.
“There is no darkness but ignorance,” said the fool in “Twelfth Night”;
and who would not rejoice to be himself lifted out of shadows into
light, and to see his children advanced to a higher and better walk than
had been possible for himself?
But his hopes were suddenly and at once damped. He was a fish out of
water. A youth with a certain amount of culture, and with a mind
thirsting after knowledge, he was pitchforked into a village where
culture was not valued, where the only books seen were, “The Norwood
Gipsy’s Dream-Book” and “The Forty Thieves,” exposed in the grocer’s
window. He had been accustomed to associate with friends who had an
interest in history, travels, politics, scenery, poetry, and art; and
here in this backwater no one, so far as he could see, had interest in
anything save what would fill his pocket or his paunch. Sad and
temporarily discouraged, he took his violin and began to play. This
instrument was to be to him in exile companion, friend, and confidant.
Presently he heard a male voice downstairs talking loudly to his
landlady. He stayed his bow, and in another moment a stout and florid
man stumbled up the staircase.
“How do’y, schoolmaister?” said this visitor, extending a big and moist
hand. “I’m Jonas Southcott, landlord of the Lamb and Flag. As I was
passing, I heard your fiddle squeak. You’re just the chap us wants.
Peter Adams as played first fiddle at church is dead; he was the man for
you--he could turn you off a country dance, a hornpipe, or a reel.”
“What, in church?”
“No, not exact-_ly_ that. At our little hops at the Lamb and Flag; and
on Sunday he was wonderful at an anthem or a psalm. We want someone who
can take his place. You please to come and be sociable when the young
folks want a dance. What can you play--‘Moll in the Wad,’ ‘The Devil
among the Tailors,’ ‘Oil of Barley,’ ‘Johnny, come tie my cravat’? These
were some of Peter Adams’s tunes. And on Sunday you should have heard
him in Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum,’ or at Christmas in ‘While shepherds
watched.’ It was something worth going to church for.”
“I hardly know what to say,” gasped Walter Bramber. “I am but newly
arrived, and have not as yet shaken into my place.”
“This is practising night. The instruments will all be in my parlour
this evening at half-past six. If you like to come and be sociable, and
have a glass of spirits and water, and try your hand at Jackson’s
‘Tee-dum,’ I reckon the orchestra will be uncommon gratified.”
“You are very good, but”--
“And when the practice is over, we’ll whip in some young folks and have
a dance, and if you’ll fiddle some of them tunes--‘Moll in the Wad,’ or
‘The Parson among the Peas,’ or ‘The Devil among the Tailors,’ you’ll
get intimate with young and old alike. Then, also, you can keep your
eyes open, and pick out a clean, comely maiden, and keep company with
her, and walk her out on Sundays--and so look to settling among us. You
have a head-wind and a strong tide against you. The old master was
_such_ a favourite, and so greatly respected, that I doubt, unless you
make an effort, you won’t go down here.”
“This evening you must excuse me; I’m very tired.”
“Well, this was kindly intended. I thought to put you on good terms with
the parish at once. Perhaps you’re shy of playing Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’
till you’ve tried it over privately. I’ll see if I can borrow you the
notes. Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’”--
“I presume you mean the ‘Te Deum.’”
“We always call it ‘Tee-dum’ here, and if you give it any other name, no
one will understand you. We are English, not French or Chinese, in
Coombe-in-Teignhead.”
The landlord of the Lamb and Flag descended the stairs, and Bramber,
fearing lest he should have given offence, accompanied him to the street
door. His landlady was a widow. When Jonas Southcott was out of the
house, she beckoned to Walter Bramber, and said--
“I be main glad you ain’t going to the practice to-night, for I have
axed Jane Cann in to tea.”
“Who is Jane Cann?”
“Her teaches sewing and the infants in the National School. I thought
you’d best become acquainted in a friendly way at the outset. She used
to keep a dame’s school herself, and a very good school it was. But when
the parson set up the new National School, he did not want exactly to
offend folk, and to take the bread out of Jane Cann’s mouth,--you know
she’s akin to me, and to several in the place,--so he appointed her to
the infants. Her’s a nice respectable young woman, but her had a bit o’
a misfortune as a child; falled and hurt her back, and so is rather
crooked and short. Her may be a trifle older than you, but folk do say
that is always best so; for when the wife is young”--
“Goodness preserve us! you don’t suppose I am going to marry her because
she is the sewing-mistress?”
“You might do worse. Folk are sure to talk anyhow, and it’s best to give
’em some grounds for their talk. You see, she and you must walk together
going to school and coming away, and she lives close by here. As I was
saying, people say that when the wife is much younger than her husband
there comes a long family, and the man is old and past work when some of
the youngest are still no better than babies.”
Bramber felt a chill down his spinal marrow, as though iced water were
trickling there.
“I speak against my own interest,” continued the widow, “but it does
seem a pity that you should not put your salaries together and occupy
one house. She gets twenty pounds a year. If you was to marry her, you’d
be twenty pounds the richer. ’Twas unfortunate, though, about that
cricket ball.”
“What about a cricket ball?”
“Why, Jane Cann was looking on at a cricket match among the boys, and a
ball came by accident and hit her on the side of her head, so that she’s
hard o’ hearing in her right ear. You’ll please to sit by her on the
left, and then she can hear well enough. Jane Cann is my cousin, and I’d
like to do her a good turn, and as she’s maybe about seven years older
than you, you need not fear a long family.”
“Preserve me!” gasped the schoolmaster.
“I’ll set you a stool on her left side, and give her a high chair, then
you’ll be about on a level with her hearing ear.”
“I--I am going out to tea,” said Bramber, snatching up his hat to fly
the cottage; but was arrested at the door by a burly farmer who entered.
“This is Mr. Prowse of Wonnacot,” said the widow to Bramber. Then to the
farmer, “This, sir, is the new teacher, who is going to lodge with me.”
“I’ve heard of him from Southcott,” said Prowse. “I’ve been told you
play the fiddle. Perhaps you know also how to finger the pianer. My
girls, Susanna and Eliza, are tremendously eager to learn the pianer,
and I thought that after school hours you might drop in at my little
place--Wonnacot--and give the young ladies lessons. I’d take it as a
favour, and as I am a not inconsiderable subscriber to the National
School, and”--
The widow, in a tone of admiration, threw in an aside to Bramber--“He
subscribes half a sovereign.”
The farmer inflated his chest, smiled, raised himself in his boots, and,
thrusting his right hand into his pocket, rattled some money. He had
heard the aside, as it was intended that he should.
“I may say,” continued Mr. Prowse, “that I am a bulwark and a buttress
of the National School, and as such I lay claim to the services of the
teacher; and if, after hours, he can hop over to my little place and
give my girls an hour three times a week, then”--he raised his chin and
smiled down on the schoolmaster--“then I shall not begrudge my
subscription.”
“It is true,” said Bramber, “that I can play a little on the piano,
but--I am not sure that I am competent to give lessons. Moreover, I
doubt if I shall have the time at my disposal. I am still young, and
must prosecute my studies.”
“If you expect to remain here in comfort,” said the farmer testily,
“you’ll have to do what you are asked. You don’t expect me to subscribe
to the National School and get no advantage out of it?”
Thus it was--some made demands on the time, some on the purse, and
others desired to dispose of the person of the new-comer.
To escape meeting the crooked sewing-mistress, deaf of the right ear,
Walter ran into the street, and walked through the village.
A labourer came up to him.
“I want a word with you, Mr. Schoolmaister,” said he. “My boy goes to
the National School, and I gives you fair warning, if you touches him
with your hand or a stick, I’ll have the law of you.”
“But suppose he be disobedient, rude, disorderly?”
“My boy is not to be punished. He is well enough if let alone.”
“But--do you send him to school to be let alone?”
“I send him to school to be out of the way when my missus is washing or
doing needlework.”
A little farther on his way, a woman arrested Walter Bramber, and said,
“You be the new teacher, be you not? Please, I’ve five childer in your
school and three at home. Some of the scholars bain’t clean as they
should be. I can’t have my childer come home bringing with them what
they oughtn’t, and never carried to school from my house. So will’y,
now, just see to ’em every day, as they be all right, afore you let ’em
leave school, and I’ll thank’y for it kindly.”
Presently a mason returning from his work saluted Bramber.
“Look here, schoolmaister! I want you to take special pains wi’ my
children and get ’em on like blazes. If they don’t seem to get forward
in a week or two, I shall take ’em away and send them to Mr. Puddicombe,
who is going to open a private school.”
Then another man came up, halted, and, catching hold of the lappet of
Bramber’s coat, said, “My name is Tooker. I’m not a churchman, but I
have several children at your school. I won’t have them taught the
Church Catechism. I’m a Particular Baptist, and I won’t have no childer
of mine taught to say what their godfather and godmother promised and
vowed for them--for they ain’t had no godfathers nor godmothers, and
ain’t a-going to have none. You can’t mistake my childer. One has got a
red head, another is yaller, and the third is a sort of
whitey-brown--and has sunspots, and a mole between the shoulder-blades,
and the boy never had no toe-nails. So mind--no catechism for them.”
“And there is something,” said again another, “upon which I want to lay
down what I think. I wish you to teach readin’ and writin’ in a rational
manner.”
“I hope to do that.”
“Ah! but you’ve been too much at college, and crammed wi’ book-larnin’.
Why should you teach childer, and fret their little heads about the H,
when it’s a thing of no concern whatever. Mr. Puddicombe, he was the
reasonable man. Sez he, ‘Raisin puddin’ is good, and duffy puddin’
wi’out raisins is good--so is it with the English language--it’s good
all round, and the H’s are just the raisins; you can put ’em in or leave
’em out as you pleases, and stick ’em in by the scores or just a
sprinklin’, and it’s no odds--it’s good anyways.’ Them’s the principles
of spellin’ I expect my little ones to larn at your school.”
“And I hopes, Mr. Teacher,” said another sententiously, “as you’ll never
forget that it is not enough to teach the children readin’, writing, and
’rithmetic. There is something more”--
“There is a great deal more--geography, history, the Elements”--
“There is something above all that, and you should make it the first
thing, and readin’ and the rest after.”
“What’s that?”
“Temperance--teetotal principles.”
Bramber walked on. His discouragement was becoming greater at every
moment.
As he passed the Lamb and Flag, he was greeted by a hideous bray of
instruments both stringed and brazen. This outburst was followed by a
marvellous coruscation of instrumental music, races, leaps, a
helter-skelter of fiddles, flutes, cornets, bass-viol, now together,
more often running ahead or falling behind each other, then one
a-pickaback on the rest.
At the door of the public-house stood Mr. Jonas Southcott with his face
radiant.
“Well, Mr. Schoolmaister!” shouted he; “what do you think of this?
You’ve never heard such moosic before, I warrant. That is what I call
moosic of the spears! It’s Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum.’”