THE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY
Kate entered the house, at the summons of her aunt, and found that John
Pooke was within, standing with his hat in his hand, in front of him,
twirling it about and playing with the string that served to contract
the lining band.
“I am so glad to see that you are well, Kitty.”
Kate thanked him. She was not a little vexed at being called away from
conversation with the schoolmaster, whose talk was so unlike that of any
other man she had met. The rector she knew and loved, but she was before
him as a scholar to be instructed in spiritual concerns, and their
conversation never turned on such matters as had been mooted between her
and the schoolmaster. For a little while she had been translated into a
new sphere, and had heard words of another order to those that had
hitherto met her ears. Now she was brought back into the world of
commonplace, and could not at once recover herself and accommodate
herself to it. This made her shy and silent. Pooke also was shy, but he
was awkward to boot.
“Have you nothing to say to me, Kate?” he asked in suppliant tone.
“Indeed, I thank you many times, Jan, for inquiring about me when I was
ill. Now, as you see, I am myself again.”
“I was the cause of your illness.”
“No indeed, no blame attaches to you. We will not talk of blame--there
is none.”
“Are you going to Ashburton Fair on Tuesday?”
“I do not know.”
“Yes, you do,” threw in Aunt Zerah; then to John Pooke, “She is going to
the moor to her father for a change. It is her father’s wish, so that
she may be soon strong again. He will meet her at Ashburton at the fair,
if we can get her so far.”
“I am going to the fair,” said Pooke eagerly. “That is to say, sister
Sue and I be going together there. The young man to whom she is about to
be married lives at Ashburton, and will have it that she goes. There is
room for a third in our trap. I should so much like to take you--I mean,
sister Sue would wish it, if you would favour me--I mean sister Sue.”
“Thank you again, Jan, for another kindness,” said the girl, “but I
shall be driven to Ashburton by my uncle. I really had not considered
that the fair was on Tuesday.”
“Your uncle can spare you,” thrust in Zerah; “and if Jan Pooke is so
civil as to invite you to go in his conveyance, it is only proper you
should accept.”
“But, aunt,” said Kate, slightly colouring, “my father has settled that
I am to go with Uncle Pasco, and I do not like”--
“Oh, so long as you are got to Ashburton, it doesn’t matter who takes
you,” interrupted Zerah.
“If it does not matter,” said Kate, “then let me hold to my father’s
arrangement.”
“That is not kind to me--I mean to sister Sue,” said Pooke dolefully.
“I intend no unkindness,” answered the girl, “but when my father has
made a plan, I do not like to break it even in little matters.”
The young man twirled his hat about, and pulled out the string from the
band. He paused, looked ashamed, and said, “You don’t choose to go with
me, that is the long and the short of it. Your aunt will excuse you from
going with Pasco Pepperill.”
“Do not tease me, Jan,” pleaded Kate, confused and unhappy. She was well
aware that there had been village talk about her having been in the boat
with Jan, that her aunt was desirous of thrusting her upon him. With
maidenly reserve she shrank from his proposal, lest by riding in the
trap with him some colour might be given to the suspicions entertained
in the village, and some food should be supplied to the gossips.
The lad went to the window, and looked out on the little platform with
moody eyes.
“Why,” said he, “there is that new schoolmaster there.” He stood
watching him. “He’s a noodle. What do’y think he is about? He has got
three or four faded buttercups, and he is putting them between the
leaves of his note-book, just as though there was something wonderful in
them; just as if they were the rarest flowers in the world. I always
thought he was a fool--now I know it.”
Kate winced.
“I say,” pursued Jan, “have you heard about him and Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’?
The landlord went to him civil-like, and invited him to join the choir.
He bragged about his violin as if he could play finer than anyone
hereabouts. But when the landlord told him our chaps could play
Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum,’ he ran away. I reckon Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’ is a
piece to find out the corners of a man. He daren’t face it. Kitty, if
you won’t come with me to the fair, I swear I’ll offer the odd seat to
Rose Ash.”
Then he left the house.
Kate attempted to fly, for she knew what was coming, but was arrested by
her aunt, who grasped her by the shoulders.
“You little fool!” she said. “Don’t you see what may come of this if you
manage well, or let me manage for you? Jan Tottle came here every day to
inquire when you were ill, and now you let him slip between your fingers
and into the hands of that designing Rose. He is a ball that has come to
you, and you toss it to her. Don’t think she is fool enough to toss him
back to you. When she has him she will close her fingers on him. What is
going to become of you, I’d like to know, that you should act like this?
Do not reckon on anything your father will bring you; or on your uncle
either. One is helping the other down the road to ruin, and we may all
be nearer the poorhouse than you imagine.”
She let go her hand, for Bramber came in, and asked what he had to pay.
“Sixpence,” answered Zerah, “and what you like to the little maid. I
reckon she’ll take a ha’penny.”
Kate’s head fell, covered with shame, and she thrust her hands behind
her back.
Walter paid Mrs. Pepperill, and said, without looking at Kate, “The
little maid and I understand each other, and the account between us is
settled.”
“Now look here,” said Zerah, allowing her niece to escape, and laying
hold of the young man, “I want a word with you, Mr. Schoolmaster. My
husband has let you go through his accounts. I reckon he’d got that
muddled himself, he didn’t know his way out, and thought you’d have led
him, as well as Jack-o’-lantern leads out of a bog. The light is good
enough, but when the mire is there, what can the light do but show it?
It can’t dry it up. If it weren’t for the cockles and coffee as I get a
few sixpences by, I reckon we’d have been stogged (mired) long ago. But
Pasco, he has the idea that he’s a man of business and can manage a
thousand affairs, and as ill-luck will have it, that brother o’ mine
feeds his fancies wi’ fresh meat. Now I want you to tell me exactly what
you found in his books.”
“I am not justified in speaking of Mr. Pepperill’s private affairs.”
“What! not to his wife?”
“Not to anyone. I was taken into confidence.”
“Bless you! he couldn’t help himself. Set a man as don’t know nothing
about machinery to manage an engine, and he’ll get it all to pieces in
no time. Pasco knows nothing about business, and there he is trying to
run coal stores, wool, timber--all kinds o’ things. I know what it will
come to, though you keep mum.”
To escape further questioning, Bramber left Coombe Cellars, and walked
towards the village.
The school was closed for a week. Some painting and plastering had to be
done in it before he could begin his duties. It was as well, he thought;
it allowed him time to find his bearings, to get to understand something
of the people amongst whom he was to be settled, and whose children he
was to instruct.
As Bramber walked in the dusk, he encountered the rector, Mr. Fielding,
who stopped him.
“Are you going indoors?” asked the parson; “or have you leisure and
inclination for a stroll?”
“You do me an honour, sir; I shall be proud.”
“Let us walk by the water-side. This is a beautiful hour--neither night
nor day--something of one, something of the other, like life. And who
can say of the twilight in which he walks whether it will broaden into
perfect day or deepen into utter night.”
The rector took the young man’s arm.
Mr. Fielding belonged to a type that has completely disappeared;
peculiar to its time and necessarily transitory. He belonged to that
school of Churchmen which had been founded by Newman and Keble; of men
cultured, scholarly, refined in thought, steeped in idealism,
unconsciously affected, aiming at what was impossible,--at least, fully
to achieve,--and not knowing practicable methods, not able to
distinguish proportion in what they sought after, ready to contend to
death equally for trifles as for principles.
Mr. Fielding wore tall white collars and a white tie, a black dress coat
and open black waistcoat. His hat was usually at the back of his head,
and he walked with his head bent forwards and his shoulder against the
wall--a trick caught and copied from Newman, caught when first under his
influence, and now unconsciously followed.
Mr. Fielding was unmarried, a quiet, studious man, courteous to all,
understood by none.
They walked together a little way, and talked on desultory matters. Then
Walter Bramber asked the rector, “Would you mind telling me, sir, where
my predecessor got into trouble? Mr. Pepperill says it was at Waterloo.”
“Waterloo? dear me, no; it was at Wellington.”
“I knew it could not be at Waterloo, but he insisted on it, and that it
was in England.”
“There was, you see, a connection of ideas. There is always that, in the
worst blunders. Did you correct him?”
“Yes; I said Waterloo was not in England.”
“You should have let it pass, till you knew how to enlighten him as to
where the place really was. Never show a man he is wrong till you can
show him how he can be right. Also, never let a man see you are pulling
him out of a ditch, always let him think he is scrambling out of it
himself. A man’s self-respect is his best governing motive, and should
not be wounded.”
They paced along together a little way.
“You are a young man,” said the rector, “and a young man is sanguine.”
He paused, and walked on without saying anything for a minute, then he
added, “I was sanguine once. That arises from confidence in one’s self,
and confidence in one’s cause, and confidence in mankind. You have a
noble cause--the priest and the schoolmaster have the greatest of
missions: to educate what is highest in man, spirit and intellect. You
have no reason to be shaken by any doubt, to feel any hesitation in
adhesion to the cause of education. ‘Let there be light!’ was the first
word God spake. There is the keynote of creation, the moral law laid
down for the whole intelligent world. We walk in the twilight that we
know is brightening into day.”
He paused again; then after a dozen paces he proceeded, “You have
confidence in yourself. You have enthusiasm, you have ability, you know
what you have to teach, and you long to impart to others what you value
yourself. Is it not so?”
“It is so indeed.”
“Discouragement will come, and it is my duty to prepare you for it. You
have confidence in human nature. You think all will be as eager to drink
in instruction as you are eager to dispense it. You may be mistaken, and
will be disappointed. It has taken me some years, Mr. Bramber, to learn
a fact which I will communicate to you, as a caution against losing
heart. You will remember that when the sower went forth to sow, though
all his seed was good, yet only one-fourth part came to anything. We
must work for the work’s sake, and not for results. In your patience
possess ye your souls. That is one of the hardest of lessons to
acquire.”
“I will try not to expect too much.”
“Expect nothing. Look to the work, and the work only. One sows, another
reaps, a third grinds, a fourth bakes, but it is the fifth who eats the
loaf and tastes how good it is. Did you ever hear what Mme. de Maintenon
said of the carps, that had been transferred to the marble basins of
Marly, in which they died? ‘Ah!’ said she, ‘they are like me, they
regret their native mud.’ You will find that your pupils do not want to
be translated to purer fountains, that in them there is a hankering
after their native ignorance. That there will be little receptiveness,
no enthusiasm after the light, no hunger after the bread of the
Spirit--that is what you must be prepared to find. I have found it so,
and am now content with the smallest achievements--to make them take a
few crumbs from my palm, to accept the tiniest ray let into their
clouded minds. Be content to do your work, and do not be asking for
results. Do your duty, leave results to another day and to the reapers.
You and I are the humble sowers, enough for us to know that, but for us,
there would be no golden harvest which we shall not see.”
The rector withdrew his hand from the arm of Bramber.
“There is a saying, ‘Except ye be as little children’--You know the
rest. What does that mean? Not the simplicity of children--simplicity
springs out of inexperience; not the innocence--which arises from
ignorance--but the inquisitiveness of the child, which is its
characteristic. The child asks questions, it wants to know everything,
often asking what it is inconvenient to answer. Mr. Bramber, unless we
have this spirit of inquiry, we cannot enter into any kingdom above that
of animal life. There is the intellectual kingdom, and when there is
eagerness to know, then there is advance into that realm, and you will
be the great prophet and mystagogue who will lead the young of this
village into that kingdom. Then, secondly, there is the spiritual
kingdom, but of that I will not now speak. I hope you will find some
pupils apt to learn, but the many will, I fear, be listless.”
“A single swallow does not make a summer,” said the schoolmaster; “but I
have already met with one here who verily hungers and thirsts after
knowledge.”
“Ah!” Mr. Fielding looked round, and his face lightened. “You have
met--talked to Kitty.”
“Yes, sir; she is full of eagerness.”
“Oh that we had many other minds as active! Alas! alas! I fear in that
she is, as they call her, Kitty Alone.”