from church, and make them violate the sanctity of the day set apart
for worship, that all the entreaties of his wife, backed by the orders
of the doctor, were scarcely sufficient, as Norah told her uncle,
to prevent him from having himself carried up to the pulpit on the
following Sunday (as he could not have walked up the steps), to preach
on the Fourth Commandment. Very unwillingly the good old pastor gave up
to his curate the work which he had not the bodily strength to perform.
He felt like a wounded veteran standard-bearer, when obliged to resign
into the hands of the young recruit at his side the banner which he
would fain have defended himself to the last. Never before had bodily
infirmity been so painful a trial to the vicar. He was rather grieved
than surprised to hear how empty the benches had been at afternoon
service, though Claudius Leyton had exerted his utmost efforts in the
morning sermon to warn, to convince, to persuade.
"I should have been utterly disheartened," said the weary curate to
his uncle on the Sunday evening, "had not Nancy Sands been seated just
before me, looking so quiet, attentive, and earnest. When I remember
what she was, and see what she is, I feel that I dare never despair."
"_Oh, rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him, and he shall give thee
thy heart's desire_," repeated the vicar.
Difficulties were however to thicken, and trials to increase. An
incident occurred on the following day which caused great excitement
through the village of Colme.
XXXIV.
Put to the Question.
Persis sat with her work in her hand by her open window in the little
room over that in which the school was assembled below. Pleasant to her
ear was the hum of voices rising from beneath, for it told her that her
husband was, as usual, opening the day by devotion, and her busy needle
stopped, and she silently joined in the Lord's prayer repeated by many
young voices.
Persis was then about to set to her work again, when, chancing to
glance out of the window, her attention was drawn to three gentlemen
walking along the road, each smoking a cigar. Though Mrs. Franks
had not before seen the baronet, who never appeared at church, she
instantly recognized him as the central person in the group, by the
description which she had heard of him. There was no mistaking the
short, thick figure, the face where the color lay in patches of
purplish-red, and the hat cocked a good deal upon one side, over a mass
of sandy-colored hair. Sir Lacy's companions were a young lawyer and a
medical student, neither of whom looked as if they would be likely to
do much credit to their respective professions.
Persis Franks dropped her work on her knees, instinctively clasped her
hands, and drew back a little from the window, while keeping her eyes
anxiously fixed upon the unwelcome strangers.
"I hope and trust that they'll pass by the school without entering it,"
she said to herself, while the sound of their coarse laughter grew
louder as they drew nearer.
The hopes of Franks's wife were not realized. The three men were
evidently on their way to the school. Persis could catch a few of their
words,--something about badgering and baiting, and putting the fellow
to the question.
Hot as was that July morning, Persis grew cold and trembled, and for
the first time let her baby cry in his cradle for at least two minutes
before she went to see what her darling wanted. She had a terrible
misgiving that nothing good could come of the visit of those three men
who had just disappeared under the porch. Earnestly Persis prayed that
her husband might be able to command his temper under any provocation,
and so defeat the malice of one whom she could not but regard as an
enemy.
Franks, upon every Monday morning, as soon as prayers were ended,
questioned his boys on the subject of the sermon heard on the preceding
day. This was his invariable custom, and he found it to be followed
by two good results: it made the boys listen more attentively to the
sermon, and it enabled him to explain to them in his simple, homely
way, whatever had been too hard for them to understand. The addresses
of the young curate, unlike those of the vicar, were often above the
comprehension of some of his ignorant hearers.
Franks, upon this particular Monday morning, had just begun his
questioning with the words, "Now, Sims, what was the text?" when there
was a murmur of "Sir Lacy, Sir Lacy," heard through the school-room,
and every eye was turned towards the door through which the three
gentlemen were entering.
It must be owned that to Franks the visitors were extremely unwelcome,
and especially at that time. The influence of the baronet was already
working for evil amongst the Colme boys, and he was but too likely, not
only to take offence at the subject of the sermon, but to try to turn
into ridicule any religious instruction that he might hear. There was
some stiffness in the air of the school-master as he received the lord
of the manor.
"Go on, go on, just as if I were not here," said the baronet, replacing
the cigar which he had taken out of his mouth for a moment; and Franks
felt that for the sake of his boys he must go on. His pupils must
see in him no cringing fear of man overcoming the fear of God. Had
he changed his regular custom on account of the baronet's presence,
he would have shown himself unfit to train boys to do their duty
faithfully and fearlessly in the face of all the world.
"What was the text of the sermon?" repeated Ned Franks, addressing
himself again to young Sims.
But if the one-armed school-master preserved his presence of mind,
the scholar certainly did not do so also. Sims, the same boy who had
had his ear twitched by Sir Lacy in Wild Rose Hollow, looked with
an uneasy, frightened expression, not at his questioner, but at the
formidable visitor who was standing with his hands behind his back to
listen. The boy began to stammer forth, "Remember the--the," and then
stopped short, not daring to finish the verse.
Sir Lacy Barton burst out laughing at his evident confusion. "A
precious bright scholar you!" he exclaimed. "If you'd been questioned
as to whether Sharpspur or Redcomb had the best of it yesterday,
you'd have answered him a deal quicker;" and the baronet wound up his
sentence with a loud oath, such as had never been heard before within
the walls of that school-room.
Franks felt that the honor of his Master, the welfare of his pupils,
forbade him to pass over in silence, on account of the rank of the
offender, what in the case of any one else would have called forth
instant and stern rebuke. "_Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord
thy God in vain_," he said, in a tone not loud but clear, which, in the
breathless silence kept by the awe-struck boys, was heard distinctly
in the farthest corner of the room; and, as he spoke the message of
God, the master fixed his eyes calmly and fearlessly upon the profane
young man, who quailed and blanched under their gaze. The effect upon
the astonished boys was greater than would have been produced by the
most eloquent sermon against swearing. They saw that in Franks they had
a leader who would not only bid them wage war against vice in every
shape, but who would himself head the charge, and expose himself freely
in the conflict.
Badham, the lawyer, came to the assistance of the discomfited Barton.
He had a supercilious, sarcastic manner, almost more disgusting to
Franks than the coarseness of Sir Lacy himself.
"You are well up in the commandments, I perceive, my good friend," he
observed, addressing himself to the school-master, "and no doubt your
knowledge on all other parts of education is equally deep. May I ask
in what college you have studied?" Badham winked at the baronet as he
asked the question.
"I was never at college," replied Ned Franks; "I was brought up at a
village school, but left it early to go to sea."
"But of course you have read and studied a good deal since, or you
would hardly have been placed by the late Sir Lacy Barton in the
position which you now hold."
Ned Franks flushed. He felt as if he were being put upon his trial, and
before judges determined beforehand to condemn him. "I have not great
book-learning," he replied; "but Mr. Curtis recommended me to Sir Lacy
as one who could fulfil the duties of school-master here."
"But the present Sir Lacy takes such a fatherly interest in the school
which his ancestors founded," said the lawyer, winking again at the
baronet, "that he wishes to judge for himself as to the competency of
one entrusted with such a responsible charge as yours. He has desired
me to ask you a few educational questions, to which, I have not the
slightest doubt, you will give a prompt and able reply."
"I do not think this the time or place for such an examination," said
the school-master, whose countenance was glowing with indignation at
the insidious proposal. "I will wait upon Sir Lacy at the Hall at any
hour that he may choose to appoint."
"No time or place like the present!" cried the baronet, who had a keen
relish in the "baiting and badgering" of the school-master in the
presence of his pupils. "As I'm the patron of this school, I've a good
right, I take it, to see that the teacher isn't a blockhead or a dunce."
And then, at a sign from him, the flippant lawyer began to aim a
shower of questions, like a flight of arrows, against the unfortunate
school-master,--questions ingeniously contrived to perplex and puzzle
even one who had received a better education than had fallen to the lot
of Ned Franks. At every query to which no reply was or could be given
by him who had passed his youth at sea, the baronet burst out into an
insulting laugh, which was echoed by the medical student; as if the
ignorance of Franks regarding Neri and Bianchi, Palleschi and Piagnone,
the respective styles of French, German, and Dutch infidel writers, and
the names of female favorites of Bourbon kings, was as absurd as if
he had been unable to repeat the multiplication-table. Certainly, Sir
Lacy could not have himself answered one of the questions. But what of
that? One needs no deep study to learn how to laugh; and it was rare
fun to him to humble and degrade the teacher before all his pupils.
Franks was more annoyed by the titter from some of his scholars, which
now followed the gentlemen's uproarious mirth, than he was by the more
direct insults of the strangers. That his "jovial crew," that a single
boy amongst them, should be mean enough to join in the laugh against
him, was almost more than his spirit could endure.
_I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress_, had been the text
which Franks had chosen on that morning for his meditation during the
day. Sorely he needed it now. As he stood silent before his persecutor,
with flushed cheek and flashing eye, again and again he repeated that
text to himself, to keep in the burning words that were rising to
his tongue. He had spoken out boldly when the insult was against his
Master; there was the more need that he should show self-command when
the attack was personal to himself.
"You don't mean us to conclude," said Badham at last, "that you have
never so much as heard of all these well-known matters before?"
"Sir," replied Franks, as calmly as he could, though his tone betrayed
some emotion, "my work is to train village lads for usefulness here and
happiness hereafter; and I do not suppose that farm-lads will be the
less suited for either the one or the other because they can't give the
names of Italian factions or of the favorites of French kings."
Badham shrugged his shoulders, the baronet and the medical student
shrugged theirs, to express their utter contempt for such a very
ridiculous observation. The baronet was the first to break the silence
which followed, which he did by addressing himself to Badham.
"What say you to our master here,--you who have all kinds of learning
at the ends of your fingers,--is he fit to be a teacher of boys?"
"About as fit as to be a performer on a lady's grand piano," said the
lawyer.
"While he remains here, the motto of the school had better be, 'Where
ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise,'" observed the medical
student.
"It was a shame for Mr. Curtis to recommend such a fellow to my
father," said Sir Lacy. "You see how unfit he is for the place."
"Utterly unfit!" cried the lawyer.
"Disgracefully incompetent!" chimed in the student.
"I suppose," said Sir Lacy, in his insolent manner, "that
school-masters, like footmen, expect their masters to give a month's
warning. What day is this?--the sixth of July. Well, on the sixth of
August you will bundle yourself off, my fine fellow, and I'll take
precious good care not to consult the old parson as to whom your
successor should be. He might, in his wisdom, recommend some saint from
the Idiot Asylum!" and with another laugh at this brilliant joke, which
was echoed by his two companions, but by none of the boys, who stood
aghast at the sudden dismissal of their master, Sir Lacy sauntered out
of the school-room, accompanied by the lawyer and medical student.
There were a few moments of silence after they had left, during which
the ticking of the large school-clock sounded almost painfully loud.
It was broken by Ned Franks himself, who, turning towards his class,
resumed the interrupted thread of the morning studies by asking Sims
for the third time the question, "What was the text of yesterday's
sermon?"
XXXV.
Village Talk.
Very uneasy had Persis felt while Sir Lacy was in the school-room;
very anxiously she watched the porch, in hopes of seeing him and his
visitors quit it. She could hear from beneath the sound of laughter;
but it was laughter which raised in her soul a very opposite feeling
to that of mirth. She listened intently; but her baby was fretful from
cutting teeth, and his crying soon drowned every other noise. Persis
fondled him in her arms, and hushed him on her bosom, and just as she
had succeeded in quieting the child, saw, to her relief, the three
strangers issue from under the porch. She did not, however, like their
looks, still less the laughter which followed words of which she could
not catch the exact meaning, but which she was certain had none which
was good. Persis watched the three men till they disappeared down a
turn in the road, and then heaved a long, anxious sigh. Lessons were
evidently going on as usual below,--Persis knew _that_ from the hum of
voices from the school-room. She had to wait in restless expectation
till the school broke up for an hour's recess, and she saw the stream
of boys come issuing forth from the porch.
Their grave yet excited looks frightened the wife yet more. That
something remarkable had happened was written on every young face, as
the boys thronged together in knots of three or four, all seeming far
more eager to speak than to listen. But Persis was not much longer to
be kept in suspense; she knew the step of her husband; she saw him
enter, looking paler than she had ever seen him before. Franks seated
himself beside his wife, put his arm round her, and drew her tenderly
towards him, unwilling to inflict pain, scarcely knowing how to break
the news that he was a ruined man. Persis had guessed the truth before
Franks said, in a tone which he vainly tried to make cheerful, "Well,
sweetheart, you and I will have to set out on our travels together."
But when Ned gave his wife a more detailed account of what had
occurred; when he told of the absurd questions, the mocking laughter,
the insolent taunts which had made his blood boil, even natural
anxiety concerning his future prospects was swallowed up for the time
in passionate indignation. "I longed to strike him," exclaimed the
late sailor, "and I had to chain even my tongue! Wife--wife--it is
no easy matter to endure, or to forgive insults and injuries such as
that man has heaped upon me! To hold me up to the contempt of my own
boys,--that was the most intolerable wrong of all! I actually heard Sam
Barker and Peter Core tittering behind me, the little sneaking--But
your fire-ships are bearing down upon me full sail; I must not trust
myself to speak on these matters,--I must try not to let my mind brood
over them,--would that I could drive the whole scene out of my memory
forever!"
Persis did not, as most wives would have done, stir up her husband's
wrath to a blaze, and heap on it the fuel of her own grief, fears, and
regrets. She tried in her gentle, loving way to make him look beyond
second causes, to see that the trial--bitter as it was--was sent in
wisdom and love, and that man could inflict no real injury except by
drawing into sin. Persis did not say much, but she looked bright and
hopeful, to keep up the spirits of her husband. If they were to leave
their happy home at Colme, their pleasant occupation in the village,
it might be because God had provided for them something better still,
some wider field of usefulness in which they might humbly serve him.
They were spared to one another, and their darling was left to them
still. "Whilst I have you and our boy," cried Persis, as she rested her
head on her husband's shoulder, "I feel that I could be contented in a
hovel, or in a prison."
The news that Ned Franks, the one-armed school-master, had been
dismissed by Sir Lacy, spread like wildfire through Colme. The tidings
were received with almost universal regret and indignation, for both
Ned and Persis were great favorites in the village. Mrs. Fuddles of the
"Chequers," indeed, observed, as she wiped the dust from a bottle of
whiskey, "I guess that Sir Lacy knows what he's about. It aint likely
that a sailor that's been spending his life in mopping up decks should
know much about hedication." But the publican's wife was almost the
only person who did not regret the disgrace of the Frankses. Bat Bell,
the miller, declared that to send off an honest fellow like Franks
from the school was like damming up a mill-stream; and that everything
would come to a dead lock,--while his little girl cried as if her
heart would break, and wished that that wicked Sir Lacy never had come
to make every one unhappy. Ben Stone the carpenter, on his bed of
sickness, heard the news with less than his usual placid calmness.
"Sir Lacy," he observed to his wife, "is like the idiot who sawed at
the branch on which he was seated. If he goes on with this kind of work
he'll come down with a crash one of these days, though I shan't live to
see it," added the invalid, whose increasing weakness warned him that
his hours were numbered.
I will not say that the Clerk of Colme looked grave and solemn when he
carried the tidings to his wife, for he never looked otherwise, except
on the very rarest occasions; but his solemnity and melancholy were
of a shade so much more intensely black than usual, that his Nancy
exclaimed, as soon as she saw him, "Why, John Sands, has any one been
murdered to-day?"
But when she heard that Ned Franks had been dismissed,--dismissed in
disgrace as incompetent and ignorant,--the wrath of the clerk's wife
blazed up with a sudden fierceness that showed that the old shrewish
spirit was not quite dead in her yet. As her torrent of indignation
poured forth like lava-streams from a volcano, John Sands scarcely knew
whether he was glad or sorry to be so forcibly reminded of the Nancy
of former days. Nancy was certain that the school would go to rack and
ruin; they would never, never again see the like of Ned Franks and his
wife!
But perhaps in no place did the news cause deeper regret than in
the vicarage. Norah was almost overwhelmed by the sudden blow, and
her letter to Sophy Claymore, informing her of what had happened,
was wet with the young girl's tears. Mr. Curtis lay awake half the
night, meditating over a second letter to Sir Lacy (which was--when
written and sent--to meet with just the same fate as the first), and
the invalid had, in consequence, a relapse of fever in the morning.
Claudius Leyton, the young curate, broke through his resolution,--never
again to enter the Hall, and, like a man on a forlorn hope, set out to
endeavor to move and persuade his cousin to recall his hasty words. The
nervous shyness of the curate was not lessened by his being handed into
a room full of rollicking revellers; a room which in ancient days had
been used as a chapel, but which was reeking, even at that early hour,
with the fumes of tobacco and the odor of spirits. It need scarcely
be added that the visit of the young clergyman was as unsuccessful as
regarded its object, as it was to himself painful and disgusting. The
baronet, laughing, said to his cousin, "My dear fellow, you have come
a day too late for the fair. I have already written up to my friend,
Dick Sharpey,--you know Dick,--all the world knows him as the luckiest
card-player in London. I've bid him look out for a cute fellow who can
teach the clods in the day, and be my billiard-marker at night. That's
what I call killing two birds with one stone, ha! ha! ha!"
It was with a heavy heart that the curate again turned his back on
the Hall, not surprised, though grieved, at the utter failure of his
mission.
Mrs. Curtis, a very practical as well as kind woman, directed her
efforts to writing to friends in various quarters to try by their
means to procure some other situation for Franks before he should quit
the one which at present he held. As Ned would have nothing to fall
back upon except his very trifling pension as a disabled sailor, Mrs.
Curtis knew that, unless he could procure some work, he and his family
would be reduced to absolute want. She also quietly set on foot a
subscription to raise a little fund to supply his immediate need and
the expenses of removal to some new home, perhaps at a distance. "It is
only right," said the vicar's wife, and her husband warmly seconded her
proposal, "that a testimonial should be given, on his departure from
Colme, to a school-master who has for years so faithfully performed
his duties, and who has won the good will and respect of all whose
approbation is worth having." Ned Franks and his wife knew nothing
of this secret subscription. The most active agent in collecting it
was Nancy Sands, who went from cottage to cottage gathering the pence
given with willing hearts by the children, and the little offerings
freely bestowed even by the old tenants of the almshouses in Wild Rose
Hollow. Had the power of the villagers to give been equal to their
will, Ned would have been the wealthiest man in Colme; but it needs a
great weight in copper to make up a single sovereign's worth, and even
the vicar, whose charity never left him a full purse, was unable to
contribute largely, though he gave with all his heart.
XXXVI.
A Struggle.
Two, three, almost four weeks passed, every week bringing fresh
disappointments to Franks and his wife. The vicar sent over to them
every morning the advertisement sheet of the _Times_; and anxiously
were the columns of the paper searched and searched over again each
day, and many were the letters written by Ned, or by Persis to
his dictation, to take advantage of what they fondly hoped might
be openings to some new sphere of work. But few of these letters
brought any reply, and there was not one of an encouraging nature.
Ned always frankly stated the facts that he had passed no regular
examination, and that he had lost his left arm; and one or other of
these disqualifications seemed ever to bar his way to obtaining any
employment.
Isaacs had exerted himself greatly in his friend's behalf in London,
but hitherto without any success. He thought that the chance of Ned's
making his way would be greater were he himself on the spot, and sent a
pressing invitation in the name of Sophy to the family of the Frankses.
It was arranged that Ned, Persis, and their baby should travel up to
London on the succeeding Thursday, the day on which their dear home
must be given up to a stranger.
The new school-master had already arrived at the Hall, and was
constantly showing himself in the village. He even made his appearance
at church, where, on the first Sunday in August, the vicar had come to
return thanks for recovery after his long and dangerous illness. The
irreverent manner of the school-master-elect, who looked like--what he
was--a low sharper, likely to teach the boys little but how to play,
or to cheat at cards, made a very painful impression, not only on the
vicar and curate, but upon all who cared for religion or morality in
the parish.