“GRANT to us, Thy humble servants, that by Thy holy inspiration we may
think those things that be good, and by Thy merciful guiding may perform
the same,” spelt out David with some trouble and difficulty, as he stood
by Miss Fosbrook on Sunday morning.
“Miss Fosbrook?”
“Well, my dear.”
“Miss Fosbrook?”
Another “Well.”
“Is wanting to buy a pig one of the ‘things that be good’?’
“Anything kind and right is good, my dear,” said Miss Fosbrook, a little
vexed at a sort of snorting she heard from the other end of the room.
“Davy thinks the pig is in his Collect,” said Sam.
He was one of those who were especially proud of being downright, and in
him it often amounted to utter regardlessness of people’s feelings, yet
not out of ill-nature; and when Susan responded, “Don’t teaze Davy—he
can’t bear it,” he was silent; but the mischief was done; and when Miss
Fosbrook went on saying that the wish to help the poor woman was
assuredly a good thought, which the little boy might well ask to be aided
in fulfilling, David had grown ashamed, and would not listen. But the
mention of the pig had set off Master Henry, who was sitting up in the
window-seat with Annie, also learning the Collect, and he burst out into
descriptions of the weight of money that would be found in Toby, and how
he meant to go to the fair with Purday, and help him to choose the pig,
and drive it home.
“More likely to hinder,” muttered Sam.
“Besides, Papa wouldn’t let you,” added Bessie; but Hal did not choose to
hear, and went on as to how the pig should ran away with Purday, and jump
into a stall full of parliament gingerbread (whereat Annie fell into
convulsions of laughing), and Hal should be the first to stop it, and
jump on its back, and ride out of the fair holding it by the ears; and
then they should pop it into the sty unknown to Hannah Higgins, and all
lie in wait to hear what would happen; and when it squealed, she would
think it the baby crying; but there Susan burst out at the notion of any
one thinking a child could scream like a pig, taking it as an affront to
all babyhood; and Miss Fosbrook took the opportunity of saying,
“Hadn’t you better hatch your chickens before you count them, Henry? If
you prevent everyone from learning the Collect, I fear there will be the
less hope of Mr. Piggy.”
“Oh! we don’t have fines on Sundays,” said Henry.
“Mamma says that on Sundays naughtiness is not such a trifle that we can
be fined for it,” said Susan.
“It is not naughtiness we are ever fined for,” added Elizabeth: “_that_
we are punished and talked to for: but the fines are only for bad
habits.”
“Oh! I hope I sha’n’t have any this week,” sighed Susan.
“You may hope,” said Sam. “You’re sure of them for everything possible
except crying.”
“Yes, Bessie gets all the crying fines,” said Hal; “and I hope she’ll
have lots, because she won’t help the pig.”
Bessie started up from her place and rushed out of the room; while Miss
Fosbrook indignantly exclaimed,
“Really, boys, I can’t think how you can be so ill-natured!”
They looked up as though it were quite a new light to them; and Susan
exclaimed,
“Oh, Miss Fosbrook! they don’t mean it: Sam and Hal never were
ill-natured in their lives.”
“I don’t know what you call ill-natured,” said Miss Fosbrook, “unless it
is saying the very things most likely to vex another.”
“I don’t mean to vex anybody,” said Henry, “only we always go on so, and
nobody is such a baby as to mind, except Bessie.”
And Sam muttered, “One can’t be always picking one’s words.”
“I am not going to argue about it,” said Miss Fosbrook; “and it is time
to get ready for church. Only I thought manliness was shown in kindness
to the weak, and avoiding what can pain them.”
She went away; and Susan was the first to exclaim,
“I didn’t think she’d have been so cross!”
“Stuff, Sue!” said Sam; “it’s not being cross. I like her for having a
spirit; but one can’t be finikin and mealy-mouthed to suit her London
manners. I like the truth.”
It would have been well if any one had been by to tell Mr. Samuel that
truth of character does not consist in disagreeable and uncalled-for
personalities.
Miss Fosbrook did not wonder at little Elizabeth for her discomfort under
the rude homeliness of Stokesley, where the children made a bad copy of
their father’s sailor bluntness, and the difficulties of money matters
kept down all indulgences. She knew that Captain Merrifield was as poor
a man for an esquire as her father was for a surgeon, and that if he were
to give his sons an education fit for their station, he must make his
household live plainly in every way; but without thinking them right
feelings, she had some pity for little Bessie’s weariness and discontent
in never seeing anything pretty. The three girls came in dressed for
church, in the plainest brown hats, black capes, and drab alpaca frocks,
rather long and not very full; not a coloured bow nor handkerchief, not a
flounce nor fringe, to relieve them; even their books plain brown.
Bessie looked wistfully at Miss Fosbrook’s pretty Church-service, and
said she and Susan both had beautiful Prayer-Books, but Mamma said they
could not be trusted with them yet—Ida Greville had such a beauty.
Was it the effect of Miss Fosbrook’s words, that Sam forbore to teaze
Bessie about Ida Greville?—whose name was a very dangerous subject in the
schoolroom. Also, he let Bessie take hold of Miss Fosbrook’s hand in
peace, though in general the least token of affection was scouted by the
whole party.
It was a pretty walk to church, over a paddock, where the cows were
turned out, and then along a green lane; and the boys had been trained
enough in Sunday habits to make them steady and quiet on the way,
especially as Henry was romancing about the pig.
By and by Elizabeth gave Miss Fosbrook’s hand a sudden pull; and she
perceived, in the village street into which they were emerging, a party
on the way to church. There were two ladies, one in stately handsome
slight mourning, the other more quietly dressed, and two or three boys;
but what Elizabeth wanted her to look at was a little girl of nine years
old, who was walking beside the lady. Her hat was black chip, edged and
tied with rose-coloured ribbon, and adorned with a real bird, with glass
eyes, black plumage, except the red crest and wings. She wore a
neatly-fitting little fringed black polka, beneath which spread out in
fan-like folds her flounced pink muslin, coming a little below her knees,
and showing her worked drawers, which soon gave place to her neat
stockings and dainty little boots. She held a small white parasol,
bordered with pink, and deeply fringed, over her head, and held a
gold-clasped Prayer-Book in her hand; and Miss Fosbrook heard a little
sigh, which told her that this was the being whom Elizabeth Merrifield
thought the happiest in the world. She hoped it was not all for the fine
clothes; and Sam muttered,
“What a little figure of fun!”
Martin and Osmond Greville went daily to Mr. Carey’s, like Sam and Hal,
so the boys ran on to them; and Mrs. Greville, turning round, showed a
very pleasant face as she bowed to Miss Fosbrook, and shaking hands with
Susan and Elizabeth, asked with much solicitude after their mamma, and
how lately they had heard of her.
Susan was too simple and straightforward to be shy, and answered readily,
that they had had letters, and Mamma had been sadly tired by the journey,
but was better the next day. The little girls shook hands; and Mrs.
Greville made a kind of introduction by nodding towards her companion,
and murmuring something about “Fräulein Munsterthal;” and Miss Fosbrook
found herself walking beside a lady with the least of all bonnets, a
profusion of fair hair, and a good-humoured, one-coloured face, no doubt
Miss Ida’s German governess. She said something about the fine day, and
received an answer, but what it was she could not guess, whether German,
French, or English, and her own knowledge of the two first languages was
better for reading than for speaking; so after an awkward attempt or two,
she held her peace and looked at her companions.
Susan and Mrs. Greville seemed to be getting on very well together; but
Elizabeth’s admiration of Ida seemed to be speechless, for they were
walking side by side without a word, perhaps too close to their elders to
talk.
Annie and David were going on steadily hand in hand a little way off; and
Miss Fosbrook chiefly heard the talk of the boys, who had fallen behind;
perhaps her ears were quickened by its personality, for though Sam was
saying, “I’ll tell you what, she’s a famous fellow!” the rejoinder was,
“What! do you mean to say that you mind her?”
“Doesn’t he?” said Hal’s voice; “why, she sent him away from tea last
night, just for shying crusts.”
“And did he go?” and there was a disagreeable sounding laugh, in which
she was sorry that Hal joined.
“Catch the Fräulein serving me so!”
“She never tries!”
“She knows better!”
“I say, Sam, I thought you had more spirit. You’ll be sitting up
pricking holes in a frill by the time the Captain comes back.”
“And Hal will be mincing along with his toes turned out like a
dancing-master!” continued an affected voice.
“No such thing!” cried Hal angrily: “I’m not a fellow to be ordered
about!”
The Grevilles laughed; and one of them said, “Well, then, why don’t you
show it? I’d soon send her to the right-about if she tried to interfere
with me!”
Miss Fosbrook could bear it no longer; and facing suddenly round, looked
the speaker full in the face, and said, “I am very much obliged to
you—but you should not speak quite so loud.”
The boys shrank back out of countenance; and Sam, who alone had not
spoken, looked up into her face with a merry air, as if he were gratified
by her spirited way of discomfiting them.
Osmond tried to recover, and muttered, “What a sell!” rather impudently;
but they were now near the churchyard, and Mrs. Greville turning round,
all was hushed.
Christabel felt much vexed that all this should have happened just before
going into church; she felt a good deal ruffled herself, and feared that
Bessie’s head was filled with nonsense, if Hal’s were not with something
worse.
The church looked pretty outside, with the old weather-boarded wooden
belfry rising above the tiled roof and western gable; and it was neatly
kept but not pretty within, the walls all done over with pale buff wash,
and the wood-work very clumsy. Sam and Susan behaved well and
attentively; but Bessie fidgeted into her mamma’s place, and would stand
upon a hassock. Miss Fosbrook was much afraid it was to keep in sight of
the beautiful bird. Hal yawned; and Johnnie not only fidgeted unbearably
himself, but made his sister Annie do the same, till Miss Fosbrook
scarcely felt as if she was at church, and made up her mind to tell
Johnnie that she should leave him at home with the babies unless he
changed his ways. Little David went on most steadily with his
Prayer-Book, and scarcely looked off it till the sermon, when he fell
asleep.
Miss Fosbrook had one pleasure as she was going home. The children had
all gone on some steps before her, chattering eagerly among themselves,
when Sam turned back and said abruptly, “Miss Fosbrook, you didn’t mind
_that_, I hope?”
“What those boys were saying? It depends on you whether you make me mind
it.”
“I don’t mean to make any rows if I can help it,” said Sam.
“I am sure I hope you will be able to help it! I don’t know what I
should do if you did!”
Sam gave an odd smile with his honest face. “Well, you’ve got a good
spirit of your own. It would take something to cow you.”
“Pray don’t try!”
Sam laughed, and said, “I did promise Papa to be conformable.”
“And I was very much obliged to you yesterday evening. The behaviour of
the other boys depends so much on you.”
“Yes, I know,” said Sam; “and I don’t mind it so much now I see you can
stand up for yourself.”
“Besides, what would it be if I had to write to your father that I could
not manage such a bear-garden?”
“I’ll take care that sha’n’t happen,” exclaimed Sam. “It would hinder
all the good to Mamma! I’ll tell you what,” he added, after a
confidential pause, “if we get beyond you, there’s Mr. Carey.”
“I thought you did not mean to get beyond me.”
Sam looked a little disconcerted, and it struck her that, though he would
not say so, he was doubtful whether the Greville influence might not
render Henry unmanageable; but he quickly gave it another turn. “Only
you must not plague us about London manners.”
“I don’t know what you mean by London manners. Do you mean not bawling
at tea? for I mean to insist upon that, I assure you, and I want you to
help me.”
“Oh! not being finikin, and mincing, and nonsensical!”
“I hope I’m not so!” said Miss Fosbrook, laughing heartily; “but I’ll
tell you one thing, Sam, that I do wish you would leave off—and that is
teazing. I don’t know whether that is country manners, but I don’t like
to see a sensible kind fellow like you just go out of your way to say
something mortifying to a younger one.”
“You don’t know,” said Sam. “It is fun. They like it.”
“If they really like it, there is no objection. I know I should like
very much to have my brother here quizzing me; but you know very well
there are two sorts of such fun, and one that is only sport to the
stronger side.”
“Bessie is so ridiculous.”
“She is the very one I want to protect. I don’t think that teazing her
does any good; it only gives her cross feelings. And she really has more
right on her side than you think. You might be just as honest and bold
if you were less rude and bearish.”
“I can’t bear to see her so affected and perked up.”
“It is not affectation. She is really more gentle and quiet than you
are; you don’t think it so in your Mamma, and she is like her.”
“Mamma is not like Bessie.”
“And then about Davy. How could you go and stop the poor little boy when
he was trying to think and feel rightly?”
“He was so funny,” repeated Sam.
“I hope you will think another time whether your fun is safe and kind.”
“One can’t be so particular,” he said impatiently.
“I am sorry to hear it. I thought the only way to do right was to be
particular.”
He grunted, and flung away from her. She was vexed to have sent him off
in such a mood; but, unmannerly as he was, she saw so much good in him,
that she could not but hope he would be her friend and ally.
Dinner went off very peaceably, and then Susan fetched her two darlings
from the nursery, George and Sarah, of three years and eighteen months
old. Her great perfection was as a motherly elder sister; and even Sam
was gentle to these little things, and played with them very nicely.
Miss Fosbrook reminded Hal of his Collect; but he observed that there was
plenty of time, and continued to stand by the window, pursuing the flies
with his finger, not killing them, but tormenting them and David very
seriously, by making them think he would—not a very pretty business for
the day when all things should be happy, more like that which is always
found “for idle hands to do.”
Evening service-time put an end to this sport; but Miss Fosbrook could
not set off till after a severe conflict with Johnnie. She had decreed
that he should not go again that day, after his behaviour in the morning;
and perhaps he would not have minded this punishment much if David had
not been going, which made him think it a disgrace. So, in the most
independent manner be put on his hat, and was marching off, when Miss
Fosbrook stood in front of him, and ordered him back.
He repeated, “I’m going to church.” It was plain enough that he had
heard what those boys had said about not submitting.
“Church is not the place to go to in a fit of wilfulness, Johnnie,” she
said; and his sisters broke out, “O Johnnie!” but the naughty boy,
fancying, perhaps, that want of time would lead to his getting his own
way, marched on, sticking up his toes very high in the air.
Hal laughed.
“Johnnie, Johnnie dear,” entreated Susan, “what would Mamma say?”
John would not hear, and walked on.
“John,” said Miss Fosbrook, “if you do not come back directly, I must
carry you.”
She had measured her strength with his: he was only eight years old, and
she believed that she could carry him; but he heard the church-bells
ringing, and thought he should have his way.
She laid hold of him, and he began fighting and kicking, in stout shoes,
whose thumps were no joke. She held fast, but she felt frightened, and
doubtful of the issue of the struggle; and again there was Hal laughing.
“For-shame, Henry!” burst out Sam; and the same moment those two feet
were secured, and John was a prisoner. Miss Fosbrook called out to the
rest to go on to church, and she and Sam dragged the boy up to the
nursery, and shut him in there, roaring passionately.
Nurse Freeman, knowing nothing about it, could not believe but that the
stranger lady had made her child naughty, and said something about their
Mamma letting him go to church; and “when the child wished to go to
church, it seemed strange he should not.”
Miss Fosbrook would not defend herself, for she was in great haste; but
Sam exclaimed, “Stuff! he was as naughty as could be all this morning,
and only wanted to go now because he was told not.”
Johnnie bellowed out something else, but Miss Fosbrook would not let Sam
go on; she touched his arm, and drew him off with her, he exclaiming,
“Foolish old Freeman! she will pet and spoil him all church-time, till he
is worse than ever.”
It was lucky for her that she was too much hurried to dwell on this
vexation; she almost ran to save herself from being late, and scarcely
heard Sam’s mutterings about wishing to break Martin Greville’s head.
“You need not hurry so much,” he said; “there’s a shorter cut, only I
suppose you can’t get through a gap.”
“Can’t I?” she laughed; and he led her on straight through the
Short-horns. Some of them looked at her more than she fancied, but she
knew she might give up all hopes of Sam if he detected her fears. Then
came the gap, where a tree had been cut down in the hedge, and such a
jump down from it! But she gathered up her muslin, and made her leap so
gallantly, that the boy cried,
“Hurrah! well done!” and came and walked close to her, saying
confidentially, “I say, do you think we shall ever do the pig?”
“I am sure it might be done. If you are likely to do it you must know
better than I.”
“I don’t know that I much care about it. It will be rather a bother;
only now we have said it, I shall hate it if we don’t do it.”
“I think the pleasure of giving it will be a delightful reward for a
little self-command.”
“Only Hal and the girls will make such a work about it. I’m glad, after
all, that Bessie has nothing to do with it, or she would want to dress it
up in flowers and ribbons. Ha-ha! But what a little crab it is!”
“Don’t be too sure of that. People may have other designs.”
“Bessie’s can’t be anything but trumpery.”
“Sometimes present trumpery is a step to something better. ‘A was an
Archer’ is not very wise, but it is the road to reading—and even if it
were not so, Sam, it is not right to shame people into giving; for what
is not bestowed for the true reasons, does no good to giver nor to
receiver.”
Sam looked up with a frown of attention, as if he were trying to take in
the new light; but he did take it in, and smacking his hands together
with a noise like a pistol-shot, said, “Ay, that’s it! We don’t want
what is grudged.”
Miss Fosbrook thought of words that would another time be more familiar
to Sam. “Not grudgingly, nor of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful
giver.”
What she said was, “You see, if you plague Bessie too much, to make her
like ourselves, when she is really so different, you are driving her to
the shamming you despise so much.”
“But ought not she to be cured of being silly?”
“When we have quite made up our minds upon what silliness is. There, the
bell has stopped.”