"Mother always makes father's of calico."
"Very good, my girl; then tell me how many yards it would take."
"Night shirt or day shirt?" cried Feelier sharply.
"Day shirt," replied the inspector severely; and George Canninge became
red in the face as the disposition to laugh grew stronger.
"Wouldn't take half so much to make one for my brother Tom as it would
for--"
"Silence!" exclaimed the inspector, and Feelier Potts pretended to look
very much alarmed, drawing her eyes together towards her nose and nearly
making Ann Straggalls titter as the inspector stooped for a fresh entry.
Hazel's attention was here taken up by another class, for, being left
unattended, the girls began to grow restive.
"Now," said the inspector, "I will ask you another question, my good
girls. Can any one tell me what proportion the gusset bears to the
whole shirt? The girl who knows put out her hand."
Miss Rebecca had been hoping that Mr Slingsby Barracombe would enter
upon some other branch of education; but he clung to the needlework, and
smiled approvingly as half-a-dozen, and then two more hands were thrust
out.
"Well," he said, "suppose you tell me."
"Three yards," said the first girl.
"You do not apprehend my question, my good child," said the inspector
blandly. "I asked what proportion the gusset bore to the whole of the
shirt."
"Please, sir, I know, sir," said Feelier Potts, who was standing with
her hand pointing straight at the visitor.
"Then tell us," said the inspector, smiling.
"Four yards!" cried Feelier triumphantly.
"I said what proportion, my good girl; do you not know what I mean by
proportion?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, what!"
"Rule o' three sums, same as boys learn."
"Tut-tut-tut! this is very sad," said the inspector, shaking his head, a
motion that seemed to be infectious, for it was taken up by Miss
Rebecca, communicated to Miss Beatrice, and then caught up by little
Miss Burge, whose head-shaking was, however, meant to be in sympathy
with Hazel.
"I wish he'd let me ask the girls some queshtuns, Betsey," whispered Mr
William Forth Burge, as he saw the inspector's pencil going; "I could
make them answer better than that."
But the visitor had no intention of choosing a deputy, and he went on
asking several more questions of a similar class, relating to cutting
out and making up, not one of which produced a satisfactory answer; and
the vicar looked very grave as he saw entries that he knew to be
unfavourable made with the gold pencil-case.
Then the girls had to read, and got on better; but as soon as the
inspector began to ask scriptural questions the class appeared to have
run wild, and the answers were of the most astonishing nature. Simple
matters of knowledge that they knew perfectly the day before, seemed to
have passed entirely out of the girls' minds, and they guessed and
answered at random. Sometimes a correct reply was given, but whenever
it came to the turn of Feelier Potts, if she did happen to know, she
managed to pervert the answer.
She told the inspector in the most unblushing manner that during the
plagues of Egypt the children of Israel suffered from fleas, and had
rice in all their four quarters. Corrected upon this, she asserted that
these same people crossed the Red Sea on a dry day. The class was asked
why Moses struck the rock, and Feelier whispered an answer to Ann
Straggalls, who eagerly replied--"Because it was naughty." Due to the
same mischief-loving brain, another girl asserted that the ark of the
covenant contained Shem, Ham, and Japhet; that it was a pillar of salt
that went before the wanderers in the desert; and that it was the manna
that was swallowed up during the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
Taken altogether, the children did not shine in Scripture history.
Slates were passed round with a good deal of clatter, and then a
question was propounded.
"How many pounds of butter at one-and-fourpence per pound can I buy for
eight shillings?"
Ann Straggalls, after a great deal of staring at the ceiling and biting
at her pencil, proved it to be forty. Feelier Potts rapidly dashed the
pencil to her slate, screwed up her forehead, and made some figures,
finishing off by carefully watching that no other girl should see, and
smiling triumphantly at those who had not finished; but when it came to
show slates, Feelier displayed a large pound with the figure 2 following
certain other figures, which did not show how she had arrived at this
result.
"This is very sad," said the inspector. "My good children, you cannot
properly apprehend my questions. Do you know what I mean by
`apprehend'?"
Out flew Feelier Potts's hand like a semaphore, and she pointed straight
at the top button of the inspector's waistcoat.
"I--ah, don't think, my good child, that you know," said the inspector.
"You answer at random."
"No, sir, plee, sir; I know, sir."
"Know what? What did I ask?"
"Plee, sir, what `apprehend' means. I know, sir."
"Good girl; quite right," said the inspector, smiling, "Tell us, then,
what `apprehend' means."
"Policeman taking up tipsy man," cried Feelier excitedly.
George Canninge could not resist this, but burst out into a hearty roar
of laughter, and then turned his back, for Feelier Potts was at once
struck with the idea that she had said something good, and joined in the
mirth, till she caught the inspector's eye glaring at her balefully,
when the laughter froze stiff and she began to squint so horribly that
Mr Slingsby Barracombe turned away in disgust to say to the vicar--
"Most extraordinary child this!"
George Canninge's laughter came to an end also very suddenly, for, as he
stood wiping his eyes, he found that Hazel Thorne was looking in his
direction with so much pain and annoyance expressed in her countenance
that he bit his lips, and his eyes said plainly, if she could have read
the glance, "Pray forgive me; it was very foolish."
Just then the inspector took out another sheet of paper, and moved on to
a different class, that which Hazel had been keeping in order, and here,
in due rotation, he tried the children in the various subjects they had
been learning with a most melancholy effect. The timid children he
seemed to freeze; others he puzzled by his peculiar way of asking
questions; while, again, others he made stare at him in a way that
plainly indicated that they did not understand a word he said.
Mr Barracombe, however, paid little heed to this, but went on putting
queries, and making notes most industriously, while the sisters stood
tightening their lips, till George Canninge came and joined them, when
Beatrice, who had been growing more and more acid every minute, began to
beam once more, and made remarks to him about the school.
"I am so sorry that the children are answering in this absurd way. I
take great interest in the schools, and come down and teach, so that it
seems like a reflection upon me."
"They don't understand him," said George Canninge impatiently.
"I'm afraid they do," replied Beatrice quickly, for she could not resist
the temptation to say something unpleasant, "but they are so backward."
She meant to have said "badly taught," but hesitated at the last moment.
"Well, what can you expect?" said Canninge. "The inspector asks too
much of children of their class. Why, they could not answer his
questions in a first-class school."
"But this is a first-class school, Mr Canninge," cried Rebecca sharply.
"Hush, dear; Mr Barracombe is asking the second class some geography
questions;" and as they listened they caught the end of an inquiry about
the Ouse--its source, tributaries course, and the chief towns upon its
banks.
"Well, hang me if I could tell him," said Canninge; "and I shall be
surprised if the children do."
He was not surprised, for no satisfactory answer came. The children
told the inspector the capital of England readily enough, and the names
of the principal rivers; but his way was so strange to them that for the
most part the little things did not comprehend his questions, and
Hazel's heart sank as she sighed for the apparent density that had
fallen upon the different classes.
Everything went badly: the writing from dictation was terrible, and the
sentences made of the words read out by the inspector were horribly void
of meaning. The Reverend Henry Lambent's face grew more troubled, the
ladies whispered together, and the buzz of the school seemed to Hazel to
make her dizzy, as she strove hard, with her nerves strained by
excitement, to keep the different classes in order, while every time she
thought of the ordeal that had to come, she turned sick with misery, and
longed for the end of the day.
"I should like to punch his 'ead, Betsey," whispered Mr William Forth
Burge at last. "What's the good of asking them children a queshtun like
that! They can't make out a word he says."
"Hush! Don't interfere, Bill. It might make Miss Thorne more nervous.
Pore dear, she do look bad."
"I don't know as I shan't interfere," whispered back the great man of
Plumton. "I consider that I've got a bit of a voice in this school, and
I don't see no fun in this chap going away saying that everything's
wrong when I know it ain't. How can he tell, just coming strange among
the bairns, and asking a few queshtuns anyhow like! If they don't
answer 'em he sets it down they can't, when I know all the time they
can."
"But you'll make it worse for Miss Thorne," whispered little Miss Burge;
"and she's worried to death as it is."
"Well, I don't want to do that," he said sulkily; and he held his tongue
whilst class after class was examined, even those children who were
tried in catechism mixing the answers up in the most absurd way, or
staring helplessly in the speaker's face.
"I don't care," whispered Mr William Forth Burge at last; "he don't
know how to ask queshtuns, and for two pins I'd tell him so; now then."
"Oh don't, Bill dear; it would not be gentlemanly. Pray do be quiet."
"Look here, then; if Lambent asks me up to dinner to meet that chap, I
shan't go."
"Hush, Bill! She's going to give the girls, a hobject lesson."
For the crucial time had come, and about forty of the elder girls had
been faced and marched into the gallery to sit opposite their teacher,
while the visitors rearranged themselves--the Misses Lambent with an air
of long-suffering, the vicar with an air of intense trouble upon his
face, while Mrs Canninge looked vexed, and the Burges disappointed and
cross.
The inspector seated himself at one of the desks and commenced a fresh
sheet of paper, while, saving the subdued buzz in the various classes, a
painful stillness was in the room, and Hazel felt her heart throb
heavily, and plainly heard its beats.
She took a simple subject, and began in a low, trembling voice, which
sounded pained and husky, while the intensity of her nervousness was
patent to all present; but after she had been going on for a minute or
two, to her great relief George Canninge rose and left the schoolroom.
The girls were beginning to answer better now, and Hazel felt her
courage rise a little; but her heart sank and she began to tremble again
as she heard the door open once more, a step crossing the floor, and
coming to where she was speaking. The next moment George Canninge
said--
"One moment, Miss Thorne. You are hoarse and tired."
As he spoke there was the pleasant gurgle of cold water being poured
into a glass, and Beatrice turned pale with the rush of blood to her
heart as she saw the young squire thoughtfully hand the glass to Hazel,
who took it, giving him a grateful glance as she did so, and then drank
the refreshing fluid with avidity.
"I will take the glass," he said in the most quiet, matter-of-fact way;
and then Hazel felt as if a new spirit had been sent into her veins. It
was so gentle and thoughtful an act, coming as it did when she was faint
and sick with the heat and agitation; and, turning to her classes, she
felt a strength within her that seemed to her astonishing.
She went on with the lesson, and her faltering voice grew stronger, her
questions clearer and more incisive; she described and painted in vivid
colours to the children the object she had made the theme of her lesson;
and in another few moments as if by a sympathetic touch, the children
were _en rapport_ with her; their young cheeks flushed, their eyes were
full of eagerness, and there was an excited burst of answers every time
she spoke, clearer and brighter and plainer. Word-painting in the
simplest and cleverest touches, simplicity and yet vivid colouring. The
teacher had forgotten self, the nervousness had gone, and a quarter of
an hour passed rapidly by as Hazel, in her ambition to prove that the
children over whom she had worked so hard were not the dunces they had
seemed, explained her subject, making it geographical, historical, and
orthographical as well, till when at last, after an admirable finish,
she stood there flushed, her eyes brightened and turned to the inspector
as if to ask for further commands, Mr William Forth Burge "forgot
himself"--so Miss Lambent afterwards put it--for he burst out with a
hearty--
"Brayvo! brayvo! brayvo!" clapping his hands loudly; and this infected
George Canninge, who joined in the applause.
"A capital lesson," he said aloud; "a capital lesson, indeed."