EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is fair, William?
WILLIAM. PULCHER.
QUICKLY. Poulcats! there are fairer things than poulcats sure!
EVANS. I pray you have your remembrance, child, accusative
HING HANG HOG.
QUICKLY. HANG HOG is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
SHAKESPEARE.
In a large family it must often happen, that since every member of it
cannot ride the same hobby, nor at the same time, their several steeds
must sometimes run counter to each other; and so Ethel found it, one
morning when Miss Winter, having a bad cold, had given her an unwonted
holiday.
Mr. Wilmot had sent a large parcel of books for her to choose from for
Cocksmoor, but this she could not well do without consultation. The
multitude bewildered her, she was afraid of taking too many or too few,
and the being brought to these practical details made her sensible that
though her schemes were very grand and full for future doings, they
passed very lightly over the intermediate ground. The Paulo post fulurum
was a period much more developed in her imagination than the future,
that the present was flowing into.
Where was her coadjutor, Richard? Writing notes for papa, and not to
be disturbed. She had better have waited tranquilly, but this would not
suit her impatience, and she ran up to Margaret’s room. There she found
a great display of ivy leaves, which Norman, who had been turning
half the shops in the town upside down in search of materials, was
instructing her to imitate in leather-work--a regular mania with him,
and apparently the same with Margaret.
In came Ethel. “Oh, Margaret, will you look at these ‘First Truths?’ Do
you think they would be easy enough? Shall I take some of the Parables
and Miracles at once, or content myself with the book about ‘Jane
Sparks?’”
“There’s some very easy reading in ‘Jane Sparks’, isn’t there? I would
not make the little books from the New Testament too common.”
“Take care, that leaf has five points,” said Norman.
“Shall I bring you up ‘Jane Sparks’ to see? Because then you can judge,”
said Ethel.
“There, Norman, is that right?--what a beauty! I should like to look
over them by-and-by, dear Ethel, very much.”
Ethel gazed and went away, more put out than was usual with her. “When
Margaret has a new kind of fancy work,” she thought, “she cares for
nothing else! as if my poor children did not signify more than trumpery
leather leaves!” She next met Flora.
“Oh, Flora, see here, what a famous parcel of books Mr. Wilmot has sent
us to choose from.”
“All those!” said Flora, turning them over as they lay heaped on the
drawing-room sofa; “what a confusion!”
“See, such a parcel of reading books. I want to know what you think of
setting them up with ‘Jane Sparks’, as it is week-day teaching.”
“You will be very tired of hearing those spelled over for ever; they
have some nicer books at the national school.”
“What is the name of them? Do you see any of them here?”
“No, I don’t think I do, but I can’t wait to look now. I must write some
letters. You had better put them together a little. If you were to sort
them, you would know what is there. Now, what a mess they are in.”
Ethel could not deny it, and began to deal them out in piles, looking
somewhat more fitting, but still felt neglected and aggrieved, at no one
being at leisure but Harry, who was not likely to be of any use to her.
Presently she heard the study door open, and hoped; but though it was
Richard who entered the room, he was followed by Tom, and each held
various books that boded little good to her. Miss Winter had, much
to her own satisfaction, been relieved from the charge of Tom, whose
lessons Richard had taken upon himself; and thus Ethel had heard so
little about them for a long time past, that even in her vexation and
desire to have them over, she listened with interest, desirous to judge
what sort of place Tom might be likely to take in school.
She did not perceive that this made Richard nervous and uneasy. He had a
great dislike to spectators of Latin lessons; he never had forgotten an
unlucky occasion, some years back, when his father was examining him
in the Georgics, and he, dull by nature, and duller by confusion and
timidity, had gone on rendering word for word--enim for, seges a crop,
lini of mud, urit burns, campum the field, avenae a crop of pipe, urit
burns it; when Norman and Ethel had first warned him of the beauty of
his translation by an explosion of laughing, when his father had shut
the book with a bounce, shaken his head in utter despair, and told him
to give up all thoughts of doing anything--and when Margaret had cried
with vexation. Since that time, he had never been happy when any one was
in earshot of a lesson; but to-day he had no escape--Harry lay on the
rug reading, and Ethel sat forlorn over her books on the sofa. Tom,
however, was bright enough, declined his Greek nouns irreproachably, and
construed his Latin so well, that Ethel could not help putting in a word
or two of commendation, and auguring the third form. “Do let him off the
parsing, Ritchie,” said she coaxingly--“he has said it so well, and I
want you so much.”
“I am afraid I must not,” said Richard; who, to her surprise, did not
look pleased or satisfied with the prosperous translation; “but come,
Tom, you shan’t have many words, if you really know them.”
Tom twisted and looked rather cross, but when asked to parse the word
viribus, answered readily and correctly.
“Very well, only two more--affuit?”
“Third person singular, praeter perfect tense of the verb affo, affis,
affui, affere,” gabbled off Tom with such confidence, that though Ethel
gave an indignant jump, Richard was almost startled into letting it
pass, and disbelieving himself. He remonstrated in a somewhat hesitating
voice. “Did you find that in the dictionary?” said he; “I thought affui
came from adsum.”
“Oh, to be sure, stupid fool of a word, so it does!” said Tom hastily.
“I had forgot--adsum, ades, affui, adesse.”
Richard said no more, but proposed the word oppositus.
“Adjective.”
Ethel was surprised, for she remembered that it was, in this passage,
part of a passive verb, which Tom had construed correctly, “it was
objected,” and she had thought this very creditable to him, whereas he
now evidently took it for opposite; however, on Richard’s reading the
line, he corrected himself and called it a participle, but did not
commit himself further, till asked for its derivation.
“From oppositor.”
“Hallo!” cried Harry, who hitherto had been abstracted in his book, but
now turned, raised himself on his elbow, and, at the blunder, shook his
thick yellow locks, and showed his teeth like a young lion.
“No, now, Tom, pay attention,” said Richard resignedly. “If you found
out its meaning, you must have seen its derivation.”
“Oppositus,” said Tom, twisting his fingers, and gazing first at Ethel,
then at Harry, in hopes of being prompted, then at the ceiling and
floor, the while he drawled out the word with a whine, “why, oppositus
from op-posor.”
“A poser! ain’t it?” said Harry.
“Don’t, Harry, you distract him,” said Richard. “Come, Tom, say at once
whether you know it or not--it is of no use to invent.”
“From op-” and a mumble.
“What? I don’t hear--op--”
Tom again looked for help to Harry, who made a mischievous movement of
his lips, as if prompting, and, deceived by it, he said boldly, “From
op-possum.”
“That’s right! let us hear him decline it!” cried Harry, in an ecstasy.
“Oppossum, opottis, opposse, or oh-pottery!”
“Harry,” said Richard, in a gentle reasonable voice, “I wish you would
be so kind as not to stay, if you cannot help distracting him.”
And Harry, who really had a tolerable share of forbearance and
consideration, actually obeyed, contenting himself with tossing his book
into the air and catching it again, while he paused at the door to give
his last unsolicited assistance. “Decline oppossum you say. I’ll tell
you how: O-possum re-poses up a gum tree. O-pot-you-I will, says the
O-posse of Yankees, come out to ketch him. Opossum poses them and
declines in O-pot-esse by any manner of means of o-potting-di-do-dum,
was quite oppositum-oppotitu, in fact, quite contrairy.”
Richard, with the gravity of a victim, heard this sally of schoolboy
wit, which threw Ethel back on the sofa in fits of laughing, and
declaring that the Opossum declined, not that he was declined; but, in
the midst of the disturbance thus created, Tom stepped up to her, and
whispered, “Do tell me, Ethel!”
“Indeed I shan’t,” said she. “Why don’t you say fairly if you don’t
know?”
He was obliged to confess his ignorance, and Richard made him conjugate
the whole verb opponor from beginning to end, in which he wanted a good
deal of help.
Ethel could not help saying, “How did you find out the meaning of that
word, Tom, if you didn’t look out the verb?”
“I--don’t know,” drawled Tom, in the voice, half sullen, half piteous,
which he always assumed when out of sorts.
“It is very odd,” she said decidedly; but Richard took no notice, and
proceeded to the other lessons, which went off tolerably well, except
the arithmetic, where there was some great misunderstanding, into which
Ethel did not enter for some time. When she did attend, she perceived
that Tom had brought a right answer, without understanding the working
of the sum, and that Richard was putting him through it. She began to
be worked into a state of dismay and indignation at Tom’s behaviour, and
Richard’s calm indifference, which made her almost forget ‘Jane Sparks’,
and long to be alone with Richard; but all the world kept coming into
the room, and going out, and she could not say what was in her mind till
after dinner, when, seeing Richard go up into Margaret’s room, she ran
after him, and entering it, surprised Margaret, by not beginning on her
books, but saying at once, “Ritchie, I wanted to speak to you about Tom.
I am sure he shuffled about those lessons.”
“I am afraid he does,” said Richard, much concerned.
“What, do you mean that it is often so?”
“Much too often,” said Richard; “but I have never been able to detect
him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his
lessons that I cannot make out.”
“Did you know it, Margaret?” said Ethel, astonished not to see her
sister looked shocked as well as sorry.
“Yes,” said Margaret, “Ritchie and I have often talked it over, and
tried to think what was to be done.”
“Dear me! why don’t you tell papa? It is such a terrible thing!”
“So it is,” said Margaret, “but we have nothing positive or tangible
to accuse Tom of; we don’t know what he does, and have never caught him
out.”
“I am sure he must have found out the meaning of that oppositum in some
wrong way--if he had looked it out, he would only have found opposite.
Nothing but opponor could have shown him the rendering which he made.”
“That’s like what I have said almost every day,” said Richard, “but
there we are--I can’t get any further.”
“Perhaps he guesses by the context,” said Margaret.
“It would be impossible to do so always,” said both the Latin scholars
at once.
“Well, I can’t think how you can take it so quietly,” said Ethel. “I
would have told papa the first moment, and put a stop to it. I have a
great mind to do so, if you won’t.
“Ethel, Ethel, that would never do!” exclaimed Margaret, “pray don’t.
Papa would be so dreadfully grieved and angry with poor Tom.”
“Well, so he deserves,” said Ethel.
“You don’t know what it is to see papa angry,” said Richard.
“Dear me, Richard!” cried Ethel, who thought she knew pretty well what
his sharp words were. “I’m sure papa never was angry with me, without
making me love him more, and, at least, want to be better.”
“You are a girl,” said Richard.
“You are higher spirited, and shake off things faster,” said Margaret.
“Why, what do you think he would do to Tom?”
“I think he would be so very angry, that Tom, who, you know, is timid
and meek, would be dreadfully frightened,” said Richard.
“That’s just what he ought to be, frightened out of these tricks.”
“I am afraid it would frighten him into them still more,” said Richard,
“and perhaps give him such a dread of my father as would prevent him
from ever being open with him.”
“Besides, it would make papa so very unhappy,” added Margaret. “Of
course, if poor dear Tom had been found out in any positive deceit, we
ought to mention it at once, and let him be punished; but while it is
all vague suspicion, and of what papa has such a horror of, it would
only grieve him, and make him constantly anxious, without, perhaps,
doing Tom any good.”
“I think all that is expediency,” said Ethel, in her bluff, abrupt way.
“Besides,” said Richard, “we have nothing positive to accuse him of, and
if we had, it would be of no use. He will be at school in three weeks,
and there he would be sure to shirk, even if he left it off here. Every
one does, and thinks nothing of it.”
“Richard!” cried both sisters, shocked. “You never did?”
“No, we didn’t, but most others do, and not bad fellows either. It is
not the way of boys to think much of those things.”
“It is mean--it is dishonourable--it is deceitful!” cried Ethel.
“I know it is very wrong, but you’ll never get the general run of boys
to think so,” said Richard.
“Then Tom ought not to go to school at all till he is well armed against
it,” said Ethel.
“That can’t be helped,” said Richard. “He will get clear of it in time,
when he knows better.”
“I will talk to him,” said Margaret, “and, indeed, I think it would be
better than worrying papa.”
“Well,” said Ethel, “of course I shan’t tell, because it is not my
business, but I think papa ought to know everything about us, and I
don’t like your keeping anything back. It is being almost as bad as Tom
himself.”
With which words, as Flora entered, Ethel marched out of the room in
displeasure, and went down, resolved to settle Jane Sparks by herself.
“Ethel is out of sorts to-day,” said Flora. “What’s the matter?”
“We have had a discussion,” said Margaret. “She has been terribly
shocked by finding out what we have often thought about poor little Tom,
and she thinks we ought to tell papa. Her principle is quite right, but
I doubt--”
“I know exactly how Ethel would do it!” cried Flora; “blurt out all on
a sudden, ‘Papa, Tom cheats at his lessons!’ then there would be a
tremendous uproar, papa would scold Tom till he almost frightened him
out of his wits, and then find out it was only suspicion.”
“And never have any comfort again,” said Margaret. “He would always
dread that Tom was deceiving him, and then think it was all for want
of--Oh, no, it will never do to speak of it, unless we find out some
positive piece of misbehaviour.”
“Certainly,” said Flora.
“And it would do Tom no good to make him afraid of papa,” said Richard.
“Ethel’s rule is right in principle,” said Margaret thoughtfully, “that
papa ought to know all without reserve, and yet it will hardly do in
practice. One must use discretion, and not tease him about every
little thing. He takes them so much to heart, that he would be almost
distracted; and, with so much business abroad, I think at home he should
have nothing but rest, and, as far as we can, freedom from care and
worry. Anything wrong about the children brings on the grief so much,
that I cannot bear to mention it.”
Richard and Flora agreed with her, admiring the spirit which made her,
in her weakness and helplessness, bear the whole burden of family cares
alone, and devote herself entirely to spare her father. He was, indeed,
her first object, and she would have sacrificed anything to give him
ease of mind; but, perhaps, she regarded him more as a charge of
her own, than as, in very truth, the head of the family. She had the
government in her hands, and had never been used to see him exercise it
much in detail (she did not know how much her mother had referred to
him in private), and had succeeded to her authority at a time when his
health and spirits were in such a state as to make it doubly needful to
spare him. It was no wonder that she sometimes carried her consideration
beyond what was strictly right, and forgot that he was the real
authority, more especially as his impulsive nature sometimes carried him
away, and his sound judgment was not certain to come into play at
the first moment, so that it required some moral courage to excite
displeasure, so easy of manifestation; and of such courage there was,
perhaps, a deficiency in her character. Nor had she yet detected her own
satisfaction in being the first with every one in the family.
Ethel was put out, as Flora had discovered, and when she was downstairs
she found it out, and accused herself of having been cross to Margaret,
and unkind to Tom--of wishing to be a tell-tale. But still, though
displeased with herself, she was dissatisfied with Margaret; it might
be right, but it did not agree with her notions. She wanted to see every
one uncompromising, as girls of fifteen generally do; she had an intense
disgust and loathing of underhand ways, could not bear to think of
Tom’s carrying them on, and going to a place of temptation with them
uncorrected; and she looked up to her father with the reverence and
enthusiasm of one like minded.
She was vexed on another score. Norman came home from Abbotstoke Grange
without having seen Miss Rivers, but with a fresh basket of choice
flowers, rapturous descriptions of Mr. Rivers’s prints, and a present
of an engraving, in shading, such as to give the effect of a cast, of
a very fine head of Alexander. Nothing was to be thought of but a frame
for this--olive, bay, laurel, everything appropriate to the conqueror.
Margaret and Norman were engrossed in the subject, and, to Ethel, who
had no toleration for fancy work, who expected everything to be either
useful or intellectual, this seemed very frivolous. She heard her
father say how glad he was to see Norman interested and occupied, and
certainly, though it was only in leather leaves, it was better than
drooping and attending to nothing. She knew, too, that Margaret did it
for his sake, but, said Ethel to herself, “It was very odd that people
should find amusement in such things. Margaret always had a turn for
them, but it was very strange in Norman.”
Then came the pang of finding out that this was aggravated by the
neglect of herself; she called it all selfishness, and felt that she had
had an uncomfortable, unsatisfactory day, with everything going wrong.