The origin of the tear on the aged cheek of Mr Shushions went back
about forty years, and was embedded in the infancy of Darius Clayhanger.
The earliest memory of Darius Clayhanger had to do with the capital
letters Q W and S. Even as the first steam-printer in Bursley, even as
the father of a son who had received a thoroughly sound middle-class
education, he never noticed a capital Q W or S without recalling the
Widow Susan's school, where he had wonderingly learnt the significance
of those complicated characters. The school consisted of the entire
ground floor of her cottage, namely, one room, of which the far corner
was occupied by a tiny winding staircase that led to the ancient widow's
bedchamber. The furniture comprised a few low forms for scholars, a
table, and a chair; and there were some brilliant coloured prints on the
whitewashed walls. At this school Darius acquired a knowledge of the
alphabet, and from the alphabet passed to Reading-Made-Easy, and then to
the Bible. He made such progress that the widow soon singled him out
for honour. He was allowed the high and envied privilege of raking the
ashes from under the fire-place and carrying them to the ash-pit, which
ash-pit was vast and lofty, being the joint production of many cottages.
To reach the summit of the ash-pit, and thence to fling backwards down
its steep sides all assailants who challenged your supremacy, was a
precious joy. The battles of the ash-pit, however, were not battles of
giants, as no children had leisure for ash-carrying after the age of
seven. A still greater honour accorded to Darius was permission to sit,
during lessons, on the topmost visible step of the winding stair. The
widow Susan, having taught Darius to read brilliantly, taught him to
knit, and he would knit stockings for his father, mother, and sister.
At the age of seven, his education being complete, he was summoned into
the world. It is true that he could neither write nor deal with the
multiplication table; but there were always night-schools which studious
adults of seven and upwards might attend if business permitted.
Further, there was the Sunday school, which Darius had joyously
frequented since the age of three, and which he had no intention of
leaving. As he grew older the Sunday school became more and more
enchanting to him. Sunday morning was the morning which he lived for
during six days; it was the morning when his hair was brushed and
combed, and perfumed with a delightful oil, whose particular fragrance
he remembered throughout his life. At Sunday school he was petted and
caressed. His success at Sunday school was shining. He passed over the
heads of bigger boys, and at the age of six he was in a Bible class.
Upon hearing that Darius was going out into the world, the
superintendent of the Sunday school, a grave whiskered young man of
perhaps thirty, led him one morning out of the body of the Primitive
Methodist Chapel which served as schoolroom before and after chapel
service, up into the deserted gallery of the chapel, and there seated
him on a stair, and knelt on the stair below him, and caressed his head,
and called him a good boy, and presented him with an old battered Bible.
This volume was the most valuable thing that Darius had ever possessed.
He ran all the way home with it, half suffocated by his triumph.
Sunday school prizes had not then been invented. The young
superintendent of the Sunday school was Mr Shushions.
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