Mr Clayhanger, completely ignoring Edwin's reply to his aunt and her
somewhat shocked repetition of it, turned suddenly towards his son and
said, in a manner friendly but serious, a manner that assumed
everything, a manner that begged the question, unconscious even that
there was a question--
"I shall be out the better part o' to-morrow. I want ye to be sure to
be in the shop all afternoon--I'll tell you what for downstairs." It
was characteristic of him thus to make a mystery of business in front of
the women.
Edwin felt the net closing about him. Then he thought of one of those
`posers' which often present themselves to youths of his age.
"But to-morrow's Saturday," he said, perhaps perkily. "What about the
Bible class?"
Six months previously a young minister of the Wesleyan Circuit, to whom
Heaven had denied both a sense of humour and a sense of honour, had
committed the infamy of starting a Bible class for big boys on Saturday
afternoons. This outrage had appalled and disgusted the boyhood of
Wesleyanism in Bursley. Their afternoon for games, their only fair
afternoon in the desert of the week, to be filched from them and used
against them for such an odious purpose as a Bible class! Not only
Sunday school on Sunday afternoon, but a Bible class on Saturday
afternoon! It was incredible. It was unbearable. It was gross
tyranny, and nothing else. Nevertheless the young minister had his way,
by dint of meanly calling upon parents and invoking their help. The
scurvy worm actually got together a class of twelve to fifteen boys, to
the end of securing their eternal welfare. And they had to attend the
class, though they swore they never would, and they had to sing hymns,
and they had to kneel and listen to prayers, and they had to listen to
the most intolerable tedium, and to take notes of it. All this, while
the sun was shining, or the rain was raining, on fields and streets and
open spaces and ponds!
Edwin had been trapped in the snare. His father, after only three words
from the young minister, had yielded up his son like a burnt sacrifice--
and with a casual nonchalance that utterly confounded Edwin. In vain
Edwin had pointed out to his elders that a Saturday afternoon of
confinement must be bad for his health. His attention had been directed
to his eternal health. In vain he had pointed out that on wet Saturday
afternoons he frequently worked at his home-lessons, which therefore
might suffer under the regime of a Bible class. His attention had been
directed to the peace which passeth understanding. So he had been
beaten, and was secretly twitted by Clara as an abject victim. Hence it
was with a keen and peculiar feeling of triumph, of hopelessly cornering
the inscrutable generation which a few months ago had cornered him, that
he demanded, perhaps perkily: "What about the Bible class?"
"There'll be no more Bible classing," said his father, with a mild but
slightly sardonic smile, as who should say: "I'm ready to make all
allowances for youth; but I must get you to understand, as gently as I
can, that you can't keep on going to Bible classes for ever and ever."