The Stokesley Secret
by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #3411 · 351,239 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Stokesley Secret
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release date: September 1, 2002 [eBook #3411]
Most recently updated: January 31, 2015
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3411
Credits: Transcribed from the 1902 Macmillan and Co. “Countess Kate and The Stokesley Secret” edition by David Price
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STOKESLEY SECRET ***
Transcribed from the 1902 Macmillan and Co. “Countess Kate and The
Stokesley Secret” edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
THE STOKESLEY SECRET
* * * * *
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
* * * * *
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1902
_All rights reserved_
* * * * *
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BUNGAY
_Transferred to Macmillan and Co._, _Limited_, 1901. _Reprinted_, 1902.
CHAPTER I.
“HOW can a pig pay the rent?”
The question seemed to have been long under consideration, to judge by
the manner in which it came out of the pouting lips of that sturdy young
five-year-old gentleman, David Merrifield, as he sat on a volume of the
great Latin Dictionary to raise him to a level with the tea-table.
Long, however, as it had been considered, it was unheeded on account of
one more interesting to the general public assembled round the table.
“I say!” hallooed out a tall lad of twelve holding aloft a slice taken
from the dish in the centre of the table, “I say! what do you call this,
Mary?”
“Bread and butter, Master Sam,” replied rather pettishly the maid who had
brought in the big black kettle.
“Bread and butter! I call it bread and scrape!” solemnly said Sam.
“It only has butter in the little holes of it, not at the top, Miss
Fosbrook,” said, in an odd pleading kind of tone, a stout good-humoured
girl of thirteen, with face, hair, and all, a good deal like a nice
comfortable apricot in a sunny place, or a good respectable Alderney cow.
“I think it would be better not to grumble, Susan, my dear,” replied, in
a low voice, a pleasant dark-eyed young lady who was making tea; but the
boys at the bottom of the table neither heard nor heeded.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” was Sam’s cry, in so funny a voice, that
Miss Fosbrook could only laugh; “is this bread and scrape the fare for a
rising young family of genteel birth?”
“Oh!” with a pathetic grimace, cried the pretty-faced though sandy-haired
Henry, the next to him in age, “if our beloved parents knew how their
poor deserted infants are treated—”
“A fine large infant you are, Hal!” exclaimed Susan.
“I’m an infant, you’re an infant, Miss Fosbrook is an infant—a babby.”
“For shame, Hal!” cried the more civilized Sam, clenching his fist.
“No, no, Sam,” interposed Miss Fosbrook, laughing, “your brother is quite
right; I am as much an infant in the eye of the law as little George.”
“There, I said I would!” cried Henry; “didn’t I, Sam?”
“Didn’t you what?” asked Susan, not in the most elegant English.
“Why, Martin Greville twitted us with having a girl for a governess,”
said Henry; “he said it was a shame we should be taken in to think her
grown up, when she was not twenty; and I said I would find out, and now I
have done it!” he cried triumphantly.
“Everybody is quite welcome to know my age,” said Miss Fosbrook, the
colour rising in her cheek. “I was nineteen on the last of April; but I
had rather you had asked me point blank, Henry, than tried to find out in
a sidelong way.”
Henry looked a little surly; and Elizabeth, a nice-looking girl, who sat
next to him and was nearest in age, said, “Oh! but that would have been
so rude, Miss Fosbrook.”
“Rude, but honest,” said Miss Fosbrook; and Susan’s honest eyes twinkled,
as much as to say, “I like that;” but she said, “I don’t believe Hal
meant it.”
“I don’t care!” said Sam. “Come, Mary, this plate is done—more bread and
butter; d’ye hear? not bread and gammon!” and he began the chant, in
which six voices joined till it became a roar, pursuing Mary down to the
lower regions:—
“Thick butter and thin bread,
Or it shall be thrown at Mary’s head;
Thick bread and thin butter,
Is only fit for the ducks in the gutter.”
Elizabeth looked appealingly at Miss Fosbrook; but Miss Fosbrook was
leaning back in her chair, her handkerchief up to her mouth, in fits of
laughing, seeing which, the children bawled louder and louder; and
Elizabeth only abstained from stopping her ears because she knew that was
the sure way to be held fast, and have it bellowed into them.
Little Annie blundered in her eagerness upon
“Thick bread and thin butter,”
whereupon there was a general outcry. “Nanny likes thick bread and thin
butter, let her have it!” and Sam, Henry, and Johnnie directed a whole
battery of their remaining crusts towards her cup, which would presently
have been upset into her lap but for Miss Fosbrook, who recovered
herself, and said gravely, “This must not be, Sam; I shall send you away
from the table if you do.”
Sam wanted to see whether she would, and threw the crust.
“Sam,” she said very decidedly, though there was a quiver in her voice,
as if she were frightened.
Sam looked up, and did not move.
“Oh, Miss Fosbrook!” cried Susan, “we were all just as bad. Don’t punish
Sam!”
“It is time that Sam should show that he has the feelings of a manly
boy,” said Miss Fosbrook, looking full at him. “He knows that I must
keep my word, and that I have no strength to fight with him.—Sam, go and
finish your tea on the window-seat.”
Her clear brown eyes looked full at him as she spoke, and all the young
population watched to see what he would do. He hesitated a moment, then
took up his cup and plate, and sat down in the window-seat.
Miss Fosbrook breathed freely, and she had almost said, “Thank you, Sam,”
but she did not think this was the time; and collecting herself, she
said, “Fun is all very well, and I hope we shall have plenty, but we
ought not to let it grow riotous; and I don’t think it was of a good sort
when it was complaining of the food provided for us.”
The children were all rather subdued by what she said; some felt a little
cross, and some rather ashamed; and when Mary brought back the dish
replenished with slices, no one said a word as to whether the butter were
thick or thin. The silence seemed to David a favourable occasion for
renewing the great question, “How does a pig pay the rent?”
There was a general giggle, and again Miss Fosbrook was as bad as any:
while David, looking affronted, tapped the table with the handle of his
spoon, and repeated, “I want to know.”
“I’ll tell you, Davy man,” began Henry, first recovering. “The pig is a
very sagacious animal, especially in Hampshire, and so he smells out
wherever the bags of money are sown underground, and digs them up with
his nose. Then he swings them on his back, and gives a curl of his tail
and a wink of his eye, and lays them down just before the landlord’s
feet; and he’s so cunning, that not an inch will he budge till he’s got
the receipt, with a stamp upon it, on his snout.”
“No; now is that a true story?” cried little Annie, who was the only
person except David grave enough to speak; while Sam, exploding in the
window, called out, “Why, don’t you know that’s why pigs have rings in
their noses?”
“There was a lady loved a swine;
‘Honey,’ says she,
I’ll give you a silver trough.’
‘Hunks!’ says he,”
continued Hal; “that shows his disinterestedness. Oh, werry sagacious
haminals is pigs!”
“For shame, Hal,” cried Elizabeth, “to confuse the children with such
nonsense.”
“Why, don’t you think I know how the rent is paid? I’ve seen Papa on
rent-day hundreds of times.”
“But the pigs, Hal; did you ever see the pigs?”
“Thousands of times.”
“Bringing bags of gold? O Hal! Hal!”
“I want to know,” continued David, who had been digesting the startling
fact, “how the pig swings the bag on his back? I don’t think ours could
do it.”
“It’s a sort made on purpose,” said Hal.
“Made on purpose by Mr. Henry Merrifield,” said Susan, at last able to
speak. “Don’t believe one word, David dear; Hal is laughing at you.”
“But how does a pig do it?” asked David, returning to the charge.
“Why do you want to know, my dear?” asked Miss Fosbrook.
“Mary’s sister said so.”
“I know,” exclaimed Susan; “Davy went out with the nursery children
to-day, and they went to see Mary’s sister. Her husband is drowned
because he was a sailor; and the _Mermaid_ went to South America; and
there are five little tiny children.”
“Of the mermaid’s?” cried Harry.
“No, no; the _Mermaid_ was the ship, and it was wrecked, and they have
noticing to live upon; and she takes in washing, and is such a nice
woman. Mamma said we might take them our old winter frocks, and so David
went there.”
“And she said if she had a pig to pay the rent she should be quite
happy,” said David. “How could he?”
“I suppose,” said Miss Fosbrook, “the pig would live on her garden-stuff,
her cabbage-leaves and potato-skins; and that when he was fat she would
sell him, and pay the rent with the money. Am I right, Sam? you know I
am a Cockney.”
“You could not be more right if you were a Hampshire beg,” said Sam.
“Jack Higgins was her husband’s name, and a famous fellow he was; he once
rigged a little boat for me.”
“And he sailed with Papa once, long ago,” added Susan; to which Sam
rejoined,
“More fool he to go into the merchant service and get drowned, with
nothing for his widow to live upon.”
“I say,” cried Hal, “why shouldn’t we give her a pig?”
“Oh, do!” earnestly exclaimed David.
“I’ll catch one,” broke from John and Annie at once; “such lots as there
are in the yard!”
“You would catch it, I believe,” said Sam disdainfully; while Susan
explained,
“No; those are Papa’s pigs. Purday would not let you give them away.”
“Of course,” said Henry, “that was only those little geese. I meant to
make a subscription among ourselves, and give her the pig; and won’t she
be surprised!”
“Oh! yes, yes,” shouted the children; “let’s do it all ourselves!”
“I’ve got one-and-threepence, and sixpence next Saturday,” cried Hal.
“And I’ve eightpence,” quoth Annie.
“And I’ve a whole shilling,” said David.
“I’ve fourpence,” said Johnnie.
“I’ve not much, I’m afraid,” said Susan, feeling in her pocket, with
rather black looks.
“Oh!” said Sam, “everybody knows simple Sukey never has a farthing in her
pocket by any chance!”
“Yes, but I have, Sam;” and with an air of great triumph, Susan held up
three-halfpence, whereat all the party screamed with laughter.
“Well, but Bessie always has lots! She’s as rich as a little Jew. Come,
Bet, Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy, and Bess, what will you give?—what have
you got?”—and one hand came on her shoulder, and another on her arm but
she shook herself free, and answered rather crossly,
“Don’t—I can’t—I’ve got something else to do with my money.”
“Oh! you little stingy avaricious crab!” was the outcry beginning; but
Miss Fosbrook stopped it before Elizabeth had time to make the angry
answer that was rising on her lips.
“No, my dears, you must not tease her. Each of you has a full right to
use your own money as you may think best; and it is not right to force
gifts in this manner.”
“She’s a little affected pussy-cat,” said Hal, much annoyed; “I know what
she wants it for—to buy herself a ridiculous parasol like Ida Greville,
when she would see poor Hannah Higgins starving at her feet.”
Elizabeth bit her lip, and tossed up her head; the tears were in her
eyes, but she made no answer.
“Come, never mind,” said Sam; “she’s as obstinate as a male when she gets
a thing into her head. Let’s see what we’ve got without her. I’ve only
sevenpence: worse luck that I bought ball of string yesterday.”
The addition amounted to three shillings and elevenpence halfpenny: a sum
which looked so mighty when spread out, chiefly in coppers, on the
window-seat, that Annie and David looked on it as capable of buying any
amount of swine; but Sam looked rather blank at it, and gazing up and
down, said, “But what does a pig cost?”
“Miss Fosbrook, what does a pig cost?”
Miss Fosbrook shook her head and laughed, saying that she knew much less
of pigs than they did; and Susan exclaiming, “There’s Purday in the
court,” they all tumbled to the window, one upon the top of the other.
The window was a large heavily-framed sash, with a deep window-seat, and
a narrow ledge within the sill—as if made on purpose, the first for the
knees the second for the elbows of the gazers therefrom.
As to the view, it was into a walled kitchen court, some high chestnut
and lime trees just looking over the grey roofs of the offices. On the
ground lay a big black Newfoundland dog, and a couple of graceful
greyhounds, one of them gnawing a bone, cunningly watched by a
keen-looking raven, with his head on one side; while peeping out from the
bars of the bottle-rack was the demure face of the sandy cat, on the
watch for either bones or sparrows.
A stout, stumpy, shrewd-looking labourer, in a short round frock, high
buskins, an old wide-awake, short curly hair, and a very large nose,
stood in front of the dairy door, mixing a mess of warm milk for the
young calves.
“Purday! Master Purday!” roared nearly the whole young population above;
but he was so intent on his mixture, that he went on as if he were deaf,
till a second explosion of “Purday! Purday! I say!” made him turn up
his face in an odd half-awake kind of manner.
“Purday, what’s the price of a pig?” and, “What does a pig cost, Purday?”
“What d’ye all holler at once for? A body can’t hear a word,” was all
the answer they got; whereupon they all started together again, and
Purday went on with his mixture as if they had been so many hens
cackling.
Then Sam got up his breath again and called alone, “Purday!” and Hal and
Susan by pats and pinches strangled the like outcry from Annie and John,
so as to leave the field clear for the great question, “Purday, what does
a pig cost?”
“More than your voices up there, sir,” growled Purday, making some laugh;
but Henry cried impatiently,
“Now, Purday, we really do want to know what is the price of pigs.”
“They was high last market,” began Purday.
“I don’t care if they were high or low,” said Hal; “I want to know what
money they cost.”
“Different pigs cost different prices,” quoth the oracle, so
sententiously, that Miss Fosbrook’s shoulders shook with laughing as she
stood a little in the background of the eager heap in the window.
“A nice little pig, such as you’d give—”
“Hush, hush, Hal, it’s a secret,” cried Susan.
“A pretty sort of secret—known to eight already, and bawled out all over
the yard,” said Sam.
“But don’t tell him what it’s for; you can ask him without that.”
“A nice little young pig,” said Sam, “such as you’d keep all the summer,
and fat in the winter.”
“Mind, it ain’t for you, Purday,” cried Hal.
“Never fear my being disappointed, sir,” said the free-spoken Purday,
with a twinkle of his eye, which Hal understood so well that he burst
out,
“Ah! you think I can never do what I say I will; but you’ll see, Purday,
if we don’t give a pig to—”
He was screamed at, and pulled into order and silence, ere the words,
“Hannah Higgins” had quite come out; and Sam repeated his question.
“Well,” said Purday at last, “if pigs was reasonable, you might get a
nice little one to fat, at Kattern Hill fair, somewhere about ten
shillings, or maybe twelve—sometimes more, sometimes less.”
“Ten shillings!” The community stood round and looked at one another at
the notion of such an awful sum; but Hal was the first to cast a ray of
hope on the gloom. “Kattern Hill fair ain’t till Midsummer, and perhaps
Grandmamma will send us some money before that. If anybody’s birthday
was but coming!”
“Better save it out of our allowance,” said Sam. “How long is it to the
fair?”
Miss Fosbrook’s pocket-book declared it to be four weeks.
“Well, then,” said Hal, “we three big ones have sixpence a week each,
that’s six shillings, leaving out stingy Bess, and the little ones
threepence, that’s three times three is nine, and three times nine is
thirty-six, that’s three shillings, and six is nine, and very near four
is fourteen. We shall do the pig yet.”
“Yes, Hal; but if pigs are reasonable, I am afraid three times nine never
yet were so much so as to make thirty-six,” objected Miss Fosbrook.
Sam whistled.
“Twenty-seven—that’s three and twopence—it’s all the same,” said Hal;
then at the scream of the rest, “at least two and threepence. Well, any
way there’s plenty for piggy-wiggy, and it shall be a jolly secret to
delight Hannah Higgins, and surprise Papa and Mamma: hurrah!”
“Yes,” said Sam; “but then nobody must have any fines.”
“Ay, and Sue must keep her money. That will be a wonder!” shouted Harry.
“Well, I’ll try,” said Susan. “I’ll try not to have a single fine, and
I’ll not buy a single lump of sugar-candy, for I do want poor Hannah to
have her pig.”
“And so will we!” cried the younger ones with one voice.
“Only,” added Susan, “I must buy Dicky’s canary seed.”
“And I must have a queen’s head to write to Mamma,” said Annie.
“Oh! never mind that, such trumpery as your letters are,” said Hal.
“Mamma could say them by heart before she gets them. What does she care
for them?”
Little Annie looked very deplorable.
“Never mind, my dear,” said Miss Fosbrook, “mammas always care for little
girls’ letters, and you are quite right to keep a penny for your stamp
for her.—You see, Hal, this scheme will never come to good if you
sacrifice other duties to it.”
Henry twirled round impatiently.
“Now suppose,” said Miss Fosbrook, “that we set up a treasury, and put
all in that we can properly afford, and then break it open on the day
before the fair, and see how much we have.”
“Oh! yes, yes,” cried the children in raptures.
“Will you help, Miss Fosbrook?” said Susan, clasping her hands.
“I should like to do a very little, if you will take this silver
threepenny; but I do not think it would be right for me to spare one
penny more, for all I can afford is very much wanted at home.”
“What shall we have for treasury?” said Hal, looking round.
“I know!” cried Susan. “Here, in the baby-house; here’s the Toby, let’s
put it inside him.”
The so-called baby-house was an old-fashioned cupboard with glass doors,
where certain tender dolls, and other curiosities, playthings too frail
to be played with and the like, were ranged in good order, and never
taken out except when some one child was unwell, and had to stay in-doors
alone.
Toby Fillpot was a present from Nurse Freeman. It was a large mug,
representing a man with a red coat, black hat, and white waistcoat, very
short legs, and top-boots. The opening of the cup was at the top of his
head, and into this was dropped all the silver and pence at present
mustered, and computed to be about four shillings.
“And, Miss Fosbrook, you’ll not be cross about fines?” said Johnnie,
looking coaxing.
“I hope I shall not be cross,” she answered; “but I do not engage to let
you off any. I think having so good a use to put your money to should
make you more careful against forfeiting it.”
“Yes,” said Johnnie disconsolately.
“Well, I never get fined,” cried Hal joyfully.
“Except for running up stairs in dirty shoes,” said Sam.
“Oh! there’s no dirt now.”
“Let me see, what are the fines?” said Miss Fosbrook.
“Here’s the list,” said Susan; and sighing, she said, “I’m afraid I shall
never do it! If Bessie only would help!”
The fines of the Stokesley schoolroom were these for delinquencies—each
value a farthing—
For being dressed later than eight o’clock.
For hair not properly brushed.
For coming to lessons later than five minutes after ten.
For dirty hands.
For being turned back twice with any lesson.
For elbows on the table.
For foolish crying.
For unnecessary words in lesson-time.
For running up stairs in wet shoes.
For leaving things about.
Each of these bits of misbehaviour caused the forfeit of a farthing out
of the weekly allowance. Susan looked very gloomy over them; but Hal
exclaimed, “Never mind, Susie; we’ll do it all without you, never fear!”
“And now,” said Sam, “I vote we have some fun in the garden.”
Some readers may be disposed to doubt, after this specimen, whether the
young Merrifields could be really young ladies and gentlemen; but indeed
their birth might make them so; for there had been Squire Merrifields at
Stokesley as long as Stokesley had been a parish, and those qualities of
honour and good breeding that mark the gentleman had not been wanting to
the elder members of the family. The father of these children was a
captain in the navy, and till within the last six years the children had
lived near Plymouth; but when he inherited the estate they came thither,
and David and the two little ones had been born at Stokesley. The
property was not large; and as Captain Merrifield was far from rich, it
took much management to give all this tribe of boys and girls a good
education, as well as plenty of bread and butter, mutton, and
apple-pudding. There was very little money left to be spent upon
ornament, or upon pleasuring; so they were brought up to the most homely
dress suited to their station, and were left entirely to the country
enjoyments that spring up of themselves. Company was seldom seen, for
Papa and Mamma had little time or means for visiting; and a few morning
calls and a little dining out was all they did; which tended to make the
young ones more shy and homely, more free and rude, more inclined to love
their own ways and despise those of other people, than if they had seen
more of the world. They were a happy, healthy set of children, not
faulty in essentials, but, it must be confessed, a little wild, rough and
uncivil, in spite of the code of fines.
CHAPTER II.
MRS. MERRIFIELD had taught her children herself, till Samuel and Henry
began going to the Curate for a couple of hours every day, to be prepared
for school. Lessons were always rather a scramble; so many people coming
to speak to her, and so many interruptions from the nursery; and then
came a time when Mamma always was tired, and Papa used to come out and
scold if the noises grew very loud indeed, and was vexed if the children
gave Mamma any trouble of any kind. Next they were told they were to
have a governess—a sort of piece of finery which the little savages had
always despised—and thereupon came Miss Fosbrook; but before she had been
a week in the house Mamma was quite ill and in her bed-room, and Papa
looked graver than he had ever done before; and Mr. Braddon, the doctor,
came very often: and at last Susan was called into Mamma’s room, and it
was explained to her that Mamma was thought so ill, that she must go to
be under a London doctor, and would be away, she could not tell how long;
so that meantime the children must all be left to Miss Fosbrook, with
many many injunctions to be good and obedient, for hearing that they were
going on well would be poor Mamma’s only comfort.
It was three days since Captain and Mrs. Merrifield had gone; and Miss
Fosbrook stood at the window, gazing at the bright young green of the
horse-chestnut trees, and thinking many various thoughts in the lull that
the children had left when they rushed out of doors.
She thought herself quite alone, and stood, sometimes smiling over the
odd ways of her charges, and at what they put her in mind of, sometimes
gravely thinking whether she had said or done the wisest things for them,
or what their mother would have most approved. She was just going to
move away from the window, when she saw a little figure curled up on the
floor, with her head on the window-seat. “Bessie, my dear, what are you
doing here? Why are not you gone out?”
“I don’t want to go out.”
“I thought they were to have a great game at whoop-hide.”
“I don’t like whoop-hide. Johnnie pulls the clothes off my back.”
“My dear, I hope you are not staying in because they called you those
foolish names. It was all in good humour.”
“It was not kind,” said Elizabeth, her throat swelling. “It was not
true.”
“Perhaps not; but you did not speak to give your reasons; and who could
tell how good they might be?”
“I’ve a right to my secrets as well as they have,” said the little
maiden.
Miss Fosbrook looked kindly at her, and she turned wistful eyes on the
young governess.
“Miss Fosbrook, will you keep a secret?”
“That I will.”
“I want my money to buy some card-board—and some ribbon—and some real
true paints. I’ve got some vermilion, but I want some real good blue.
And then I want to make some beautiful bands with ties—like what Papa has
for his letters—for all Mamma’s letters in her desk. There’s a bundle of
Papa’s when he was gone out to the Crimean War, and that’s to have a
frigate on it, because of the _Calliope_—his ship, you know; and there’s
one bundle of dear Aunt Sarah’s—that’s to have a rose, because I always
think her memory is like the rose in my hymn, you know; and Grandmamma,
she’s to have—I think perhaps I could copy a bit of the tower of
Westminster Abbey out of the print, because one sees it out of her
window; and, oh! I thought of so many more, but you see I can’t do it
without a real good paint-box, and that costs three and sixpence. Now,
Miss Fosbrook, is it stingy to wish to do that?”
“Not at all, my dear; but you could not expect the others to understand
what they never were told.”
“I’d have said something if they had not called me stingy,” said Bessie.
“It certainly was rude and hasty; but if we bear such things
good-naturedly, they become better; and they were very eager about their
own plan.”
“Such a disagreeable thing as a pig!” continued Bessie. “If it had been
anything nice, I should not have minded so much.”
“Yes; but, my dear, you must remember that the pig will be a more useful
present than even your pretty contrivances. You cannot call them doing
good, as the other will be.”
“Then you are like them! You think I ought to spend all my money on a
great horrid pig, when Mamma—” and the tears were in the little girl’s
eyes.
“No, indeed, my dear. I don’t think anyone is called on to give their
all, and it is very nice and quite right for a little girl to try to make
a pretty present to please her mamma. There is plenty of time before
you, and I think you will manage to have some share in the very kind
action your brothers and sisters are contriving.”
Elizabeth had not forgiven, as she should have done, the being called
stingy; it rankled on her feelings far more than those who said the word
understood; and she presently went on, “If they knew ever so much, they
would only laugh at me, and call it all Bessie’s nonsense. Miss
Fosbrook, please, what is affectation?”
“I believe it is pretending to seem what we are not by nature,” said Miss
Fosbrook; “putting on manners or feelings that do not come to us of
themselves.”
“Then I shall tell them they make me affected,” exclaimed she. “If I
like to be quiet and do things prettily, they teaze me for being
affected, and I’m forced to be as plain and blunt as their are, and I
don’t like it! I wish I was grown up. I wish I was Ida Greville!”
“And why, my dear?”
“Because then things might be pretty,” said Elizabeth. “Everything is so
plain and ugly, and one gets so tired of it! Is it silly to like things
to be pretty?”
“No, far from it; that is, if we do not sacrifice better things to
prettiness.”
Elizabeth looked up with a light in her dark eyes, and said, “Miss
Fosbrook, I like you!”
Miss Fosbrook was very much pleased, and kissed her.
She paused a moment, and then said, “Miss Fosbrook, may I ask one
question? What is your name? Mamma said it must be Charlotte, because
you signed your letter Ch. A. Fosbrook, but your little sister’s letter
that you showed us began ‘My dear Bell.’ If it is a secret, indeed I
will keep it.”
“It is no secret at all,” said Miss Fosbrook, laughing. “My name is
Christabel Angela.”
Elizabeth opened her eyes, and said it by syllables. “Christabel Angela!
that’s a prettier name than Ida. Does it make you very glad to have it?”
“I like it for some reasons,” said Miss Fosbrook, smiling.
“Oh, tell me!” cried Bessie. “Mamma always says we should not be a bit
happier if our names were pretty ones; but I don’t know, I feel as if one
would; only the others like to make things plainer and uglier than they
are.”
“I never could call your name ugly; it is such a dignified, old,
respectable name.”
“Yes; but they call me Betty!”
“And they call me Bell, and sometimes Jelly-bag and Currant-jelly,” said
Miss Fosbrook, laughing and sighing, for she would have liked to have
heard those funny names again.
“Then it is no good to you!” exclaimed Elizabeth.
“I don’t know that we talk of good in such a matter. I like my name
because of the reason it was given to me.”
“Oh, why?” eagerly asked the little girl.
“When I was born, my papa was a very young man, and he was very fond of
reading poetry.”
“Why, I thought your papa was a doctor.”
“Well!”
“I thought only ladies, and poets, and idle silly people, cared for
poetry.”
“They can hardly be silly if they care rightly for real poetry, Bessie,”
said Miss Fosbrook; “at least, so my papa would say. It has been one of
his great helps. Well, in those days he was very fond of a poem about a
lady called Christabel, who was so good and sweet, that when evil came
near, it could not touch her so as to do her any harm; and so he gave his
little daughter her name.”
“How very nice!” cried Elizabeth.
“You must not envy me, my dear, for I have been a good deal laughed at
for my pretty name, and so has Papa; and I do not think he would have
chosen anything so fanciful if he had been a little older.”
“Then isn’t he—what is it you call it—poetical now?”
“Indeed he is, in a good way;” and as the earnest eyes looked so warmly
at her, Christabel Fosbrook could not help making a friend of the little
maiden. “He has very little time to read it; for you know he is a parish
surgeon in a great parish in London, full of poor people, worse off than
you can imagine, and often very ill. He is obliged to be always hard at
work in the narrow close streets there, and to see everything sad, and
dismal, and disagreeable, that can be found; but, do you know, Bessie, he
always looks for the good and beautiful side; he looks at one person’s
patience, and another person’s kindness, and at some little child’s love
for its mother or sister, that hinders it from being too painful for
him.”
“But is that poetry? I thought poetry meant verses.”
“Verses are generally the best and most suitable way of expressing our
feelings about what is good and beautiful; but they are not always
poetry, any more than the verses they sang to-night about the bread and
butter, because, you know, wanting thick butter was not exactly a
beautiful feeling. I think the denying themselves their little
indulgences for the sake of giving the poor woman a pig, is much more
poetical, though nobody said a word in verse.”
They both laughed; and Elizabeth said, “That wasn’t what you meant about
your papa. Susy cares for goodness.”
“No, it was not all I meant; but it was seeing high and noble thoughts
expressed in beautiful verses that gives him pleasure; and when he has a
little bit of leisure, it is his great treat to open a book of that sort,
and read a little bit to us, and tell us why we like it. He says it
makes him young again, and takes him out of the dingy streets, and from
all his cares as to how the bills are to be paid.”
“Did you like coming here?” was Bessie’s home question; and Miss Fosbrook
winked away a little moisture, as she said,
“I was glad to be growing a woman, and to be able to help about some of
those bills; and then I was glad to come into the beautiful country that
Papa has so often told us about.”
“I did not know there was anything beautiful here.”
“O Bessie, you never lived in London! You can’t think how many things
are beautiful to me here! I want to be writing about them to Papa and
Kate all day long.”
“Are they?” said Bessie. “Mamma has pretty things in the drawing-room,
but she keeps them out of the way; and everything here is so dull and
stupid!” and the little girl gave a yawn.
Miss Fosbrook understood her. The wainscoted room in which they were
sitting had been painted of a uniform creamy brown; the chairs were worn;
the table was blistered and cracked; the carpet only covered the middle
of the room, and was so threadbare, that only a little red showed here
and there. All that was needful was there, but of the plainest kind; and
where the other children only felt ease and freedom, and were the more
contented and happy for the homely good sense of all around them, this
little girl felt a want that she scarcely understood, but which made her
uncomfortable and discontented, even when she had so much to be thankful
for.
Miss Fosbrook moved nearer to the window. Down below there was certainly
not much to be seen; only Pierce cleaning the knives in the knife-house,
and Martha washing out her pans before the dairy-door; but that was not
where she looked. She turned the little half-fretful face upwards.
“Look there!” she said; “and talk of seeing nothing pretty!”
“I see nothing—”
“Do you not see the pale clear green of those noble horse-chestnut leaves
just sprung into their full summer dress—not in the least worn nor
stained yet? And those fine spikes of white blossom, all tending
up—up—while the masses of those leaves fall so gracefully down, as if
lifting them up, and then falling back to do them honour.” Bessie
smiled, and her eye lighted up. “And see the colour against the sky—look
at the contrast of that bright light green with the blue, so very deep,
of the sky—and oh! see that train of little clouds, red with soft sunny
light, like a little soft flock of rosy lambs, if there were such things,
lying across the sky. O Bessie! you can’t talk of wanting the sight of
pretty things while you have that sky.”
Bessie was coming closer to her, when in burst Sam and Johnnie.
“Hello, Bess! moping here, I declare! I suppose you and Miss Fosbrook
are telling each other all your secrets.”
“I was just coming out,” said Miss Fosbrook. “I want to make out
something about those noble flowers of the horse-chestnut, and why they
don’t look whiter. Could you gather one for me, Sam?”
Sam was only too glad of an excuse for climbing a tree, however cheaply
he might hold one who cared for flowers; and by the time Bessie had put
on her lilac-spotted sun-bonnet—a shapeless article it must be confessed,
with a huge curtain serving for a tippet, very comfortable, and no
trouble at all—he had scrambled into the fork, and brought down a
beautiful spire of blossoms, with all the grand leaves hanging round in
their magnificent fans.
“What will you do with it?” said the children, standing round.
“Do you think you could ask Mary to spare us a jug, Susan? If I might
put it in water in the schoolroom fireplace, it would look fresh and
cheerful for Sunday.”
“Oh, yes,” said Susan, pleased with the commission, “that I will;” and
away she ran, while Miss Fosbrook examined the spike to her own great
enjoyment. “I see,” she said, “the flowers are not really white, they
each have a patch of pink or yellow on them, which gives them their
softness. Yes; and do you see, Bessie, they are in clusters of three,
and each three has one flower with a pink spot, and two with a yellow
one.”
“That is very curious,” said Bessie: the fretfulness was very much gone
out of her tone, and she stood looking at the beautiful flower, without a
word, till Susan came back, when she began to show her what Miss Fosbrook
had pointed out. Susan smiled with her really good nature, and said,
“How funny!” but was more intent on telling Miss Fosbrook that she had
brought the jug, and then on hauling Elizabeth away to a game at Tom
Tittler’s ground.
Miss Fosbrook said she would put away the flower and come back again; and
she settled the branch in the chimney, where it looked very graceful, and
really did enliven the room, and then walked out towards the lawn.
There was a lawn in front of the house, part of which had been formerly
levelled for a bowling-green, and was kept clear of shrubs or
flower-beds. Beyond was a smooth, rather rapid slope towards a quiet
river, beyond which there rose again a beautiful green field, crowned
above by a thick wood, ending at the top in some scraggy pine-trees, with
scanty dark foliage at the top of their rude russet arms. Fine trees
stood out here and there upon the slope of the field; and Captain
Merrifield’s fine sleeked cows were licking each other, or chewing the
cud, under them.
There was a white Chinese bridge, the rails all zigzags, and patterns
running this way and that, so that it must have been very ugly and
glaring before the white paint had faded so much.
The house was a respectable old stone building, rather brown and grey,
and the stone somewhat disposed to peel off in flakes; the windows large
sashes, set in great projecting squared stones, the tallest and biggest
at the top. It was a house of a very sober pleasant countenance, that
looked as if it had always been used to have a large family in it; and
there was a vine, with all its beauteous leaves, trained all across the
garden front, making a pleasant green summer-blind over the higher half
of the drawing-room windows, that now stood open, telling of the
emptiness within.
Christabel stood for a few moments looking round, and thinking what a
paradise of green rest this would be to her hard-worked father and
anxious mother; and how she should like to see her little brothers and
sisters have one free run and roll on that delicious greensward, instead
of now and then walking to one of the parks as a great holiday. Yet hers
was a very happy home, and, except her being absent from it, nothing had
befallen her to sadden her merry young spirits; so when she heard the
joyous cry behind her—
“I’m on Tommy Tittler’s ground,
Picking up gold and silver,”
she turned about, and laughed as she saw the gold-finders stooping and
clawing at the grass, with eyes cast round about them for Hal, who was
pursuing Susan in and out, up and down till, with screams of exultation,
she was safely across the ridge of the bowling-green, that served as
“home.”
When Hal turned back, Miss Fosbrook was as heedfully and warily picking
up gold and silver as any of the rest of them. He was resolved on
capturing her; but first David was such a tempting prize, with his back
so very near, and so unconscious, that he must be made prisoner. A catch
at the brown-holland blouse—a cry—a shout of laughter, and Davy is led up
behind the standard maiden-blush rose, always serving as the prison. And
now the tug of war rages round it, he darts here and there within his
bounds, holding out his hand to any kind deliverer whose touch may set
him free; and all the others run backwards and forwards, trying to
circumvent the watchful jailor, Tom Tittler, who, in front of the
rose-bush, flies instantly at whoever is only coming near his captive.
Ha! Susan had nearly—all but done it, while Hal was chasing away Annie.
No, not she; Hal is back again, and with a shriek away she scours. Sam!
oh, he is very near; if that stupid little Davy would only look round, he
would be free in another moment; but he only gapes at the pursuit of
Susan, and Sam will touch him without his being aware! No—here’s Hal
back again. Sam’s off. What a scamper! Now’s the time—here’s Miss
Fosbrook, lighter-footed than any of the children, softly stealing on
tip-toe, while Hal is scaring Johnnie. Her fingers just touch Davy’s.
“Freed! Freed!” is the cry; and off goes he, pounding for home! but Hal
rushes across the path, he intercepts Miss Fosbrook, and, with a shout of
triumph—There is the sound of a rent. Everybody stands a little aghast.
“It is only the gathers,” says Miss Fosbrook good-humouredly. “I’ll tuck
them up and sew them in by and by; but really, Hal, you need not pull so
furiously; I would have yielded to something short of that.”
“Gowns are such stuff!” said Hal, really meaning it for an apology,
though it did not sound like one, for her good-natured face abashed him a
little.
“Touch and take used to be our rule,” said Miss Fosbrook.
Bessie eagerly said that would be the best way, the boys were so rude;
but all the rest with one voice cried out that it would be very stupid;
and Miss Fosbrook did not press it, but only begged in a droll way that
some one would take pity on her; and come to release her; and so alert
was she in skipping towards her allies from behind the rose-bush, that
Bessie presently succeeded in giving the rescuing touch, and she flew
back quick as a bird to the safe territory, dragging Bessie with her, who
otherwise would have assuredly been caught; and who, warm with the spirit
of the game, felt as if she should have been quite glad to be made
prisoner for her dear Christabel’s sake.
An hour after, and all the children were in bed. Susan and Annie
agreeing that a governess was no such great bother after all; and
Elizabeth lying awake to whisper over to herself, “Christabel Angela,
Christabel Angela! That’s my secret!” in a sort of dream of pleasure
that will make most people decide on her being a very silly little girl.
And Christabel Angela herself sat mending her gathers, and thinking over
her first week of far greater difficulties than she had contemplated when
she had left home with the understanding that she was to be entirely
under Mrs. Merrifield’s direction. Poor Mrs. Merrifield had said much of
regret at leaving her to such a crew of little savages, and she had only
tried to set the mother’s mind at rest by being cheerful; and though she
felt that it was a great undertaking to manage those great boys out of
lesson-hours, she knew that when a thing cannot be helped, strength and
aid is given to those who seek for it sincerely.
And on the whole, she felt thankful to the children for having behaved
even as well as they had done.
CHAPTER III.
“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.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE most part of church-time Johnnie was eating Nurse Freeman’s
plum-cake. Perhaps this did not make him any easier in the conscience,
but he had a very unlucky sentiment, that as he was already naughty and
in disgrace, it was of no use to take the trouble of being good till he
could make a fresh beginning; and after what the Grevilles had said, he
did not think that would be till Papa and Mamma came home; he did not at
all mean to give in to a girl that was not even twenty. So he would not
turn to the only wise thing he could have done, the learning of his
Collect, but he teased Nurse out of more cake and more, and got what play
he could out of little George, and that was not much, for Johnnie was not
in a temper to be pleasant with a little one.
Coming home from church, Collects were to be learnt and said before tea:
but Hal, after glancing over his own, took up his cap and said, “Come
along, Sam, Purday will be feeding the pigs; I want to choose the size of
ours.”
“I’ve not done,” said Sam.
“Papa never said we were to say them to Miss Fosbrook.”
“He meant it though,” was all Sam’s answer. “Don’t hinder me.”
“Well, I’ve no notion of being bound by what people mean,” continued Hal;
and no one could imagine the torment he made himself, neither going nor
staying, arguing the matter with his elder brother, as if Sam’s coming
would justify him, and interrupting everyone; till at last Miss Fosbrook
gathered all her spirit, and ordered him either to sit down and learn
properly at once, or to go quite away. She was very much vexed, for
Henry had been the most obliging and good-natured of all at first, and
likely to be fond of her; but such a great talker could not fail to be
weak, and his vanity had been set against her. He looked saucy at first,
and much inclined to resist; if he had seen any sympathy for him in Sam
he might have done so, but Miss Fosbrook’s steady eye was too much for
him, so he saved his dignity, as he thought, by exclaiming, “I’m sure I
don’t want to stay in this stuffy hole with such a set of owls; I shall
go to Purday.” And off he marched.
The others stayed, and said their Collects and Catechism very
respectably, all but John, who had not learned the Collect at all, and
was sent into another room to finish it, to which he made no resistance;
he had had enough of actual fighting with Miss Fosbrook.
Then she offered to read a story to the others, but she found that this
was distasteful even to her friend Sam; he thought it stupid to be read
to, and said he should see after Hal; David trotted after him, and Susan
and Anne repaired to the nursery to play with the little ones and the
baby. She minded it the less, as they all had some purpose; but she had
already been vexed to find that all but Davy preferred the most arrant
vacant idleness to anything rational. To be sure, Susan sometimes,
Bessie and Hal always, would read any book that made no pretensions to be
instructive, but even a fact about a lion or an elephant made them detect
wisdom in disguise, and throw it aside. She thought, however, she would
make the most of Bessie, and asked whether she would like to hear
reading, or read to herself.
“To myself,” said Bessie; and there was a silence, while Miss Fosbrook,
glad of the quiet, began reading her _Christian Year_. Presently she
heard a voice so low that it seemed at a distance and it made her start,
for it was saying “Christabel!” then she almost laughed, for it seemed to
have been an audacious experiment, to judge by little Elizabeth’s scared
looks and the glow on her cheeks.
“May I say it sometimes when we are alone together?” she said timidly.
“I do like it so much!”
“If it is such a pleasure to you, I would not deprive you of it,” said
Miss Fosbrook, laughing; “but don’t do so, except when we are alone, for
your Mamma would not like me to seem younger still.”
“Oh, thank you! Isn’t it a nice secret?” cried Bessie, clinging to her
hand: “and will you let me hug you sometimes?”
A little love was pleasant to Miss Fosbrook, when she was feeling lonely,
and she took Bessie in her lap, and they exchanged caresses, to the
damage of the collar that Miss Fosbrook’s sister had worked for her.
“And you don’t call me silly?” cried Bessie.
“That depends,” was the answer, with some arch fun; but Bessie had not
much turn for fun, and presently went on—
“And you saw Ida Greville?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think of her?”
“I had not much opportunity of learning what to think.”
“But her parasol, and her bird! Did you think her mama very silly to
give her pretty things?”
“No, certainly not, unless she wore them at unsuitable times, or thought
too much about them.”
“Ida has so many, she does not think of them at all. And she has shells,
and such a lovely work-box, and picture-books; she has all she wants.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Oh, yes, quite sure! and they don’t tease her for liking pretty things;
her brothers keep quite away, and never bother about the schoolroom; but
she learns Italian and German, and drawing and singing. Mr. Greville
said something about our spending the day there. Oh! if we do but go!
Won’t you, Miss Fosbrook?”
“If I am asked, and if your Mamma would wish it.”
“Oh, Mamma always lets us go, except once—when—when—”
“When what?”
“When I cried,” said Elizabeth, hanging down her head; “I couldn’t help
it. It did seem so tiresome here, and she said I was learning to be
discontented; but nobody can help wishing, can they?”
“There must be a way of not breaking the Tenth Commandment.”
“I don’t covet; I don’t want to take things away from Ida, only to have
the same.”
“Yes; but what does the explanation at the end of the Duty to our
Neighbour say, filling out that Commandment?”
“I think I’ll go and see what Susie is doing,” said Elizabeth.
Christabel sighed as the little girl walked off, displeased at having her
repinings set before her in a graver light than that in which she had
hitherto chosen to regard them.
She saw no more of her charges till tea-time, when the bell brought them
from different quarters, Johnnie with such a grimy collar and dirty
hands, that he was a very un-Sunday-like figure, and she would have sent
him away to make himself decent, but that she was desirous of not
over-tormenting him.
Sunday was always celebrated by having treacle with the bread, so the
butter riot was happily escaped; and Bessie was not in a gracious mood,
and the corners of her mouth provoked the boys to begin on what they knew
would make her afford them sport. Hal first: “I say, Bet, didn’t Purday
want his gun to-day at church?”
Elizabeth put out her lip in expectation that something unpleasant was
intended, and other voices were not slow to ask an explanation.
“Shooting the cocky-olly birds!”
A general explosion of laughter.
“I say (always the preface to the boy’s wit), shall I get a jay down off
the barn to stick into your hat, Betty?”
“Don’t, Hal,” said such a deplorable offended voice, that Sam, who had
really held his tongue at first, could not help chiming in,
“No, no; a cock-sparrow, for her London manners.”
“No, that’s for me, Sam,” said Christabel good-humouredly. “A
London-bred sparrow; a pert forward chit.”
She really had found a safety-valve; the boys were entertained, and
diverted from their attack on their favourite victim, by finding everyone
an appropriate bird; and when they came to “Tomtits” and “Dishwashers,”
were so astonished at Miss Fosbrook’s never having seen either, that they
instantly fell into the greatest haste to finish their tea, and conduct
her into the garden, and through a course of birds, eggs, and nests,
about which, as soon as she was assured that there was to be no
bird’s-nesting, she was very eager.
Bessie ought to have been thankful that her persecutors were called off,
but she was in a dismal mood, and was taken with a fit of displeasure
that her own Christabel Angela was following the rabble rout into the
garden, instead of staying in the school-room at her service.
The reason of her gloom was, that Miss Fosbrook had spoken a word that
she did not choose to take home, and yet which she could not shake off.
So she would neither stay in nor go out cheerfully, and sauntered along
looking so piteous, that Johnnie could not help making her worse by
plucking at her dress, by suddenly twisting her cape round till the back
was in front, and pushing her hat over her eyes, till “Don’t Johnnie,” in
a dismal whine, alternated with “I’ll tell Miss Fosbrook.”
Christabel did not see nor hear. She had gone forward with a boy on
either side of her, and Susan walking backwards in front, all telling the
story of a cuckoo,—or gowk, as Sara called it in Purday’s language,—which
they had found in a water-wagtail’s nest in a heap of stones; how it sat
up, constantly gaping with its huge mouth, while the poor little
foster-parents toiled to their utmost to keep it supplied with
caterpillars, and the last time it was seen, when full-fledged, were
trying to lure it to come out of the nest by holding up green palmers at
some little distance before it. This was in the evening; by morning it
was gone, having probably taken flight at sunrise.
Miss Fosbrook listened with all the pleasure the boys could desire. She
had read natural history, and looked at birds stuffed in the British
Museum, or alive at the Zoological Gardens, on the rare days when her
father had time to give himself and his children a treat; and her fresh
value and interest in all these country things were delightful to the
boys.
It was a lovely summer evening. The sun was low enough to make the
shadows long and refreshing, as they lay upon the blooming grass of the
wilderness, softly swaying in the breeze, all pale with its numerous
chaffy blossoms, and varied by the tall buttercups that raised up their
shining yellow heads, or by white clouds of bold-faced ox-eye daisies.
The pear-trees were like white garlands; the apple-trees covered with
white blossoms and rosy buds; the climbing roses on the wall were
bursting into blossom; the sky was one blue vault without a cloud.
Surely Elizabeth had no lack here of what was pretty. Then why did she
lag behind, unseeing, unheeding of all, but peevishly pushing off John
and Anne, thinking that they always teased her worst on Sundays, and very
much discomfited that Miss Fosbrook was not attending to her? Surely the
fault was not altogether in what was outside her.
“See!” cry the boys. Miss Fosbrook must first look up there, high upon
the side of the house, niched behind that thick stem of the vine. What,
can’t she see those round black eyes and little beak? They see her plain
enough. Ah! now she has them. That’s a fly-catcher. By and by they
shall be able to show her the old birds flying round, catching flies on
the wing, and feeding the young ones, all perched in a row.
Now, can she scramble up the laurels? Yes, she hopes so; though she
wished she had known what was coming, for she would have changed her
Sunday muslin. But a look of anxiety came on Sam’s face as he peeped
into the clump of laurels; he signed back the others, sprang upon the
dark scraggy bough of the tree, and Hal called out,
“Gone! has Ralph been there?”
“Ay, the black rascal; at least, I suppose so. Not an egg left, and they
would have hatched this week!”
“Well, Purday calls him his best friend,” said Harry. “He says we should
not get a currant or a gooseberry if it wasn’t for that there raven, as
Papa won’t have the small birds shot.”
“Bring down the nest, Sam,” cried Susan; “Georgy will like to have it.”
The children behind, who never could hear of anything to be had without
laying a claim to it, shouted that they wanted the nest; but Sam said Sue
had spoken first, and they fell back discontented, and more bent on their
unkind sport. Miss Fosbrook was rather shocked at the tearing out the
nest, and asked if the old bird would not have another brood there; but
it was explained that a thrush would never return to a forsaken nest; and
when Sam came down with it in his hand, she was delighted with the
wonderful cup that formed the lining, so smooth and firm a bason formed
of dried mud set within the grassy wall. She had thought that swallows
alone built with mud, and had to learn that the swallows used their clay
for their outer walls, and down for their lining, whereas the thrush is a
regular plasterer.
Sam promised her another thrush to make up for her disappointment, and
meantime conducted her to a very untidy old summer-house, the moss of
whose roof hung down loose and rough over a wild collection of headless
wooden horses, little ships with torn sails, long sticks, battered
watering-pots, and old garden tools. She was desired to look up to one
of the openings in the ragged moss, and believe that it housed a kitty
wren’s family of sixteen or eighteen; but she had to take this on trust,
for to lay a finger near would lead to desertion; in fact, Sam was rather
sorry to be able to point out to her, on coming out, the tiny, dark,
nutmeg, cock-tailed father kitty, popping in and out of the thorn hedge,
spying at the party.
Now then for a wonder as they came out. Sam waved everybody away—nay,
waved is a small word for what he did—shouted, pushed, ordered, would be
more like it. He was going to give Miss Fosbrook such a proof of his
esteem as hardly any one enjoyed, not even Hal, twice in the summer.
Everybody submitted to his violent demonstrations, and Christabel
followed him to the back of the summer-house. There stood a large red
flower-pot upside down.
“Now, Miss Fosbrook!”
Sam’s finger hooked into the hole at the top. Off came the flower-pot,
and disclosed something flying off with rushing wings, and something
confused remaining,—a cluster of grey wings all quill, with gaping yellow
mouths here and there opening, a huddling movement always going on in the
forlorn heap, as if each were cold, and wanted to be undermost.
“Tits, my tits!” said Sam triumphantly; “they’ve built their nest here
three years following.”
“But how do they get in and out?”
“Through the hole. Take care, I’ll show you one.”
“Won’t you frighten away the bird?”
“Oh dear no! Ox-eyes aren’t like wrens; I go to them every day. See!”
and he took up in his hand a creature that could just be seen to be
intended for a bird, though the long skinny neck was bare, and the tiny
quills of the young wings only showed a little grey sprouting feather, as
did the breast some primrose-coloured down. Miss Fosbrook had to part
with some favourite cockney notions of the beauty of infant birds, and on
the other hand to gain a vivid idea of what is meant by “callow young.”
Sam quickly put his nestling back, and showed her the parent. She could
hardly believe that the handsome bird in the smooth grey coat and bright
straw-coloured waistcoat, with the broad jet-black line down the centre,
the great white cheeks edged with black, and the bold knowing look, could
be like what the little bits of deformity in the nest would soon become.
“Ay, that’s an ox-eye,” said Sam. “You’ll hear them going on
peter—peter—peter—all the spring.”
But Sam was cut short by a loud and lamentable burst of roaring where
they had left the party.
Miss Fosbrook hurried back, hearing Hal’s rude laugh as she came nearer,
it was Elizabeth, sobbing in the passionate way in which it is not good
to see a child cry, and violently shaking off Susan, who was begging her
to stop herself before Miss Fosbrook should come.
What _was_ the matter?
“Oh! Betty’s nonsense.”
“Johnnie _did_—”
“Johnnie only—”
“Now, Hal!”
“Tell-tale!” “Cry-baby!”
“She only cried that Miss Fosbrook might hear.”
So shouted the little Babel, Bessie sobbing resentfully between her
words, till Miss Fosbrook, insisting that everybody should be quiet,
desired her to tell what had happened.
“Johnnie—Johnnie called me a toad.”
The others all burst out laughing, and Miss Fosbrook, trying to silence
them with a frown, said it was very rude of John, but she saw no reason
why a girl of Bessie’s age should act so childish a part.
“He’s been teasing me, and so has Anne, all this time!” cried Bessie.
“They’ve been at me ever since I came out, pulling me and plaguing me,
and—”
“Well,” said Susan, “I told you to walk in front of Miss Fosbrook, where
they could not.”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” said John.
“Now, Johnnie!”
“He only pulled her frock and poked her ankles,” said Anne pleadingly
“Only—and why did you do what she did not like?”
Johnnie looked sturdy and cross. Anne hung her head; and Elizabeth burst
out again,
“They always do—they always are cross to me! I said I’d tell you, and
now they said Ida was a conceited little toad, and stingy Bet was
another;” and out burst her howls again.
“A very sad and improper way of spending a Sunday evening,” said Miss
Fosbrook, who had really grown quite angry. “Anne and John, I _will_ put
an end to this teasing. Go to bed this instant.”
They did not dare to disobey, but went off slowly with sulky footsteps,
muttering to one another that Miss Fosbrook always took pipy Betty’s
part; Nurse said so, and they wished Mamma was at home. And when they
came up to the nursery, Nurse pitied them. She had never heard of a
young lady doing such a thing as ordering off two poor dear children to
bed for only just saying a word; but it seemed there were to be
favourites now. No, she could not put them to bed; they must wait till
Mary came in from her walk; she wasn’t going to put herself out of the
way for any fine London governess.
So Johnnie had another conquest over Miss Fosbrook; but Anne was
uncomfortable, and went and sat in a corner, wishing she had had her
punishment properly over, and kicking her brother away when he wanted to
play with her.
As for Bessie, she only cried the more for Miss Fosbrook’s trying to talk
to her. It was a way of hers, perhaps from being less strong than the
others, if once she started in a cry she could not leave off.
Susan told Miss Fosbrook so; and the boys tried to drag her on with a
promise of a blackbird’s nest; but she thought them unfeeling to such
woeful distress, and first tried to reason with Bessie, then to soothe
her, till at last, finding all in vain, she thought bed the only place
for the child, and led her into the house, helped her, still shaking with
sobs, to undress, and was going to see her lie down in the bed which she
shared with Susan. Elizabeth was still young enough to say her prayers
aloud. The words came out in the middle of choking sobs, not as if she
were much attending to them. Miss Fosbrook knelt down by her as she was
going to rise, and said in her own words,
“Most merciful God, give unto this Thy child the spirit of content, and
the spirit of love, that she may bear patiently all the little trials
that hurt and vex her, and win her way as Thy good soldier and servant.
Amen.”
Elizabeth held her breath to listen. It was new and odd. She did not
like to say Amen; she did not know if the governess were not taking a
liberty. Perhaps it was a new way of telling her she was
wrong—Christabel, whom she had thought on her side.
The bad temper woke up, and would not let her offer a friendly kiss. She
hid her face in the pillow, and as soon as Miss Fosbrook had shut the
door, went off into a fresh gust of piteous sobs, because Miss Elizabeth
Merrifield was the most miserable ill-used child in all the world.
She might be one of the most miserable, but it was not because of her
ill-usage, but because she had no spirit to be cheerful, and had turned
away from comfort of the right kind. She was in such a frame as to
prefer thinking everyone against her, to supposing that anything she
could do would mend matters.
Christabel was much grieved at this unfortunate end to the Sunday
evening. She looked over all the boys’ birds’ eggs—they were allowed to
keep two of every sort as curiosities—and listened to some wonderful
stories of Henry’s about climbing trees, and shooting partridges, and she
kept the remaining children quiet and amused; but she was not happy in
her mind.
She thought she must have been wrong in not watching them more closely,
and she felt more dislike and indignation against Johnnie than she feared
was altogether right in his governess. Also, she feared to make too much
of Elizabeth, and was almost afraid that notice taught her to be still
more fretful. And yet there was a sense of being drawn to her by their
two minds understanding each other, by likeness of tastes, by pity, and
by a wish to protect one whom her little world oppressed.
Nurse Freeman could not be more afraid of Miss Fosbrook making favourites
than she was herself.
All she could do in the matter was that which she had already done at
Bessie’s bedside, and much more fully than when the little girl was
listening to her.
CHAPTER V.
WITH Monday morning began the earning of the pig. Miss Fosbrook’s first
business after prayers was to deal out the week’s allowance—sixpence to
each of the four elders, threepence apiece to the three younger ones.
“May there be no fines,” she said.
“I’ll not have the hundredth part of a fine!” shouted Henry, tossing his
money into the air.
Little David’s set lips expressed the same purpose.
“Please let me have a whole sixpence,” said Susan. “If I haven’t any
change, I sha’n’t spend it.”
“You, Sukey! you’d better have the four farthings,” laughed Sam. “You’ll
be the first to want them.”
Susan laughed; and Miss Fosbrook, partly as an example to the plaintive
Elizabeth, said, “You are so good-humoured, Susie, that I can’t find it
in my heart to demand a fine—or—your hair; and there,” pointing to the
stout red fingers, “did you ever behold such a black little row?”
“Oh dear!” cried Susan, in her good-humoured hearty voice, “how tiresome,
when they were _so_ clean this morning, and I’ve only just been feeding
the chicken, and up in the hay-loft for the eggs, and pulling the
radishes!”
“Well, go and wash and brush, and to-morrow remember the pig,” said Miss
Fosbrook, unable to help comparing the radishes and the fingers for
redness and for earthiness.
It was a more difficult matter when, as Elizabeth put her silver coin
into her purse, John must needs repeat the stupid old joke, “There goes
stingy Bet!” and Bessie put on her woeful appealing face.
“John, I shall punish you if I hear those words again.”
“I don’t mind. Nurse says you have no business to punish me! She did
not put me to bed; and I had such fun! Oh, such fun!” and the boy looked
up with a grin that set all the others laughing.
Christabel resolutely kept silence, and hoped her looks did not show her
annoyance, as the boy went on, “I got lots of goodies, for Nurse said she
had no notion of no stranger punishing her children. Oh! Oh! Oh!” For
Samuel had hold of his ear, and was tweaking it sharply.
“There! Go and tell Nurse, if you like, baby!”
“Sam, indeed I can’t have my battles fought in that way!” cried the
governess, much distressed, as Johnnie roared, perhaps that old Nurse
might hear, and, to all attempts to find out whether he were hurt,
offered only heels and fists, till Susan came back and hugged him into
quiet.
“Now Johnnie has cried before breakfast on a Monday morning,” said Annie,
“all the rest of the week will go wrong with him.”
“Indeed,” said Miss Fosbrook, “I hope no such thing.—Suppose we try and
show Annie she is wrong, Johnnie!”
But Johnnie was sulky, and even Susan looked as if she thought this a new
and dangerous notion. Sam laughed, and said, “I wish you joy, Miss
Fosbrook. Now he’ll think he must be naughty.”
“Johnnie,” said David solemnly, “the pig.”
The pig was a very good master of the ceremonies, and kept all elbows off
the table at breakfast-time; and Bessie, who was apt to stick fast in the
midst of her bread and milk, and fall into disgrace for daintiness and
dawdling, finished off quietly and prosperously.
Then every one was turned loose till nine o’clock. Susan had charge of
Mamma’s keys, and had to go down to the kitchen, see what the cook
wanted, and put it out, but only on condition that no brother or sister
ever went with her to the store-closet. Susan was highly trustworthy,
but Mamma was too wise to let her be tempted by voices begging for one
plum, one almond, or the last spoonful of Jam. It took away a great deal
of the pleasure of jingling the keys, and having a voice in choosing the
pudding.
The two elder boys went to their tutor, the other children to the
nursery, except Elizabeth, who was rummaging in her little box, and
David, whom Miss Fosbrook found perched on the ledge of the window,
reading a book that did not look as if it were meant for men of his size.
But Miss Fosbrook thought David like the oldest person in the
house—infinitely older than John, who could do nothing better than he
except running and bawling, and a good deal older than even Hal and Sam.
Nay, there were times when he raised his steady eyes and slowly spoke out
his thoughts, when she felt as if he were much more wise and serious than
her twenty-years old self.
“Well, Davy,” she asked, as at the sound of the lesson-bell the little
old man uncrossed his sturdy legs, closed his book, and arose with a
sigh, “have you found out all about it?”
“I have found out why a pig is a profitable investment,” he answered
gravely.
“And why?”
“Because he will feed upon refuse, and fatten upon cheap food,” said
David, in the words of his book; “only I can’t make out why. Do you
know, Miss Fosbrook?”
“I don’t quite see what you want to know, Davy.”
“I want to know why a pig gets fat on barley-meal, when an ox wants
mange, and oil-cake and hay. I asked Nurse, and she said little boys
mustn’t ask questions; and I asked Purday, and he said it was because
pigs is pigs, and oxen is oxen. Why do you think it is, Miss Fosbrook?”
“I don’t think; I know it is because the great God has made one sort of
creature to be easily fed, and made good for poor people to live upon,”
said Miss Fosbrook.
David’s eyes were fixed on her as if he still had questions to ask, and
she was quite afraid of her powers of answering them, for he was new in
the world, and saw the strangeness of many things to which older people
become used by living with them, but which are not the less strange for
all that.
However, the trampling of many feet put an end to question and answer,
and the day’s work had to begin with the Psalms, and reading the Morning
Lessons. Bessie was by far the best reader; and David did very well,
though he made very long stops to look deliberately at any long new word,
and could not bear to be told before he had mastered it for himself.
Even Susan was sadly given to gabbling and missing the little words that
she thought beneath her attention; and the other two stumbled so
horribly, that it was pain to hear them.
This beginning might be taken as the sign of how all would do their
lessons. It is only a child here and there, generally a lonely one, to
whom lessons can be anything but a toil and an obligation. Even with
clever ones, who may be interested in some part of their study, some
other branch will be disagreeable; and there is nothing in the whole
world to be learnt without drudgery, so it would be unreasonable to
expect lessons to be regarded as delightful; but there is one thing that
is to be expected of any good child—not to enjoy lessons; not to surpass
others; not to do anything surprising; only to make a conscience of doing
what is required as well as possible.
Now do not many children seem to think that they are to receive as little
as they can possibly take in without being punished; or that, if they
make any exertion, their teachers ought to be so much obliged to them,
that some great praise or reward is due to them?
Let us see whether anyone in Stokesley school-room was making a
conscience of the day’s tasks. It is not of much use to ask for any at
present in Johnnie—not for a whole week, as Annie would declare; he does
not know his single Latin declension; his spelling, is all abroad; his
geography wild; yet though turned back once, he misses the fine by just
saying his lessons passably the last time. They perhaps ought, in strict
justice, to have been sent back; but Miss Fosbrook was very glad to be
saved the uproar that would have ensued, and almost wondered whether she
were not timidly merciful to the horrible copy and the greasy slate. But
Johnnie had no fine, and was as proud of it as if he had been a good boy.
“She hadn’t caught him out,” he said, as if his kind governess had been
his enemy.
As to Annie, her French verbs were always dreadful things to hear, and
the little merry face, usually so bright, used to grow quite deplorable
with the trouble she took not to use her mind. Using her memory was bad
enough, but saying things by heart was an affliction she was used to, and
it was very shocking of Miss Fosbrook to require her to find out _how_
many years Richard II. had reigned, if he began in 1377 and ended in
1399. Susan prompted her, however; so she really got a triumph over Miss
Fosbrook, and was quite saved from thinking. Oh, but the teasing woman!
she silenced Susan, and would have this poor injured Annie tell how old
the tiresome man was. “Began to reign at eleven years old, dethroned
after twenty-two years; how old was he?” Annie found bursting out crying
easier than thinking, and then they all cried out, “O Nanny, the pig!”
and Miss Fosbrook had the barbarity to call that _foolish_ crying! What
might one cry for, if not at being asked how old Richard II. was? If the
fine must be paid, there was no use in stopping; so Annie howled till
Miss Fosbrook turned her out to finish on the stairs; and as Nurse
Freeman was out with the little ones, there was no one to comfort her; so
she cried till she was tired, and when the noise ceased, Susan was
allowed to come and coax her, and fetch her back to go on with her copy,
as soon as her hand was steady enough. She felt very foolish by this
time, and thought David eyed her rather angrily and contemptuously; so
she crept quietly to her corner, and felt sad and low-spirited all the
rest of the morning. Now that thirty-three had come into her head, it
seemed so stupid not to have thought of it in time; and then she would
have saved her farthing, and her eyes would not have been so hot.
Maybe, too, Susan’s French phrases would not have been turned back. Miss
Fosbrook would have given a great deal not to have been obliged to do it,
but she had prompted flagrantly already, and a teacher is obliged to have
a conscience quite as much as a scholar; so the book was given back, and
Susan spent twelve minutes in see-sawing herself, and going over the
sentences in a rapid whispering gabble, a serious worry to the governess
in listening to Bessie’s practising and David’s reading, but she thought
it would be a hardship to be forbidden to learn in her own way at that
moment, and forbore. David was interrupted in his “Little Arthur’s
History,” and looked rather cross about it, for Susan to try again. She
made all the same blunders—and more too! Back again! Poor Susie! Once,
twice, thrice, has she read those stupid words over, and knows less of
them than before. Davy’s loud voice will go into her understanding
instead of those French phrases. She looks up in dull stupefaction.
William Rufus is disposed of, and David, as grave as a judge, is taking
up his slate, looking a little fussed because there is a scratch in the
corner. “Well, Susan,” says Miss Fosbrook.
Susan jumps up in desperation, and puts her hands behind her. Oh dear!
oh dear! all that the gentlemen on a journey were saying to one another
has gone clean out of her head!
She cannot recollect the three first words. She only remembers that this
is the third time, and another farthing is gone! She stands and stares.
“Susan,” says Miss Fosbrook severely, “you never tried to learn this.”
Susan gives a little gasp; and Elizabeth, who has said her French without
a blunder, puts in an unnecessary and not very sisterly word: “Susan
never will learn her French.”
Susan’s honest eyes fill with tears, but she gulps them back. She will
not cry away another farthing, but she does feel it very cross in Bessie,
and she is universally miserable.
Christabel feels heated, wearied, and provoked, and as if she were fast
losing her own temper; and that made her resolve on mercy.
“Susie,” she said with an effort, “run twice to the great lime-tree and
back. Then take the book into my room, read this over three times, and
we will try again.”
Susan looked surprised, but she obeyed, came back, and repeated the
phrases better than she had ever said French before. She was absolutely
surprised and highly pleased, and she finished off her other lessons
swimmingly; but oh, she was glad to be rid of them! Yes, they were off
her mind, and so she deserved that they should be! She flew away to the
nursery, and little Sarah was soon crowing in her arms.
Elizabeth? Not a blunder in French verbs or geography—very tidy copy.
French reading good; English equally so, only it ended in a pout, because
there was not time for her to go on to see what became of Carthage; and
she was a most intolerable time in learning her poetry out of the book of
Readings, or rather she much preferred reading the verses in other parts
of the book to getting perfect in her lesson, and then being obliged to
turn her mind to arithmetic. Miss Fosbrook called her three times; and
at last she turned round peevishly at being interrupted in the middle of
the “Friar of Orders Gray,” and repeated her twenty lines of Cowper’s
“Winter’s Walk” in a doleful whine, though without a blunder.
It was one of the horrible novelties that Miss Fosbrook was bringing in,
that she expected people to understand their sums as well as work them.
She gave much shorter ones, to be sure, than Mamma, who did sometimes set
a long multiplication sum of such a huge size, that it looked as if it
were meant to keep the victim out of the way; but who would not prefer
casting up any length of figures, to being required to explain the
meaning of “carrying”?
Really, if it had not been for the pig, that shocking question might have
led to a mutiny in the school-room. When it was bad enough to do the
thing, how could anyone ask what was meant by the operation, and why it
was performed?
What did Bessie do when her sum was being overlooked? Miss Fosbrook read
on: “4 from 8, 4; 7 from 1—how’s this, Bessie? 7 from 10 are—”
“3, and 1 are 4,” dolorously, as her 3 was changed.
“Now then, what next?”
“Carry one.”
“What did I tell you was meant by carry one?”
“The tens,” said Bessie, not in the least thinking “the tens” had
anything to do with the matter, but only that she had heard something
about them, and could thus get rid of the subject.
“Now, Bessie, what tens can you possibly mean? Think a little.”
“I’m sure you said tens once,” said injured innocence.
“That was in an addition sum. See, here it is quite different. I told
you.”
Bessie put on a vacant stare. She was not going to attend to what she
did not like.
Miss Fosbrook saw the face. She absolutely shrank from provoking another
fit of crying, and went quickly through the explanation. She saw that
her words might as well have been spoken to the slate. Bessie neither
listened nor took them in. Not all her love for her dear Christabel
Angela could stir her up to make one effort contrary to her inclinations.
The slate was given back to her, she wiped out the sum in a pet, and ran
away.
Miss Fosbrook turned round, David, whose lessons had been perfectly
repeated an hour ago, was sitting cross-legged in the window, with his
slate and pencil, and a basket of bricks, his great delight, which he was
placing in rows.
“Miss Fosbrook,” said he, “isn’t this it? Twelve bricks; take away those
seven, then—1, 2, 3, 4, 5—the twelve is only 5: the 10 is gone, isn’t it?
so you must leave one out of the next figure in the upper line of the
sum.”
Now Davy had only begun arithmetic on the governess’s arrival, but he had
learnt numeration and addition in her way. She was so delighted, that
she stooped down and kissed him, saying, “Quite right, my little man.”
Davy rather disapproved of the kiss, and rubbed his brown-holland elbow
over his face, as if to clear it off.
“Well,” thought Christabel, as she hurried away for five minutes’ peace
in her own room before the dinner-bell, “it is a comfort to have one
pupil whose whole endeavour is not to frustrate one’s attempts to educate
him.”
Poor young thing! that one little bit of sense had quite cheered her up.
Otherwise she was not one whit less weary than the children. She had
been learning a very tough lesson too—much harder than any of theirs; and
she was not at all certain that she had learnt it right.
Now, readers, of all the children, who do you think had used the most
conscience at the lessons?
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT an entirely different set of beings were those Stokesley children in
lesson-time and out of it! Talk of the change of an old thorn in winter
to a May-bush in spring! that was nothing to it!
Poor, listless, stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed
ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes! Who would believe that these were
the merry, capering, noisy creatures, full of fun and riot, clattering
and screeching, and dancing about with ecstasy at Sam’s information that
there was a bonfire by the potato-house!
“A bonfire!” said the London governess, thinking of illuminations; “what
can that be for?”
“Oh, it is not _for_ anything,” said Susan; “it is Purday burning weeds.
Don’t you smell them? How nice they are! I was afraid it was only
Farmer Smith burning couch.”
All the noses were elevated to scent from afar a certain smoky odour,
usually to be detected in July breezes, and which reminded Miss Fosbrook
of a brick-field.
“Potatoes! Potatoes! We’ll roast some potatoes, and have them for tea!”
bellowed all the voices; so that Miss Fosbrook could hardly find a space
for very unwillingly saying,
“But, my dears, I don’t know whether I ought to let you play with fire.”
“Oh, we always do,” roared the children; and Susan added,
“We always roast potatoes when there’s a bonfire. Mamma always lets us;
it is only Purday that is cross.”
“Yes, yes; Mamma lets us.”
“Well, if Sam and Susan say it is right, I trust to them,” said Miss
Fosbrook gladly; “only you must let me come out and see what it is. I am
too much of a Londoner to know.”
“Oh yes; and we’ll roast you some potatoes.”
So the uproarious population tumbled upstairs, there to be invested with
rougher brown-holland garments than those that already concealed the
sprigged cottons of the girls; and when the five came down again, they
were so much alike in dress, that it was not easy to tell girls from
boys. Susan brought little George down with her, and off the party set.
Sam and Hal, who had been waiting in the hall, took Miss Fosbrook between
them, as if they thought it their duty to do the honours of the bonfire,
and conducted her across the garden, through the kitchen-garden, across
which lay a long sluggish bar of heavy and very odorous smoke, to a gate
in a quickset hedge. Here were some sheds and cart-houses, a fagot pile,
various logs of timber, a grindstone, and—that towards which all the
eight children rushed with whoops of ecstasy—a heap of smoking rubbish,
chiefly dry leaves, and peas and potato haulm, with a large allowance of
cabbage stumps—all extremely earthy, and looking as if the smouldering
smoke were a wonder from so mere a heap of dirt.
No matter! There were all the children round it, some on their knees,
some jumping; and voices were crying on all sides,
“O jolly, jolly!” “I’ll get some potatoes!” “Oh, you must have some
sticks first, and make some ashes.” “There’s no flame—not a bit!” “Get
out of the way, can’t you? I’ll make a hot place.” “We’ll each have our
own oven, and roast our own potatoes!” “Don’t, Sam; you’re pushing me
into the smoke!”
This of course was from Elizabeth; and there followed, “Don’t, Bessie,
you will tread upon Georgie.—Yes, Georgie, you _shall_ have a place.”
“Sticks, sticks!” shouted Henry; while Sam was on his knees, poking out a
species of cavern in the fire, where some symptoms of red embers
appeared, which he diligently puffed with his mouth, feeding it with
leaves and smaller chips in a very well practised way. “Sticks, Annie!
Johnnie! Davy! get sticks, I say, and we’ll make an oven.”
Annie obeyed; but the two little boys were intent on imitating Sam on
another side of the fire, and Johnnie uttered a gruff “Get ’em yourself,”
while David took no notice at all.
Perhaps Hal would have betaken himself to no gentle means if Susan had
not hastily put in his way a plentiful supply of dead wood, which she had
been letting little George think he picked up all himself; and there was
keen excitement, which Christabel could not help sharing, while under
Sam’s breath the red edges of the half-burnt chip glowed, flushed,
widened, then went sparkling doubtfully, slowly, to the light bit of
potato-stalk that he held to it, glowing as he blew—fading, smoking, when
he took breath. Try again—puff, puff, puff diligently; the fire
evidently has a taste for the delicate little shaving that Annie has
found for it; it seizes on it; another—another; a flame at last. Hurrah!
pile on more; not too much. “Don’t put it out!” Oh, there! strong
flame—coming crackling up through those smothering heaps of stick and
haulm; it won’t be kept down; it rises in the wind; it is a red flaring
banner. The children shriek in transports of admiration, little George
loudest of all, because Susan is holding him tight, lest he should run
into the brilliant flame. Miss Fosbrook is rather appalled, but the
children are all safe on the windward side, and seem used to it; so she
supposes it is all right, and the flame dies down faster than it rose.
It is again an innocent smouldering heap, like a volcano after an
eruption.
“We must not let it blaze again just yet,” said Sam; “keep it down well
with sticks, to make some nice white ashes for the potatoes. See, I’ll
make an oven.”
They were all stooping round this precious hot corner, some kneeling,
some sitting on the ground, David with hands on his sturdy knees—all
intent on nursing that creeping red spark, as it smouldered from chip to
chip, leaving a black trace wherever it went, when through the thick
smoke, that was like an absolute curtain hiding everything on the farther
side, came headlong a huge bundle of weeds launched overwhelmingly on the
fire, and falling on the children’s heads in an absolute shower, knocking
Johnnie down, but on a soft and innocent side of the fire among the
cabbage-stumps, and seeming likely to bury Sam, who leant over to shelter
his precious oven, and puffed away as if nothing was happening, amid the
various shouts around him, in which “Purday” was the most audible word.
“Ah, so you’ve got at he, after all,” said Purday, leaning on the fork
with which he had thrown on the weeds. “Nothing is safe from you.”
“What, you thought you had a new place, Purday, and circumvented us!”
cried Hal; “but we smelt you out, you old rogue; we weren’t going to be
baulked of our bonfire.”
Miss Fosbrook here ventured on asking if they were doing mischief; and
Purday answered with an odd gruff noise, “Mischief enough—ay, to be
sure—hucking the fire all abroad. It’s what they’re always after. I did
think I’d got it safe out of their way this time.”
“Then,” in rather a frightened voice, for she felt that it would be a
tremendous trial of her powers, “should I make them come away?”
“Catch her!” muttered Hal.
There was horror and disapprobation on Susan’s face. Annie stood with
her mouth open; while John, throwing himself on the ground with fury,
rolled over, crying out something about, “I won’t,” and “very cross;” and
David lay flat on his face, puffing at his own particular oven, like a
little Wind in an old picture. Sam waited, leaning on the ashen stick
that served him as a poker. It was the most audacious thing he had ever
heard. Rob them of their bonfire! Would that old traitor of a Purday
abet her?
Perhaps Purday was as much astonished as the rest; but, after all, much
as the children tormented his bonfires, overset his haycocks, and
disturbed his wood-pile, he did not like anyone to scold them but
himself, much less the new London Lady; so he made up an odd sort of
grin, and said, “No, no, Ma’am, it ain’t that they do so much harm; let
’em bide;” and he proceeded to shake on the rest of his barrowful,
tumbling the weeds down over David’s cherished oven in utter disregard;
but the children cried with one voice, “Hurrah! hurrah! Purday, we don’t
do any harm, so don’t ever grumble again. Hurrah!”
“And I don’t care for _her_, the crosspatch,” said Johnnie to Annie,
never hearing or heeding Miss Fosbrook’s fervent “I am so glad!”
And as long as the foolish boy remembered it, he always did believe that
Miss Fosbrook was so cross as to want to hinder them from their bonfire,
only Purday would not let her.
Miss Fosbrook did not trouble herself to be understood; she was relieved
to have done her duty, and be free to rejoice in and share the pleasure.
She ran about and collected materials for Sam till she was out of breath,
and joined in all the excitement as the fire showed symptoms of reviving,
after being apparently crushed out by Purday. Sam and Susan, at least,
believed that she had only spoken to Purday because she thought it right;
but even for them to forgive interference with their bonfire privileges
was a great stretch.
At last she thought it time to leave them to their own devices, and seize
the moment for some quiet reading; but she had not reached the house
before little steps came after her, and she saw Elizabeth running fast.
“They are so tiresome,” she said. “Sam won’t let me stand anywhere but
where the smoke gets into my eyes, and George plagues so! May I come in
with you, dear Christabel?”
“You are very welcome,” said Miss Fosbrook, “but I am sorry to hear so
many complaints.”
“They are so cross to me,” said Bessie; “they always are.”
“You must try to be cheerful and good-humoured with them, and they will
leave off vexing you.”
“But may I come in? It will be a nice time for my secret.”
Christabel saw little hope for her intended reading, but she was always
glad of a space for making Bessie happy, so she kindly consented to the
bringing out of the little girl’s treasury, and the dismal face grew
happy and eager. The subjects of the drawings were all clear in her
head; that was not the difficulty, but the cardboard, the ribbon, the
real good paints. One little slip of card Miss Fosbrook hunted out of
her portfolio; she cut a pencil of her own, and advised the first attempt
to be made upon a piece of paper. The little bird that Bessie produced
was really not at all bad, and her performance was quite fair enough to
make it worth while to go on, since Miss Fosbrook well knew that mammas
are pleased with works of their children, showing more good-will than
skill. For why? Their value is in the love and thought they show.
The little bird was made into a robin with the colours in a paint-box
that Bessie had long ago bought; but they were so weak and muddy, that
the result was far from good enough for a present, and it was agreed that
real paints must be procured as well as ribbon. Miss Fosbrook offered to
commission her sisters to buy the Prussian blue, lake, and gamboge in
London, and send them in a letter. This was a new idea to Bessie, and
she was only not quite decided between the certainty that London paints
must be better than country ones, and the desire of the walk to Bonchamp
to buy some; but the thought that the ribbon, after all, might be
procured there, satisfied her. The little doleful maid was changed into
an eager, happy, chattering child, full of intelligence and contrivance,
and showing many pretty fancies, since there was no one to tease her and
laugh at her; and her governess listened kindly and helpfully.
Miss Fosbrook could not help thinking how much happier her little
companion would have been as an only child, or with one sister, and
parents who would have made the most of her love of taste and refinement,
instead of the hearty busy parents, and the rude brothers and sisters,
who held her cheap for being unlike themselves. But then she bethought
her, that perhaps Bessie might have grown up vain and affected, had all
these tastes been petted and fostered, and that perhaps her little
hardships might make her the stronger, steadier, more useful woman,
instead of living in fancies. It was the unkindness on one side, and the
temper on the other, that made Miss Fosbrook uneasy.
The work had gone on happily for nearly an hour, and Bessie was copying a
forget-me-not off a little painted card-board pincushion of her own, when
steps were heard, little trotting steps, and Susan came in with little
George. He had been pushed down by Johnnie, and was rather in a fretful
mood; and Susan had left all her happy play to bring him in to rest and
comfort him, coming to the school-room because Nurse Freeman was out.
Before Elizabeth had time to hide away her doings, George had seen the
bright pincushion, and was holding out his hands for it. Bessie hastily
pocketed it. George burst out crying; and Susan, without more ado, threw
herself on her sister, and, pinioning Bessie’s slight arm by the greater
strength of her firm one, was diving into her pocket in spite of her
struggles.
“Susan, leave off,” said Miss Fosbrook; “let your sister alone. She has
a right to do what she likes with her own.”
“It is so cross in her,” said Susan, obeying however, but only to snatch
up little George, and hug and kiss him. “Poor dear little man! is Betty
cross to him? There! there! come with Sue, and _she’ll_ get him
something pretty.”
“Susie, Susie, indeed it’s only that I don’t want him to spoil it,” said
Elizabeth, distressed.
“A foolish thing like that! Why, the only use of it is to please the
children; but you are just such a baby as he is,” said Susan, still
pitying George.
“You had better put your things away, Bessie,” said Miss Fosbrook,
interfering to stop the dispute; and as soon as Elizabeth was gone, and
George a little pacified by an ivory ribbon-measure out of Miss
Fosbrook’s work-box, she observed to Susan, “My dear, you must not let
your love for the little ones make you unjust and unkind to Bessie.”
“She always is so unkind to them,” said Susan resentfully.
“I don’t think she feels unkindly; but if you tyrannize over her, and
force her to give way to them, you cannot expect her to like it.”
“Mamma says the elder must give way to the younger,” said Susan.
“You did not try whether she would give way.”
“No, because I knew she wouldn’t; and I could not have my little Georgie
vexed.”
“And I could not see my little Susie violent and unjust,” said Miss
Fosbrook cheerfully. “Justice first, Susan; you had no right to rob
Bessie for George, any more than I should have to give away a dinner of
your papa’s because he had refused a beggar.”
“Papa never would,” said Susan, rather going off from the point.
“Very likely; but do you understand me, Susan? I will not have Bessie
_forced_ out of her rights for the little ones. Not Bessie only, but
nobody is to be tyrannized over; it is not right.”
“Bessie is so nonsensical,” was all Susan said, looking glum.
“Very likely she may seem so to you; but if you knew more, you would see
that all is not nonsense that seems so to you. Some people would admire
her ways.”
“Yes, I know,” said Susan. “Mrs. Greville told Mrs. Brownlow that Bessie
was the only one among us that was capable of civilisation; but Mrs.
Greville is a fine lady, and we always laugh at her.”
“And now,” as Bessie returned, “you want to go out to your play again, my
dear. Will you leave Georgie with us?”
Susan was a little doubtful about trusting her darling with anyone,
especially one who could take Bessie’s part against him; but she wished
exceedingly to be present at the interesting moment of seeing whether the
potatoes were done enough, and George was perfectly contented with
measuring everything on the ribbon, so she ran quickly off, without the
manners to thank Miss Fosbrook, but to assure the rest of the party that
the governess really was very good-natured, and that she would save her
biggest and best potato for Miss Fosbrook’s tea.
Christabel managed very happily with little George, though not quite
without offending Elizabeth, who thought it very hard to be desired to
put away her painting instead of tantalizing her little brother with the
sight of what he must not have. Miss Fosbrook could not draw her into
the merry game with little George, which made his shouts of glee ring out
through the house, and meet Nurse Freeman’s ear as she came in-doors with
the baby, and calling at the school-room door, summoned him off to his
tea, as if she were in a pet with Miss Fosbrook for daring to meddle with
one of _her_ own nursery children.
Nothing more was heard of the others, and Christabel and Elizabeth both
read in peace till the tea-bell rang, and they went down and waited and
waited, till Miss Fosbrook accepted Bessie’s offer of going out to call
the rest. But Bessie returned no more than the rest; and the governess
set forth herself, but had not made many steps before the voices of the
rabble rout were heard, and they all were dancing and clattering about
her, while Susan and Hal each carried aloft a plate containing articles
once brown, now black, and thickly powdered with white ashes, as were the
children themselves up to their very hair.
As a slight concession to grown-up people’s prejudices, they did, at the
risk of their dear potatoes getting cold, scamper up to perform a species
of toilette, and then sat down round the tea-table, Susie, David, and Sam
each vociferous that Miss Fosbrook should eat “my potato that I did on
purpose for her.” Poor Miss Fosbrook! she would nearly as soon have
eaten the bonfire itself as those cinder-coated things, tough as leather
outside, and within like solid smoke. Indeed the children, who had been
bathing in smoke all day, had brought in the air of it with them; but
their tongues ran fast on their adventures, and their taste had no doubt
that their own bonfire potatoes were the most perfect cookery in art!
Miss Fosbrook picked out the most eatable bits of each of the three, and
managed to satisfy the three cooks, all zealous for their own. Other
people’s potatoes might be smoky, but each one’s own was delicious—“quite
worthy of the pig when he was bought,” thought Miss Fosbrook; but she
made her real pleasure at the kind feeling to cover her dislike of the
black potatoes, and thus pleased the children without being untrue.
“Line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little, and there a
little.” That is the way habits are formed and characters made; not all
at once. So there had been an opportunity for Susan to grow confirmed in
her kindness and unselfishness, as well as to learn that tyranny is
wrong, even on behalf of the weak; and Bessie, if she would take home the
lesson, had received one in readiness to be cheerful, and to turn from
her own pursuits to oblige others. Something had been attempted toward
breaking her habit of being fretful, and thinking herself injured. It
remained to be seen whether the many little things that were yet to
happen to the two girls would be so used as to strengthen their good
habits or their bad ones.
CHAPTER VII.
IT is not worth while to go on describing every day at Stokesley, since
lessons were far too much alike; and play-times, though varied enough for
the house of Merrifield, might be less entertaining to the readers.
Enough to say, that by Saturday afternoon John had not only forfeited his
last farthing, but was charged with another into next week, for the poor
pleasure of leaving his hat on the school-room floor because Elizabeth
had told him of it. At about four o’clock it set in for rain, catching
the party at some distance from home, so that, though they made good
speed, the dust turned into mud, and clung fast to their shoes.
David, never the best runner, was only in time to catch Johnnie by the
skirt upon the third step of the staircase, crying out, “The pig!” but
Johnnie, tired of the subject, and in a provoking mood, twitched away his
pinafore, crying, “Bother the pig!” and rushed up after the four who had
preceded him, leaving such lumps of dirt on the edge of every step, that
when Miss Fosbrook came after with Elizabeth she could not but declare
that a shower was a costly article.
“You see,” observed Susan, “when it’s such fine weather it puts one’s
feet out of one’s head.”
While Sam, Henry, and Bessie were laughing at Susan for this speech,
little George trotted in, crying out, “Halty man come, Halty man come;
Georgie want sweetie!”
“The Gibraltar man!” cried John and Annie with one voice, and they were
at the bottom of the stairs with a bound.
“Oh, send him away, send him away. They’ll spend all their money, and
there will be none left!” was David’s cry; while George kept dragging his
eldest sister’s frock, with entreaties of “Susie, Susie, come.”
“They call him the Gibraltar man, because he sells Gibraltar rock, and
gingerbread, and all those things,” said Henry in explanation. “We have
always dealt with him; and he is very deserving; and his wife makes it
all—at least I know she makes ginger-beer—so we must encourage him.”
So Henry hastened downstairs to encourage the Gibraltar man; and Susan,
saying soothingly, “Yes, yes, Georgie;—never mind Davie, we’ll make up
for it; I can’t vex him,” had taken the little fellow in her arms and
followed.
“Pigs enough here, without sending to the fair,” muttered Sam.
“Please, Sam, please, Miss Fosbrook, send the Gibraltar man away, and
don’t let him come,” cried David quite passionately. “Nasty man! he will
come every Saturday, and they’ll always spend all their money.”
“But, my friend,” said Miss Fosbrook good-humouredly, “suppose we have no
right to banish the Gibraltar man?”
“_I_ don’t wan’t him,” said Bessie; “it makes my fingers sticky.”
“You’re no good,” said David vehemently. “I don’t like you, and I hate
the Gibraltar man, taking away all our money from poor Hannah.”
“Gently, gently, Davie; nobody makes you spend your money; and perhaps
the poor man has children of his own who want food as much as Hannah’s
do.”
“Then can’t they eat the Gibraltar rock and bulls’ eyes?”
Sam suggested that this diet would make them sick; to which poor little
earnest David answered, that when once the pig was bought, he would give
all his money for a whole month to the Gibraltar man, if he would not
come for the next four weeks.
And Christabel thought of what she had once read, that people would often
gladly put away from their children friends the very trials that are sent
by Heaven to prove and strengthen their will and power of resisting
self-indulgence. Before she had quite thought it out, the quick steps
were back again, and Sam greeted the entrance of John thus: “Well, if
that isn’t a shame! Have you been and done Sukey out of all that, Jack?”
“It was only three bulls’ eyes,” said Susan, following. “You know he had
nothing of his own, and it was so hard, and Annie gave him some.”
“And Nurse some,” added Hal. “Trust Jackie for taking care of himself.”
Well he might say so, considering how full were John’s mouth, hands, and
pockets.
“And Davie has had nothing!” said kind Susan. “Here, Davie!” holding out
to him an amber-like piece of barley-sugar.
“I don’t want your stuff,” said David roughly. “You’ve spent all away
from the pig.”
“No, Davie, indeed, only twopence,” said Susan; “pray have a bit.”
“You might at least say thank you,” said Miss Fosbrook.
But how difficult is that middle road which is the only right one!
David, being too much set on one single purpose, good though it was,
could see nothing else. It was right and generous to abstain from sweets
with this end in view; but it was wrong to be rude and unthankful to the
sister who meant all so kindly, and was the most unselfish of all. She
turned round to Elizabeth with the kind offer of the dainty she had not
even tasted herself, but was not more graciously treated.
“How can you, Susie? it is all pulled about with your fingers.”
This was a matter on which the Misses and Masters Merrifield were not
wont to be particular; and with one of the teasing laughs that Bessie
hated, Sam exclaimed as Susan turned to him, “Yes, thank you, Sukey, _I_
don’t mind finger sauce,” but not before John was stretching out a hand
glazed with sugar, and calling out, “Oh, give it to me!” and as it
disappeared in his brother’s mouth, he burst out angrily, “How cross,
Sam! You did that on purpose!”
“Yes,” said Sam, “I did; for though pigs on four legs are all very well,
I don’t like pigs on two.”
“Here, Jackie, never mind,” said Susan, seeing him about to begin to cry,
and offering him her last sugar-plum.
“I don’t want sugar-plums, I want barley-sugar,” said John devouring it
nevertheless.
“I haven’t one bit more,” said Susan regretfully.
“Have you had any yourself, Susan?” asked Sam.
“No; but I didn’t want any.”
“Oh then, here Susie, I always keep a reserve,” said Henry. “No, no, not
you, Jack; I don’t feed little pigs, whatever Susie does.”
And in spite of Susan, both the elder brothers set on John, teasing him
about his greediness, till he burst out crying, and ran away to the
nursery. Miss Fosbrook hated the teasing, but she thought it served John
so rightly, that she would not save him from it; and she only interfered
to remind the others that their fingers would bring them in for fines
unless they were washed before tea.
“And how much have you spent?” reproachfully asked that rigid young
judge, David; but all the answer he got was a pull by the hair from Hal,
and “Hollo, young one! am I to give my accounts to you?”
David gravely put up his hand and smoothed his ruffled locks, repeating,
in his manful way, “I want to know what you have left for the pig?”
Whereupon Hal laid hold of him, pulled him off the locker, and rolled him
about on the floor like a puppy dog, crying, “I’ll tell you what, if you
make such a work about it, I’ll spend all my allowance, and not subscribe
at all.”
“Sam!” cried the tormented David, and “Sam!” cried the governess, really
afraid the little boy would be hurt; but Sam only stood laughing with his
back to the shutter, and Christabel herself hurried to the rescue, to
pick Henry off his victim, holding an arm tight, while the child got up,
and ran away to get his hair re-brushed for tea.
“Now, Hal, you might have hurt him,” argued the governess.
“Very good thing for him too,” said the brothers with one voice.
She was very much shocked; but when she thought it over she perceived
that though Hal might be to blame, yet in the long run even this rough
discipline might be more useful to her dear little David than being
allowed to take upon him with his elder brothers, and grow conceited and
interfering.
Miss Fosbrook was not surprised when, next morning, a frightful bellowing
was heard instead of Johnnie being seen, and she learnt that Master John
was in the hands of Nurse Freeman, who was administering to him a dose in
consequence of his having been greatly indisposed all night. It must be
confessed that Christabel was not very sorry to hear it, nor that Nurse
would keep him to herself all day; for bad company as Johnnie had been on
the week-days, he had been worse on the Sunday.
And when John came out on Monday, he looked like a different boy; he had
lost his fractious, rebellious look; he spoke as civilly as could be
expected of a small Merrifield, and showed no signs of being set against
his lessons. To be sure it was a bad way of spending a Sunday, to be
laid up with ailments brought on by over-eating; but even this was better
than spending it, like the former one, in wilful misbehaviour; and John,
who knew that Papa, Mamma, brothers, and sisters all alike detested and
despised real greediness, had been heartily ashamed of himself, both for
this and his forfeits. A new week was a new starting-point, and he meant
to spend this one well. For indeed it is one of the blessings of our
lives that we have so many stages—days, weeks, years, and the like—from
each of which we may make fresh starts, feel old things left behind, and
go on to lead a new life.
Besides, Johnnie was quite well now; and perhaps no child, so well
brought up, could have been so constantly naughty the whole week without
some degree of ailment, suspected neither by himself nor others. For
this is one of our real troubles, when either young or old, that
sometimes there is a feeling of discomfort and vexation about us that,
without knowing why, makes everything go amiss, causes everybody else to
appear cross, and all tasks, all orders, all misadventures, to become
great grievances. Grown-up people feel this as well as children; but
they have gone through it often enough to know what is the matter, and
they have, or ought to have, more self-command. But children have yet to
learn by experience that the outer things are not harder and more
untoward, so much as that they themselves are out of sorts. This is poor
comfort; and certainly it is dangerous to say to ourselves that being
poorly is any excuse for letting ourselves be cross, or for not doing our
best. If Mrs. Merrifield had thought so, what miserable lives her
husband and children would have led! No, the way to use the certain fact
that the state of our bodies affects our tempers and spirits, is to say
to ourselves, “Well, if this person or this thing do seem disagreeable,
or if this work, or even this little bit of obedience, be very tiresome,
perhaps it may really be only a fancy of mine, and if I go to it with a
good will, I may work off the notion;” or, “Perhaps I am cross to-day,
let me take good care how I answer.” And a little prayer in our hearts
will be the best help of all. Self-command and goodness will not come by
nature as we grow up, but we must work for them in childhood.
When the Monday allowances were brought out, and the pig’s chance
inquired into, David alone produced his whole sum, untouched by
forfeiture or waste, and dropped it into “Toby Fillpot.” Elizabeth had
her entire sixpence; but a penny had been spent on a letter to Mamma, and
she gave but one to the fund, in spite of the black looks she met from
David. Sam had lost a farthing by the shower, and had likewise bought a
queen’s head, to write to his father. The rest, fourpence-three
farthings, he paid over. Poor Johnnie! his last week’s naughtiness had
exceeded his power of paying fines, and a halfpenny was subtracted from
this week’s threepence; while the Gibraltar man had consumed all that
fines had spared to little Annie, had left Susan only threepence, and
Henry but twopence-halfpenny. This, with twopence that Miss Fosbrook had
found in her travelling-bag, made one shilling and fourpence-farthing—a
very poor collection for one week. David was quite melancholy.
“Never mind,” said Henry; “Mr. Carey’s brother, the Colonel, is coming to
stay here the last week in July, and he gives us boys half-a-sovereign
each, so that we might buy a stunning pig all ourselves twice over.”
“Always? He never did so but once,” said Sam.
“That was the only time he saw us, though,” said Hal; “and we were quite
little boys then. I’ll tell you what, Sam, he’ll give us each a
sovereign this time, and then I’ll buy a bow and arrows.”
“Stuff!” said Sam. “I hope he won’t.”
“Why not?”
“I hate it! I hate saying thank you; I shall get out of the way, if I
can.”
“Sam has no manners!” said Hal, turning round to Miss Fosbrook. “To
think that he had rather go without a sovereign or two than say thank
you!”
“_I’m_ too much of a gentleman to lay myself out for presents!” retorted
Samuel; and the two boys fell on each other, buffeting one another, all
in good part on Sam’s side, though there was some temper and annoyance on
Henry’s.
When Sam was out of hearing, Hal discoursed very grandly on the sovereign
he intended Colonel Carey to give him, and the prodigious things he meant
to do with it. A gentleman once gave Osmond Greville two sovereigns; why
should not Colonel Carey be equally liberal? And to hear the boy, those
two sovereigns would buy everything in the world, from the pig to a
double-barrelled gun. David began to grow hurt, and to fear the Toby
fund would be lost in this magnificence; but Hal assured him that it
would be a help, and they should all have a share in the pig, promising
presents to everybody, which Susan and Annie expected with the more
certainty that Sam was never present to laugh down these fine projects.
Indeed Miss Fosbrook had laughed at them once or twice, and observed that
she thought money earned or spared a better thing than money given; and
this caused Hal to cease to try to dazzle her, though he could not give
up the pleasure of regaling his sisters in private with the wonders to be
done with Colonel Carey’s possible sovereigns.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE second week was prosperous: the treasury made progress; and
Christabel began to feel as if her pupils were not beyond her management,
as at first she had feared. Collectively they were less uncouth and
bearish, not so noisy at their meals, nor so needlessly rude to one
another; and the habit of teasing Elizabeth whenever there was nothing
else to do was greatly lessened. Indeed Sam did not plague her himself,
nor let his brothers do so, unless she tempted him by some very foolish
whine or bit of finery; and in such eases a little friendly merriment is
a sound cure, very unlike the hateful fault of tormenting for
tormenting’s sake.
Nor did Elizabeth give nearly so much cause for their rough laughter,
since Miss Fosbrook had given wholesome food to her tastes and likings,
partly satisfying the longing for variety, beauty, or interest which had
made her discontented and restless. Her head was full of _her_ secret,
and her pretty plans for her gift. Such lovely drawings she saw in her
mind’s eye, such fairies, such delightful ships, kittens, babies in the
cradle! But when the pencil was in her hand, the lines went all ways but
the right; her fairy was a grimy little object, whose second wing could
never be put on; the ships were saucers; the kitten might have been the
pig; the baby was an owl in an ivy-bush; and to look at the live baby in
the cradle only puzzled her the more. Miss Fosbrook gave her real
drawing lessons; but boxes, palings, and tumble-down sheds, done with a
broad black pencil, did not seem to help her to what she wished. Yet
sometimes her fingers produced what surprised and pleased herself and
Christabel; and she never was happier than when safely shut into Miss
Fosbrook’s bed-room with her card and her paints. She used to bolt
herself in, with a little parade of mystery that made Annie exceedingly
curious, though the others generally let it alone as “Betty’s fancy.”
Christabel wanted to learn botany for her own pleasure. She found a book
which Susan and Bessie pronounced to be horridly stupid (indeed Annie
called it nasty, and was reproved for using such a word), but when the
information in it was minced up small, and brought out in a new form,
Bessie enjoyed it extremely. The whole party were delighted to gather
flowers for Miss Fosbrook—the wetter or the steeper places they grew in
the better; but the boys thought it girlish to know the names; and Susan,
though liking gardening, did not in the least care for the inside of a
flower. Elizabeth, however, was charmed at the loveliness that was
pointed out to her; and even Annie, when the boys were not at hand,
thought it very entertaining to look at petals, stamens, and pistils, and
to see that a daisy is made up of a host of tiny flowers. Both little
sisters were having their eyes opened to see some of the wonder and some
of the glory of this earth of ours. It made Bessie much less often tired
of everything and everybody; though after all there is but one spirit
that is certain never to be weary or dissatisfied, and into that she had
yet to grow.
Fines were much less frequent: there were no foolish tears; only one
lesson of John’s turned back, two of Annie’s, one of Susan’s; some
unbrushed hair of Susan’s too—an unlucky mention of the raven by Annie in
lesson-time—and some books left about by Sam. Henry’s fines were the
serious ones: he had two for incorrect sums, one for elbows on the table,
three for talking, one for not putting his things away; and besides, he
_could not_ go without a pennyworth of string; and the Grevilles would
have laughed at him if he had not bought some more marbles.
But what did that signify when Colonel Carey was coming? and a sovereign
would buy a pig three times over—at least, if it was quite a little one.
Christabel wished the hope of that sovereign had never occurred to him,
for he seemed to think it quite set him free from the little
self-restraints by which the others were earning the pleasure of making
the gift; and though he still talked the most about the pig, he denied
himself the least for it.
One evening the boys came in with a great piece of news. Their tutor had
read in the paper that Admiral Penrose was appointed to the _Ramilies_,
to take command in the Mediterranean. He was a great friend of their
father, and, said the boys, was most likely to make him his flag-captain.
“And me a naval cadet!” said Hal. “He said he would, when he was here!”
“One of you, he said,” put in Susan.
“I know it will be me!” said Hal. “He looked at the rigging of my
frigate, and said I knew all the ropes quite well; and he told Papa he
might be proud of such a son!”
“Oh! oh!” groaned the aggrieved multitude.
“Well—such a family; but he was looking at me; and I know he will give me
the appointment; and I shall sail in his ship—you’ll see. And when I get
to the Mediterranean, I’ll tell you what I’ll do—I shall kill a shark all
my own self!”
“A shark in the Mediterranean!”
“Well, why shouldn’t they get in by the Straits of Magellan? Oh! is that
the other place? Well, never mind—I’ll shoot the shark.”
“Stuff, Hal!” said Sam rather gruffly.
Hal went off on another tack. “Well, at least he has set me down by this
time; and Papa will have me up to London for my outfit.”
“I hope you will have leave, and come and see us,” said Annie.
“I’ll try; but, you see, I shall be an officer on duty, and I dare say
Admiral Penrose will hardly be able to spare me; but I’ll send you all
presents out of my pay.”
“You’ll spend all your pay on yourself,” said David.
“Out of my prize-money then.”
“You can’t get prize-money without a war,” said Elizabeth.
“Oh! don’t let there be a war!” cried Susan.
“Yes, but there is!” said Harry in a tremendous tone; and as Miss
Fosbrook held up her hands, “at least there was one in the Black Sea; and
I know there was a battle in the newspaper—at least, Mr. Carey read about
Palermo.”
“I don’t think Garibaldi in Sicily will put much prize-money into your
pocket, Hal,” said Miss Fosbrook.
“Oh! but there’s sure to be a war! and I shall get promoted, and be a man
before any of you. I shall go about, and see condors, and lions, and
elephants, and wear a sword—at least, a dirk—while you are learning Latin
and Greek at Uncle John’s!”
“Don’t make such a noise about it!” said Sam crossly.
“I don’t know why you should be the one to go,” said Elizabeth. “Sam is
the eldest.”
“Yes; but Sam is such a slow-coach. Papa said I was the only one fit to
make a sailor of—at least, he said I was smart, and—Hollo! Sam, I won’t
have you kicking my legs!”
“Don’t keep up such a row then!” growled Sam; but Hal was in too full
swing to be reached by slight measures. He pushed his chair back, tucked
up his feet like a tailor’s, out of reach, and went on: “Then I shall
come home in my cocked hat, like Papa’s—at least, my cap—and come and ask
for a holiday for you all at Uncle John’s.”
Uncle John was an under-master at one of the great public schools, and
the children were all a good deal in awe of him.
“Uncle John won’t give one for _you_!” said Sam.
“Come, boys, I can’t have this bickering,” said Miss Fosbrook. “I can’t
see you trying which can be most provoking. Stand up. Now, David, say
grace. There, Annie, finish that bit of bread out of doors. Go out, and
let us have no more of this.”
She spoke now with much less fear of not being minded; and having seen
one of the quarrelsome parties safe out of the school-room, she went to
fetch from her own room a glove that wanted mending; and on her return
found Sam alone there, curled up over his lesson-books on the locker,
looking so gloomy, that she was afraid she had made him sulky, for which
she would have been very sorry, since she had a respect for him.
“What is the matter?” she asked; and his “Nothing” did not at all assure
her that he was in a right mood. She doubted whether to leave him alone;
but presently thought he looked more unhappy than ill-tempered, and
ventured to speak. “Have you a hard piece to learn? Perhaps I could
help you.”
He let her come and look at his book; but, to her surprise, he had before
him a very easy problem in Euclid.
“Indeed, if you only gave your mind to this,” she said, “you would soon
make it out.”
“Stupid stuff!” exclaimed Sam. “It is all along of that, and the rest of
it, that I have got to be a land-lubber!” and he threw the book to the
other end of the room.
“Have you no chance?” said Miss Fosbrook, without taking notice of this
rudeness, for she saw that the boy could hardly contain himself.
“No! The Admiral did take notice of Hal; and one day when I was slow at
a proposition, my father said I was too block-headed to beat navigation
into, and that Hal is a smart fellow, worth two of me. I know he is! I
know that; only if he would not make such an intolerable crowing—”
“Then you wish it very much?”
“Wish it! Of course I do. Why, my father is a sailor; and I remember
the _Fury_, and I saw the _Calliope_—his ship that he had in the war
time. Before I was as big as little George I always thought I should be
a sailor. And now if Papa goes out with Admiral Penrose, and Hal too—oh!
it will be so horrid home!”
“But can’t you both go?”
“No; my father said he couldn’t ask to have two of us put down, unless
perhaps some younger one had a chance by and by. And Hal is the
sharpest, and does everything better than I can when he has a mind. My
father says, among so many all can’t choose; and if this place is to be
mine, Hal may want to be in the navy more than I. Yes, it is all right,
and Hal must go. But—but—when my father is gone—” and Sam fairly burst
out crying. “I didn’t hardly know how different it is with him away till
this month. I was such a little fellow when he went to the Black Sea;
but now—never mind, though!” and he stamped his foot on the floor. “Papa
said it, and it must be. Don’t tell the others, Miss Fosbrook;” and he
resolutely went and picked up his Euclid, and began finding the place.
“You will do your duty like a man, wherever you are, Sam,” said
Christabel heartily.
Sam looked as if he had rather that she had not said it, but it was
comfortable to him for all that; and though she kept further compliments
to herself, she could not but think that there was no fear but that he
would be a man, in the best sense of the word, before Hal, when she saw
him so manfully put his sore grievance out of his head, and turn to the
present business of conquering his lesson. Nor did she hear another word
from him about his disappointment.
It made her dislike Henry’s boasts more than ever; and she used to cut
them short as fast as she could, till the young chatterer decided that
she was “cross,” and reserved all his wonderful “at leasts” for his
sisters, and his proofs of manliness for the Grevilles.
The Gibraltar man did not come on Saturday; and Miss Fosbrook had been
the saving of several stamps by sending some queer little letters in her
own to Mrs. Merrifield, so that on Monday morning the hoard was increased
to seven-and-sixpence; although between fines and “_couldn’t helps_,”
Henry’s sixpence had melted down to a halfpenny, which “was not worth
while.”
On this day arrived a servant from the Park, bringing a delicate little
lilac envelope, stamped with a tiny rose, and directed to Miss
Merrifield. There was another rose on the top of the lilac paper; and
the writing was in a very neat hand.
My dear Susan,
Mamma desires me to say that she hopes you and Bessie and Annie will
come to dine early to-morrow, and play with me, and that Miss Fosbury
will come with you. She hopes your Mamma is better, and would be
glad to have her address in London.
I am your affectionate
IDA ARABELLA GREVILLE.
“Oh! Miss Fosbrook, may we go?” cried the girls with sparkling eyes.
Mrs. Merrifield had written that one or two such invitations might be
accepted, but she had rather it did not happen too often, as visits at
the Park were unsettling to some of the children. So as this was the
first, Christabel gladly consented, rather curious and rather shy on her
own account.
Elizabeth begged for the rose, to copy it, and as there were no little
ones present to seize it, she was allowed to have it; while Susan groaned
and sighed over the misfortune of having to write a “horrible note” just
at play-time; and the boys treated it as a sort of insult to the whole
family that Ida should have mistaken their governess’s name.
“Tell her you won’t go till she has it right,” said Sam; at which Annie
made a vehement outcry of “No, no!” such as made them all laugh at her
thinking him in earnest.
Susan’s note began—
My dear Ida,
We shuold—
But then perceiving that something was the matter with her word, Susan
sat and looked at it, till at last, perceiving that her _u_ and _o_ had
changed places, she tried putting a top to the _u_, and made it like an
_a_; while the filling up the _o_ made it become a blot, such as caught
Bessie’s eye.
“O Susie, you won’t send such a thing as that up to Ida?”
“No—that _would_ be a ‘horrible note,’” said her governess; and she ruled
the lines again.
“Dear me,” said Susan impatiently; “can’t one send a message up by the
man that we’ll all come, without this fuss?”
But Miss Fosbrook said that would be very uncivil; and Susan, groaning,
stretched every finger till the lines were finished, and began again, in
her scraggy round-hand—getting safely through the “should,” and also
through “like to come very much;” but when Miss Fosbrook looked up next,
she saw that the rest of the note consisted of—
Mamma is at Grandmamma’s, No. 12,—St., Grovensor Place.
I am your affectionate
SUSANNA MERRIFIELD.
“My dear, I am very sorry.”
“What! won’t that do?” sighed Susan, beginning to get into despair.
Miss Fosbrook pointed to the word “Grovensor.”
“Oh dear! oh dear! I thought I had got that tiresome word this time.
Why can’t it put its _ss_ and _ns_ into their proper sensible places?”
cried poor Susan, to whom it was a terrible enemy. She used to try them
in different places all the way round, in hopes that one might at last be
right.
“Can’t you remember what I told you, that the first Grosvenor was the
grand huntsman? _Grosveneur_ in French; that would show you where to put
the _s—gros_, great.”
But Susan never wished to remember anything French; and Sam observed that
“the man deserved to be spelt wrong if he called himself by a French
name. Why couldn’t he be content to be Mr. Grandhunter?”
“But as he is not, we must spell his name right, or Mrs. Greville will be
shocked,” said Miss Fosbrook.
“Please can’t you scratch it out?” said the disconsolate Susan.
“_I_ should not like to send a note with a scratch in it. Besides, yours
is hardly civil.”
“No, indeed,” said Elizabeth; “don’t you know how people answer
invitations, Susie? I’ll tell you. ‘Miss Susanna, and Miss Elizabeth,
and Miss Annie Merrifield will be very happy to do the honour of dining
with —’ Sam, why do you laugh at me always?”
“Why, you are telling Ida you will do her honour by dining with her.”
“People always do honour when they dine,” said Elizabeth. “I know they
do.”
“They profess to receive the honour, not confer it, Bessie,” said Miss
Fosbrook, laughing; “but I don’t think that is the model for Susie’s
note. It would be as much too formal as hers was too blunt.”
“Must I do it again?” said Susan. “I had rather not go, if it is to be
such a plague.”
“Indeed, I fear you must, Susie. It is quite needful to learn how to
write a respectable note; really a more difficult thing than writing a
long letter. I am sorry for you; but if you were not so careless in your
letters to Mamma this would come more easily to you.”
But this time Miss Fosbrook not only ruled another sheet, but wrote, in
fair large-hand on a slate, the words, that Susan might copy them without
fresh troubles:
We are much obliged to your Mamma for her kind invitation, and shall
have much pleasure in coming with Miss Fosbrook to dine with you and
spend the day. I am sorry to say that Mamma was not quite so well
when last we heard. Her address is—No. 12,—St., Grosvenor-place.
Susan thought that here were a very serious number of words, and begged
hard for leave to leave out her sorrow. Of course she was sorry, but
what was the use of telling Ida so?
Miss Fosbrook thought it looked better, but Susan might do as she
pleased.
“I wouldn’t say it, then,” said Sam. “I wouldn’t say it only to look
better to Ida.” With which words he and Hal walked off to the garden.
Would it be believed? Susan, in her delight at being near the end,
forgot the grand huntsman, and made the unlucky Place “Grovesnor,” and
then, in her haste to mend it, put her finger into the wet ink, and
smeared not only that word, but all the line above!
It was a shame and a wonder that a girl of her age should be so incapable
of producing a creditable note; and Miss Fosbrook was very near scolding
her but she had pity on the tearful eyes and weary fingers, and spoke
cheerfully: “There, that was almost the thing. One more trial, Susan,
and you need never be afraid of Ida’s notes again.”
If Susan could not write notes, at least she was not cross; and it would
be well if many who could send off a much better performance with far
less difficulty could go to work as patiently as she did, without one
pettish word to Miss Fosbrook, though that lady seemed to poor Susie as
hard a task mistress as if she could have helped it. This time Miss
Fosbrook authorized the leaving out of the spending the day, and
suggested that S. would be enough without the whole Susanna, and she
mercifully directed the cover to Miss Greville.
“There, my dear, you have worked hard for your pleasure,” she said, as
Susan extended each hand to its broadest stretch to uncramp them, and
stretched herself backwards as if she wanted to double her head down to
her heels. “I shall give you a good mark, Susie, as if it had been a
lesson.”
Susan deserved it, for her patient perseverance had been all out of
obedience, not in the mere desire of having her note admired. Indeed,
good child, at the best it was a very poor affair for a girl of twelve,
and Miss Fosbrook was ashamed of it when she looked at Ida’s lady-like
little billet.
“But I wonder,” said she to herself, “whether I shall feel as if I would
change my dear stupid Susan for Miss Ida?”
Meanwhile Susan flew screaming and leaping out into the garden in a mad
tom-boy fashion; but that could well be pardoned, as there were only her
sisters to see her; and the pleasure of having persevered and done her
best was enough to make her heart and her limbs dance for merriment.
Depend upon it, however wretched and miserable hard application to what
we do not like may seem at the moment, it is the only way to make
play-times really delicious.
CHAPTER IX.
MISS FOSBROOK soon knew what Mrs. Merrifield meant by saying that visits
at the Park unsettled the children. Susan indeed, though liking anything
that shortened lessons by an hour, and made a change, was not so fond of
being on her good behaviour at the Park as to be greatly exalted at the
prospect; but Elizabeth and Annie were changed beings. They were
constantly breaking out with some new variety of wonder. They wondered
whether they should dine in the school-room, or at Mrs. Greville’s
luncheon; they wondered if Mr. Greville would speak to them; they
wondered whether Fräulein Munsterthal would be cross; they wondered if
Ida still played with dolls; and they looked as if they thought
themselves wonderful, too, for going out for a day!
Nay, the wonders were at their tongues’ end even when lessons began, and
put their farthings in great peril; and when they had nothing else to
wonder at, they wondered when it would be twelve o’clock, and took no
pains to swallow enormous yawns. Once, over her copy, Elizabeth
exclaimed, “Now! yes, this is necessary, Miss Fosbrook! May not we wear
our white frocks?”
“They are not ironed,” answered Susan.
“Oh, do let me go and tell Mary! There’s lots of time,” said Bessie, who
had lately thought it cruel of the clock to point only to half-past ten,
and never bethought herself how Mary would like to be called off from her
scrubbing to iron three white frocks.
“Would your Mamma wish it?” asked Christabel.
“Oh dear no,” was Susan’s answer; “we always wear clean ones of our
every-day frocks. Our white ones are only for dinner-parties and
Christmas-trees.”
Bessie grumbled. “How cross! I hate those nasty old spotty cottons;”
and Johnnie returned to the old story—“Little vain pussy-cat.”
Up went Miss Fosbrook’s warning pencil, she shook her head, and held out
her hand for two fines. Elizabeth began to gulp and sob.
“Oh, don’t, Betty!” cried Susan. “Stop while you can. You won’t like
going up with red eyes. There, I’ll pay your fine; and there’s another
for my speaking.”
“No, Susie; that was not foolish speaking, but kind words,” said Miss
Fosbrook; “but no more now; go on, Annie.”
But Annie, who was reading a little history of St. Paul, would call
Cilicia, Cicilia, and when told to spell it she began to cry too
decidedly for Susan’s good-nature to check her tears. And not only did
Elizabeth’s copy look as if she had written it with claws instead of
fingers, but she was grieving over her spotted cotton instead of really
seeking for places in her map. Thus the Moselle obstinately hid itself;
and she absolutely shed tears because Miss Fosbrook declared that
Frankfort _was_ on the Maine. For the first time she had her grammar
turned back upon her hands. How many mistakes Annie made would be really
past telling; for these two little girls had their whole minds quite
upset by the thought of a day’s pleasure; and as they never tried to
restrain themselves, and to “be sober, be vigilant,” they gave way before
all the little trials in their paths—were first careless, and then
fractious. Perhaps when they were older they would find out that this
uplifted sense of excited expectation is the very warning to be heedful.
If Miss Fosbrook had been a strict governess, she would have told them
they did not deserve to go at all; or at any rate, that Bessie must
repeat her grammar better, and re-write her copy, and that Annie’s
unlucky addition sum must be made to prove; but she had seen her little
sisters nearly as bad in prospect of a pantomime, so she was merciful,
and sent them in good time to brush their hair, put on their spotted
cottons, and wash off as much as possible of the red mottling left by
those foolish tears.
Their spirits rose again as fast as they had sunk; and it was a lively
walk through the park to the great house, with a good deal of skipping
and jumping at first, and then, near the door, a little awe and gravity.
They were taken through a side-door of the hall to the school-room, where
Ida and her governess received them. It was the first time that
Christabel had seen her out of her beplumed hat, and she thought her a
pleasant, bright-looking little girl, not at all set up or conceited.
Her mauve muslin, flounced though it was up to her waist, showed that it
had been wise to withstand Bessie’s desire for the white muslins; but
Miss Fosbrook had enough to do on her own account with the endeavour to
understand the German governess’s foreign accent, without attending to
the children more than was necessary.
It was not a very remarkable day, and the pleasures of it seemed hardly
enough to justify the little girls’ great excitement. There was first
the dinner at the luncheon of the parents, where the children sat up
rather formal and subdued, and not quite certain what all the dishes
might contain, a little afraid of getting what they _could_ not eat,
though desirous of making experiments in this land of wonders. None of
them had forgotten, and they thought no one else had, how Bessie had once
come to disgrace by bursting out crying over the impossibility of
finishing some terrible rice-bordered greenish yellow stuff that burnt
her mouth beyond bearing, and which Ida called curry, and said people in
the East Indies liked. However, that was when Bessie had been a very
little girl; and she still continued adventurous, saying, “Yes, if you
please,” to cutlets set round in a wreath, with all their bones sticking
up, and covered with a reddish incrustation that Susan and Annie thought
so unnatural, that they preferred the boiled chicken that at least they
could understand, though it had funny-hooking accompaniments in the
sauce. And Hal’s report of some savoury jelly which he had once
encountered would have deterred them from the pink transparency in the
shape of a shell, if they had not seen Bessie getting on very well with
it, Miss Fosbrook happily perceiving and cutting short Annie’s intended
inquiry whether it were nice. To her great relief, this was the only
want of manners betrayed by her little savages, and she was able to keep
her attention tolerably free from them, so as to look at the pictures on
the walls, observe the two boys, Hal’s friends, and talk to Mrs.
Greville, who made conversation with her very pleasantly.
She was much grieved to perceive, from what that lady said, that Mrs.
Merrifield was thought to be much more ill, and in a far more alarming
state, than she had at all understood. The girls were too young to enter
into the tone of sad sympathy with which Mrs. Greville spoke, and the
manner in which a doubt was expressed whether the Captain would be able
to sail with Admiral Penrose if he should have the offer; and as soon as
she saw that they and their governess were in ignorance, she turned it
off; but she had said enough to fill Christabel with anxiety and desire
to know more; and as soon as the dinner was over, and the little girls
had run off together to visit Ida’s beautiful cockatoo in the
conservatory, she turned to Fräulein Munsterthal, and begged to hear
whether she knew more than had been said.
Fräulein Munsterthal did not quite know that such a person as Mrs.
Merrifield was in existence; but she was very amiable and warm-hearted,
and said how sad it was to think of the trouble that hung over “these so
careless children,” and was doubly kind to the girls when they came back
from their conversation with pretty “Cocky,” who set up his
lemon-coloured crest, coughed, sneezed, and said “Cocky want a biscuit!”
to admiration, till the boys were seen approaching; when Ida, knowing
that some torment would follow, took herself and her visitors back to the
protection of the governesses in time to prevent the cockatoo from being
made to fly at the girls, and powder them with the white dust under his
feathers.
The afternoon was spent in the garden, the little girls betaking
themselves to a pretty moss-covered arbour, where there was a grand
doll’s feast. Ida had no less than twenty-three dolls, ranging from the
magnificent Rosalind, who had real hair that could be brushed, and was as
large as little Sally at home, down to poor little china Mildred, whose
proper dwelling-place was a bath, and who had with great difficulty been
put into petticoats enough to make her fit to be seen out of it. Now
nobody at home could have saved the life of a doll for a single day, and
Susan and Elizabeth were both thought far above them; but these
beautifully arrayed young ladies had always been the admiration of the
heart of Bessie as well as of Annie, and they were not too old for
extreme satisfaction in handling their elegant ladyships, and still more
their beautiful dinner and tea-service of pink and white ware.
Susan, though she could not write a note, or do lessons like Ida, was
older in the ways of life, and played rather as she did with the little
ones at home than for her own amusement. She would much rather have had
the fun of “cats and mice” with her brothers; and but for the honour of
the thing, so perhaps would Annie. However, they were all very happy,
getting the dolls up in the morning, giving Mildred washing enough for
all the twenty-three, making them breakfast, hearing lessons, in which
Ida was governess, and made them talk so many languages that Annie was
alarmed. Of course one of the young ladies was very naughty, and was
treated with extreme severity; then there was dinner, a walk, an illness,
and a dinner-party. While all the time the two real governesses sat in
the shade outside, and talked in English or German as best they might,
the Fräulein understanding Christabel’s English the best, as did
Christabel the Fräulein’s German. They began to make friends, and to
wish to see more of one another.
There was a walk round the garden, and admiration of the beautiful
flowers, and the fountain and pond of gold-fish, till the boys came home,
and got hold of the garden-engine for watering, crying out, “Fire! fire!”
and squirting out the showers of water very much in the direction of the
girls.
Ida became quite crimson red, and got hold of Susan’s hand to drag her
away; then, as the foremost drops of another shower touched her, she
faced about, and said, “Osmond! don’t, or I’ll tell Mamma.” There was a
great rude laugh, as of boys who well knew the threat was never put in
execution; and poor Fräulein Munsterthal only shook her head at Miss
Fosbrook’s look of amaze, and said in German that “_die Knaben_” were far
too _unartig_ for her to keep in order. She pitied Miss Fosbrook for
having so many in charge as to destroy all peace. And if Sam and Hal had
been like these two, Christabel felt that she could have done nothing
with them. To her dismay, Osmond and Martin came in to the school-room
tea; and she never had thought to feel so thankful for poor dear Susan’s
slowness of comprehension, for, from their whispers among themselves, and
from their poor tormented sister’s blushes, she was clear that the “fire”
was a piece of bad wit on Susan’s red hair. Boys who could so basely
insult a guest, and that a girl, she was sure must be bad companions for
Sam and Henry. Such little gentlemen as they had been at dinner too, so
polite and well-behaved before their father and mother! There could be
no doubt that something must be very wrong about them, or they would not
change so entirely when out of sight. It is not always true that a child
must be deceitful who is less good in the absence of the authorities;
because their presence is a help and a restraint, checking the beginning
of mischief, and removing temptation; but one who does not fall by
weakness, but intentionally alters his conduct the instant the elder is
gone, shows that his will has been disobedient all along.
By and by Mr. Greville’s voice was heard calling, “Martin! Osmond!” As
they went out to meet him in the passage, Miss Fosbrook clearly
overheard, “Here is the spring of the garden-engine spoilt. Do you know
anything about it?”
“No.”
“You have not been meddling with it?”
“No.” And they ran downstairs.
The colour flushed into Christabel’s cheeks with horror. She was glad
that her little girls were all in Ida’s room, listening to a musical-box,
and well out of hearing of such fearfully direct falsehoods, as it seemed
to her, not knowing that the boys excused it to their own minds by the
notion that it was not the _spring_ of the engine that they had been
meddling with, and that so they did not know how the harm had been
done—as if it made it any better that they lied to themselves as well as
their father! The German saw her dismay, and began to say how unlike her
Ida was to her brothers—so truthful, so gentle, and courteous; but poor
Christabel could not get over the thought of the ease and readiness with
which deceit came to these boys. Could their daily companions, Samuel
and Henry, have learnt the same effrontery, and be deceiving her all this
time? No, no, she could not, would not think it! Assuredly not of Sam!
She was very glad not to see the boys again, and went home with her
pupils, rather heavy-hearted, at eight o’clock, just as Ida was to put on
her white muslin and pink ribbons, and go down after dinner for half an
hour.
There were many kisses at parting, and a whole box of sweets, done up in
beautifully coloured and gold and silver paper, presented to the little
visitors; but it might be supposed that the girls were tired, for there
was a fretful snarling all the way across the park, because Elizabeth
insisted that the gifts should be called _bon-bons_, and the others would
hear of nothing but goodies. Nobody looked at the beautiful evening sky,
nor at the round red moon coming up like a lamp behind the trees, nor at
the first stars peeping out, nor even at the green light of the
glow-worm—all which were more beautiful than anything Ida had shown them,
except perhaps the hothouse flowers; and at last two such cross
ill-tempered voices sounded from Bessie and Annie, that Christabel turned
round and declared that she should not let the sugar-plums be touched for
a week if another word were said about them.
She hoped that when the visit was over it would be done with; but no such
thing. Though Susan was her own good hearty self, Elizabeth had not
recovered either on that day of the next from the effects of the
pleasuring. On each she cried over her lessons, and was cross at
whatever the boys said to her, made a fuss about keeping the ornamental
cases of the _bon-bons_, and went about round-backed, peevish, and
discontented, finding everything flat and ugly after her one peep at the
luxuries of the Park. Her farthings melted away fast; but she seemed to
think this her misfortune, not her fault. She did not try to talk to
Miss Fosbrook, feeling perhaps that she was in a naughty mood, which she
would not try to shake off; and she made no attempt to go on with her
present for her Mamma, it looked so poor and trumpery after the beautiful
things she had seen.
Nor did Christabel like to remind her of it, fearing that the occasion
for giving it might never come; but she did feel that it was a mournful
thing to see the child, who was in danger of so fearful a sorrow, wasting
her grief in pining after foolish fancies, and turning what should have
been a refreshing holiday into an occasion of longing after what she thus
made into pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Christabel had heard
that people who murmur among blessings often have those blessings
snatched away, and this made her tremble for poor little discontented
Elizabeth.
CHAPTER X.
“THERE!” exclaimed Susan, “I really have got a letter from Papa himself.
What a prize!”
“You’ll have to mind your Grosvenor when you answer _him_,” said Sam;
“but hollo, what’s the matter?”
For Susan’s eyes had grown large, and her whole face scarlet, and she
gave a little cry as she read.
“Your Mamma, my dear?” asked Miss Fosbrook.
“Oh, Mamma—Mamma is so very ill!” and Susan throw the letter down, and
broke into a fit of sobbing.
Sam caught it up, and Elizabeth came to read it with him, both standing
still and not speaking a word, but staring at the letter with their eyes
fixed.
“What is it, my dear?” said Miss Fosbrook, tenderly putting her arm round
Susan; but she sobbed too much to make a word distinct, and Bessie held
out the letter to her governess, looking white, and too much awed to
speak.
Captain Merrifield wrote in short, plain, sad words, that he thought it
right that his children should know how matters stood. The doctors’
treatment, for which their mother had been taken to London, had not
succeeded, but had occasioned such terrible illness, that unless by the
mercy of God she became much better in the course of a day or two, she
could not live. If she should be worse, he would either write or
telegraph, and Susan and Sam must be ready to set out at once on the
receipt of such a message, and come up by the next train to London, where
they should be met at the station. He had promised their mother that in
case of need he would send for them.
God bless you, my poor children, and have mercy on us all!
Your loving father,
H. MERRIFIELD.
That was all; and Christabel felt, more than even the children did, from
how full and heavy a heart those words had been written.
Though she hardly knew how to speak, she tried to comfort Susan by
showing her that her father had evidently not given up all hope; but
Susan was crying more at the thought of her Mamma’s present illness and
pain than with fear of the future; and Sam said sadly, “He would not have
written at all unless it had been very bad indeed.”
“Yes,” said Miss Fosbrook; “but I believe, in cases like this, there is
often great fear, and then very speedy improvement.”
“Oh dear,” said Bessie, speaking for the first time, “I know it will be.
Little girls in story-books always do have their mammas—die!”
“Story-books are all nonsense, so it won’t happen,” said Sam; and really
it seemed as if the habit of contradicting Bessie had suggested to him
the greatest consolation that had yet occurred.
Just then Henry and the younger ones came in, and learnt the tidings.
Henry wept as bitterly as his elder sister, and John and Annie both did
the same; but David did not speak one word, as if he hardly took in what
was the matter, and, going to the window, took up his lesson-books as
usual.
“It is nine o’clock, Hal,” said Sam presently.
“Oh, we can’t go to Mr. Carey to-day,” said Hal.
“Yes, we shall,” returned Sam.
“Oh don’t,” cried Susan. “Suppose a telegraph should come!”
“Well, then you can send for me,” said Sam. “Come, Hal.”
“How can you, Sam?” said Henry crossly; “I know Mr. Carey will give us
leave when he knows.”
“I don’t want leave,” said Sam; “I don’t want to kick up a row, as you’ll
do if you stay at home.”
“Well then, if the message comes, I shall take Susie to London instead of
you. I’m sure they want me most!”
“No, go down to Mr. Carey’s with your brother, if you please, Hal,” said
Miss Fosbrook decidedly. “If he should tell you not to stay, I can’t
help it; but you will none of you do any good by hanging about without
doing your daily duties.”
Hal saw he had no chance, and marched off, muttering about its being very
hard. Sam picked up his books, and turned to go, with a grave steady
look that was quite manly in its sadness, only stopping to say, “Now,
Jackie, you be good!—Please Miss Fosbrook, let him run down after me if
the message comes, and I’ll be back before the horse is out.”
Miss Fosbrook promised, and could not help shaking hands with the brave
boy, if only to show that she felt with him.
“Then must we all do our lessons?” asked Annie disconsolately, when he
was gone.
“Yes, my dear; I think we shall all be the better for not neglecting what
we ought to do. But there is one thing that we can do for your dear
Mamma; you know what I mean. Suppose you each went away alone for five
minutes, and were to come back when I ring the little bell?”
The first to come back was Annie, with the question in a low whisper,
“Miss Fosbrook, will God make Mamma better if we are very good?”
Miss Fosbrook kissed her, saying, “My dear little girl, I cannot tell.
All I can certainly tell you is, that He hears the prayers of good
children, and if it be better for her and for you He will give her back
to you.”
Annie did not quite understand, but she entered into what Miss Fosbrook
said enough to wish to be good; so she took up her book, and began to
learn with all her might.
Elizabeth would have thought it much more like a little girl in a book to
have done no lessons, but have sat thinking, and perhaps reading the
Bible all day; but on the whole Elizabeth had hardly thoughts enough to
last her so long; nor was she deep or serious enough to have done herself
much good by keeping the Bible open before her. In fact she did lose her
verse in merely reading the chapter for the day! So it was just as well
that she had something to do that was not play, and that was a duty, and
thus might give the desire to be good something to bear upon.
But Christabel saw by Susan’s face, and heard in the shaken voice with
which she took her turn in the reading, that she could not have given her
mind to her tasks, and did not need them to keep her out of mischief. It
would have been cruel to have required her to sit down to them just then,
and her governess was glad to be able to excuse her on account of the
packing-up. All her things and Sam’s must be got ready in case of an
immediate start, and she was sent up to the nursery to take care of the
little ones, while Nurse and Mary mended, ironed, and packed.
To be sure Nurse Freeman made poor Susan unnecessarily unhappy by being
sure that it was all the fault of the London doctors; but she was a kind,
tender old woman, and her petting was a great comfort to the poor girl.
What did her most good, however, was sitting quite quiet with the little
ones while they were asleep, and all alone; it seemed to rest and compose
her, and she always loved to be in charge of them. Poor child! she might
soon have to be their little mother! She was able to play with them when
they awoke, and cheered herself up with their pretty ways, and by finding
how quickly Baby was learning to walk. Ah! but would Mamma ever see her
walk?
If any of the children thought it unjust that Susan’s lessons should be
let off, they were wrong. Parents and teachers must have the power of
doing such things without being judged. Sometimes they see that a child
is really unable to learn, when the others perceive no difference; and it
would be very harsh and cruel to oppress one who is out of order for fear
little silly, idle, healthy things should think themselves hardly used.
At any rate, the lessons were capitally done; and when the children met
again, they were all so much brighter and more hopeful, that they quite
believed that their Mamma was going to get better very fast. Bessie
especially was so resolved that thus it should be, that she shut herself
into Miss Fosbrook’s room, and drew and painted with all her might, as if
preparing for Mamma’s birthday made it certain that it would be kept.
The boys brought word that they would have a holiday the next day, as it
was the Feast of St. Barnabas, and after morning service Mr. Carey was
going to meet his brother and bring him home.
“I shall be all the more certain to get the sovereign, or two
sovereigns,” said Henry to David, the only person whom he could find to
listen to him, “if Sam is gone; and everyone will be caring about me.”
“And then you’ll give it to the pig,” said David.
“Oh yes, to be sure. You will grow into a pig yourself if you go on that
way, David.”
However, David, partaking the family distrust of Hal’s birds-in-the-bush,
and being started on the subject of the hoard, ran up to Sam, who was
learning his lessons by way of something to do, and said, “If you go to
London, Sam, may I have your sixpence on Monday for the pig?”
“I don’t know that I am going.”
“But if you do—or we sha’n’t get the pig.”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t you care if we don’t get the pig?”
“No. Be off with you.”
David next betook himself to his eldest sister, who was trying to write
to her father, and finding such a letter harder and sadder work than that
to Ida Greville, though no one teased her about writing, blots, or
spelling.
“If you go to London, Susie,” said he, in the very same words, “may I
have your sixpence on Monday for the pig?”
“Oh, Davie, don’t be tiresome!”
David only said it over again in the same words, and put his hand down on
her letter in his earnestness.
“Come away, Davie,” said Miss Fosbrook; “don’t tease your sister.”
“I want her to say I may have her sixpence on Monday for the pig.”
“No, you sha’n’t, then,” said Susan angrily; “you care for the nasty pig
more than for poor Mamma or anyone else, and you sha’n’t have it.”
So seldom did Susan say anything cross, that everyone looked up
surprised. Miss Fosbrook saw that it was sheer unhappiness that made her
speak sharply, and would not take any notice, except by gently taking
away the pertinacious David.
He was very much distressed at the refusal; and when Miss Fosbrook told
him that his brother and sister could not think of such things when they
were in such trouble, he only answered, “But Hannah Higgins won’t get her
pig.”
Miss Fosbrook was vexed herself that her friend David should seem
possessed with this single idea, as if it shut out all others from his
mind. He was consoled fast enough; for Susan, with another great sob,
threw down her pen, and coming up to stroke him down with her inky
fingers, cried out, “O Davie, Davie, I didn’t mean it; I don’t know why I
said it. You shall have my sixpence, or anything! But, oh dear, I wish
the message was come, and we were going to dear Mamma, for I can’t write,
and I don’t know what to do.”
Then she went back to her place, and tried to write, and sat with her
head on her hand, and dawdled and cried and blotted till it grew so near
post-time that at last Miss Fosbrook took the longest of her scrawls, and
writing three lines at the bottom to say how it was with them all,
directed it to Captain Merrifield, thinking that he would like it better
than nothing from home, sent it off, and made Susan come out to refresh
her hot eyes and burning head in the garden.
Sam presently came and walked on her other side, gravely and in silence,
glad to be away from the chatter and disputes of the younger ones. That
summons had made them both feel older, and less like children, than ever
before; but they did not speak much, only, when they sat down on a garden
bench, as Miss Fosbrook held Susan’s hand, she presently found some rough
hard young fingers stealing into her own on the other side, and saw Sam’s
eyes glistening with unshed tears. She stroked his hand, and they
dropped fast: but he was ashamed to cry, and quickly dried them.
“I think,” she said, “that you will be a man, Sam; take care of Susan,
and be a comfort to your father.”
“I hope I shall,” said Sam; “but I don’t know how.”
“Nobody can tell how beforehand,” she said. “Only watch to see what he
may seem to want to have done for him. Sit quietly by, and don’t get in
the way.”
“Were you ever so unhappy, Miss Fosbrook?” asked Susan.
“Yes, once I was, when my father was knocked down by an omnibus, and was
very ill.”
“Tell us about it?” said Susan.
She did tell them of her week of sorrow and anxious care of the younger
children, and the brightening ray of hope at last. It seemed to freshen
both up, and give them hopes, for each drew a long sigh of relief; and
then Sam said, “Papa wrote to Mr. Carey. She is to be prayed for in
church to-morrow.”
“Oh,” said Susan, with a sound as of dismay, which made Christabel ask in
wonder why she was sorry, when, from Susan’s half-uttered words, she
found that the little girl fancied that a “happy issue out of all her
afflictions” meant death.
“Oh no, my dear,” she said. “What it means is, that the afflictions may
end happily in whatever way God may see to be best; it may be in getting
well; it may be the other way: at any rate, it is asking that the
distress may be over, not saying how.”
“Isn’t there some other prayer in the Prayer-book about it?” said Sam,
looking straight before him.
“I will show you where to find it, in the Visitation of the Sick. I dare
say it has often been read to her.”
The boy and girl came in with her, and brought their Prayer-books to her
room, that she might mark them.
This had been a strange, long, sad day of waiting and watching for the
telegram, and the children even fancied it might come in the middle of
the night; but Miss Fosbrook thought this unlikely, and looked for the
morrow’s post. There was no letter. It was very disappointing, but Miss
Fosbrook thought it a good sign, since at least the danger could not be
more pressing, and delay always left room for hope.
The children readily believed her; they were too young to go on dwelling
long on what was not in sight; and even Susan was cheerful, and able to
think about other things after her night’s rest, and the relief of not
hearing a worse account.
The children might do as they pleased about going to church on saints’
days, and on this day all the three girls wished to go, as soon as it had
been made clear that even if the message should come before the short
service would be over, there would be ample time to reach the station
before the next train. Miss Fosbrook was glad to prove this, for not
only did she wish to have them in church, but she thought the weary
watching for the telegram was the worst thing possible for Susan. Sam
was also going to church, but Henry hung back, after accompanying them to
the end of the kitchen-garden. “I wouldn’t go, Sam; just suppose if the
message came without anyone at home, and you had to set out at once!”
“We couldn’t,” said Sam; “there’s no train.”
“Oh, but they always put on a special train whenever anyone is ill.”
“Then there would be plenty!”
“At least they did when Mr. Greville’s mother was ill, so they will now;
and then you may ride upon the engine, for there won’t be any carriages,
you know. I say, Sam, if you go to church, and the telegraph comes, I
shall set off.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Sam. “You had much better come to
church.”
“No, I sha’n’t. It is like a girl to go to church on a week-day.”
“It is much more like a girl to mind what a couple of asses, like the
Grevilles, say,” returned Sam, taking up his cap and running after his
sisters and their governess.
“It is quite right,” observed Henry to John and David, who alone remained
to listen to him, “that one of us should stay in case the telegraph comes
in, and there are any orders to give. I can catch the pony, you know,
and ride off to Bonchamp, and if the special train is there, I shall get
upon the engine.”
“But it is Sam and Susan who are going.”
“Oh, that’s only because Sam is eldest. I know Mamma would like to have
me much better, because I don’t walk hard like Sam; and when I get there,
she will be so much better already, and we shall be all right; and
Admiral Penrose will be so delighted at my courage in riding on the
engine and putting out the explosion, or something, that he will give me
my appointment as naval cadet at once, and I shall have a dirk and a
uniform, and a chest of my own, and be an officer, and get promoted for
firing red-hot shot out of the batteries at Gibraltar.”
“Master Hal!” exclaimed Purday, “don’t throw them little apples about.”
“They are red-hot shot, Purday!”
“I’ll red-hot shot you if you break my cucumber frames, young gentleman!
Come, get out with you.”
Probably anxiety made Purday cross as well as everyone else, or else he
distrusted Henry’s discretion without Sam, for he hunted the little boys
away wherever they went. Now they would break the cucumber frames; now
they would meddle with the gooseberries, or trample on the beds; and at
last he only relented so far as to let David stay with him on condition
of being very good, and holding the little cabbages as he planted them
out.
“Master Davie was a solemn one,” Purday said, and they were great
friends; but Hal and Johnnie were fairly turned out, as their idle hands
were continually finding fresh mischief to do in their sauntering
desultory mood.
“I think,” said Hal, “since Purday is so savage, we’ll go and look out at
the gate, and then we shall see if the telegraph comes.”
Johnnie had no clear idea what a telegraph was, and was curious to know
how it would come, rather expecting it to be a man in a red coat on
horseback, blowing a horn—a sight that certainly was not to be missed; so
he willingly strolled down after Henry to the gate leading to the lane.
“I can’t see any way at all,” said Henry, looking out into the lane. “I
shall get up, and so see over into the bend of the road;” and Hal mounted
to the topmost bar of the gate, and sat astride there, John scrambling
after him not quite so easily, his legs being less long, and his dress
less convenient. Both knew that their Papa strongly objected to their
climbing on this iron gate, the newest and handsomest thing about the
place; but thought Hal, “Of course no one will care what I do when I am
so anxious about poor Mamma!” and thought Johnnie, “What Hal does, of
course I may do!”
So there the two young gentlemen sat perched, each with one leg on either
side of the new iron gate. It was rather like sitting on the edge of a
knife; and John could scarcely reach his toes down to rest them on the
bar below, but he held on by the spikes, and it was so new and glorious a
position, that it made up for a good deal to be five feet above the road;
moreover, Hal said it was just like the mast-head of a man-of-war—at
_least_, when the waves didn’t dash right overhead, like the picture of
the Eddystone Lighthouse.
“Hollo! what, a couple of cherubs aloft!” cried a voice from the road;
and looking round, Henry beheld the two Grevilles.
“Yes,” he answered; “it’s very jolly up here.”
“Eh! is it? Riding on a razor, to my mind. Come down, and have a lark,”
said Osmond; while Martin, undoing the gate, proceeded to swing it
backwards and forwards, to John’s extreme terror; but the more he clung
to the spikes, and cried for mercy, the quicker Martin swung it, shouting
with laughter at his fright. Henry meanwhile scrambled and tumbled to
the ground, and caught the gate and held it fast, while he asked what his
friends had been about. One held up a scarlet flask of powder, the other
a bag of shot.
“You haven’t got a gun!”
“No, but we know where gardener keeps his; and the governor’s out for the
day. Come along, Hal: you shall have your turn.”
“I don’t want to go far from home to-day.”
“Oh, stuff! What was it Mamma heard, Osmond? That your mother was ever
so much better, wasn’t it?”
“I thought it was worse,” said Osmond.
“Well, never mind: your hanging about here won’t do her any good, I
suppose.”
“No; but—”
“Oh, he’ll catch it from the governess!—I say, how many seams shall you
have to sew to-day, Hal?”
“I don’t sew seams: I do as I please.”
“Ha! Is that them coming out of church!”
“Oh, it is! it is!” cried John from his elevation. “Oh, help me down,
Hal!”
But Henry did not want Miss Fosbrook to find him partaking in
gate-climbing; and either that desire, or the general terror a bad
conscience, made him and the Grevilles run helter-skelter the opposite
way, leaving poor little John stuck on the top of the gate, quite giddy
at the thought of coming down alone, and almost as much afraid of being
there caught by Miss Fosbrook coming home from church.
It was a false alarm after all, that the congregation were coming out.
John would have been glad if they had; for nothing could be more
miserable than sitting up there, his fingers tired of clutching the
spikes, his feet strained with reaching down to the bar, his legs chilled
with the wind, his head almost giddy when he thought of climbing down.
He would have cried, could he have spared a hand to rub his eyes with; he
had a great mind to have roared for help, especially when he heard feet
upon the road; but these turned out to belong to five little village
boys, still smaller than himself, who, when they saw the young gentleman
on his perch, all stood still in a row, with their mouths wide open,
staring at him. Johnnie scorned to let them think he was not riding
there for his own pleasure; so he tried to put a bold face of the matter,
and look as much at ease and indifferent as he could, under great bodily
fear and discomfort, the injury of his brother’s desertion, the
expectation of disgrace, and the reflection that he was being disobedient
to his parents in the height of their trouble!
There is nothing in grief that of necessity makes children or grown
people good. Sometimes, especially when there is suspense, it fills them
with excitement, as well as putting them out of their usual habits; and
thus it often happens that there are tremendous explosions of naughtiness
just when some one is ill in a house, and the children ought to be most
good. But it is certain that unless trouble be taken in the right way,
it makes people worse instead of better.
CHAPTER XI.
HAL had got into a mood in which he was tired of fears and of waiting for
tidings, and was glad to shake off the thought, and be carried along to
something new, he and the Grevilles were rather fond of one another’s
company, in an idle sort of way. They “put him up to things,” as he
said; they made a variety; and he was always glad of listeners to his
wonderful stories, which rather diverted the other boys, who, though they
sometimes made game of them, were much less apt to pick them to pieces
than was Sam.
Poor Captain Merrifield! what had not befallen him, according to his son?
He had been stuck on to a rock of loadstone; he had been bitten by
mosquitos as big as jackdaws—at least as jack-snipes; he had sat down to
rest on the trunk of a fallen tree, and it whisked him over on his face,
and turned out to be a rattle-snake—at least, a boa-constrictor! Nay,
Henry discoursed on the ponies he had himself tamed, the rabbits he had
shot, the trees he had climbed, the nests he had found, the rats he had
killed, in terms he durst not use when his brother was by; or if he did,
and Sam brought him to book, he always said “it was all fun.” It often
seemed as if he did not himself know whether he meant to be believed or
otherwise; and as to his intentions for his sailor life, they were, as
has been already seen, of the most splendid character! Sometimes he shot
the French admiral dead from the mast-head; sometimes he sailed into
Plymouth with the whole enemy’s fleet behind him; sometimes he, the
youngest midshipman, rescued the whole crew in a wreck where all the
other officers were drowned; sometimes he shot a shark through the head,
just as it was about to make a meal of Prince Alfred!
He certainly was thus an entertaining companion to those who did not pay
heed to truth, and liked to hear or laugh at great swelling words; and
the Grevilles, on their idle day, were glad to have him with them, and
were rather curious to prove how much fact there was in his boast of
being a most admirable shot.
Meddling with guns was absolutely forbidden to all the three, except by
special permission and with an elder looking on; but the Grevilles were
not in the habit of obeying, except when they were forced to do so; and
Henry, having once begun to think no one would heed his present doings,
was ready to go on rather than be accused of minding his governess.
So the gardener’s gun was taken from the hiding-place, whither it had
been conveyed from the tool-house; and the three boys ran off together,
their first object being to get out of the Greville grounds, where they
could be met by any of the men. They got quite out into the fields,
before they ventured to stop that Osmond might load the gun. Each was to
take a shot in turn; Osmond tried first, at a poor innocent young thrush,
newly come out for his earliest flight. Happily he missed it; Martin
claimed the next, and for want of anything better to shoot, took aim at
the scare-crow in the middle of Farmer Grice’s beans. He was sure that
he had hit it, and showed triumphantly the great holes in its hat; but
the other boys were strongly persuaded that they had been there before.
“Well, come away,” said Osmond; “this is a great deal too near old
Grice’s farm-yard. If we go popping about here, we shall have him out
upon us, for an old tiger as he is!”
“Come along, then,” said Martin.
But Hal had just got the gun, and saw something so black and shiny
through the hedge, that he was persuaded that a flock of rooks were
feeding in the next field, and he fired!
Such a cackling and screeching as arose! and with it one dying gobble,
and a very loud “Hollo! you rascal!”
“My eyes! you’ve been and gone and done it!” cried Osmond.
“Cut! cut!” screamed Martin; and Hal, not exactly knowing what he had
done, but sure that it was something dreadful, and hearing voices in
pursuit, threw down the gun, and took to his heels; but the others had
the start of him, and were over the gap long before he could get to it.
And even as he did reach it, a hand was on his throat, almost choking
him, and a tremendous voice cried, “You young poacher, you sha’n’t get
off that way! I’ll have you up to the Bench, that I will, for shooting
the poor old turkey-cock before my very eyes.”
“Oh! don’t, don’t! I didn’t mean it,” cried Hal, turning in the terrible
grip; “I thought it was only a rook!”
“A rook, I dare say! And what business had you to think, coming
trespassing here on my ground, and breaking the hedges! I’d have you up
for that, if for nothing else, you young vagabond!”
“Oh, don’t, don’t! I’m Henry Merrifield!”
“I don’t care if you’re Henry Merry Andrew!” said Farmer Grice, who was a
surly man, and had a grudge of long standing against the Captain, for
withstanding him at the Board of Guardians. “I’ll have the law out of
you, whoever you are.”
“But—but—Mamma is so very ill!” cried Hal, bursting into tears.
“The more shame for you to be rampaging about the country this fashion,”
said the farmer, giving him a shake that seemed to make all his bones
rattle in his skin. “Serve you right if I flogged you within an inch of
your life.”
“Oh, please don’t—I mean please do—anything but have me up to the
magistrates! I’ll never do it again, never!” sobbed Henry in his terror.
Mr. Grice had some pity, and also knew that his wife and all the
neighbours would be shocked at his prosecuting so young a boy, whose
parents were in such distress. So he said, “There, then, I’ll overlook
it this time, sir, so as I have the value of the bird.”
“And what is the value—” asked Henry, trembling.
“Value! Why, the breed came from Norfolk; he was three years old; and my
missus set great store on him, he was as good as a house-dog, to keep
idle children out of the yard; and it was quite a picture to see him
posturing about, and setting up his tail! Value! not less than
five-and-twenty shillings, sir.”
“But I have not five-and-twenty shillings. I can’t get them,” said Hal,
falling back into misery.
“You should have thought of that before you shot poor old Tom Turkey!”
quoth Farmer Grice.
“But what in the world shall I ever do?” said Henry.
“That’s for you to settle, sir,” said the farmer, taking up the unlucky
gun. “I shall take this, and keep it out of further harm.”
“Oh pray, pray!” cried Henry. “It is not my gun; it is Mr. Greville’s;
please let me have it!”
“What! was it those young dogs, the Master Grevilles, that were with
you!” growled Mr. Grice. “If I’d known that, I’d not have let you off so
easy. Those boys are the plague of the place; I wish it had been one of
them as I’d caught, I’d have had some satisfaction out of them!”
Henry entreated again for the gun, explaining that they had not leave to
take it; but the farmer was unrelenting. He might go to them, he said,
to make up the price of the poor turkey-cock; how they could have got the
gun was no affair of his; have it they should not, till the money was
brought to him; and if it did not come before night, he should carry the
gun up to the Park, and complain to Mr. Greville.
With this answer the unhappy Hal was released, and ran after his friends
to tell them of the terms. He found them sitting on a low wall, just
within their own grounds, waiting to hear what had become of him. When
he had told his story, they both set upon him for betraying them, and
declared that they should send him to Coventry ever after, and never do
anything with him again; but as it was plain that the gun must be
redeemed, if they wished to avoid severe punishment, there was a
consultation. Nobody had much money; but Osmond consolingly suspected
that the farmer would take less; five-and-twenty shillings was an
exorbitant price to set on a turkey-cock’s head, and perhaps half would
content him.
The half, however, seemed as impossible as the whole. Osmond had three
shillings, Martin two, Hal fourpence! What was to be done? And the boys
declared that if it should come to their father’s knowledge, Hal, who had
given up their names, should certainly not be shielded by them. In fact,
he, who had done the deed, was the only one who ought to pay.
The sound of the servants’ dinner-bell at the Park broke up the
consultation; the boys must not be missed at luncheon; and they therefore
separated, agreeing to meet at that same place at four o’clock, to hear
the result of Hal’s negotiation with the farmer; for neither of the
Grevilles would hear of helping him to face the enemy.
Poor Hal plodded home disconsolately. Once he thought of telling Sam,
and asking his help; but Sam would be so much shocked at such a scrape at
such a time, as possibly to lick him for it before helping him. Indeed
Hal did not see much chance of Sam being able to do anything for them;
and he had too often boasted over his elder brother to like to abase
himself by such a confession—when, too, it would almost be owning how
much better it would have been to have followed Sam’s advice and have
gone safely to church.
Could he borrow of any one? Had he nothing of his own to sell or
exchange? Ah! if it had not been for that stupid hoard of little
David’s, he might have had even so much! By-the-bye, some of that
collection was his own. He might quite lawfully take that back again.
How much could it be? How much did he put in last week? the week before?
Oh, never mind; some of it was his at all events; there was no harm in
taking that. Most likely he should be able to restore it four-fold when
Colonel Carey made his present; or, if not, nobody knew exactly what was
in Toby Fillpot; and after all very likely they would forget all about
it; people could not think about pigs when Mamma was ill; or, maybe, he
should go to join his ship, and hear no more of it. So he came home, and
crossed the paddock just as the dinner-bell was ringing, opening the
hall-door as the children were running across it to the dining-room.
Miss Fosbrook, who was walking behind them, turned as he came in.
“Henry,” she said, “I have sent Johnnie to dine in the nursery, for his
disobedience in climbing the gate. I certainly shall not give you a less
punishment. You must have led him into it; and how could you be so cruel
as to leave the poor little fellow alone in such a dangerous place?”
“Stupid little coward! it was not a bit of danger!” said Hal.
“So young a child—” began Miss Fosbrook.
“Oh, that’s all your London notions,” said Hal. “Why, I climbed up our
gate at Stonehouse, which was twice as high, when I wasn’t
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