"I'm not a fool," was the logical response of Mrs. Carter. "If I spent my earnings when they are coming in regular, or let Tim keep his to his own cheek, where should we be in a time like this? I have my understanding about me."
Mrs. Carter did not praise her understanding without cause. Whatever social virtues she may have lacked, she was rich in thrift, in forethought. Had Timothy remained out of work for a twelvemonth, they would not have been put to shifts.
"I'm afraid to go back!" cried Mrs. Cross.
"So should I be, if I got myself into your mess."
The offered sympathy not being consolatory to her present frame of mind, Mrs. Cross departed. Home, at present, she dared not go. She went about Honey Fair, seeking the gossiping pity which Elizabeth Carter had declined to give, but which she was yearning for. Thus she spent an hour or two.
Meanwhile the news had been spreading through Honey Fair, "Crosses had the bums in;" and Mary Ann, hearing it, flew home to know whether it was correct. She—partly through fear, partly in the security from paternal correction, imparted to her by the feeling that she was Mary Ann Tyrrett, and no longer Mary Ann Cross—yielded to her father's questions, and made full confession. Debts here, debts there, debts everywhere. Cross was overwhelmed; and when his wife at length came in, he quietly knocked her down.
The broker advanced to the rescue. "If you dare to come between man and wife," raved Cross, lifting his arm menacingly, "I'll serve you the same." He was a quiet-tempered man, but this business had terribly exasperated him. "You'll come to die in the work'us," he uttered to his wife. "And serve you right! It's your doings that have broke up our home."
"No," retorted she passionately, as she lifted herself from the floor; "it's your squanderings in the publics o' nights, that have helped to break up our home."
It was a little of both.
The quarrel was interrupted by a commotion outside, and Mrs. Cross darted out to look—glad, perhaps, to escape from her husband's anger. An official from the workhouse had come down with an order for the admission of Susan Fisher instanter. Timothy Carter, in his meek and humane spirit, had so enlarged upon the state of affairs in general, touching Mrs. Fisher, that the workhouse bestirred itself. An officer was despatched to marshal them into it at once. The uproar was caused by her resistance: she was still sitting in the road.
"I won't go into the work'us," she screamed; "I won't go there to be parted from my children and my husband. If I'm to die, I'll die out here."
"Just get up and march, and don't let's have no row," said the officer. "Else I'll fetch a wheel-barrer, and wheel ye to it."
She resisted, shrieking and flinging her arms and her wild hair about her, as only a foolish woman would do; the children, alarmed, clung to her and cried, and all Honey Fair came out to look. Mr. Joe Fisher also staggered up, in a state not to be described. He had been invited by some friend, more sympathizing than judicious, to solace his troubles with strong waters; and down he fell in the mud, helpless.
"Well, here's a pretty kettle of fish!" cried the perplexed workhouse man. "A nice pair, they are! How I am to get 'em both there, is beyond me! She can walk, if she's forced to it; but he can't! They spend their money in sotting, and when they have no more to spend they come to us to keep 'em! I must get an open cart."
The cart was procured somewhere and brought to the scene, a policeman in attendance; and the children were lifted into it one by one. Next the man was thrown in, like a clod; and then came the woman's turn. With much struggling and kicking, with shrieks that might have been heard a mile off, she was at length hoisted into it. But she tumbled out again: raving that "no work'us shouldn't hold her." The official raved in turn; and Honey Fair hugged itself. It had not had the gratification of so exciting a scene for many a day; to say nothing of the satisfaction it derived from hearing the workhouse set at defiance.
The official and the policeman at length conquered. She was secured, and the cart started at a snail's pace with its load—Mrs. Fisher setting up a prolonged and dismal lamentation not unlike an Irish howl: and Honey Fair, in its curiosity, following the cart as its train.
"Whose shilling is this on my desk?" inquired Mr. Ashley of Samuel Lynn, one morning towards the close of the summer.
"I cannot tell thee," was the reply of the Quaker. "I know nothing of it."
"It is none of mine, to my knowledge," remarked Mr. Ashley.
"What shilling is that on the master's desk?" repeated Samuel Lynn to William when he returned into his own room, where William was.
"I put a shilling on the desk this morning," replied William. "I found it in the waste-paper basket."
"Thee go in, then, and tell the master."
William did so. "The shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, sir," said he, entering the counting-house and approaching Mr. Ashley.
Mr. Ashley was remarkably exact in his accounts. He had missed no shilling, and he did not think it was his. "What should bring a shilling in the waste-paper basket?" he asked. "It may have rolled out of your own pocket."
William could have smiled at the remark. A shilling out ofhispocket! "Oh, no, sir, it did not."
Mr. Ashley sat looking earnestly at William—as the latter fancied. In reality he was buried deep in his own thoughts. But William felt uncomfortable under the survey, and his face flushed to a glow. Why should he feel uncomfortable? What should cause the flush?
This. Since Janey's death, some months ago now, their circumstances had been more straitened than ever; of course, there had been expenses attending it, and Mrs. Halliburton was paying them off weekly. Bread and potatoes, and a little milk, would often be their food. On the previous night Jane had a sick headache. Some tea would have been acceptable, but she had neither tea nor money in the house; and she was firm in her resolution not to purchase on trust. On this morning early, when William rose, he found his mother down before him, at her work as usual. Her head felt better, she said; it might get quite well if she had only some tea; but she had not, and—there was an end of it. William went out, ardently wishing (in the vague profitless manner that he might have wished for Aladdin's lamp) that he had only a shilling to procure some for her. When, half an hour after, this shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, as he was shaking it in Mr. Ashley's counting-house, a strong temptation—not to take it, but to wish that he might take it, that it was not wrong to take it—rushed over him. He put it down on the desk and turned from it—turned from the temptation, for the shilling seemed to scorch his fingers. The remembrance of this wish—it sounded to him like a dishonest one—had brought the vivid colour to his face, under what he thought was Mr. Ashley's scrutiny. That gentleman observed it.
"What are you turning red for?"
This crowned all. William's face changed to scarlet.
Mr. Ashley was surprised. He came to the conclusion that some mystery must be connected with the shilling—something wrong. He determined to fathom it. "Why do you look confused?" he resumed.
"It was only at my own thoughts, sir."
"What are they? Let me hear them."
William hesitated. "I would rather not tell them, sir."
"But I would rather you did." Mr. Ashley spoke quietly, as usual; but there lay command in the quietest tone of Mr. Ashley's.
Implicit obedience had been enjoined upon the Halliburtons from their earliest childhood. In that manufactory Mr. Ashley was William'smaster, and he believed he had no resource but to comply with his desire. William was of a remarkably ingenuous nature; and if he had to impart a thing, he did not do it by halves, although it might tell against himself.
"When I found that shilling this morning, sir, the thought came over me to wish it was mine—to wish that I might take it without doing ill. The thought did not come over meto take it," he added, raising his truthful eyes to Mr. Ashley's, "only to wish that it was not wrong to do so. When you looked at me so earnestly, sir, I fancied you could see what my thoughts had been. And they were not honourable thoughts."
"Did you ever take money that was not yours?" asked Mr. Ashley, after a pause.
William looked surprised. "No, sir, never."
Mr. Ashley paused again. "I have known children help themselves to halfpence and pence, and think it little crime."
The boy shook his head. "We have been taught better than that, sir. And, besides the crime, money taken in that way would bring us no good, only trouble. It could not prosper."
"Tell me why you think that."
"My mother has always taught us that a bad action can never prosper in the end."
"I suppose you coveted the shilling for marbles; or for sweetmeats?"
"Oh no, sir. It was not for myself that I wished it."
"Then for whom? For what?"
This caused William's face to flush again. Mr. Ashley questioned till he drew from him the particulars—how that he had wished to buy some tea, and why he had wished it.
"I have heard," remarked Mr. Ashley, after listening, "that you have many privations to put up with."
"It is true, sir. But we don't so much care for them if we onlycanput up with them. My mother says she knows better days will be in store for us, if we only bear on patiently. I am sure we boys ought to do so, if she can. It is worse for her than for us."
There ensued another searching question from Mr. Ashley. "Have you ever, when alone in the egg-house, amidst its thousands of eggs, been tempted to pocket a few to carry home?"
For one moment William suffered a flash of resentment to cross his countenance. The next his eyes filled with tears. He felt deeply hurt.
"No, sir, I have not. I hope you do not fear that I am capable of it?"
"No, I do not," said Mr. Ashley. "Your father was a clergyman, I think I have heard?"
"He was intended for a clergyman, sir, but he did not get to the University. His father was a clergyman—a rector in Devonshire, and my mother's father was a clergyman in London. My uncle Francis is also a clergyman, but only a curate. We are gentlepeople, though we are poor. We would not take eggs or anything else."
Mr. Ashley suppressed a smile. "I conclude that you and your brothers live in hope some time of regaining your position in life?"
"Yes, sir. I think it is that hope that makes us put up with hard things so well."
"What do you think of being?"
William's countenance fell. "There is not so much chance of my getting on, sir, as there is for my brothers. Frank and Gar are hopeful enough; but I don't look forward to anything good for me. My mother says if I only help her I shall be doing my duty."
"Your sister died in a decline," remarked Mr. Ashley. "These home privations must have told upon her."
William's face brightened. "She had everything she wanted, sir; everything, even to port wine. Mrs. Reece and Dobbs took a liking to her when they first came, and they never let her want for anything. Mamma says that Jane's wants having been supplied in so extraordinary a manner, ought to teach us how certainly God is looking over us and taking care of us—that all things, when they come to be absolutely needed, will no doubt be supplied to us, as they were to her."
"What a perfect trust in God that boy seems to have!" mused Mr. Ashley, when he dismissed William. "Mrs. Halliburton must be a mother in a thousand. And he will make a man in a thousand, unless I am mistaken. Truthful, open, candid—Idon't know a boy like him!"
About five minutes before the great bell was rung at one o'clock, William was called into the counting-house. "I have been casting up my cash and find I am a shilling short," observed Mr. Ashley, "therefore the shilling that you found is no doubt the missing one. I shall give it to you," he continued: "a reward for telling me the straightforward truth when I questioned you."
William took the shilling—as he supposed. "Here are two!" he exclaimed, in his surprise.
"You cannot buy much tea with one; and that is what you were thinking of. Would you like to be apprenticed to me?" Mr. Ashley resumed, drowning the boy's thanks.
The question took William by storm: he was at a loss what to answer. He would have been equally at a loss had he been accorded a whole week to deliberate upon it. He looked foolish, and said he could not tell.
"Would you like the business?" pursued Mr. Ashley.
"I like the business very well, sir, now I'm used to it. But I could not hope ever to get on to be a master."
"There's no knowing what you may get on to be, if you are steady and persevering. Masters don't begin at the top of the tree; they begin at the bottom and work up to it. At least, that is the case with a great many. In becoming an apprentice you would occupy a better position in the manufactory than you do now."
"Joe Stubbs is an apprentice, is he not, sir?"
"I will explain it to you, if you do not understand," said Mr. Ashley. "Joe Stubbs is apprenticed to one branch of the business, the cutting; John Braithwait is an apprentice to the staining, and so on. These lads expect to remain workmen all their lives, working at their own peculiar branch. You would not be apprenticed to any one branch, but to the whole, with a view to becoming hereafter a manager or a master; in the same manner that I might apprentice my son, were he intended for the business."
William thought he should like this. Suddenly his countenance fell.
"What now?" asked Mr. Ashley.
"I have heard, sir, that the apprentices do not earn wages at first. I—I am afraid we could not well do at home without mine."
"You need not concern yourself with what you hear, or with what others earn or don't earn. I should give you eight shillings a-week, instead of four, and you would retain your evenings for study, as you do now. I do not see any different or better opening for you," continued Mr. Ashley; "but should any arise hereafter, through your mother's relatives, or from any other channel, I would not stand in the way of your advancement, but would consent to cancel your indentures. Do you understand what I have been saying?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Thank you very much."
"You can speak to Mrs. Halliburton about it, and hear what her wishes may be," concluded Mr. Ashley.
The result was, that William was apprenticed to Mr. Ashley. "I can tell thee, thee hast found favour with the master," remarked Samuel Lynn to William. "He has made thee his apprentice, and has admitted thee, I hear, to the companionship of his son. They are proofs that he judges well of thee. Pay thee attention to deserve it."
It was quite true that William was admitted to the occasional companionship of Henry Ashley. Henry had taken a fancy to him, and would get him there to help him stumble through his Latin.
The next to be apprenticed to Mr. Ashley, and almost at the same time, was Cyril Dare. But when he found that he was to be the fellow-apprentice of William Halliburton, the two on a level in every respect, wages excepted—and of wages Master Cyril was at first to earn none—he was most indignant, and complained explosively to his father. "Can't you speak to Mr. Ashley, sir?"
"Where would be the use?" asked Mr. Dare. "There's not a man in Helstonleigh would brook interference in his affairs less than Thomas Ashley. If one of the two apprentices must leave, because they are too much for each other's company, it would be you, Cyril, rely upon it."
Cyril growled; but, as Mr. Dare said, there was no help for it. And he and William had to get on together in the best way they could. Cyril had thought that he should be the only gentleman-apprentice at Mr. Ashley's. There was a marked distinction observed in a manufactory between the common apprentices, who did the rough work, and what were called the gentleman-apprentices. It did not please Cyril that William should have been made one of the latter.
As the time went on, Jane's brain grew very busy. Its care was the education of her boys—a perplexing theme. So far as the classics went, they were progressing. Frank and Gar certainly were not pushed on as they might have been, for Helstonleigh collegiate school was not at that time renowned for its pushing qualities; but the boys had a spur in themselves. Jane never ceased to urge them to attention, to strive after progress; not by the harsh reproaches some children have to hear, but by loving encouragement and gentle persuasion. She would call up pleasant pictures of the future, when they should have surmounted the difficulties of toil, and be reaping their reward. It had ever been her custom to treat her children as friends; as friends and companions, more than as children. I am not sure that it is not a good plan in all cases, but it undoubtedly is so where children are naturally well disposed and intelligent. Even when they were little, she would converse and reason with them, so far as their understandings would permit. The primary thing she inculcated was the habit of unquestioning obedience. This secured in their earliest childhood, she could afford to reason with them as they grew older; to appeal to their own sense of intelligence; to show them how to form and exercise a right judgment. Had the children been wilful, deceitful, or opposed to her, her plan must have been different; compulsion must have taken the place of reasoning. When they did anything wrong—all children will, or they are not children—she would take the offender to her alone. There would be no scolding; but in a grave, calm, loving voice she would say, "Was this right? Did you forget that you were doing wrong and would grieve me? Did you forget that you were offending God?" And so she would talk; and teach them to do right in all things, for the sake of right, for the sake of doing their duty to Heaven and to man. These lessons from a mother loved as Jane was, could not fail to take root and bear seed. The young Halliburtons were in fair training to make not only good, but admirable men.
Jane inculcated another valuable lesson. In all perplexity, trouble, or untoward misfortune, she taught them tolook it full in the face; not to fly from it, as is the too-common custom, but to meet it and do the best with it. She knew that in trouble, as in terror, looking it in the face takes away half its sting: and so she was teaching them to look, not only by precept, but by example. With such minds, such training to work upon, there was little need tourgethem to apply closely to their studies; they saw its necessity themselves, and acted upon it. "It is your only chance, my darlings, of getting on in life," she would say. "You wish to be good and great men; and I think perhaps you may be, if you persevere. It is a tempting thing, I know, to leave wearying tasks for play or idleness; but do not yield to it. Look to the future. When you feel tired, out of sorts, as if Latin were the greatest grievance upon earth, say to yourselves, 'It is my duty to keep on, and my duty I must do. If I turn idle now, my past application will be lost; but, if I persevere, I may go bravely on to the end.' Be brave, darlings, for my sake."
And the boys were so. Thus it would happen that when the rest of the school were talking, or idling, or being caned, the Halliburtons were at work. The head master could not fail to observe their steady application; and he more than once held them up as an example to the school.
So far so good. But though the classics are essential parts of a good education, they do not include all its requisites. And nothing else was taught in the college school. There certainly was a writing master, and something like an initiation into the first rules of arithmetic was attempted; but not a boy in the charity school, hard by, that could not have shamed the college boys in adding up a column of figures or in writing a page. As to their English——You should have seen them attempt to write a letter. In short, the college school ignored everything except Latin and Greek.
This state of affairs gave Jane great concern. "Unless I can organize some plan, my boys will grow up dunces," she said to herself. And a plan she did organize. None could remedy this so well as herself; she, so thoroughly educated in all essential branches. It would take two hours from her work, but for the sake of her boys she would sacrifice that. Every night, therefore, except Saturday, as soon as they had prepared their lessons for school—and in doing that they were helped by William—she left her work and became their instructor. History, geography, astronomy, composition, and so on. You can fill up the list.
And she had her reward. The boys advanced rapidly. As the months and quarters went on, it was only so much the more instruction gained by them.
I think you must be indulged with a glance at one of these college school notes. But, first of all, suppose we read one written by Frank.
"Dear Glenn,—Thanks for wishing me to join your fishing expedition the day after to-morrow, but I can't come. My mother says, as I had a holiday from college one day last week, it will not do to ask for it again. You told me to send word this evening whether or not, so I drop you this note. I should like to go, and shall be thinking of you all day. Mind you let me have a look at the fish you bring home. Yours,"Frank Halliburton."
"Dear Glenn,—Thanks for wishing me to join your fishing expedition the day after to-morrow, but I can't come. My mother says, as I had a holiday from college one day last week, it will not do to ask for it again. You told me to send word this evening whether or not, so I drop you this note. I should like to go, and shall be thinking of you all day. Mind you let me have a look at the fish you bring home. Yours,
"Frank Halliburton."
The note was addressed "Glenn senior," and Gar was ordered to deliver it at Glenn senior's house. Glenn senior, who was a king's scholar, not a chorister, made a wry face over it when delivered, and sat down on the spur of the moment to answer it:
"Deer Haliburton,—Its all stuf about not asking for leve again what do the musty old prebens care who gets leve therell be enuff to sing without you tell your mother I cant excuse you from our party theirs 8 of us going and a stunning baxket of progg as good go out for a day's fishing has stop at home on a holiday for the benefit of that preshous colledge bring me word you'll come to-morrow at skool for we want to arrange our plans yours old fellow"P Glenn."
"Deer Haliburton,—Its all stuf about not asking for leve again what do the musty old prebens care who gets leve therell be enuff to sing without you tell your mother I cant excuse you from our party theirs 8 of us going and a stunning baxket of progg as good go out for a day's fishing has stop at home on a holiday for the benefit of that preshous colledge bring me word you'll come to-morrow at skool for we want to arrange our plans yours old fellow
"P Glenn."
Master P. Glenn was concluding his note when his father passed through the room and glanced over the boy's shoulder. He (Mr. Glenn) was a surgeon; one of the chief surgeons attached to the Helstonleigh infirmary, and in excellent practice. "At your exercise, Philip?"
"No, papa. I am writing a note to one of our fellows. I want him to be of our fishing party on Wednesday."
"Wednesday! Have you a holiday on Wednesday?"
"Yes. Don't you know it will be a saint's day?"
"Not I," said Mr. Glenn. "Saints' days don't concern me as they do you college boys. That's a pretty specimen of English!" he added, running his amused eyes over Philip's note.
"Are there any mistakes in it?" returned Philip. "But it's no matter, papa. We don't profess to write English in the college school."
"It is well you don't profess it," remarked Mr. Glenn. "But how is it your friend Halliburton can turn out good English?" He had taken up Frank's letter.
"Oh! they are such chaps for learning, the two Halliburtons. They stick at it like a horse-leech—never getting the cane for turned lessons. They have school at home in the evenings for English, and history, and such stuff that they don't get at college."
"Have they a tutor?"
"They are not rich enough for a tutor. Mrs. Halliburton's the tutor. What do you think Gar Halliburton did the other day? Keating was having a row with the fourth desk, and he gave them some extra verses to do. Up goes Gar Halliburton, before he had been a minute at his seat. 'If you please, sir,' says he to Keating, 'I had better have another piece.' 'Why so?' asks Keating. 'Because,' says Gar, 'I did these same verses with my brother at home a week ago.' He meant his eldest brother; not Frank. But, now, was not that honourable, papa?"
"Yes, it was," answered Mr. Glenn.
"That's just the Halliburtons all over. They are ultra-honourable."
"I should like to see your friend Frank, and inquire how he manages to pick up his English."
"Let me bring him to tea to-morrow night!" cried Philip eagerly.
"You may, if you like."
"Hurrah!" shouted Philip. "And you'll persuade him not to mind his mother, but to come to our fishing party?"
"Philip!"
"Well, papa, I don't mean that, exactly. But I do not see the use of boys listening to their mothers just in everything."
Philip Glenn seized his note, and added a postscript:—"My father sais you are to come to tea to-morrow we shall be so joly." And it was despatched to Frank by a servant in livery.
Frank was as eager to accept the invitation as Philip had been to offer it. When the afternoon arrived, and school was over, Frank tore home, donned his best clothes, and then tore back again to Mr. Glenn's house. Philip received him in the small room, where he and his brother prepared their lessons.
"How is it that you and my boys write English so differently?" inquired Mr. Glenn, when he had made Frank's acquaintance.
Frank broke into a broad smile, suggested by the remembrance of Philip's English. "We study it at home, sir."
"But some one teaches you?"
"Mamma. She was afraid that we should grow up ignorant of everything except Latin and Greek; so she thought she would remedy the evil."
"And she takes you in an evening?"
"Yes, sir; every evening except Saturday, when she is sure to be busy. She comes to the table as soon as our lessons for school are prepared, and we commence English. The easier portions of our Latin and Greek we do in the day, I and Gar: we crib the time from play-hours; and my brother William helps us at night with the more difficult parts."
"Where is your brother at school?" asked Mr. Glenn.
"He is not at school, sir. He is at Mr. Ashley's, with Cyril Dare. William has not been to school since papa died. But he was well up in everything, for papa had taken great pains with him, and he has gone on by himself since."
"Can he do much good by himself?"
"Good!" echoed Frank, speaking bluntly in his eagerness; "I don't think you could find so good a scholar for his age. There's not one could come near him in the college school. At first he found it hard work. He had no one to explain difficult points for him, and was obliged to puzzle them out with his own brains. And it's that that has got him on."
Mr. Glenn nodded. "Where a good foundation has been laid, a hard-working boy may get on better without a master than with one, provided——"
"That is just what William says," interrupted Frank, his dark eyes sparkling with animation. "He would have given anything at one time to be at the college school with us; but he does not care about it now."
"Provided his heart is in his work, I was about to add," said Mr. Glenn, smiling at Frank's eagerness.
"Oh, of course, sir. And that's what William's is. He has such capital books, too—all the best that are published. They were papa's. I hardly know how I and Gar should get on, without William's help."
"Does he help you?"
"He has helped us ever since papa died; before we went to college, and since. We do algebra and Euclid with him."
"In—deed!" exclaimed Mr. Glenn, looking hard at Frank. "When do you contrive to do all this?"
"In the evening. Tea is over by half-past five, and we three—William, I, and Gar—turn at once to our lessons. In about two hours mamma joins us, and we work with her about two hours more. Of course we have different nights for different studies, Latin every night, Greek nearly every night, Euclid twice a week, algebra twice a week, and so on. And the lessons we do with mamma are portioned out; some one night, some another."
"You must be very persevering boys," cried Mr. Glenn. "Do you never catch yourselves looking off to play; to talk and laugh?"
"No, sir, never. We have got into the habit of sticking to our lessons; mamma brought us into it. And then, we are anxious to get on: half the battle lies in that."
"I think it does. Philip, my boy, here's a lesson for you, and for all other lazy scapegraces."
Philip shrugged his shoulders, with a laugh. "Papa, I don't see any good in working so hard."
"Your friend Frank does."
"We are obliged to work, sir," said Frank, candidly. "We have no money, and it is only by education that we can hope to get on. Mamma thinks it may turn out all for the best. She says that boys who expect money very often rely upon it and not upon themselves. She would rather turn us out into the world with our talents cultivated and a will to use them, than with a fortune apiece. There's not a parable in the Bible mamma is fonder of reading to us than that of the ten talents."
"No fortune!" repeated Mr. Glenn in a dreamy tone.
"Not a penny; mamma has to work to keep us," returned Frank, making the avowal as freely as though he had proclaimed that his mother was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and he one of her pages. Jane had contrived to convince them that in poverty itself there lay no shame or stigma; but a great deal in paltry attempts to conceal it.
"Frank," said Mr. Glenn, "I was thinking that you must possess a fortune in your mother."
"And so we do!" said Frank. "When Philip's note came to me last night, and we were—were——"
"Laughing over it!" suggested Mr. Glenn, helping out Frank's hesitation, and laughing himself.
"Yes, that's it; only I did not like to say it," acknowledged Frank. "But I dare say you know, sir, how most of the college boys write. Mamma said then, how glad we ought to be that she can make time to teach us better, and that we have the resolution to persevere."
"I wish your mother would admit my sons to her class," said Mr. Glenn, half-seriously, half-jokingly. "I would give her any recompense."
"Shall I ask her?" cried Frank.
"Perhaps she would feel hurt?"
"Oh no, she wouldn't," answered Frank impulsively. "I will ask her."
"I should not like such a strict mother," avowed Philip Glenn.
"Strict!" echoed Frank. "Mamma's not strict."
"She must be. She says you shan't come fishing with us to-morrow."
"No, she did not. She said she wished me not to go, and thought I had better not, and then she left it to me."
Philip Glenn stared. "You told me at school this morning that it was decided you were not to come. And now you say Mrs. Halliburton left it to you."
"So she did," answered Frank. "She generally leaves these things to us. She shows us what we ought to do, and why it is right that we should do it, and then she leaves it to what she calls our own good sense. It is like putting us upon our honour."
"And you do as you know she wishes you would do?" interposed Mr. Glenn.
"Yes, sir, always."
"Suppose you were to take your own will for once against hers?" cried Philip in a cross tone. "What then?"
"Then I dare say she would decide herself the next time, and tell us we were not to be trusted. But there's no fear. We know her wishes are sure to be right; and we would not vex her for the world. The last time the dean was here there was a fuss about the choristers getting holiday so often; and he forbade its being done."
"But the dean's away," impatiently interrupted Philip Glenn. "Old Ripton is in residence, and he would give it you for the asking. He knows nothing about the dean's order."
"That's the very reason," returned Frank. "Mamma put it to me whether it would be an honourable thing to do. She said, if Dr. Ripton had known of the dean's order, then I might have asked him, and he could do as he pleased. She makes us wish to do what is right—not only what appears so."
"And you'll punish yourself by going without the holiday, for some rubbishing notion of 'doing right'! It's just nonsense, Frank."
"Of course we have to punish ourselves sometimes," acknowledged Frank. "I shall be wishing all day long to-morrow that I was with you. But when evening comes, and the day's over, then I shall be glad to have done right. Mamma says if we do not learn to act rightly and self-reliantly as boys we shall not do so as men."
Mr. Glenn laid his hand on Frank's shoulder. "Inculcate your creed upon my sons, if you can," said he, speaking seriously. "Has your mother taught it to you long?"
"She has always been teaching it to us; ever since we were little," rejoined Frank. "If we had to begin now, I don't know that we should make much of it."
Mr. Glenn fell into a reverie. As Mr. Ashley had once judged by some words dropped by William, so Mr. Glenn was judging now—that Mrs. Halliburton must be a mother in a thousand. Frank turned to Philip.
"Have you done your lessons?"
"Done my lessons! No. Have you?"
Frank laughed. "Yes, or I should not have come. I have not played a minute to-day—but cribbed the time. Scanning, and exercise, and Greek; I have done them all."
"It seems to me that you and your brothers make friends of your lessons, whilst most boys make enemies," observed Mr. Glenn.
"Yes, that's true," said Frank.
"Philip," said Mr. Glenn to his son that evening after Frank had departed, "I give youcarte blancheto bring that boy here as much as you like. If you are wise, you will make a lasting friend of him."
"I like the Halliburtons," replied Philip. "The college school doesn't, though."
"And pray, why?"
"Well, I think Dare senior first set the school against them—that's Cyril, you know, papa. He was always going on at them. They were snobs for sticking to their lessons, he said, which gentlemen never did; and they were snobs because they had no money to spend, which gentlemen always had; and they were snobs for this, and snobs for the other; and he got his desk, which ruled the school, to cut them. They had to put up with a good deal then, but they are bigger now, and can fight their way; and, since Dare senior left, the school has begun to like them. If they are poor, they can't help it," concluded Philip, as if he would apologize for the fact.
"Poor!" retorted Mr. Glenn. "I can tell you, Master Philip, and the college school too, that they are rich in things that you want. Unless I am deceived, the Halliburtons will grow up to be men of no common order."
Trifles, as we all know, lead to great events. When Frank Halliburton had gone home, in his usual flying, eager manner, plunging headlong into the subject of Mr. Glenn's request, and Jane consented to grant it, she little thought that it would lead to a considerable increase to her income, enabling them to procure several comforts, and rendering better private instruction than her own easy for her sons.
Not that she yielded to the request at once. She took time for consideration. But Frank was urgent; and she was one of those ever ready to do a good turn for others. The Glenns, as Frank said, did write English wretchedly; and if she could help to improve them without losing time or money, neither of which she could afford, why not do so? And she consented.
It certainly did occur to Mrs. Halliburton to wonder that Mr. Glenn had not provided private instruction for his sons, to remedy the deficiencies existing in the college school system. Mr. Glenn suddenly awoke to the same wonder himself. The fact was, that he, like many other gentlemen in Helstonleigh who had sons in the college school, had been content to let things take their chance: possibly he assumed that spelling and composition would come to his sons by intuition, as they grew older. The contrast Frank Halliburton presented to Philip aroused him from his neglect.
Jane consented to allow the two young Glenns to share the time and instruction she gave to her own boys. Mr. Glenn received the favour gladly; but, at first, there was great battling with the young gentlemen themselves. They could not be made to complete their lessons for school, so as to be at Mrs. Halliburton's by the hour appointed. At length it was accomplished, and they took to going regularly.
Before three months had elapsed, great improvement had become visible in their spelling. They were also acquiring an insight into English grammar; had learnt that America was not situated in the Mediterranean, or watered by the Nile; and that English history did not solely consist of two incidents—the beheading of King Charles, and the Gunpowder Plot. Improvement was also visible in their manners and in the bent of their minds. From being boisterous, self-willed, and careless, they became more considerate, more tractable; and Mr. Glenn actually once heard Philip decline to embark in some tempting scrape, because it would "not be right."
For it was impossible for Jane to have lads near her, and not gently try to counteract their faults and failings, as she would have done by her own sons; whilst the remarkable consideration and deference paid by the young Halliburtons to their mother, their warm affection for her, and the pleasant peace, the refinement of tone and manner distinguishing their home, told upon Philip and Charles Glenn with good influence. At the end of three months, Mr. Glenn wrote a note of warm thanks to Mrs. Halliburton, expressing a hope that she would still allow his sons the privilege of joining her own, and, in a delicate manner, begging grace for his act, enclosed four guineas; which was payment at the rate of sixteen guineas a year for the two.
Jane had not expected it. Nothing had been hinted to her about payment, and she did not expect to receive any: she did not understand that the boys had joined on those terms. It was very welcome. In writing back to Mr. Glenn, she stated that she had not expected to receive remuneration; but she spoke of her straitened circumstances and thanked him for the help it would be.
"That comes from a gentlewoman," was his remark to his wife, when he read the note. "I should like to know her."
"I hinted as much to Frank one day, but he said his mother was too much occupied to receive visits or to pay them," was Mrs. Glenn's reply.
As it happened, however, Mr. Glenn did pay her a visit. A friend of his, whose boys were in the college school, struck with the improvement in the Glenns, and hearing of its source, wondered whether his boys might not be received on the same terms, and Mr. Glenn undertook to propose it. The result of all this was, that in six months from the time of that afternoon when Frank first took tea at Mr. Glenn's, Jane had ten evening pupils, college boys. There she stopped. Others applied, but her table would not hold more, nor could she do justice to a greater number. The ten would bring her in eighty guineas a year; she devoted to them two hours, five evenings in the week.
Now she could command somewhat better food, and more liberal instruction for her own boys, William included, in those higher branches of knowledge which they could not, or had not, commenced for themselves. A learned professor, David Byrne, whose lodgings were in the London Road, was applied to, and he agreed to receive the young Halliburtons at a very moderate charge, three evenings in the week.
"Mamma," cried William, one day, with his thoughtful smile, soon after this agreement was entered upon, "we seem to be getting on amazingly. We can learn something else now, if you have no objection."
"What is that?" asked Jane.
"French. As I and Samuel Lynn were walking home to-day, we met Monsieur Colin. He said he was about to organize a French class, twelve in number, and would be glad if we would make three of the number. What do you say?"
"It is a great temptation," answered Jane. "I have long wished you could learn French. Would it be very expensive?"
"Very cheap to us. He said he considered you a sister professor——"
"The idea!" burst forth Frank, hotly. "Mamma a professor!"
"Indeed, I don't know that I can aspire to anything so formidable," said Jane, with a laugh. "A schoolmistress would be a better word."
Frank was indignant. "You are not a schoolmistress, mamma. I——"
"Frank," interrupted Jane, her tone changing to seriousness.
"What, mamma?"
"I amthankfulto be one."
The tears rose to Frank's eyes. "You are alady, mamma. I shall never think you anything else. There!"
Jane smiled. "Well, I hope I am, Frank; although I help to make gloves and teach boys English."
"How well Mr. Lynn speaks French!" exclaimed William.
"Does he speak it?"
"As a native. I cannot tell what his accent may be, but he speaks it as readily as Monsieur Colin. Shall we learn, mamma? It will be the greatest advantage to us, Monsieur Colin conversing with us in French."
"But what about the time, William?"
"Oh, if you will manage the money, we will manage the time," returned William, laughing. "Only trust to us, mother. We will make it, and neglect nothing."
"Then, William, you may tell Monsieur Colin that you shall learn."
"Fair and easy!" broke out Frank; a saying of his when pleased. "Mamma, I think, what with one thing and another turning up, we boys shall be getting quite first-class education."
"Although mamma feared we never should accomplish it," returned William. "As did I."
"Fear!" cried Frank. "I didn't. I knew that 'where there's a will there's a way.'Degeneres animos timor arguit," added he, finishing off with one of his favourite Latin quotations; but forgetting, in his flourish, that he was paying a poor compliment to his mother and his brother.
This chapter may be said to commence the second part of this history, for some years have elapsed since the events last recorded.
Do you doubt that the self-denying patience displayed by Jane Halliburton, her persevering struggles, her never-fainting industry, joined to her all-perfect trust in the goodness and guidance of the Most High God, could fail to bring their reward? It is not possible. But do not fancy that it came suddenly in the shape of a coach-and-six. Rewards worth having are not acquired so easily. Have you met with the following lines? They are somewhat applicable.