presume you mean the ‘Te Deum.’”
“We always call it ‘Tee-dum’ here, and if you give it any other name, no one will understand you. We are English, not French or Chinese, in Coombe-in-Teignhead.”
The landlord of the Lamb and Flag descended the stairs, and Bramber, fearing lest he should have given offence, accompanied him to the street door. His landlady was a widow. When Jonas Southcott was out of the house, she beckoned to Walter Bramber, and said--
“I be main glad you ain’t going to the practice to-night, for I have axed Jane Cann in to tea.”
“Who is Jane Cann?”
“Her teaches sewing and the infants in the National School. I thought you’d best become acquainted in a friendly way at the outset. She used to keep a dame’s school herself, and a very good school it was. But when the parson set up the new National School, he did not want exactly to offend folk, and to take the bread out of Jane Cann’s mouth,--you know she’s akin to me, and to several in the place,--so he appointed her to the infants. Her’s a nice respectable young woman, but her had a bit o’ a misfortune as a child; falled and hurt her back, and so is rather crooked and short. Her may be a trifle older than you, but folk do say that is always best so; for when the wife is young”--
“Goodness preserve us! you don’t suppose I am going to marry her because she is the sewing-mistress?”
“You might do worse. Folk are sure to talk anyhow, and it’s best to give ’em some grounds for their talk. You see, she and you must walk together going to school and coming away, and she lives close by here. As I was saying, people say that when the wife is much younger than her husband there comes a long family, and the man is old and past work when some of the youngest are still no better than babies.”
Bramber felt a chill down his spinal marrow, as though iced water were trickling there.
“I speak against my own interest,” continued the widow, “but it does seem a pity that you should not put your salaries together and occupy one house. She gets twenty pounds a year. If you was to marry her, you’d be twenty pounds the richer. ’Twas unfortunate, though, about that cricket ball.”
“What about a cricket ball?”
“Why, Jane Cann was looking on at a cricket match among the boys, and a ball came by accident and hit her on the side of her head, so that she’s hard o’ hearing in her right ear. You’ll please to sit by her on the left, and then she can hear well enough. Jane Cann is my cousin, and I’d like to do her a good turn, and as she’s maybe about seven years older than you, you need not fear a long family.”
“Preserve me!” gasped the schoolmaster.
“I’ll set you a stool on her left side, and give her a high chair, then you’ll be about on a level with her hearing ear.”
“I--I am going out to tea,” said Bramber, snatching up his hat to fly the cottage; but was arrested at the door by a burly farmer who entered.
“This is Mr. Prowse of Wonnacot,” said the widow to Bramber. Then to the farmer, “This, sir, is the new teacher, who is going to lodge with me.”
“I’ve heard of him from Southcott,” said Prowse. “I’ve been told you play the fiddle. Perhaps you know also how to finger the pianer. My girls, Susanna and Eliza, are tremendously eager to learn the pianer, and I thought that after school hours you might drop in at my little place--Wonnacot--and give the young ladies lessons. I’d take it as a favour, and as I am a not inconsiderable subscriber to the National School, and”--
The widow, in a tone of admiration, threw in an aside to Bramber--“He subscribes half a sovereign.”
The farmer inflated his chest, smiled, raised himself in his boots, and, thrusting his right hand into his pocket, rattled some money. He had heard the aside, as it was intended that he should.
“I may say,” continued Mr. Prowse, “that I am a bulwark and a buttress of the National School, and as such I lay claim to the services of the teacher; and if, after hours, he can hop over to my little place and give my girls an hour three times a week, then”--he raised his chin and smiled down on the schoolmaster--“then I shall not begrudge my subscription.”
“It is true,” said Bramber, “that I can play a little on the piano, but--I am not sure that I am competent to give lessons. Moreover, I doubt if I shall have the time at my disposal. I am still young, and must prosecute my studies.”
“If you expect to remain here in comfort,” said the farmer testily, “you’ll have to do what you are asked. You don’t expect me to subscribe to the National School and get no advantage out of it?”
Thus it was--some made demands on the time, some on the purse, and others desired to dispose of the person of the new-comer.
To escape meeting the crooked sewing-mistress, deaf of the right ear, Walter ran into the street, and walked through the village.
A labourer came up to him.
“I want a word with you, Mr. Schoolmaister,” said he. “My boy goes to the National School, and I gives you fair warning, if you touches him with your hand or a stick, I’ll have the law of you.”
“But suppose he be disobedient, rude, disorderly?”
“My boy is not to be punished. He is well enough if let alone.”
“But--do you send him to school to be let alone?”
“I send him to school to be out of the way when my missus is washing or doing needlework.”
A little farther on his way, a woman arrested Walter Bramber, and said, “You be the new teacher, be you not? Please, I’ve five childer in your school and three at home. Some of the scholars bain’t clean as they should be. I can’t have my childer come home bringing with them what they oughtn’t, and never carried to school from my house. So will’y, now, just see to ’em every day, as they be all right, afore you let ’em leave school, and I’ll thank’y for it kindly.”
Presently a mason returning from his work saluted Bramber.
“Look here, schoolmaister! I want you to take special pains wi’ my children and get ’em on like blazes. If they don’t seem to get forward in a week or two, I shall take ’em away and send them to Mr. Puddicombe, who is going to open a private school.”
Then another man came up, halted, and, catching hold of the lappet of Bramber’s coat, said, “My name is Tooker. I’m not a churchman, but I have several children at your school. I won’t have them taught the Church Catechism. I’m a Particular Baptist, and I won’t have no childer of mine taught to say what their godfather and godmother promised and vowed for them--for they ain’t had no godfathers nor godmothers, and ain’t a-going to have none. You can’t mistake my childer. One has got a red head, another is yaller, and the third is a sort of whitey-brown--and has sunspots, and a mole between the shoulder-blades, and the boy never had no toe-nails. So mind--no catechism for them.”
“And there is something,” said again another, “upon which I want to lay down what I think. I wish you to teach readin’ and writin’ in a rational manner.”
“I hope to do that.”
“Ah!
