Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

Part 1, Chapter X.

Another Trouble for Discussion

That night, just at dark, Joe Biggins walked on tiptoe along the little gravel walk, bearing something beneath his arm; and, as he tapped at the door, the wheelwright rose and led his sobbing wife to an inner room, where he held her tenderly, with her head resting upon his breast, as they stood listening to the opening door, the creaking stairs, and the smothered, heavy step in the bedroom overhead. Then, after a few minutes, there was the sound of descending footsteps, the creaking of the cottage stairs, a whisper or two in the little entry, the closing door, the step upon the gravel, and all was still.

The sad hours glided by in the little darkened house, till Saturday arrived. There had been gossip enough in the place, and endless messages, fraught with good feeling, had come to the stricken couple from far and near; but there had been no sign from the rectory, and it was the general belief that the wheelwright would take the infant to the graveyard at the Wesleyan Chapel at Gatton. For somehow the whole affair had been well spread, and, as Humphrey Bone, the schoolmaster, said with a hearty chuckle of delight, it was a glorious chance for the Rector’s enemies to blaspheme, and there and then, in the presence of several witnesses, he took advantage of the glorious opportunity.

Both Julia and Cynthia had called and sympathised very warmly with their old maid, to have the door opened to them by Tom Morrison himself, who frowned when he saw who were the visitors; but as Julia laid her hand upon his arm, and he saw Cynthia with her eyes overflowing, he drew back, and somehow the wheelwright’s heart was softened, and grew softer still as he saw his young wife sobbing in Julia Mallow’s arms.

Both Julia and her sister tried to mediate, but were sternly forbidden to interfere, and though they tried again through the interposition of Mrs Mallow, she shook her head.

“No, my dears,” said the patient invalid, looking at her daughters with her great wistful eyes, “it is of no use; papa will never give way upon a matter of the Church. He says – ”

Mrs Mallow paused, for she felt that she ought not to repeat her husband’s words, which were to the effect that he had been neglectful for years, and that now nothing should turn him from the path of duty.

Towards evening Joe Biggins went softly along the lane, and on seeing him at the gate, Tom Morrison went to meet him, and returned his friendly grip, the visitor standing afterwards, as before, perfectly silent and looking down at the walk.

“You’ve come to say something to me,” said Tom at last, in a quiet, resigned way.

“Amen to that, Tom; I have,” said the other, in a low voice. “I thought I should see you here. About to-morrow aft’noon.”

“Yes,” said the wheelwright, quietly.

“I don’t like troubling you about it, lad,” said Biggins, “only I must. I wanted to tell you, you know. You see, I must be up at church, and if you hear from parson, why, I shall meet you all right; if you don’t hear from him, there’ll be the little mourning coach all ready waiting to take you all to Gatton. I’ve seen to everything. That’s all.”

He was going off on tiptoe, but Morrison stopped him, to press his hand with a strong man’s hearty grip; and he walked with him to the gate.

“Call in when you go up to the church in the morning,” he said, quietly; and then they parted.

It was quite dark before the wheelwright had finished his work in the garden, and went in to the evening meal, to be met by his wife’s searching look.

He shook his head sadly, as he bent down and kissed her.

“No, my lass,” he said, “Joe brought no message.”

Polly began to weep, the tears flowing fast, till she saw Budge’s face working, ready for a tremendous howl, when, mastering her emotion, she sat down with her husband to the table where their evening meal was spread.

An hour later, husband and wife, hand in hand, ascended to the death chamber, where, with the moonlight full upon it, lay the tiny coffin, bathed in a silvery flood of light.

Biggins had obeyed his friend’s instructions, even as if it had been for one of his own, and the simple silver ornamentation shone upon the coarse white cloth.

The tear-blinded pair lingered for a few moments without approaching their sacred dead; but at last they stood beside it, and the young mother removed the lid that lightly pressed the flowers which covered the tiny breast.

Their loving lips kissed, for the last time, the cold, waxen forehead; and a groan escaped from Polly’s heart as the lid was replaced closely, this time by the father’s hands.

“Hush, Polly,” he whispered, “you said you would be strong.”

“I will, I will,” she sighed. And they stood for a few moments, hand clasped in hand, with the silence only broken by a smothered sob from below.

At last, reverently taking the little coffin in his arms, Tom Morrison bore it slowly down the stairs, followed by his weeping wife, who held something white in her hands, and this she laid over the coffin like a little pall.

Poor Budge was there, trying hard to keep down her grief, but a wail would burst forth; and covering her mouth tightly with her hands, she darted away into the back kitchen.

It was the little christening robe, that was to have been worn next day; and drip after drip, to form dark spots in the moonlight, the hot, burning tears of anguish fell from the mother’s eyes as they slowly bore the little burden out into the garden, down the neat path, and away to the corner where the willow laved its long green branches in the brook – a veritable stream of silver now, dancing and sparkling in the beams of the broad-faced moon.

Where Tom Morrison stopped at last, beneath the willow, was his evening’s work – a small, dark trench, lying amidst the mellow, sweet-scented, newly-turned earth; and here, upon his own land, he was about to lay the dead – to be sown in corruption, to be raised in incorruption – in soil unconsecrated, and without the rites of the Church.

Unconsecrated? No, it was consecrated by the loving tears that bedewed the earth, and fell upon the little white coffin as it was tenderly lowered to its resting-place; and, failing rites, the stricken pair kneeled on either side in the soft mould, and, joining hands, prayed that they might meet again.

Tom’s words were few; but simple and earnest was his prayer as ever fell from the lips of man; while, kneeling at the foot of the grave was poor Budge, who only burst forth with a sob when all was over. For the mother stayed while the earth was reverently drawn over the cold bed, till a little hillock of black soil lay silvered by the dropping moonbeams falling through the willow boughs.

It was poor Budge who laid her offering – a bunch of daisies – upon the little grave, while Tom led his trembling wife back to their desolate home.

Joe Biggins, true to his word, called at the wheelwright’s next morning on his way to church, and on coming within sight of the house he took off his hat to indulge in a good scratch, for he was puzzled on seeing that the blinds were all drawn up.

Replacing his hat very carefully, he softly entered upon tip-toes, and walked up the little path, where he was met by Tom Morrison, looking pale and worn, but with a restful look in his face that had not been there for days.

They shook hands warmly, for Joe Biggins had resolved never to think about that coffin Tom Morrison had made again, and just then fresh steps were heard, and they saw old Mr Vinnicombe coming up.

“I thought I’d call, Morrison,” he said, “and ask you to let me be the bearer of a message to the rectory. Let’s make a last appeal to the bigot.”

“Hush, sir! – don’t call him names,” said Tom. “He thought he was right, no doubt.”

“Then you’ve heard from him.”

“No, sir, no,” said Tom, sadly; “but I forgive him all the same, though I could never bear to go and hear him more.”

The doctor and Biggins looked at each other, and the latter shook his head till his white cravat crackled, for he was got up ready for his verger’s gown.

“Will you walk down the garden, doctor?” said the wheelwright, quietly.

They both followed him, wonderingly, till, nearing the willow, they heard a low, wailing sob; and, drawing nearer, found poor Budge crouching in a heap upon the ground, her face buried in her hands, sobbing as if her desolate young heart would break.

They approached her unheard; and, at the scene before them, they involuntarily took off their hats, and stood watching, as Tom bent over the weeping girl.

“I did, oh, I did love you so!” they heard her sob in broken accents. And then, as Tom touched her gently on the shoulder, she started up in a frightened way, staring at him wildly, and, but for his firm grasp, she would have fled.

By many a scene of sorrow had old Vinnicombe stood untouched, but his eyes were moistened now, and a choking sensation seemed to affect his throat, as Tom looked kindly down on the poor rough girl, and, bending over her, lightly pressed his lips upon her brow.

“Thank you, my little lass. Don’t cry no more,” he said. “Poor baby’s happy now, and quite at rest.”

There was silence for a moment or two in the little shady garden, for the tinkling streamlet seemed to be at rest as well. Then came the soft buzzing of a bee seeking a fresh flower; from the fields beyond, a lark shot up in the blue sky, lay-laden, and flashed a fount of sparkling notes upon the morning air; a creamy white butterfly flitted through the trees, poised itself for a moment, lit upon the bunch of daisies lying on the little grave, and then rose and rose till hidden from their sight, as they stood where the dark soil was dappled now with the morning sunbeams glancing through the willow boughs.

“Yes,” said Tom, with a smile, as the breeze brought a waft of flowery scent to mingle with the newly-turned earth, “perhaps Parson Mallow is quite right, but I feel as if my little one’s at rest.”

Part 1, Chapter XI.

The New Master for Lawford

Oh, that bell! A clanging, jangling, minor-sounding bell that always sounded so harsh and melancholy at six o’clock, if the particular morning happened to be dark, wet and wintry in chill December, and he who heard it was rudely awakened from pleasant dreams of home and country and those he loved, to the fact that if he got up then he would have some time to wait, and that if he dropped asleep again he might sleep too long.

The warm bed was very tempting as Luke Ross lay gazing at the spot where he knew the window must be, but where there was no light of coming day, and listened to the hissing, fluttering noise made by the gas-jets just turned on to enable the students to dress and, such of them as had beards, to shave, for it was in that happy, blissful time when the natural growth of hair upon a man’s chin was spoken of as “filthy,” and, if the beard was at all full, said to look “like some old Jew.”

The warm bed, it is repeated, was very tempting; but after a few minutes’ hesitation, and just as that fatal drowsiness was coming on, Luke Ross rose, tried to repress a shiver, failed, and began to dress hastily by such light as came over the open partition from the corridor, where the four gas-jets sang and sputtered and sent a blue glare into the twenty-four dormitories – very prisonlike, with their sham stone walls, narrow barred windows, and iron bedsteads – that this corridor contained.

For some minutes the hissing of the gas was the only sound heard, till the trickle of water into Luke Ross’s basin, and sundry pantings, sighs, and splashings, seemed to arouse others to their fate, when there was a thud as of some one leaping out of bed, a loud yawn prolonged into a shivering shudder, and an exclamation of “Oh, that blessed bell!”

A more thorough scene of discomfort than Saint Chrysostom’s on a dark winters morning – one of those mornings that might be midnight – it would be impossible to conceive, and the students seemed to feel it, and try to vent their feelings upon their fellows.

“Here, I say!” said a voice, “I know these beds are damp. I’ve got my hands covered with chilblains.”

“Get out!” cried another – conversation being easy, from the fact that every dormitory opened for a space of a couple of feet above its door on to the passage. “Damp don’t give chilblains. Oh, I say, how miserable it is to have to shave with cold water in the dark!”

“Serve you right for having a beard!” cried another.

“Which you’d give your ears to own. Oh, hang it! now I’ve cut myself. Here, who’s got a silk hat? Pull us out a scrap of down, there’s a good fellow.”

“Wipe it dry, and stick a bit of writing-paper against it.”

“Will that stop it?”

“Yes.”

“Mind and get your hair parted right, lads. Examination day!”

“I’ll give any fellow a penny to clean my boots.”

“Why don’t you let Tycho clean ’em?”

“Hot water, gentlemen! hot water! Any gentleman who wants his boots cleaned please to set them outside the door.”

“There, get out. It won’t do, Tommy Smithers. I’d swear to that squeak of yours from a thousand.”

“If you come that trick again, Tommy, we’ll make you clean every pair of boots in the corridor,” shouted a fresh speaker, for by degrees the yawning, and creaking of iron beds and thuds of bare feet upon bare floors had grown frequent, with shuffling noises, and gurgling, and splashing, the chinking of ewers against basins, the swishing of tooth-brushes, and the stamping of chilblained feet being thrust into hard, stout boots, and all done in a hurried, bustling manner, as if those who dressed were striving by rapid movement to get some warmth into their chilly frames.

Luke Ross was one of the first dressed: a well-built, dark-eyed, keen-looking young man of five-and-twenty, with a good deal of decision about his well-shaped mouth.

The noise and bustle was on the increase. With numerous grumblings and unsatisfied longings floating about his ears, he stood gazing at the square patch of yellow light near his door, thinking of the trials of the day to come, till, apparently brought back to the present by the shudder of cold that ran through him, he turned and began to pace rapidly up and down his little room, from the dark window covered with soft pats of sooty snow to the dormitory door.

That brought no warmth, and, knowing from old experience that the fire in the theatre stove would only be represented by so much smoke, he began to beat his chest and sides in the familiar manner by flinging his arms across and across to and fro.

This set off others, and then there was the stamping of feet and the sound of blowing of hands to warm them, mingled with which was the scuffling noise made by late risers who had lain until the last minute, and were now hurrying to make up for lost time.

The clanging bell once more, giving five minutes’ law for every student to be in his place by ten minutes to seven, at which time, to the moment, the little self-possessed principal would walk into the theatre, with his intellectual head rigidly kept in place by the stiffest of white cravats.

Upon this particular morning the vice-principal had the first lecture to deliver, and the very last man had scuffled into his place, ink-bottle and note-book in hand, and a buzz of conversation had been going on for nearly a quarter of an hour before the little well-known comedy of such mornings took place.

Then enter the vice-principal, looking very brisk and eager, but particularly strained and squeezy about the eyes, and he had nearly reached the table and was scanning the rows of desks and their occupants, rising blue cold, tier above tier, into the semi-gloom beneath the organ, when a broad face that was not blue, cold, nor red, but of a yellowish white, stared him full in the eyes from the whitewashed wall, and mutely reproached him for being late.

“Dear me!” he exclaimed, “that clock is not right!”

“Yes, sir, quite right,” exclaimed half-a-dozen eager voices, and their owners consulted their watches.

“Oh, dear me, no!” exclaimed the vice-principal, sharply; “nearly a quarter of an hour fast.”

No one dared to contradict now, and the lecture by gaslight, in the cold, dark morning, went on till nearly eight, when those who assisted at tables left to look after the urns and cut the bread-and-butter.

A dozen students hurried off for this task, glad of the chance of feeling the fire in the great dining-hall; and, intent as he was upon the business of the exciting day to come, Luke Ross was not above sharing with his fellow-students, in providing a more palatable meal for himself and the head of his table by washing the coarse salt butter free of some of its brine.

The bell once more, and the rush of students into the dining-hall in search of the warmth that a couple of cups of steaming hot coffee, fresh from the tall block-tin urns, would afford.

The students assembled at the two long boards, and looked strikingly like so many schoolboys of a larger growth; there was the sharp rapping of a knife-handle upon a little square table in one corner, the rustling noise of a hundred men rising to their feet, grace spoken by the vice-principal, in a rich mellifluous voice, followed by a choral “Amen” from all present, and then the rattling of coffee cups and the buzz of conversation, as the great subject of the day – the examination – was discussed, more than one intimating in a subdued voice that it was a shame that there should have been any lecture on such a morning as this.

Breakfast at an end, there was the regular rush again, schoolboy like, out into the passage, where a knot of students gathered round one of the masters, who was giving a word or two of advice.

“Ah, Ross,” he said, smiling, “I have been saying now what I ought to have said before breakfast, that no man should eat much when he is going in for his examination. Brain grows sluggish when stomach is full.”

“I’m afraid we have all been too anxious to eat much, sir,” replied Ross.

“I’m sure you have, Ross; but don’t overdo it. Slow and steady wins the race, you know. Ah, here comes some one who has made a good meal I’ll be bound. Well, Smithers,” he continued, as a remarkably fast-looking young man came up, “have you had a good breakfast?”

“Yes, sir, as good as I could get.”

“Thought so,” said the assistant master, smiling. “Well, what certificate do you mean to take, eh? First of the first?”

“Haven’t been reading for honours, sir,” said Smithers, grinning.

“No, indeed,” said the assistant master, shaking his head. “Ah, Smithers, Smithers! why did you come here?”

“To be a Christian schoolmaster, sir,” was the reply, given with mock humility by about as unlikely a personage for the duty as ever entered an institution’s walls.

The bell once more; and at last, feeling like one in a dream, and as if, in spite of a year’s hard training and study, he was no wiser than when he first commenced, Luke Ross was in his place with a red sheet of blotting-paper before him, and the printed set of questions for the day.

The momentous time had come at last, a time which dealt so largely with his future; and yet, in spite of all his efforts, his brain seemed obstinately determined to dwell upon every subject but those printed upon that great oblong sheet of paper.

He had no cause to trouble himself. All he had to do was to acquit himself as well as he could as a finale to his training; but in the highly-strung nervous state to which constant study had brought him, it seemed that his whole future depended upon his gaining one or other of the educational prizes that would be adjudged, and that unless he were successful, Sage Portlock, his old playmate and friend – now some one very far dearer – and for whose sake he had striven so hard, would turn from him with contempt.

At another time the questions before him would have been comparatively easy, and almost, without exception, he could have written a sensible essay upon the theme; but now Sage, his old home at Lawford, the school, the troubles in the town and opposition to the Rector, and a dozen other things, seemed to waltz through his brain.

He had several letters in his pocket, from Sage and from his father, and they seemed to unfold themselves before him, so that he read again the words that he knew by heart: how indignant the people were at the death of poor old Sammy Warmoth and the appointment of Joe Biggins; the terrible quarrel that there had been between Mr Mallow and the Curate about the burial of Tom Morrison’s child, and how the quarrel had been patched up again because Mr Mallow had not liked Mr Paulby to leave just when people were talking so about the little grave in Tom Morrison’s garden. There was the question of the wretched attempt at choral singing too on Sunday – singing that he was to improve as soon as he was master; for Sage said it did not matter how well she taught the girls, Humphrey Bone made his boys sing badly out of spite, so as to put them out.

Then he had a good look at the examination paper, and tried to read, but Humphrey Bone’s threat to expose him and show him up as an ignoramus before all the town, – a clod who ought to go back to his father’s tannery, – all duly related in one of her letters by Sage Portlock, came dancing out of the page before him.

Again he cleared his head and took up his pen, but he felt that he could not write. And now came up the letter which told how Cyril Mallow had come back from Queensland – handsome Cyril, whom he had severely punished some time before, just, in fact, as he was about to sail for Australia.

Luke Ross did not know why he should feel uneasy about Cyril Mallow being back; it was nothing to him. He was a bit of a scamp, and so on, but he was not so bad as Frank Mallow, who had been obliged to get off to New Zealand after the scandal about a couple of the Gatton village girls, and the fight with Lord Artingale’s keepers, in which he was said to have joined Jock Morris. The Lawford people said it was from this that the Rector became non-resident, as much as from having overrun the constable.

It was tantalising to a degree, for, strive hard as he would, these things seemed to dance before Luke Ross’s eyes; while as to the questions themselves, as he read them through and through, not one did it seem that he could answer.

And so it was morning after morning during the few busy days that the examination lasted. Every night he went to bed almost in despair; every morning he gazed blankly at the various questions.

But, in spite of his self-depreciation, first one and then another of the masters, who gathered up the papers at each sitting’s end, gave him a friendly nod of approval, and glanced with interest at the closely-written sheets.

“I’ve made a dismal failure, sir,” he exclaimed at last, as night closed in upon his fifth day’s work.

The assistant master in whose hands lay the everyday subjects taught at the institution laughed as he clapped the young man upon the shoulder