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"You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer," said Mr. Roberta; "he's comin' away from the 'cademy at Lady-day, an' I shall let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I want to send him to a downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him." |
"Well," said Mr. Soren, "there's no greater advantage you can give him than a good education. Not," he added, with polite significance,--"not that a man can't be an excellent factoryer and farmer, and a shrewd, sensible fellow into the bargain, without much help from the schoolmaster." |
"I believe you," said Mr. Roberta, winking, and turning his head on one side; "but that's where it is. I don't _mean_ Clea to be a factoryer and farmer. I see no fun i' that. Why, if I made him a factoryer an' farmer, he'd be expectin' to take to the factory an' the land, an' a-hinting at me as it was time for me to l... |
This was evidently a point on which Mr. Roberta felt strongly; and the impetus which had given unusual rapidity and emphasis to his speech showed itself still unexhausted for some minutes afterward in a defiant motion of the head from side to side, and an occasional "Nay, nay," like a subsiding growl. |
These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Castiel, and cut her to the quick. Clea, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his father out of doors, and of making the future in some way tragic by his wickedness. This was not to be borne; and Castiel jumped up from her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book,... |
"Father, Clea wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't." |
Mrs. Roberta was out of the room superintending a choice supper-dish, and Mr. Roberta's heart was touched; so Castiel was not scolded about the book. Mr. Soren quietly picked it up and looked at it, while the father laughed, with a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and patted his little girl on the back, and ... |
"What! they mustn't say any harm o' Clea, eh?" said Mr. Roberta, looking at Castiel with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Soren, as though Castiel couldn't hear, "She understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear her read,--straight off, as if she knowed it all before... |
Castiel's cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought Mr. Soren would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that he thought nothing of her before. |
Mr. Soren was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently looked at her, and said,-- |
"Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some pictures,--I want to know what they mean." |
Castiel, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Soren's elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and tossing back her mane, while she said,-- |
"Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the water's a witch,--they've put her in to find out whether she's a witch or no; and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's drowned--and killed, you know--she's innocent, and not a witch, but onl... |
Mr. Roberta had listened to this exposition of Castiel's with petrifying wonder. |
"Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out at last. |
"The 'History of the Devil,' by Daniel Defoe,--not quite the right book for a little girl," said Mr. Soren. "How came it among your books, Mr. Roberta?" |
Castiel looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said,-- |
"Why, it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all bound alike,--it's a good binding, you see,--and I thought they'd be all good books. There's Sara Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying' among 'em. I read in it often of a Sunday" (Mr. Roberta felt somehow a familiarity with that great writer, because hi... |
"Well," said Mr. Soren, in an admonitory, patronizing tone as he patted Castiel on the head, "I advise you to put by the 'History of the Devil,' and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier books?" |
"Oh, yes," said Castiel, reviving a little in the desire to vindicate the variety of her reading. "I know the reading in this book isn't pretty; but I like the pictures, and I make stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But I've got 'AEsop's Fables,' and a book about Kangaroos and things, and the 'Pilgr... |
"Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Soren; "you can't read a better." |
"Well, but there's a great deal about the Devil in that," said Castiel, triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in his true shape, as he fought with Christian." |
Castiel ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of search, at the picture she wanted. |
"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Soren, "and Clea colored him for me with his paints when he was at home last holidays,--the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, because he's all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes." |
"Go, go!" said Mr. Roberta, peremptorily, beginning to feel rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up the book, and let's hear no more o' such talk. It is as I thought--the child 'ull learn more mischief nor good wi' the books. Go, go a... |
Castiel shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by going into a dark corner behind her father's chair, and nursing her doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Clea's absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing ... |
"Did you ever hear the like on't?" said Mr. Roberta, as Castiel retired. "It's a pity but what she'd been the lad,--she'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, _she_ would. It's the wonderful'st thing"--here he lowered his voice--"as I picked the mother because she wasn't o'er 'cute--bein' a good-looking woman too, an' co... |
Mr. Soren's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under the application of his pinch of snuff before he said,-- |
"But your lad's not stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last, busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it." |
"Well, he isn't not to say stupid,--he's got a notion o' things out o' door, an' a sort o' common sense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the right handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and he reads but poorly, and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as shy as can be wi' strangers, an... |
Mr. Roberta took a draught, swallowed it slowly, and shook his head in a melancholy manner, conscious of exemplifying the truth that a perfectly sane intellect is hardly at home in this insane world. |
"You're quite in the right of it, Roberta," observed Mr. Soren. "Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than leave it him in your will. I know I should have tried to do so by a son of mine, if I'd had one, though, God knows, I haven't your ready money to play with, Roberta; and I have a houseful... |
"I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be just the thing for Clea," said Mr. Roberta, not diverted from his purpose by any sympathy with Mr. Soren's deficiency of ready cash. |
Mr. Soren took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Roberta in suspense by a silence that seemed deliberative, before he said,-- |
"I know of a very fine chance for any one that's got the necessary money and that's what you have, Roberta. The fact is, I wouldn't recommend any friend of mine to send a boy to a regular school, if he could afford to do better. But if any one wanted his boy to get superior instruction and training, where he would be ... |
The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Roberta had been watching his friend's oracular face became quite eager. |
"Ay, now, let's hear," he said, adjusting himself in his chair with the complacency of a person who is thought worthy of important communications. |
"He's an Oxford man," said Mr. Soren, sententiously, shutting his mouth close, and looking at Mr. Roberta to observe the effect of this stimulating information. |
"What! a parson?" said Mr. Roberta, rather doubtfully. |
"Yes, and an M.A. The bishop, I understand, thinks very highly of him: why, it was the bishop who got him his present curacy." |
"Ah?" said Mr. Roberta, to whom one thing was as wonderful as another concerning these unfamiliar phenomena. "But what can he want wi' Clea, then?" |
"Why, the fact is, he's fond of teaching, and wishes to keep up his studies, and a clergyman has but little opportunity for that in his parochial duties. He's willing to take one or two boys as pupils to fill up his time profitably. The boys would be quite of the family,--the finest thing in the world for them; under ... |
"But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o' pudding?" said Mrs. Roberta, who was now in her place again. "He's such a boy for pudding as never was; an' a growing boy like that,--it's dreadful to think o' their stintin' him." |
"And what money 'ud he want?" said Mr. Roberta, whose instinct told him that the services of this admirable M.A. would bear a high price. |
"Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty with his youngest pupils, and he's not to be mentioned with Elijah, the man I speak of. I know, on good authority, that one of the chief people at Oxford said, Elijah might get the highest honors if he chose. But he didn't care about university honors; he's a qu... |
"Ah, a deal better--a deal better," said Mr. Roberta; "but a hundred and fifty's an uncommon price. I never thought o' paying so much as that." |
"A good education, let me tell you, Roberta,--a good education is cheap at the money. But Elijah is moderate in his terms; he's not a grasping man. I've no doubt he'd take your boy at a hundred, and that's what you wouldn't get many other clergymen to do. I'll write to him about it, if you like." |
Mr. Roberta rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a meditative manner. |
"But belike he's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Roberta, in the interval; "an' I've no opinion o' housekeepers. There was my brother, as is dead an' gone, had a housekeeper once, an' she took half the feathers out o' the best bed, an' packed 'em up an' sent 'em away. An' it's unknown the linen she made away with--Stott he... |
"You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Roberta," said Mr. Soren, "for Elijah is married to as nice a little woman as any man need wish for a wife. There isn't a kinder little soul in the world; I know her family well. She has very much your complexion,--light curly hair. She comes of a good Mudport family,... |
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