And above all, may He give us all to know and feel the true and only Magnum Bonum, the great good, which alone makes success or failure, loss or gain, life or death, alike blessed in Him and through Him.
Carey gazed on those words, as she sat in the large arm-chair, whither she had moved on opening the book. She had always known that religion was infinitely more to her husband than ever it had been to herself. She had done what he led her to do, and had a good deal of intellectual and poetical perception and an uprightness, affection, and loyalty of nature that made her anxious to do right, but devotion was duty, and not pleasure to her; she was always glad when it was over, and she was feeling that the thoughts which were said to comfort others were quite unable to reach her grief. There was no disbelief nor rebellion about her, only a dull weariness, and an inclination which she could hardly restrain, even while it shocked her, to thrust aside those religious consolations that were powerless to soothe her. She knew it was not their fault, she did not doubt of their reality; it was she who was not good enough to use them.
These words of Joe were to her as if he were speaking to her again. She laid them on her knee, murmured them over fondly, looked at them, and finally, for she was weak still and had had a bad night, fell fast asleep over them, and only wakened, as shouts of Mother were heard over the house.
She locked the bureau in a hurry, and opened the door, calling back to the boys, and then she found that Aunt Ellen had taken all the three out walking, when Jock and Armine, with the remains of their money burning in their pockets, had insisted on buying two little ships, which must necessarily be launched in the Serpentine. Their aunt could by no means endure this, and Janet did not approve, so there seemed to have been a battle royal, in which Jock would have been the victor, if his little brother had not been led off captive between his aunt and sister, when Jock went along on the opposite side of the road, asserting his independence by every sort of monkey trick most trying to his aunts rural sense of London propriety.
It was very ridiculous to see the tall, grave, stately Mrs. Robert Brownlow standing there describing the intolerable naughtiness of that imp, who, not a bit abashed, sat astride on the balustrade in the comfortable conviction that he was not hers.
I hope, at least, concluded the lady, that you will make them feel how bad their behaviour has been.
Jock, said Carey mechanically, I am afraid you have behaved very ill to your aunt.
Why, Mother Carey, said that little wretch, it is just that she doesnt know anything about anything in London.
Yes, chimed in little Armine, who was hanging to his mothers skirts; she thought she should get to the Park by Duke Street.
That did not make it right for you not to be obedient, said Carey, trying for severity.
But we couldnt, mother.
Couldnt? both echoed.
No, said Jock, or we should be still in Piccadilly. Mother Carey, she told us not to cross till it was safe.
And she stood up like the Duke of Bedford in the Square, added Armine.
Janet caught her mothers eye, and both felt a spasm of uncontrollable diversion in their throats, making Janet turn her back, and Carey gasp and turn on the boys.
All that is no reason at all. Go up to the nursery. I wish I could trust you to behave like a gentleman, when your aunt is so kind as to take you out.
I did, mother! I did hand her across the street, and dragged her out from under all the omnibus horses, said Jock in an injured tone, while Janet could not refrain from a whispered comparison, Like a little steam-tug, and this was quite too much for all of them, producing an explosion which made the tall and stately dame look from one to another in such bewildered amazement, that struck the mother and daughter as so comical that the one hid her face in her hands with a sort of hysterical heaving, and the other burst into that painful laughter by which strained spirits assert themselves in the young.
Mrs. Robert Brownlow, in utter astonishment and discomfiture, turned and walked off to her own room. Somehow Carey and Janet felt more on their ordinary terms than they had done all these sad days, in their consternation and a certain sense of guilt.
Carey could adjudicate now, though trembling still. She made Jock own that his Serpentine plans had been unjustifiable, and then she added, My poor boy, I must punish you. You must remember it, for if you are not good and steady, what will become of us.
Jock leapt at her neck. Mother, do anything to me. I dont mind, if you only wont look at me like that!
She sat down on the stairs, all in a heap again with him, and sentenced him to the forfeit of the ship, which he endured with more tolerable grace, because Armine observed, Never mind, Skipjack, well go partners in mine. You shall have half my cargo of gold dust.
Carey could not find it in her heart to check the voyages of the remaining ship, over the uncarpeted dining-room; but as she was going, Armine looked at her with his great soft eyes, and said, Mother Carey, have you got to be the scoldy and punishy one now?
I must if you need it, said she, going down on her knees again to gather the little fellow to her breast; but, oh, dontdont need it.
Id rather it was Uncle Robert and Aunt Ellen, said Jock, for then I shouldnt care.
Dear Jock, if you only care, I think we shant want many punishments. But now I must go to your aunt, for we did behave horribly ill to her.
Aunt Ellen was kind, and accepted Careys apology when she found that Jock had really been punished. Only she said, You must be firm with that boy, Caroline, or you will be sorry for it. My boys know that what I have said is to be done, and they know it is of no use to disobey. I am happy to say they mind me at a word; but that John of yours needs a tight hand. The Colonel thinks that the sooner he is at school the better.
Before Carey had time to get into a fresh scrape, the Colonel was ringing at the door. He had to confess that Dr. Lucas had said Mrs. Joe Brownlow was right about Vaughan, and had made it plain that his offer ought not to be accepted, either in policy, or in that duty which the Colonel began to perceive towards his brothers patients. Nor did he think ill of her plan respecting Dr. Drake; and said he would himself suggest the application which that gentleman was no doubt withholding from true feeling, for he had been a favourite pupil of Joe Brownlow, and had been devoted to him. He was sure that Mrs. Brownlows good sense and instinct were to be trusted, a dictum which not a little surprised her brother-in-law, who had never ceased to think of poor Joes fancy as a mere child, and who forgot that she was fifteen years older than at her marriage.
He told his wife what Dr. Lucas had said, to which she replied, Thats just the way. Men know nothing about it.
However, Dr. Drakes offer was sufficiently eligible to be accepted. Moreover, it proved that the most available house at Kenminster could not be got ready for the family before the winter, so that the move could not take place till the spring. In the meantime, as Dr. Drake could not marry till Easter, the lower part of the house was to be given up to him, and Carey and Janet felt that they had a reprieve.
CHAPTER V. BRAINS AND NO BRAINS
I do say, thou art quick in answers:
Thou heatest my blood.Loves Labours Lost.
Kemster, as county tradition pronounced what was spelt Kenminster, a name meaning St. Kenelms minster, had a grand collegiate church and a foundation-school which, in the hands of the Commissioners, had of late years passed into the rule of David Ogilvie, Esq., a spare, pale, nervous, sensitive-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, who sat one April evening under his lamp, with his sister at work a little way off, listening with some amusement to his sighs and groans at the holiday tasks that lay before him.
Kemster, as county tradition pronounced what was spelt Kenminster, a name meaning St. Kenelms minster, had a grand collegiate church and a foundation-school which, in the hands of the Commissioners, had of late years passed into the rule of David Ogilvie, Esq., a spare, pale, nervous, sensitive-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, who sat one April evening under his lamp, with his sister at work a little way off, listening with some amusement to his sighs and groans at the holiday tasks that lay before him.
Heres an answer, Mary. What was Magna Charta? The first map of the world.
Whos that ingenious person?
Brownlow Major, of course; and heres French, who says it was a new sort of cow invented by Henry VIII.a happy feminine, I suppose, to the Papal Bull. Heres a third! The French fleet defeated by Queen Elizabeth. Most have passed it over entirely.
Well, you know this is the first time you have tried such an examination, and boys never do learn history.
Nor anything else in this happy town, was the answer, accompanied by a ruffling over of the papers.
For shame, David! The first day of the term!
It is the dead weight of Brownlows, my dear. Only think! Theres another lot coming! A set of duplicates. They havent even the sense to vary the Christian names. Three more to be admitted to-morrow.
That accounts for a good deal!
You are laughing at me, Mary; but did you never know what it is to feel like Sisyphus? Whenever you think you have rolled it a little way, down it comes, a regular dead weight again, down the slope of utter indifference and dulness, till it seems to crush the very heart out of you!
Have you really nobody that is hopeful?
Nobody who does not regard me as his worst enemy, and treat all my approaches with distrust and hostility. Mary, how am I to live it down?
You speak as if it were a crime!
I feel as if it were one. Not of mine, but of the pedagogic race before me, who have spoilt the relations between man and boy; so that I cannot even get one to act as a medium.
That would be contrary to esprit de corps.
Exactly; and the worst of it is, I am not one of those genial fellows, half boys themselves, who can join in the sports con amore; I should only make a mountebank of myself if I tried, and the boys would distrust me the more.
Quite true. The only way is to be oneself, and ones best self, and the rest will come.
Im not so sure of that. Some people mistake their vocation.
Well, when you have given it a fair trial, you can turn to something else. You are getting the school up again, which is at least one testimony.
David Ogilvie made a sound as if this were very base kind of solace, and his sister did not wonder when she remembered the bright hopes and elaborate theories with which he had undertaken the mastership only nine months ago. He was then fresh from the university, and the loss of constant intercourse with congenial minds had perhaps contributed as much as the dulness of the Kenminster youth to bring him into a depressed state of health and spirits, which had made his elder sister contrive to spend her Easter at the seaside with him, and give him a few days at the beginning of the term. Indeed, she was anxious enough about him, when he went down to the old grammar-school, to revolve the possibility of acceding to his earnest wish, and coming to live with him, instead of continuing in her situation as governess.
He came back to luncheon next day with a brightened face, that made his sister say, Well, have you struck some sparks?
Ive got some new material, and am come home saying, Whats in a name?
Eh! Is it those very new Brownlows, that seemed yesterday to be the last straw on the camels back?
I wish you could have seen the whole scene, Mary. There were half-a-dozen new boys to be admitted, four Brownlows! Think of that! Well, there stood manifestly one of the old stock, with the same oval face and sleepy brown eyes, and the very same drawl I know so well in the Noa to the vain question, Have you done any Latin? And how shall I do justice to the long, dragging drawl of his reading? Aye, heres the sentence I set him on: TheGowlshadconsentedtoacceptasumofgoldandretire. They were engaggedinwagging out the sumrequired, and I had to tell him what to call Brennus, and he proceeded to cast the sword into the scale, exclaiming, just as to a cart-horse, Woh! To the Worsted (pronounced like yarn). After that you may suppose the feelings with which I called his ditto, another Joseph Armine Brownlow; and forth came the smallest sprite, with a white face and great black eyes, all eagerness, but much too wee for this place. Begun Latin? Oh, yes; and he rattled off a declension and a tense with as much ease as if he had been born speaking Latin. I gave him Phaedrus to see whether that would stump him, and I dont think it would have done so if he had not made os a mouth instead of a bone, in dealing with the Wolf and the Lamb. He was almost crying, so I put the Roman history into his hand, and his reading was something refreshing to hear. I asked if he knew what the sentence meant, and he answered, Isnt it when the geese cackled? trying to turn round the page. What do you know about the geese? said I. To which the answer was, We played at it on the stairs! Jock and I were the Romans, and Mother Carey and Babie were the geese.
Poor little fellow! I hope no boys were there to listen, or he will never hear the last of those geese.
I hope no one was within earshot but his brothers, who certainly did look daggers at him. He did very well in summing and in writing, except that he went out of his way to spell fish, p h y c h, and shy, s c h y; and at last, I could not resist the impulse to ask him what Magna Charta is. Out came the answer, It is yellow, and all crumpled up, and you cant read it, but it has a bit of a great red seal hanging to it.
What, he had seen it?
Yes, or a facsimile, and what was more, he knew who signed it. Whoever taught that child knew how to teach, and it is a pity he should be swamped among such a set as ours.
I thought you would be delighted.
I should be, if I had him alone, but he must be put with a crew who will make it their object to bully him out of his superiority, and the more I do for him, the worse it will be for him, poor little fellow; and he looks too delicate to stand the ordeal. It is sheer cruelty to send him.
Hasnt he brothers?
Oh, yes! I was going to tell you, two bigger boys, another Robert and John Brownlowabout eleven and nine years old. The younger one is a sort of black spider monkey, wanting the tail. We shall have some trouble with that gentleman, I expect.
But not the old trouble?
No, indeed; unless the atmosphere affects him. He answered as no boy of twelve can do here; and as to the elder one, I must take him at once into the fifth form, such as it is.
Where have they been at school?
At a day school in London. They are Colonel Brownlows nephews. Their father was a medical man in London, who died last summer, leaving a young widow and these boys, and they have just come down to live in Kenminster. But it cant be owing to the school. No school would give all three that kind ofwhat shall I call it?culture, and intelligence, that they all have; besides, the little one has been entirely taught at home.
I wonder whether it is their mothers doing?