Well, I declare I would, mother, he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and walking up and down the room.
To find freedom? said his mother, with a smile.
Oh! I dare say there would be discipline to attend to, and officers to obey; but there would be some change. I should not have to be tied down to a wretched writing-table, copy, copy, copy, the whole day long.
Change? said Mrs Mallow, and she gazed wistfully in her sons face.
Yes, of course; one must have some excitement.
He stood gazing out of the window, and did not notice the strange despairing look in his mothers eyes, one which seemed to tell of her own weary hours weary years, passed upon that couch, with no hope of change save that of some day sinking into the eternal rest. It was evident that she was contrasting the selfishness of her son and his position with her own, and she sighed as she closed her eyes and lay there in silence for a time, uttering no reproach.
Then came the day when the Rector was goaded almost to madness by the young mans follies, and the reports constantly reaching his ears of Franks exploits at the principal hotel in billiard-playing and various unsavoury pursuits with one or other of the young farmers round. Reports these that lost nothing doubtless in the telling, and which never failed to reach the Rector in a way that seemed to suggest that he was answerable for his sons misdoings.
Then followed other troubles, culminating in an affray with the keepers, an affair which, from the family friendship with old Lord Artingale, could easily have been hushed up; but the Rector jumped at the opportunity he found in his sons dread and evident anxiety to get away from the neighbourhood, so quite in a hurry Frank was shipped off to New Zealand.
And there was peace at the Rectory? Nothing of the kind. There was the misery of hearing endless little stories of Franks carryings on, as they were termed; some bill was constantly being brought to the house, with a request that the Rector would pay it, and, to hide his sons disgrace, this he sometimes did. But the annoyance was none the less, and the Rector used to declare plaintively to his wife that if it were not for Julia and Cynthia he would run right away.
And for me, Eli, said the suffering woman, with a smile.
And for you, dear, he said, tenderly, and there was peace until some new peccadillo of the eldest son was discovered.
Then to the Rectors dismay he found that Cyril his mothers darling seemed to have taken a leaf out of his brothers book. If the younger brothers career had been to run upon a tram-line laid down by his elder brother, he could not have followed in the course more truly, and just as the Rector was beginning to feel calmed down and happy in the society of his two pretty daughters, troubles concerning Cyril kept cropping up.
Nice chaps for a parsons
the house.
Fair play, cried Portlock. The bairn died afterwards.
Well, maybe it did, said Fullerton, but he neednt have been so hard on the poor bairns uncle. Why not give him another chance? Hes no worse in his way than the parsons boys are in theirs.
Boys will be boys, said Smithson, who wondered whether that pair of trousers to mend might result in an order for a suit.
Fullerton was impatient, and cut in almost before the tailor had finished.
Clergymens all very well in their way, gentlemen, but the dismissing of old schoolmasters and appointing of new ones dont seem to me to be in their way, especially where theres governors to a school.
Parsons a governor too, said Warton, the saddler.
Ex officio ? said Tomlinson, the ironmonger, who kept the bank.
Of course, of course, acquiesced Fullerton, who had not the least idea of what ex officio meant; but I said it before, and I said it to parsons own face, just the same as Im saying it here behind his back, and any man who likes can tell him what I said, and he looked round defiantly as he spoke; what I say is, that, whatever Humphrey Bones faults may be, hes as good a land measurer as ever stepped.
Yes, he is that, said a broad farmer-looking man. Joseph Portlock, you said the very same thing to me yesternight.
Hes a first-class penman.
Capital, said Tomlinson.
And if you know a man with a clearer head for figures, continued Fullerton, I should be glad to see him.
Capital man at ciphering, said Smithson, the tailor, whose yearly accounts Humphrey Bone always made up.
Then, what do you want? said Fullerton, angrily. Weve all got our faults, and if Humphrey Bone does take a little too much sometimes, hasnt he been master of Lawford school these thirty years?
The latter part of Jabez Fullertons argument was not very clear to his fellow-townsmen assembled at their weekly social meeting at the Kings Head; but they all granted that they had their faults, and Jabez Fullerton waved the spoon with which he had been stirring his brandy-and-water in a very statesmanlike way.
Look here, he said, I never go to church, for chapels good enough for me; but all the same I dont bear enmity against the church, and never would.