Of course, Sir Appleton Burr, M.P., said that it was a charmingly naïve piece of autobiography, and that Plumton All Saints ought to be very proud of such a man, and no doubt Plumton was proud of him, for where was the need of grammar to a man with fifty thousand pounds; especially as Mr William Forth Burge, besides having no grammar, had no pride.
In due time, the money was found, with the help of a grant from the Committee of Council on Education, the schools being meanwhile erected a long red-brick semi-Gothic central building, with houses for the schoolmaster and mistress at either end, each standing in its neat garden, the central school building being so arranged that, by drawing up and pushing down sash-hung shutters, the boys and girls schools could be thrown into one, as was always the case on Sundays.
Just as Hazel Thorne left her gate to walk thirty yards to that leading to the girls entrance, Mr Samuel Chute, master of the boys school, left his door to walk thirty yards to the gate leading to the boys entrance, but did not stop there, for he came right on, raising his hat, and displaying a broad white lumpy forehead, backed by fair hair that seemed to have been sown upon his head and come up in a sturdy crop, some portions being more vigorous than others, and standing up in tufts behind the lumps about his forehead; doubtless these latter being kindly arrangements made by nature to allow room for brain projections, consequent upon over-study.
Mr Samuel Chute smiled, and said that it was a very fine morning, a fact that Hazel Thorne acknowledged, as the schoolmaster replaced his hat.
The handle of the door goes very stiffly, he said, still smiling rather feebly, for he was annoyed with himself for not having offered to shake hands, and it was too late now. I thought Id come and open it for you.
Hazel thanked him. The heavy latch was twisted up by an awkward ring like a young door-knocker, and went click ! and was let down again, and went clack ! Then the new schoolmistress bowed and entered, and Mr Samuel Chute went back to his own entrance, looking puzzled, his forehead full of wrinkles, and so preoccupied that he nearly ran up against Mr William Forth Burge, whom he might have smelt if he had not seen, as he came to the school as usual on Sunday mornings to take his class, and impart useful and religious instruction to the twelve biggest boys.
There was a mist before Hazel Thornes eyes as she entered the large schoolroom, with its so-called gallery and rows of desks down the side, all supported upon iron pedestals like iron bars with cricks in their backs. All about the floor were semicircles marked out by shiny brass-headed nails, as if the boards had been decorated by a mad undertaker after the fashion of a coffin-lid, while between the windows, and in every other vacant place, were hung large drawing copies of a zoological character, embracing the affectionate boa-constrictor, the crafty crocodile, and the playful squirrel, all of which woodcuts had issued from the Sanctuary at Westminster, probably with the idea that some child in Plumton schools might develop into a female Landseer.
This being Sunday, Hazel Thornes duties were light, and after Mr Samuel Chute had rapped upon his desk, and read prayers for the benefit of both schools, the new mistress had little to do beyond superintending, and trying to make herself at home.
She found that there were four classes in her side of the Sunday-school, each with its own teacher, certain ladies coming regularly from
the town, chief of whom were the Misses Lambent Beatrice and Rebecca, the former a pale, handsome, but rather sinister lady of seven or eight-and-twenty, the latter a pale, unhandsome, and very sinister lady of seven or eight-and-thirty, both elegantly dressed, and ready to receive the new mistress with a cold and distant bow that spoke volumes, and was as repellant as hailstones before they have touched the earth.
For the Misses Lambent were the vicars sisters, and taught in the Sunday-school from a sense of duty. Hazel Thorne was ready to forget that she was a lady by birth and education. The Misses Lambent were not; and besides, it was two minutes past nine when Hazel entered the room. It was five minutes to nine when they rustled in with their stiffest mien and downcast eyes.
But they always displayed humility, even when they snubbed the girls of their classes a humility which prompted them to give up the first class to Miss Burge christened Betsey, a name of which she was not in the least ashamed, and which, like her brother with his William Forth, she wrote in full.
The third and fourth class girls had an enmity against those of the first for no other reason than that they were under Miss Burge, who heard them say their catechism, and read, and asked questions afterwards out of a little book which she kept half hidden beneath her silk visite ; for pleasant, little, homely, round-faced Miss Burge could hardly have invented a question of an original character to save her life. One thing, however, was patent, and that was that the first class was so far a model of good behaviour that the girls did not titter very much, nor yet pinch one another, or dig elbows into each others ribs more than might be expected from young ladies of their station; while they never by any chance made faces at teacher when her back was turned, a practice that seemed to afford great pleasure to the young ladies who were submitted to a sort of cold shower-bath, iced with awkward texts by the Misses Lambent, in classes third and fourth.