The Carbonels

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  Betsy cried, but submitted; but the next victim, Sally French, howled and fought, and said, "Mammy would not have it done." But Dora sternly answered, "Then she should keep your head fit to be seen." And Mrs Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of "Now, my dear, don't."

  And so it went on through nineteen girls, the boys sniggering all the time. Some cried and struggled, but latterly they felt it was their fate, and resisted no longer. Even Mary Cox, who had a curly head by nature, stood still to be clipped. Dora's hands were in a dreadful state, and her mind began to quail a little; but, having once started, she felt bound to go on and complete her work, and when she finally dismissed the school, there was a very undesirable heap of locks, brown, black, and carroty, interspersed with curl-papers, on the floor. The girls looked, to her mind, far better, and Mrs Thorpe, a little doubtful, gave her a basin of water to wash her hands.

  Home the two sisters went, their spirits rising as they laughed over their great achievement, and looked forward to amusing Mary with the account of the various behaviour of the victims.

  So they burst upon her, as she was planting bulbs in the garden, and Edmund helping her by measuring distances.

  "Oh, Mary, such fun!" cried Sophy. "We have been cutting all the children's hair."

  "What do you mean, Sophy?"

  "They had their heads worse than ever," said Dora, "so I took Mrs Thorpe's scissors and clipped them all round."

  "My dear Dora, I wish you had not been so hasty," Mary was gently saying; but Edmund was standing up, looking quite judicial.

  "Did you get their parents' permission?" he demanded.

  "No, of course I never should."

  "Then what right had you to meddle with the children?"

  "They were quite horrid. My hands! They'll never recover," said Dora, spreading out her fingers.

  "Very likely; but the children were not your slaves. You have a perfect right to forbid them to enter your school except on certain conditions, but not to tyrannise over them when there. You have done more harm than you will undo in a hurry."

  "I am afraid so," murmured Mary.

  Dora had a temper, and answered angrily, "Well, I'm sure I did it for the best."

  "I don't approve of opinionative young ladies," said Edmund, who was really from old habit quite like an elder brother.

  "Oh, Dora," sighed Mary, "don't!"

  Dora felt impelled to argue the matter out on the spot, but something in Mary's look withheld her. She went away, stepping high and feeling stately and proud; but when she had walked up and down her own room a few times, her better sense began to revive, and she saw that she had acted in anger and self-will quite as much as from a sense of propriety, and she threw herself on her bed and shed some bitter tears.

  They would have been still more bitter if she could have heard the exclamations of the mothers over their gates that evening.

  "Well, to be sure, that a young lady should have treated my poor like that!"

  "Her father says, says he, `I'll have the law of she.'"

  "My Jenny, she come home looking like a poor mad woman. `Whatever has thee been arter?' says I. `'Tis the lady,' says she."

  "Lady! She ought to be ashamed on herself, a-making such Betties of the poor children."

  "Ah! didn't I tell you," gibed Tirzah, "what would come of making up to the gentlefolk, with their soft words and such. They only want to have their will of you, just like the blackamoors."

  "You'll not find me a sending my Liz and Nan," cried Mrs Morris, "no, not if her was to offer me a hundred goulden guineas."

  "I don't let my gal go to be made into a guy!" was the general sentiment; and Mrs Verdon, in her bed, intensified it by warning her neighbours that the cropping their heads was "a preparation for sending them out to them foreign parts where they has slaves."

  And on Sunday, there were only ten of the female pupils at school, and poor Dora and Sophia both cried all church time. They thought their hasty measures had condemned their poor girls to be heathens and good-for-nothings for ever and ever.

  Tirzah Todd laughed at them all. The Todds had gipsy connections; Todd himself was hardly ever visible. He was never chargeable to the parish, but he never did regular work except at hay and harvest times, or when he was cutting copsewood. Then old Pucklechurch's brother, Master Pucklechurch of Downhill, who always managed the copse cutting, used to hire him, and they and another man lived in a kind of wigwam made of chips, and cut down the seven years' growth of underwood, dividing it into pea-sticks from the tops, and splitting the thicker parts to be woven into hurdles, or made into hoops for barrels. They had a little fire, but their wives brought them their food, and little Hoglah, now quite well only with a scarred neck, delighted to toddle about among the chips, and cry out, "Pitty! pitty!" at the primroses.

  Copse cutting over, Joe Todd haunted fairs and drove cattle home, or did anything he could pick up. He lived in a mud hovel which he and Tirzah had built for themselves on the border land, and where they kept a tall, thin, smooth-haired dog, with a grey coat, a white waistcoat, a long nose and tail, and blue eyes, which gave him a peculiarly sinister expression of countenance, and he had a habit of leaping up and planting his fore feet on the gate, growling, so that Dora and Sophy were very much afraid of him, and no one except Mr Harford had ever attempted to effect an entrance into the cottage. It was pretty well understood that Joe Todd and his lurcher carried on a business as poachers, and Tirzah going about with clothes'-pegs, rush baskets, birch brooms, and in their season with blackberries, whortleberries, or plovers' eggs, was able to dispose of their game to the poulterers at Minsterham, with whom she had an understanding. Her smiling black eyes, white teeth, and merry looks, caused a great deal of business to be done through her, and servants were not unwilling to carry in her stories about rabbits knocked down unawares by a stick, and pheasants or partridges killed by chance in reaping. Indeed, she had a little trade in dripping and other scraps with sundry of these servants, which rendered them the more disposed to receive her.

  CHAPTER TWELVE. PRIZES.

  "Miss Jenny and Polly

  Had each a new dolly,

  With rosy red cheeks and blue eyes,

  Dressed in ribbons and gauze;

  And they quarrelled because

  The dolls were not both of a size."

  The Daisy.

  Nobody offered a hundred golden guineas to bring Elizabeth and Anne Morris to school, nevertheless they appeared there at the end of the second week. They were heartily tired of home, where there was washing to be done, and their eldest sister Patty banged them about, and they had no peace from the great heavy baby. Besides, there had been a talk of prizes at Christmas, and they weren't going to let them Moles and Pucklechurches get the whole of them. Moreover, others were going back, so why should not they?

  Yes, Nanny Barton's children "did terrify her so, she had no peace." And Betsy Seddon's Janie had torn her frock as there was no bearing, and even the Dan Hewletts were going back. Little Judy had cried to go, and her Aunt Judith had trimmed up the heads of her sisters, for Dora Carbonel had not been a first-rate hair-cutter, and it was nearly the same with every one, except the desperate truant, Ben Shales, and the cobbler's little curly girl, who was sent all the way to Downhill to Miss Minifer's genteel academy, where she learnt bead-work and very little besides.

  The affair seemed to have done less harm than Captain Carbonel had expected, yet, on the other hand, the motives that brought most of the scholars back were not any real desire for improvement, but rather the desire of being interested, and the hope of rewards. It would take a long time to make the generality of the people regard "they Gobblealls" as anything but curious kind of creatures to be humoured, for the sake of what could be got out of them.

  Of the positive love of God and their neighbour, and the strong sense of duty that actuated them, few of the Uphill inhabitants had the least notion. It would be much to say that if these motives were always present with Edmund and M
ary, it was so in the same degree with Dora and Sophy; but to them the school children were the great interest, occupation, and delight, and their real affection and sympathy, so far as they understood, were having their effect.

  They were hard at work at those same prizes, which filled almost as much of their minds as they could those of the expectant recipients, and occupied their fingers a good deal. And, after all, what would the modern scholar think of those same prizes? The prime ones of all, the Bible and Prayer-book, were of course, in themselves as precious then as now, but each was bound in the very plainest of dark-brown calf, though, to tell the truth, far stronger than their successors, and with the leaves much better sewn in. There was only one of each of these, for Susan Pucklechurch and Johnnie Hewlett, who were by far the foremost scholars in the Sunday School.

  Then followed two New Testaments and two Psalters, equally brown, for the next degree. Sophy had begged for stories, but none were to be had within the appointed sum, except Hannah More's Cheap Repository Tracts, really interesting, but sent forth without wrappers in their native black and white. Then there was a manufacture by the busy fingers, frocks made of remnants of linsey and print, of sun-bonnets of pink or blue spotted calico, of pinafores, and round capes, the least of all these being the list tippet, made of the listing of flannel, sewn on either in rays upon a lining, or in continued rows from the neck, leaving rather the effect of a shell. There were pin-cushions, housewives, and work-bags too, and pictured pocket-handkerchiefs, and Sophy would not be denied a few worsted balls for the very small boys, and sixpennyworth of wooden dolls for the lesser girls, creatures with painted faces, and rolls of linen for arms, nailed on to bodies that ended in a point, but all deficiencies were concealed by the gay print petticoats which she constructed, and as neither toys, nor the means of buying them were plentiful, these would be grand rewards.

  The Christmas-tree had not yet begun to spring in England, magic lanterns were tiny things only seen in private, and even such festivities as the tea had not dawned on the scholastic mind. So, on the afternoon of Christmas Day, all the children were assembled in school before Mr Harford, the ladies, and the schoolmistress, while the table was loaded with books and garments, and beside it stood a great flasket brimming over with substantial currant buns, gazed on eagerly by the little things, some of whom had even had a scanty Christmas dinner. Such a spectacle had never been seen before in Uphill, and their hungry eyes devoured it beforehand.

  Mr Harford made them a short speech about goodness, steadiness, and diligence, and then the distribution began with the two prime Sunday scholars, and went on in due order of merit, through all degrees, down to the mites who had the painted dolls, and figured handkerchiefs with Aesop's fables in pink or in purple, and then followed the distribution of buns, stout plum buns, no small treat to these ever hungry children, some of whom were nibbling them before they were out of school, while others, more praiseworthy, kept them to share with "our baby" at home.

  Johnnie Hewlett received a Bible, his sister Polly a warm cape, Lizzie a petticoat, little Judy a doll, but on the very last Sunday, Jem, always a black sheep, had been detected in kicking Jenny Morris at church over a screw of peppermint drops which they had clubbed together to purchase from Goody Spurrell. The scent and Jenny's sobs had betrayed them in the thick of the combat, and in the face of so recent and so flagrant a misdemeanour, neither combatant could be allowed a prize, though the buns were presented to them through Mary's softness of heart.

  These stayed the tears for the moment, but a fresh shower was pumped up by Jem for the sympathetic reception of his mother. "It was a shame! it was; but they ladies always had a spite at the poor little lad. He should have some nice bull's-eyes to make up to him, that he should! What call had they to be at him when it was all along of that there nasty little Jenny."

  Nevertheless, at the gate she shared her wrath with Jenny's mother. What call had they to want to make the poor children to be like parsons at church? Jem shouldn't be there no more, she could tell them.

  Then Nanny Barton chimed in. "And look what they did give! Just a twopenny-halfpenny handkercher that her Tom would be ashamed to wear!"

  He wasn't, for it was thick and warm, and had been chosen because his poor little neck looked so blue. But Molly went on. "Ladies did ought to know what became 'em to give. There was my Lady Duchess, she gave 'em all scarlet cloaks, and stuff frocks, as there was some warmth in. That was worth having-given to all alike! No talk of prizes, for what I'd not demean myself to pick up out of the gutter."

  "And look at mine," proceeded Molly. "My Johnnie's got a Bible, as if there wasn't another in the house, let alone Judith's. His father, he did say he'd pawn it; but Johnnie he cried, and Judith made a work, and hid it for him. But his father, he says he wouldn't have Johnnie made religious, not for nothing-Judith she's quite bad enough."

  "Oh! our Polly-she got a little skimping cape, what don't come down to her poor little elbows. If I went for to be a lady, I'd be ashamed to give the like of that."

  Happily every one did not receive the gifts in this spirit. There was much rejoicing over the Testament, frock, and Psalter of the little Moles, and their grandfather observed, "Well, you did ought to be good children, there were no such encouragements when I was young."

  "Except your big old Bible, granfer," put in Bessy.

  "That was give me by our old parson when me and your granny was married. Ay, he did catechise we in church when we was children, but we never got nothing for it."

  "Only the knowing it, father, and that you have sent on to us," put in the widow.

  "Ay, and that's the thing!" said the old man, very gravely.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN. AGAINST THE GRAIN.

  "And shall the heirs of sinful blood

  Find joy unmixed in charity?"

  Keble.

  These first beginnings were really hard work, and there was a great amount of unpopularity to be encountered, for the people of Uphill were so utterly unused to kindness that they could not believe that anything was done for them from disinterested motives. Captain Carbonel took great trouble to set up a coal club, persuading the President of Saint Cyril's and the neighbouring landowners to subscribe, and the farmers to fetch the coal on the plea that to have fuel on low terms would save the woods and hedges from destruction. Tirzah especially, and half-a-dozen women besides were to be met with great faggots of limbs of trees on their backs from Mr Selby's woods, and the keepers were held to wink at it, for, in truth, the want of fuel was terrible. Mr Selby talked of withholding his yearly contribution of blankets, because the people were so ungrateful. "As if it would do them any good to make them colder," cried Dora.

  So at last it was arranged that one of the barns should be filled with coal, and Captain Carbonel and Mr Harford, with old Pucklechurch, were to see it served out at sixpence a bushel every Monday morning. And then, Pucklechurch reported that the people said, "Depend on it, the captain made a good thing of it." So, when he divided one of his fields into allotment gardens, for those who had portions too scanty for the growth of their potatoes, though he let them off at a rate which brought in rent below the price of land in the parish, the men were ready enough to hire them, but they followed Dan Hewlett's lead in believing that "that Gobbleall knowed what he was about, and made a good thing of it"; while the farmers, like Mr Goodenough, were much displeased, declaring that the allotments would only serve as an excuse for pilfering. Truly, whatever good was attempted in Uphill, had to be done against the stream, for nobody seemed to be on the side of the Carbonels except Mr Harford, and a few of the poor, such as the old Pucklechurches, Widow Mole and her father, the George Hewletts, and poor Judith Grey, besides all the better children, who were easily won.

  It made the more difficulty that though Captain Carbonel was a patient man in deed, did not set his expectations too high, and bore, in fact, with an amazing amount of disappointment and misunderstanding; yet he was not patient in word, and was apt to speak ver
y sharply when indignant with cruelty, shuffling, or what was more unlucky, with stupidity. The men used to declare that he swore at them, which was perfectly untrue, for a profane word never crossed his lips, but when he was very angry, he spoke in a tone that perhaps might excuse them for thinking that his reproofs were flavoured, as had been the abuse to which they were only too well accustomed.

  The tormentors of poor Softy Sam always slunk out of reach at the most distant report of the approach of the captain, the curate, or the ladies, but the men never understood their objections to the sport that had hitherto been freely afforded by the idiot, and had a general idea that the gentlefolk disliked whatever afforded them amusement.

  George Hewlett, indeed, knew better; but then he had never joined in baiting Softy Sam, and, indeed, had more than once sheltered him from his enemies, and given him a bit of food. But George in his own line was dull and unapt to learn; or the whole adventure of the Greenhow drawing-room paper would never have happened. He might have had it put up wrongly, for that was wholly the defect of his perceptions, but Dan would not have been able to secure his unlawful gains. In fact, Dan had traded on his cousin's honest straightforward blindness and stupidity a good many times already.

  Captain Carbonel stormed at George when he failed to understand directions, or cut a bit of wood to waste; but without loss of confidence, and before long, Master Hewlett came to accept it as the captain's way, and to trust him as a really kind and liberal employer. And, unluckily, he did not always heed the rating so loudly given, or rather he did not set his mind to comprehend what lay a little out of his usual beat, and thus gave additional provocation, though still Captain Carbonel bore with him, and would not have rejected him in favour of the far smarter carpenter at Downhill, on any of these provocations.