Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

Even after the many strange events, which had by this time caused such a whirl of giddiness in Perlycross, that if there had been a good crack across the street, every man and woman would have fallen headlong into it; and even before there had been leisure for people to try to tell them anyhow, to one another – much less discuss them at all as they deserved – this sudden break-up of the school, and disappearance of High Jarks, would have been absolutely beyond belief, if there had not been scores of boys, too loudly in evidence everywhere. But when a chap, about four feet high, came scudding in at any door that was open, and kicking at it if it dared to be shut, and then went trying every cupboard-lock, and making sad eyes at his mother if the key was out; and then again, when he was stuffed to his buttons – which he would be, as sure as eggs are eggs – if the street went howling with his playful ways, and every corner was in a jerk with him, and no elderly lady could go along without her umbrella in front of her – how was it possible for any mother not to feel herself guilty of more harm than good?

In a word, "High Jarks" was justified (as all wisdom is) of his children; and the weak-minded women, who had complained that he smote too hard, were the first to find fault with the feeble measures of his substitute, Vickary Toogood of Honiton. This gentleman came into office on Monday, smiling in a very superior manner at his predecessor's arrangements.

"I think we may lock up that," he said, pointing to the Sergeant's little tickler; "we must be unworthy of our vocation, if we cannot dispense with such primitive tools." A burst of applause thrilled every bench; but knowing the boys of his parish so well, Mr. Penniloe shook his head with dubious delight.

And truly before the week was out, many a time would he murmur sadly – "Oh for one hour of the Sergeant!" as he heard the Babel of tongues outside, and entering saw the sprawling elbows, slouching shoulders, and hands in pockets, which the "Apostle of Moral force" —Moral farce was its sound and meaning here – permitted as the attitude of pupilage.

"Sim'th I be quite out in my reckoning;" old Channing the Clerk had the cheek to say, as he met the Parson outside the school-door; "didn't know it were Whit-Monday yet."

Mr. Penniloe smiled, but without rejoicing; he understood the reference too well. Upon Whit-Monday the two rival Benefit-clubs of the village held their feast, and did their very utmost from bridge to Abbey, to out-drum, out-fife, and out-trumpet one another. Neither in his house was his conscience left untouched.

"I think Lady Waldron might have sent us a better man than that is;" Mrs. Muggridge observed one afternoon, when the uproar came across the road, and pierced the rectory windows. "I am not sure but what little Master Mike could keep better order than that is. Why, the beating of the bounds was nothing to it. What could you be about, sir, to take such a man as that?" Thyatira had long established full privilege of censure.

"Certainly there is a noise;" the Curate was always candid. "But he brought the very highest credentials from the Institute. We have scarcely given him fair trial yet. The system is new, you see, Mrs. Muggridge; and it must be allowed some time to take effect. No physical force, the moral sense appealed to, the higher qualities educed by kindness, the innate preference of right promoted and strengthened by self-exertion, the juvenile faculties to be elevated, from the moment of earliest development, by a perception of their high responsibility, and, and – well I really forget the rest, but you perceive that it amounts to – "

"Row, and riot, and roaring rubbish. That's what it amounts to, sir. But I beg your pardon, sir; excuse my boldness, for speaking out, upon things so far above me. But when they comes across the road, at ten o'clock in the morning, to beg for a lump of raw beefsteak, by reason of two boys getting four black eyes, in fighting across the Master's desk, the new system seem not Apostolical. An Apostle, about as much as I am! My father was above me, and had gifts, and he put himself back, when not understanded, to the rising generation; but he never would demean himself, to send for raw beefsteak for their black eyes."

"And I think he would have shown his common sense in that. What did you do, my good Thyatira?" Mr. Penniloe had a little spice of mischief in him, which always accompanies a sub-sense of humour.

"This was what I did, sir. I looked at him, and he seemed to have been in the wars himself, and to have come across, perhaps to get out of them, being one of the clever ones, as true Schoolmaster sayeth, and by the same token not so thick of head; and he looked up at me, as if he was proud of it, to take me in; while the real fighting boys look down, as I know by my brother who was guilty of it; and I said to him, very quiet like – 'No steak kept here for moral-force black-eyes-boys. You go to Robert Jakes, the brother of a man that understands his business, and tell him to enter in his books, half a pound prime-cut, for four black eyes, to the credit of Vickary Toogood.'"

It was not only thus, but in many other ways, that the village at large shed painful tears (sadly warranted by the ears), and the Church looked with scorn at the children straggling in, like a lot of Dissenters going anyhow; and the Cross at the meeting of the four main roads, which had been a fine stump for centuries, lost its proper coat of whitewash on Candlemas-day; and the crystal Perle itself began to be threaded with red from pugnacious noses. For the lesson of all history was repeated, that softness universal, and unlimited concession, set off very grandly, but come home with broken heads, to load their guns with grapnel.

And what could Mr. Penniloe do, when some of the worst belligerents were those of his own household; upon one frontier his three pupils, and upon another, Zip Tremlett? Pike, Peckover, and Mopuss, the pupils now come back again, were all very decent and law-abiding fellows, but had drifted into a savage feud with the factory boys at the bottom of the village. As they were but three against three score, it soon became unsafe for them to cross Perlebridge, without securing their line of retreat. Of course they looked down from a lofty height upon "cads who smelled of yarn, and even worse;" but what could moral, or even lineal excellence, avail them against the huge disparity of numbers? Each of them held himself a match for any three of the enemy, and they issued a challenge upon that scale; but the paper-cap'd host showed no chivalry. On one occasion, this noble trio held the bridge victoriously against the whole force of the enemy, inflicting serious loss, and even preparing for a charge upon the mass. But the cowardly mass found a heap of road-metal, and in lack of their own filled the air with it, and the Pennilovian heroes had begun to bite the dust, when luckily Farmer John rode up, and saved the little force from annihilation by slashing right and left through the Operative phalanx.

When Mr. Penniloe heard of this pitched battle, he was deeply grieved; and sending for his pupils administered a severe rebuke to them. But John Pike's reply was a puzzler to him.

"If you please, sir, will you tell us what to do, when they fall upon us?"

"Endeavour to avoid them;" replied the Clergyman, feeling some want of confidence however in his counsel.

"So we do, sir, all we can;" Pike made answer, with the aspect of a dove. "But they won't be avoided, when they think they've got enough cads together to lick us."

"I should like to know one thing," enquired the Hopper, striking out his calves, which were now becoming of commanding size; "are we to be called 'Latin tay-kettles,' and 'Parson's pups,' and then do nothing but run away?"

"My father says that the road is called the King's Highway;" said Mopuss, who was a fat boy, with great deliberation, "because all his subjects have a right to it, but no right to throw it at one another."

"I admit that a difficulty arises there;" replied Mr. Penniloe as gravely as he could, for Mopuss was always quoting his papa, a lawyer of some eminence. "But really, my lads, we must not have any more of this. There is fault upon both sides, beyond all doubt. I shall see the factory manager to-morrow, and get him to warn his pugnacious band. I am very unwilling to confine you to these premises; but if I hear of any more pitched battles, I shall be compelled to do so, until peace has been proclaimed."

Here again was Jakes to seek; for the fear of him lay upon the factory boys, as heavily as upon his own school-children. And perhaps as sore a point as any was that he should have been rapt away, without full reason rendered.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

LOYALTY

"I do not consider myself at all an inquisitive man," Mr. Penniloe reflected, and here the truth was with him; "nevertheless it is hard upon me to be refused almost the right to speculate upon this question. They have told me that it is of the last importance, to secure this great disciplinarian – never appreciated while with us, but now deplored so deeply – for a special service in the south of Spain. What that special service is, I am not to know, until his return; possibly not even then. And Mr. Webber has no idea what the meaning of it is. But I know that it has much to do – all to do, I might even say – with that frightful outrage of last November – three months ago, alas, alas, and a sad disgrace upon this parish still! Marvellous are the visitations of the Lord. Practically speaking, we know but little more of that affair now, than on the day it was discovered. If it were not for one thing, I should even be driven at last to Gowler's black conclusion; and my faith in the true love of a woman, and in the honesty of a proud brave woman would be shattered, and leave me miserable. But now it is evident that good and gentle Nicie is acting entirely with her mother; and to imagine that she would wrong her father is impossible. Perhaps I shall even get friend Gowler's hundred pounds. What a triumph that would be! To obtain a large sum for the Service of God from an avowed – ah well, who am I to think harshly of him? But the money might even be blest to himself; which is the first thing to consider. It is my duty to accept it therefore, if I can only get it.

"And here again is Jemmy Fox, not behaving at all as he used to do. Concealing something from me – I am almost sure of it by his manner – and discussing it, I do believe, with Gronow – an intimacy that cannot be good for him. I wish I could perceive more clearly, in what points I have neglected my duty to the parish; for I seem to be losing hold upon it, which must be entirely my own fault. There must be some want of judgment somewhere – what else could lead to such very sad fighting? Even Zip, a little girl, disgracing us by fighting in the streets! That at any rate I can stop, and will do so pretty speedily."

This was a lucky thought for him, because it led to action, instead of brooding, into which miserable condition he might otherwise have dropped. And when a man too keen of conscience hauls himself across the coals, the Governor of a hot place takes advantage to peep up between them. Mr. Penniloe rang the bell, and begged Mrs. Muggridge to be good enough to send Miss Zippy to him.

Zip, who had grown at least two inches since the death of her grandmother – not in length perhaps so much as in the height she made of it – came shyly into the dusky bookroom, with one of her long hands crumpling the lower corner of her pinafore into her great brown eyes. She knew she was going to catch it, and knew also the way to meet it, for she opened the conversation with a long-drawn sob.

"Don't be frightened, my dear child;" said the Parson with the worst of his intention waning. "I am not going to scold you much, my dear."

"Oh, I was so terrible afraid, you was." The little girl crept up close to him, and began to play with his buttonhole, curving her lissome fingers in and out, like rosebuds in a trellis, and looking down at the teardrops on her pinny. "Plaise sir, I knows well enough as I desarves a bit of it."

"Then why did you do it, my dear child? But I am glad that you feel it to be wrong."

The clergyman was sitting in the deep square chair, where most of his sermons came to him, and he brought his calm face down a little, to catch the expression of the young thing's eyes. Suddenly she threw herself into his arms, and kissed his lips, and cheeks, and forehead, and stroked his silvery hair, and burst into a passionate wail; and then slid down upon a footstool, and nursed his foot.

"Do 'e know why I done that?" she whispered, looking up over his knees at him. "Because there be nobody like 'e, in the heavens, or the earth, or the waters under the earth. Her may be as jealous as ever her plaiseth; but I tell 'e, I don't care a cuss."

"My dear little impetuous creature," Mr. Penniloe knew that his darling Fay was the one defied thus recklessly; "I am sure that you are fond of all of us. And to please me, as well as for much higher reasons, you must never use bad words. Bad deeds too I have heard of, Zip, though I am not going to scold much now. But why did you get into conflict with a boy?"

Zip pondered the meaning of these words for a moment, and then her conscience interpreted.

"Because he spoke bad of 'e, about the Fair." She crooked her quick fingers together as she spoke, and tore them asunder with vehemence.

"And what did you do to him? Eh Zip? Oh Zip!"

"Nort, for to sarve 'un out, as a' desarved. Only pulled most of 's hair out. His moother hurned arter me; but I got inside the ge-at."

"A nice use indeed for my premises – to make them a refuge, after committing assault and battery! Well, what shall we come to next?"

"Plaise sir, I want to tell 'e zummut;" said the child, looking up very earnestly. "Bain't it Perlycrass Fair, come Tuesday next?"

"I am sorry to say that it is. A day of sad noise and uproar. Remember that little Zip must not go outside the gates, that day."

"Nor Passon nayther;" the child took hold of his hand, as if she were pulling him inside the gate, for her nature was full of gestures; and then she gazed at him with a sage smile of triumph – "and Passon mustn't go nayther."

Mr. Penniloe took little heed of this (though he had to think of it afterwards) but sent the child to have her tea, with Muggridge and the children.

But before he could set to his work in earnest, although he had discovered much to do, in came his own child, little Fay, looking round the room indignantly. With her ladylike style, she was much too grand to admit a suspicion of jealousy, but she smoothed her golden hair gently back, and just condescended to glance round the chairs. Mr. Penniloe said nothing, and feigned to see nothing, though getting a little afraid in his heart; for he always looked on Fay as representing her dear mother. He knew that the true way to learn a child's sentiments, is to let them come out of their own accord. There is nothing more jealous than a child, except a dog.

"Oh, I thought Darkie was here again!" said Fay, throwing back her shoulders, and spinning on one leg. "This room belongs to Darkie now altogether. Though I can't see what right she has to it."

Mr. Penniloe treated this soliloquy, as if he had not heard it; and went on with his work, as if he had no time to attend to children's affairs just now.

"It may be right, or it may be wrong," said Fay, addressing the room in general, and using a phrase she had caught up from Pike, a very great favourite of hers; "but I can't see why all the people of this house should have to make way for a Gipsy."

This was a little too much for a father and clergyman to put up with. "Fay!" said Mr. Penniloe in a voice that made her tremble; and she came and stood before him, contrite and sobbing, with her head down, and both hands behind her back. Without raising her eyes the fair child listened, while her father spoke impressively; and then with a reckless look, she tendered full confession.

"Father, I know that I am very wicked, and I seem to get worse every day. I wish I was the Devil altogether; because then I could not get any worse."

"My little child," said her father with amazement; "I can scarcely believe my ears. My gentle little Fay to use such words!"

"Oh, she thinks nothing of saying that! And you know how fond you are of her, papa. I thought it might make you fond of me."