Arminell, a social romance. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ was hardly commodious, but it had its advantages—it was near the church.

      ​Lady Lamerton, who presided over the Sunday-school and collected the Sunday scholars' club-pence, and distributed that dreary brown-paper-covered literature that constituted the Sunday-school lending library, was a middle-aged lady with a thin face and very transparent skin, through which every vein showed. There was not much character in her face, but it possessed a certain delicacy and purity that redeemed it from being uninteresting. She was—it could be read in every feature—a scrupulously conscientious woman, a woman strong in doing her duty, and in that only; one whose head might be and generally was in a profound muddle as to what she believed, but who never for a moment doubted as to what she should do. She would be torn by wild horses rather than not keep Sunday-school, and yet did not know what to teach the children in the school she mustered.

      Lady Lamerton, seated on a green garden chair from which the paint was much rubbed away, had about her on three sides of an irregular square the eldest girls of the school. The next class to hers was taken by the Honourable Arminell Inglett, her step-daughter, only child of Lord Lamerton by his first wife.

      Miss Inglett was very different in type from her step-mother; a tall, handsome girl, with dark hair cut short, like a boy's, and eyes of violet blue. She had a skin of the purest olive, no rose whatever in her cheeks, as transparent as Lady Lamerton's, but of a warmer tone, like the mellow of an old painting, whereas that of her step-mother had the freshness and crudeness of a picture from the easel sent to the Royal Academy on the first of May.

      Arminell differed from Lady Lamerton in expression as completely as in type of feature and colour. She had an unusual breadth of brow, whereas Lady Lamerton's forehead was narrow. Her eyes had not that patient gentleness that filled the dark blue orbs of her ladyship, they were ​quick and sparkling. Her lips, somewhat prominent, were full, warm, and contemptuous. She held her head erect, with a curl of the mouth, and a contraction of the brows, that expressed impatience to the task on which she was engaged.

      On the left side of Miss Inglett sat Captain Tubb, engaged on the illumination of the souls of the senior boys. Captain Tubb held no commission in the army or navy, not even in the volunteers. He was, in fact, only the manager of a lime-quarry in the parish, on the estate of Lord Lamerton, but such heads over gangs of quarry and mining men bear among the people the courtesy-title of captain.

      Mr. Tubb was a short, pale man with shiny face much polished, and with sandy moustache and beard. When he was in perplexity, he put his hand to his mouth, and stroked his moustache, or his beard under the chin, turned it up, and nibbled at the ends.

      Some folk said that the captain taught in school so as to stand well with her ladyship, who would speak a word for him to my lord; but the rector thought, more charitably, he did it for his soul's and conscience sake. Captain Tubb was a simple man, except in his business, and in that he was sharp enough. Perhaps he taught a class from mixed motives, and thought it would help him on a bit in both worlds.

      "Yes," said Lady Lamerton, "yes, Fanny White, go on. As the list of the canonical books is known to you all, I require you to learn the names of those books which, as the sixth article says, are read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet are not applied to establish any doctrine. After that we will proceed to learn by heart the names of the Homilies, twenty-one in all, given in the thirty-fifth article, which are the more important, because they are not even read and hardly any one has a copy of them. Go on with the uncanonical books. Third Book of Esdras, Fourth Book of Esdras."

      ​"Tobit," whispered the timid Fanny White, and curtsied.

      "Quite right, Tobit—go on. It is most important for your soul's health that you should know what books are not canonical, and in their sequence. What comes after Tobit?"

      "Judith," faltered Fanny.

      "Then a portion of Esther, not found in Hebrew. What next?"

      "Wisdom," shouted the next girl, Polly Woodley.

      "True, but do not be so forward, Polly; I am asking Fanny White."

      "Ecclesiasticks," in a timid, doubtful sigh from Fanny, who raised her eyes to the boards above, detected an eye inspecting her through a knot-hole, laughed, and then turned crimson.

      "Not sticks," said Lady Lamerton, sweetly, "you must say—cus."

      A dead silence and great doubt fell on the class.

      "Yes, go on—cus."

      Then faintly from Fanny, "Please, my lady, mother says I b'aint to swear."

      "I don't mind," exclaimed the irrepressible Polly Woodley, starting up, and thrusting her hand forward into Lady Lamerton's face. "Darn it."

      Her ladyship fell back in her chair; the eye was withdrawn from the hole in the floor, and a laugh exploded upstairs.

      "I—I didn't mean that," explained the lady, "I meant, not Ecclesiastics, nor Ecclesiastes, which is canonical, but Ecclesiasti—cus, which is not."

      Just then a loud, rolling, grinding sound made itself heard through the school-room, drowning the voices of the teachers and covering the asides of the taught.

      "Dear me," said Lady Lamerton, "there is the keeper's wife rocking the cradle again. One of you run upstairs ​and ask her very kindly to desist. It is impossible for any one to hear what is going on below with that thunder rolling above."

      "Please, my lady," said Polly, peeping up through the nearest knot in the superjacent plank, "it b'aint Mrs. Crooks, it be Bessie as is rocking of the baby. Wicked creetur not to be at school."

      "It does not matter who rocks the cradle," said her ladyship, "nor are we justified in judging others. One of you—not all at once—you, Polly Woodley, ask Bessie to leave the cradle alone till later."

      The whole school listened breathlessly as the girl went out, tramped up the outside slate steps to the floor occupied by the keeper's family above, and heard her say:—

      "Now, then, Bessie! What be you a-making that racket for? My lady says she'll pull your nose unless you stop at once. My lady's doing her best to teach us to cuss downstairs, and her can't hear her own voice wit'out screeching like a magpie."

      Then up rose Lady Lamerton in great agitation.

      "That girl is intolerable. She shall not have a ticket for good conduct to-day. I will go—no, you run, Joan Ball, and make her return. I will have a proper school-room built. This shall not occur again."

      Then Captain Tubb rose to his full height, stood on a stool, put his mouth to the orifice in the plank, placed his hands about his mouth and roared through the hole: "Her ladyship saith Come down."

      Presently with unabashed self-satisfaction Polly Woodley reappeared.

      "When I send you on an errand," said Lady Lamerton severely, "deliver it as given. I am much displeased."

      "Yes, my lady, thank you," answered Polly with cheerful face, and resumed her seat in class.

      "Now, boys," said Captain Tubb to his class, which was ​composed of the senior male scholars, including Tom Metters, the rascal who had put the inscriptions in the mouths of Moses and Aaron. "Now, boys, attention. The cradle and Polly Woodley are nothing to you. We will proceed with what we were about."

      "Please, СКАЧАТЬ