Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 58

That's all at last. You must be glad of it. Old Duffham shall not lead me blindfold into one of his spun-out histories again. The trouble I've had to cut it down! What with the diaries and letters, it was twice as long.

And he called it a tale of sin. I, Johnny Ludlow, think it is more like a tale of suffering.

X.

A DAY OF PLEASURE.

We all liked Captain Sanker; a post-captain in the navy, ages since on half-pay; who came into Worcestershire, and brought a letter of introduction to the Squire. He was about a seventeenth cousin of the Sankers of Wales, and a twenty-seventh of Mrs. Todhetley. The captain and his wife and family, six children, had lived in Ireland and the Channel Islands, and other cheap localities, making both ends of their income meet as well as they could--and n.o.body need be told how poor is the half-pay of naval officers, and what a fight and a struggle it is to rub along. At last, through the death of a relative of Mrs. Sanker, they dropped into quite a fortune, and came over to settle at Worcester.

A Dr. Teal, who had also recently come to Worcester, and was an old friend of Captain Sanker, proposed it to them. He wrote a flaming account of the pretty place that Worcester was, of the loveliness of the surrounding country; and of the great advantage the college school would be to the young Sankers, in giving them a free education if they could be got into it. The prospect of a free education for his boys took with the captain, and he lost no time in removing to Worcester, the Welsh Sankers giving him an introduction to us. We grew pretty intimate: calling on them when we went to Worcester for a day, and having them over to spend days with us.

All the young Sankers were got into the college school by degrees, and became four of the forty king's scholars. At that time--it is long past now--the school was not thought much of, for the boys were taught little but the cla.s.sics, so entrance was easy: Latin, Greek, bad writing, and the first rule in arithmetic: there it ended. Captain Sanker thought the education first-rate, and had them all enrolled: Frederick, Daniel, King, and Toby. As to Toby, I fancy his real name was Alfred, but I never heard him called by it.

They had been in Worcester between one and two years, when Tod and I went over to them on a visit. The captain had come to spend a summer's day at Crabb Cot, and in his jolly, open-hearted fashion insisted on taking us two back with him. He was a short, stout man, with grey hair, and merry bright blue eyes all alight with smiles. The college school would be breaking up for its long holidays in a week or so, and it would have been better for us to have gone then; but the captain always did things on impulse, and had no more forethought than young Toby. The holidays were taken late that year, and would be very long, because the college hall, which was the schoolroom, would be wanted for the music-meeting in September.

The Sankers' was a funny household, and we pitched down amongst them without ceremony on either side. The house was at the corner of an open road, not very far from the cathedral. It was a commodious house as to size; but all the rooms were in an everlasting litter, so that you could never find a chair to sit down on. The captain was good-humoured always, going in and out a hundred times a day. There seemed to be no fixed hour for meals, and sometimes no meals to eat: Mrs. Sanker would forget to order them. She was a little lady, who went about as if she were dreaming, in a white petticoat and loose buff jacket; or else she'd be sitting aloft in the turret, darning stockings and saying poetry. She was the least excitable person I ever knew; all events, good and bad, she took as a matter of course: had the house caught fire she would have looked on quietly--as Nero did when Rome was burning. Why they called the room the turret did not appear. It had a great high beam running through it on the floor: and Mrs. Sanker would sit on that, reading poetry to us or telling her dreams, her light hair all down.

At seven o'clock the boys had to be in school. Being summer weather, that was no hardship. At nine they came in again with a rush, wild for breakfast. If Mrs. Sanker was not down to give it them, the four boys would begin and eat up the piles of bread-and-b.u.t.ter; upon which Hetta Sanker would call them tigers, and go to the kitchen to tell the maids to cut more. Which was the cook of the two servants and which the housemaid, they did not themselves seem to know: both did the work indiscriminately. Breakfast over, the boys went out again, Tod and I with them. At ten they must be in school. At one they came home to dinner; it might be ready, or it might not: if not, they'd go in and polish off anything cold that might be in the larder. It didn't seem to spoil their dinners. Afternoon school again until four o'clock; and then at liberty for good. Tea was at any time; a scrambling sort of meal that stayed on the table for hours, and was taken just as we chanced to go in for it. Jam and boiled eggs would be on the table, with the loaf and b.u.t.ter _ad libitum_. Sometimes toast and dripping, and there used to be a scuffle for that. As to dinner, when Mrs. Sanker forgot it, the servants would bring in a big dish of poached eggs, and we made it up with bread-and-cheese. Or Dan or Toby would be sent tearing off to High Street for a lot of penny pork-pies and apple-tarts. At night we had prayers, which the captain read.

Now I dare say that to people accustomed to a domestic life like clock-work, this would have been unbearable. I thought it delightful; as did Tod. It was like a perpetual picnic. But it was from one of these dinnerless episodes we found out that Captain Sanker had a temper. Generally speaking, he took disasters with equanimity.

It was on a Thursday. We were to have had four ducks for dinner, which the captain had bought at market the day before. Fine ducks that he was proud of: he carried them home himself, and brought them into the parlour to show us. On this day, Thursday, Tod and I had been into the Town Hall in the morning, listening to a trial before the magistrates--some fellow who had stolen his neighbour's clothes-props and cut them up for firewood. We reached home just as the boys and their books did, as hungry as they were. There was no cloth laid, and Fred shouted out for Biddy, asking whether we were to dine to-day or to-morrow. Biddy heard, and came rushing in with the cloth and knife-tray.

"What's for dinner besides the four ducks?" asked Dan. "Any pudding?

Have you put plenty of stuffing?"

"Indeed then, and I don't think there's much for dinner," replied Biddy.

"I've been in the turret with the missis all the morning, helping to stuff a pillow."

She laid the cloth, and Mrs. Sanker came mooning down in the short white petticoat and buff jacket, darning a sock of Dan's. The dreadful truth came out--busy over beds and pillows, n.o.body had thought of dinner, and the ducks were hanging in the larder, uncooked. Before speechless tongues could find words, Captain Sanker came in, bringing his friend Dr. Teal to taste the ducks. All the Teals were as intimate at the house as we were. Years before, when the captain was a middy, Dr. Teal had been a.s.sistant-surgeon on the same ship.

"They've a cold dinner at Teal's to-day," said the captain to his wife, as she was shaking hands with the doctor, "so he has come to share ours.

Fine ducks they are, Teal!"

Then the news had to be told. The ducks were not cooked: dinner altogether had been forgotten.

I saw Captain Sanker's face turn white--quite white; but he did not say a word. Dr. Teal--a scientific Scotchman, who walked with his nose in the air and his spectacles turned to the skies, as if always looking for a lunar rainbow--made the best of it. Laughing, he said he would come in another day, and went out.

Then it began. Captain Sanker gave vent to pa.s.sion in a way that startled me, and made Tod stare. I don't believe he knew for a few moments what he was doing or saying. Nora, the other servant--both girls had come with them from Ireland, and were as thoughtless as their mistress--came in with a dish of some hastily concocted pudding: a sort of batter. The captain, who still had his stick in his hand, lifted it and spattered the pudding all about the cloth. Then he stamped out of the house with a bang.

"Sit down, dears," said Mrs. Sanker, not at all moved, as she began to collect the pudding with a spoon. "Bring in the cheese, Nora, and do some eggs. Here's a corner seat for you, Johnny; can you squeeze in?

The captain will have his dinner with the Teals, no doubt. He has been tasting the doctor's port wine, I think; or he wouldn't have been so put up."

And somehow we gathered, then or later, that the captain was easy as an old glove at all times and over all crosses, unless he was a little "put up" by artificial help. He told us himself one day (not, of course, alluding to anything of this sort) that he had had naturally an awful temper, would go into pa.s.sions of absolute madness for a minute or two, when he was younger; but that he had by much self-restraint chiefly if not quite subdued it. It was true; and the temper never need be feared now unless he took anything to excite him. Dan had the same temper; but without the good-nature. And they said Hetta had; but we saw nothing of it in her. Hetta was eighteen, a nice-looking girl, who was governess to little Ruth, or pretended to be; but Ruth would manage to escape her lessons five days in the week. It was all the same to Mrs. Sanker whether she did them or whether she didn't.

At the time of this visit of ours to Worcester, the college school was in a ferment. Between the Cathedral and St. Peter's Church was situated a poor, back district called Frog Lane. It had been rechristened Diglis Street, but was chiefly called by the old name still. Crowded dwellings, narrow streets, noise and dirt--that's how the place struck me. The inhabitants were chiefly workmen belonging to the glove and china manufactories of the town. In this district was the parish school, always filled with boys, sons of the working-men, and under the superintendence of Mr. Jones, the portly parish clerk. Now there was wont to spring up from time to time a tide of animosity between these boys and the boys of the college school. Captain Sanker said it was the fault of the college boys: had they let the St. Peter's boys alone, St.

Peter's boys would never have presumed to interfere with them: but the college boys could be downright contemptuous and overbearing when they pleased. They scornfully called the St. Peter's boys the Frogs, "charity boys;" and the Frogs retorted by calling them the College Caws--after the rooks that had their homes in the old trees of the college green and kept up a perpetual cawing. The animosity generally ended in a grand battle; and then hostilities would be dropped for months, perhaps years.

One of these quarrels was going on while we were at Worcester; it had kept both schools in a ferment for some weeks, and there was every sign of a culminating fight. Of course we went in heart and soul with the king's scholars: but the boys on both sides held a code of honour--if you can call it so--that no stranger must take part in the engagements.

The college boys were only forty, all told; the Frogs seemed to number four times as many.

Skirmishes took place daily--the scene being the top of Edgar Street.

St. Peter's boys (let out of school at twelve, whereas the others did not get out till one) would collect in the narrow neck of their district opening on Edgar Street, and wait for the enemy. As soon as the college boys' steps were heard racing under the dark gateway of Edgar Tower, hisses and groans began. "Caw, caw, caw! Hiss, hiss, hiss! How's your Latin to-day?--what birchings has you had? Call yourselves gents, does you, you College Caws? You daren't come on fair, and fight it out with us, you Caws. Caw, caw, caw!" Sometimes the college boys would pa.s.s on, only calling back their contemptuous retorts; sometimes they'd halt, and a fierce storm of abuse would be interchanged, to the edification of Edgar Street in general and the clerks in Mr. Clifton's Registry Office.

"You beggarly Frogs! We don't care to soil our hands with you! Had you been gentlemen, we'd have polished you off long ago, and sent you into next week. Croak, Frogs! Croak!" Not a third of the college boys need have taken Edgar Tower on their way home; through the cloisters and out by St. Michael's churchyard would have been their direct way; but they chose to meet the Frogs. Once in a way there'd be a single combat; but as a rule nothing came of it but abuse. When that was exhausted, each lot would rush home their separate ways: the Frogs back down Frog Lane; the others up the steps, or onwards down Edgar Street, as their road might lie, and remain apart till the same hour next day.

I have not said much yet about King Sanker. He was lame: something was wrong with his knee. Gatherings would come in it, and then he'd be in bed for weeks together. He was nearly thirteen then; next to Dan: and Dan was over fourteen. King was a nice little fellow, with mild eyes as blue as the captain's: Fred would order him to keep "out of the ruck" in the skirmishes with the Frogs, and he generally did. If it came to a fight, you see, King might have been hurt; he had no fighting in him, was frightened at it, and he could not run much. King was just like his mother in ideas: he would tell us his dreams as she did, and recite pieces of poetry a mile long. Dan and King slept together in the room next to ours; it was in the garret, close to the turret-room. King would keep us awake singing; sometimes chants, sometimes hymns, sometimes songs. They'd have let him try for the choir, but the head-master of the college school thought his knee would not do for it.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and a pouring wet afternoon. Our visit was drawing to an end; on the following Wednesday we should bid the Sankers good-bye.

Captain Sanker, always trying to find out ways of making folk happy, had devised a day of pleasure for the last day of our stay, Tuesday. We were to go to Malvern; a whole lot of us: ourselves, and the Teals, and the Squire, and Mrs. Todhetley, and take our dinner on the hill. It was so settled; and the arrangements were planned and made.

But this was yet only Sat.u.r.day. We dined at twelve: whether for any one's convenience or that the servants made a mistake in an hour, I don't remember. It happened to be a saint's day, so the boys had no school; and, being wet, came home after morning service in the cathedral. After a jolly dinner of peas and bacon and pancakes, we looked at the skies for a bit, and then (all but Fred and Hetta) went up to the turret-room. Dan said the rain had come to spite us; for the whole school had meant to race to Berwick's Bridge after afternoon service and hold a mock review in the fields there. It was coming down in torrents, peppering the roof and the windows. Mrs. Sanker sat in the middle of the old beam, mending one of Toby's shirts, "Lalla Rookh" open on her knee, out of which she was singing softly; the floor was strewed with patches, and scissors, and tapes, and the combs were out of one side of her hair.

"Read it out loud to us, mamma," cried King.

"I can't spare time to read, King," she said. "Look here"--holding out the work, all rags and tatters. "If I don't mend this, Toby won't have a shirt to put on to-morrow."

"I shan't mind about that," said Toby.

"Oh, but, dear, I don't think you could go without a shirt. Has any one seen my cotton?"

"Then say something over to us that you know, mamma," returned King, as Toby found the cotton.

"Very well. I can do that and work too. Sit down, all of you."

We sat down, King and Toby on the floor before her, the rest of on the beam on either side her. Dan, who did not care for poetry, got some Brazil nuts out of his pocket and cracked them while he listened.

Mrs. Sanker might as well have read "Lalla Rookh." She began to recite "The Friar of Orders Grey." But what with gazing up at the sky through the rain to give it due emphasis, and shaking her head at pathetic parts, the sewing did not get on. She had finished the verse--

"Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets plucked, the sweetest showers Will ne'er make grow again,"

when King surprised us by bursting into tears. But as Mrs. Sanker took no notice, I supposed it was nothing unusual.

"You young donkey!" cried Dan, when the poem was finished. "You'll never be a man, King."

"It is such a nice verse, Dan," replied young King, meekly. "I whisper it over sometimes to myself in bed. Mamma, won't you say the 'Barber's Ghost'? Johnny Ludlow would like to hear that, I know."

We had the "Barber's Ghost," which was humorous, and we had other things. After that, Mrs. Sanker told a dreadful story about a real ghost, one that she said haunted her family, and another of a murder that was discovered by a dream. Some of the young Sankers were the oddest mixtures of timidity and bravery--personally brave in fighting; frightfully timid as to being alone in the dark--and I no longer wondered at it if she brought them up on these ghostly dishes.

"I should not like to have dreams that would tell me of murders," said King, thoughtfully. "But I do dream very strange dreams sometimes.

When I awake, I lie and wonder what they mean. Once I dreamt I saw heaven--didn't I, mamma? It was so beautiful."

"Ay; my family have always been dreamers," replied Mrs. Sanker.

Thus, what with ghosts and poetry and talking, the afternoon wore on unconsciously. Dan suddenly started up with a shout--