The Stokesley Secret Part 7

"For-shame, Henry!" burst out Sam; and the same moment those two feet were secured, and John was a prisoner. Miss Fosbrook called out to the rest to go on to church, and she and Sam dragged the boy up to the nursery, and shut him in there, roaring pa.s.sionately.

Nurse Freeman, knowing nothing about it, could not believe but that the stranger lady had made her child naughty, and said something about their Mamma letting him go to church; and "when the child wished to go to church, it seemed strange he should not."

Miss Fosbrook would not defend herself, for she was in great haste; but Sam exclaimed, "Stuff! he was as naughty as could be all this morning, and only wanted to go now because he was told not."

Johnnie bellowed out something else, but Miss Fosbrook would not let Sam go on; she touched his arm, and drew him off with her, he exclaiming, "Foolish old Freeman! she will pet and spoil him all church-time, till he is worse than ever."

It was lucky for her that she was too much hurried to dwell on this vexation; she almost ran to save herself from being late, and scarcely heard Sam's mutterings about wishing to break Martin Greville's head.

"You need not hurry so much," he said; "there's a shorter cut, only I suppose you can't get through a gap."

"Can't I?" she laughed; and he led her on straight through the Short- horns. Some of them looked at her more than she fancied, but she knew she might give up all hopes of Sam if he detected her fears.

Then came the gap, where a tree had been cut down in the hedge, and such a jump down from it! But she gathered up her muslin, and made her leap so gallantly, that the boy cried,

"Hurrah! well done!" and came and walked close to her, saying confidentially, "I say, do you think we shall ever do the pig?"

"I am sure it might be done. If you are likely to do it you must know better than I."

"I don't know that I much care about it. It will be rather a bother; only now we have said it, I shall hate it if we don't do it."

"I think the pleasure of giving it will be a delightful reward for a little self-command."

"Only Hal and the girls will make such a work about it. I'm glad, after all, that Bessie has nothing to do with it, or she would want to dress it up in flowers and ribbons. Ha-ha! But what a little crab it is!"

"Don't be too sure of that. People may have other designs."

"Bessie's can't be anything but trumpery."

"Sometimes present trumpery is a step to something better. 'A was an Archer' is not very wise, but it is the road to reading--and even if it were not so, Sam, it is not right to shame people into giving; for what is not bestowed for the true reasons, does no good to giver nor to receiver.

Sam looked up with a frown of attention, as if he were trying to take in the new light; but he did take it in, and smacking his hands together with a noise like a pistol-shot, said, "Ay, that's it! We don't want what is grudged."

Miss Fosbrook thought of words that would another time be more familiar to Sam. "Not grudgingly, nor of necessity, for G.o.d loveth a cheerful giver."

What she said was, "You see, if you plague Bessie too much, to make her like ourselves, when she is really so different, you are driving her to the shamming you despise so much."

"But ought not she to be cured of being silly?"

"When we have quite made up our minds upon what silliness is. There, the bell has stopped."

CHAPTER IV.

The most part of church-time Johnnie was eating Nurse Freeman's plum- cake. Perhaps this did not make him any easier in the conscience, but he had a very unlucky sentiment, that as he was already naughty and in disgrace, it was of no use to take the trouble of being good till he could make a fresh beginning; and after what the Grevilles had said, he did not think that would be till Papa and Mamma came home; he did not at all mean to give in to a girl that was not even twenty. So he would not turn to the only wise thing he could have done, the learning of his Collect, but he teased Nurse out of more cake and more, and got what play he could out of little George, and that was not much, for Johnnie was not in a temper to be pleasant with a little one.

Coming home from church, Collects were to be learnt and said before tea: but Hal, after glancing over his own, took up his cap and said, "Come along, Sam, Purday will be feeding the pigs; I want to choose the size of ours."

"I've not done," said Sam.

"Papa never said we were to say them to Miss Fosbrook."

"He meant it though," was all Sam's answer. "Don't hinder me."

"Well, I've no notion of being bound by what people mean," continued Hal; and no one could imagine the torment he made himself, neither going nor staying, arguing the matter with his elder brother, as if Sam's coming would justify him, and interrupting everyone; till at last Miss Fosbrook gathered all her spirit, and ordered him either to sit down and learn properly at once, or to go quite away. She was very much vexed, for Henry had been the most obliging and good- natured of all at first, and likely to be fond of her; but such a great talker could not fail to be weak, and his vanity had been set against her. He looked saucy at first, and much inclined to resist; if he had seen any sympathy for him in Sam he might have done so, but Miss Fosbrook's steady eye was too much for him, so he saved his dignity, as he thought, by exclaiming, "I'm sure I don't want to stay in this stuffy hole with such a set of owls; I shall go to Purday."

And off he marched.

The others stayed, and said their Collects and Catechism very respectably, all but John, who had not learned the Collect at all, and was sent into another room to finish it, to which he made no resistance; he had had enough of actual fighting with Miss Fosbrook.

Then she offered to read a story to the others, but she found that this was distasteful even to her friend Sam; he thought it stupid to be read to, and said he should see after Hal; David trotted after him, and Susan and Anne repaired to the nursery to play with the little ones and the baby. She minded it the less, as they all had some purpose; but she had already been vexed to find that all but Davy preferred the most arrant vacant idleness to anything rational.

To be sure, Susan sometimes, Bessie and Hal always, would read any book that made no pretensions to be instructive, but even a fact about a lion or an elephant made them detect wisdom in disguise, and throw it aside. She thought, however, she would make the most of Bessie, and asked whether she would like to hear reading, or read to herself.

"To myself," said Bessie; and there was a silence, while Miss Fosbrook, glad of the quiet, began reading her Christian Year.

Presently she heard a voice so low that it seemed at a distance and it made her start, for it was saying "Christabel!" then she almost laughed, for it seemed to have been an audacious experiment, to judge by little Elizabeth's scared looks and the glow on her cheeks.

"May I say it sometimes when we are alone together?" she said timidly. "I do like it so much!"

"If it is such a pleasure to you, I would not deprive you of it,"

said Miss Fosbrook, laughing; "but don't do so, except when we are alone, for your Mamma would not like me to seem younger still."

"Oh, thank you! Isn't it a nice secret?" cried Bessie, clinging to her hand: "and will you let me hug you sometimes?"

A little love was pleasant to Miss Fosbrook, when she was feeling lonely, and she took Bessie in her lap, and they exchanged caresses, to the damage of the collar that Miss Fosbrook's sister had worked for her.

"And you don't call me silly?" cried Bessie.

"That depends," was the answer, with some arch fun; but Bessie had not much turn for fun, and presently went on -

"And you saw Ida Greville?"

"Yes."

"What did you think of her?"

"I had not much opportunity of learning what to think."

"But her parasol, and her bird! Did you think her mama very silly to give her pretty things?"

"No, certainly not, unless she wore them at unsuitable times, or thought too much about them."

"Ida has so many, she does not think of them at all. And she has sh.e.l.ls, and such a lovely work-box, and picture-books; she has all she wants."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Oh, yes, quite sure! and they don't tease her for liking pretty things; her brothers keep quite away, and never bother about the schoolroom; but she learns Italian and German, and drawing and singing. Mr. Greville said something about our spending the day there. Oh! if we do but go! Won't you, Miss Fosbrook?"