"And what is to happen to us?" inquired Mary.
"Dr Fogram says that he will send us one of the Fellows of his college-a young man full of zeal, who is eager for parochial work, and has been taking duty at a parish some miles from Oxford. He thinks we shall be satisfied with the change."
"As if we were the people to be satisfied," cried Dora. "Just confess, Edmund, that the old gentleman did not think the place worth attending to, till educated gentlefolk came to live in it."
"Say, rather, that he really did not know the deficiencies," said the captain, "till they were brought before him."
"Then he ought," muttered Dora.
"Judge not," whispered Mary, who was a reverent person.
"And the school?" resumed Dora. "Was he aware of any deficiency there?"
"He was very glad to hear that you had begun keeping school, and will contribute to a better arrangement for the week-day school, assist in pensioning off Dame Verdon, if needful, and in obtaining a better person."
Dora and Sophy each gave a little caper, and squeezed one another's hands.
"He is quite disposed to be liberal," continued Edmund; "and I am sure we shall find him no impediment."
"I don't think the school is going on now," said Mary. "Lizzie Verdon came for some broth, and said Granny was bad in bed. I asked whether she had had the doctor, and she stared and said no, but Dame Spurrell had got her some `yarbs.'"
For in those days the union doctor was not an institution. Large tracts of country would contract with some apothecary to attend their sick; but he was generally a busy man, with his hands full of paying patients, and there was nobody to keep him up to his work among the poor, if he could have done it, which he really could not. The poor themselves knew that it was in vain to apply to him, or if he came once in a serious case, to expect any attention; and they preferred to depend on the woman clever in "yarbs," on the white witch, or, in favoured villages, on the lady bountiful or the clergyman and his wife; and in simple cases these latter were quite efficient, keeping a family medicine-chest and a book on household medicine.
Mrs Carbonel had rooted out her mother's book, replenished her chest, and had cured two or three children who had been eating unripe apples, and greatly benefited Mole with infusions of Jesuit's bark in a large jug, the same thing as quinine, only more cumbrously and domestically prepared. But most of the Uphill people had the surest confidence in Dame Spurrell and her remedies, some of which were very curious; for Mrs Carbonel found a child who had fits wearing, in a bag, a pinch of black hair from the cross on the back of a jackass; and once, when she objected to a dirty mark on the throat of Susan Pucklechurch, she was told it was left by a rasher of bacon put on to cure a sore throat.
The symptoms were sometimes curious as she now found when she went to inquire after Dame Verdon, who, Lizzie informed her, had her heart hanging by only one string, and when that gave way, she would not be here.
For the present, however, she was in bed, under a quilt made of coloured cloth scraps; but however it might be with her heart-strings, she did not seem likely to get up again. It was hay time, and it appeared that no one did come to school in hay and harvest seasons, so that there was time to consider what could be done. Dr Fogram was invited to dinner to hold consultation with the ladies, whom the captain would not leave to any conclusion as to the schools.
There were no such things as trained masters and mistresses in those days; the National Society had only been in existence eleven years, and Government had not taken up the matter at all. Educated and religious people had, however, come to the conclusion that it would be well to help all the village children to know their faith and duty, and to read their Bibles; and the good work of Mrs Hannah More and Mrs Trimmer were examples that had begun to be followed, now that the one was in extreme old age, and the other in her grave. The Carbonel family had been bred up to such work, and all of them knew a good deal more about it than the President, whose studies had been chiefly in Greek plays, and whose tasks had been dealing with young men and the college estates. His conscience as a clergyman was a good deal stirred by the condition of his parish, and he was really thankful to those who would take up the matter, as well as ready to assist with his purse.
So it was settled that Mrs Carbonel should write about a widow at her old home, who had once been a servant in the family. She was known to be a good religious person, who could read, and write, and cast accounts quite well enough for any possibly advanced scholars, as well as being a beautiful needlewoman. An old friend went to see her, explain the situation to her, and ascertain if she were willing to undertake the school for twenty pounds a year, and what the children could pay.
A cottage belonging to Captain Carbonel might have a room added to it to receive the scholars, by the end of harvest, by which time they might be got together, and Mrs Verdon was to be induced to resign by a pension of half-a-crown a week, a sum then supposed to be ample, and which, indeed, was so for her wants, which were much less than in these days. Captain Carbonel looked over the cottage, and worked out an estimate of the cost with old Hewlett, whose notions of paper work were of the kind shown in his Midsummer bill.
+===========================+=========+=====+ | |shillings|pence| +--------------+-----+---+ |1 ooden barrer a oodnt soot| 9| 6| +--------------+-----+---+ |1 ooden barrer a ood soot | 9| 6| +===========================+=========+=====+
The result of the calculations, conjectural and otherwise, was this.
"Mary, look here. This is an expensive year, and if we do the thing this year, we must put off making the drive through the fields-your approach, madam."
Mary came and looked at his figures. "How will it be after harvest?" she said.
"Harvest is an inappreciable quantity, especially to novices," he said. "If you believe Farmer Goodenough, the finest weather will not save me from finding myself out of pocket."
"Farmer Goodenough is an old croaker, after his kind," said Mary.
"It won't do to reckon thereupon. I must be secure of capital enough to fall back upon. Think it over well, Mary, and answer me to-morrow; and you had better say nothing to your sisters till your own mind is made up. I own that I should be very glad of the road. It would save us and old Major a good deal, to say nothing of our friends' bones."
"Do you mean that you wish it, Edmund?"
"I wish to leave it entirely to you."
Dora and Sophy had gone across the fields, a four miles' walk to Poppleby, and were to be brought home in the evening, and Mary was left to wander about the old road and the field-path, and meditate on the ruts and quagmires that would beset the way in the winter, and shut them up from visiting, perhaps even from church. Besides, there were appearances!
There was an old gentleman, a far-away connection of Edmund's, who had been in the navy, and now lived at Poppleby, and went about collecting all the chatter to be heard in one house, and retailing it all in another, and he thought himself licensed to tell Edmund and Mary everything personal. One thing was-
"My dear fellow, you should really put a check on your wife's Methodistical ways!"
"I didn't know she had any."
"I have been told, on good authority, that she has a meeting every Sunday in the wash-house."
Edmund laughed. "A dozen children for Sunday School, with the President's full consent."
"It won't do, Edmund. You'll find it won't do! Why, old Selby told me she was a pretty creature, only just like your good pious ladies, running into all the dirtiest cottages."