St. Winifred's; or, The World of School

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

  KENRICK'S HOME.

  Yonder there lies the village and looks how quiet and small, And yet bubbles o'er like a city with gossip and scandal and spite.

  Tennyson. _Maud_.

  It was the last evening. The boys were all assembled in the greatschoolroom to hear the result of the examination. The masters in theircaps and gowns were seated round Dr Lane on a dais in the centre of theroom; and every one was eager to know what places the boys had taken,and who would win the various form prizes. Dr Lane began from thebottom of the school, and at the _last_ boy in each form, so that theinterest of the proceedings kept on culminating to the grand climax.The first name that will interest us was Eden's, and both Walter andPower were watching anxiously to see where he would come out in hisform. Power had been so kindly coaching him in his work that theyexpected him to be high; but it was as much to _his_ surprise as totheir gratification, that his name was read out _third_. Jones andHarpour were, as was natural, last in their respective forms.

  At length Dr Lane got to Walter's form. Last but one came HowardTracy, who was listening with a fine superiority to the wholeannouncement. Anthony and Franklin were not far from him. Hendersonexpected himself to be about tenth; but the tenth name, the ninth, andthe eighth, all were read, and he had not been mentioned; his heart wasbeating fast, and he almost fancied that there must have been somemistake; but no; Dr Lane read on.

  "Seventh, Grey;

  "Sixth, Mackworth;

  "Fifth, Whalley;

  "Fourth, Henderson;"

  and Walter had hardly done patting him on the back, and congratulatinghim, when Dr Lane had read--

  "Third, Manners;

  "Second, Carlton;

  "_First_"--the Doctor always read the word "first" with peculiaremphasis, and then brought out the name of the boy who had attained thatdistinction with great empressement--"_First, Evson_."

  Whereupon it was Henderson's turn to pat him on the back, which he didvery vigorously; and not only so, but in his enthusiasm began to clap--ademonstration which ran like wildfire through all the ranks of the boys,and before Dr Lane could raise his voice to secure silence--forapprobation on those occasions in the great schoolroom was not at all_selon regle_--our young hero had received a regular ovation. For sincethe day on Appenfell, Walter had been the favourite of the school, andthey were only too glad to follow Henderson in his irregular applause.There was an intoxicating sweetness in this popularity. Could Walterhelp keenly enjoying the general regard which thus, defiant of rules,broke out in his honour into spontaneous acclamations?

  Dr Lane's stern "Silence!" heard above the uproar, soon reduced theboys to order, and he proceeded with the list. Kenrick was read outfirst in his form, and Power, as a matter of course, again first in thesecond fifth, although in that form he was the youngest boy. Somerscame out head of the school, by examination as well as by seniority ofstanding; and in his case, too, the impulse to cheer was too strong tobe resisted. The head of the school was, however, tacitly excepted fromthe general rule, and Dr Lane only smiled while he listened to theclapping, which showed that Somers was regarded with esteem and honourby the boys, in spite of his cold manners and stern regime.

  "Hurrah for the Sociable Grosbeaks!" said Henderson, as the boysstreamed out of the room. "Why, we carry all before us! And only fancyme fourth! Why, I'm a magnificent swell, without ever having known it.You look out, Master Walter, or I shall have a scrimmage with you forlaurels."

  "Good," said Walter. "Meanwhile, come and help me to pack up my laurelsin my box. And then for home! Hurrah!"

  And he began to sing the exquisite air of:

  "Domum, domum, dulce domum, Dulce, dulce, dulce domum;"

  in which Power and Henderson joined heartily; while Kenrick walked on insilence.

  Next day the boys were scattered in every direction to their varioushomes. It need not be said that Walter passed very happy holidays thatChristmas time. Power came and spent a fortnight with him; and letevery boy who has a cheerful and affectionate home imagine for himselfhow blithely their days passed by. Power made himself a universalfavourite, always unselfish, always merry, and throwing himself heartilyinto every amusement which the Evsons proposed. He and they weremutually sorry when the time came for them to part.

  From Semlyn Lake, Walter's home, to Fuzby, Kenrick's home, the change isgreat indeed; yet I must take the reader there for a short time, beforewe return to the noisy and often troubled precincts of Saint Winifred'sSchool.

  Before Power came to stay with the Evsons, Walter, with his father'sfull permission, had written to ask Kenrick to join them at the sametime, and this is the answer he got in reply--

  "My Dear Walter,--I can't tell you how much your letter tempted me. I should so like to come; I would give _anything_ to come and see you. To be with you and Power at such a place as Semlyn must be--O Walter, it almost makes me envious to think of you there. But I can't come, and I'll tell you frankly the reason. I can't afford, or rather I mean that my mother cannot afford, the necessary travelling expenses. I look on you, Walter, as my best school friend, so I may as well say at once that we are _very, very_ poor. If I could even get to you by walking some of the way, and going third-class the rest, I would jump at the chance, but--. Lucky fellow, _you_ know nothing of the _res angusta domi_.

  "You must be amused at the name of this place, Fuzby-le-Mud. What charming prospects the name opens, does it not? I assure you the name fits the place exactly. My goodness! how I do hate the place. You'll ask why then we live here? Simply because we _must_. Some misanthropic relation left us the house we live in, which saves rent.

  "Yet, if you were with me, I think I could be happy even here. I don't venture to ask you. First of all, we couldn't make you one-tenth part as comfortable as you are at home; secondly, there isn't the ghost of an amusement here, and if you came, you'd go back to Saint Winifred's with a fit of blue devils, as I always do; thirdly, the change from Semlyn to Fuzby-le-Mud would be like walking from the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows, into mere _borboros_ as old Edwards would say. So I _don't_ ask you; and yet if you could come--why, the day would be marked with white in the dull calendar of--Your ever affectionate--

  "Harry Kenrick."

  As Fuzby lay nearly in the route to Saint Winifred's, Walter, grievedthat his friend should be doomed to such dull holidays, determined, withMr Evson's leave, to pay him a three-days' visit on his way to school.Accordingly, towards the close of the holidays, after a hopeful, ajoyous, and an affectionate farewell to all at home, he started forFuzby, from which he was to accompany Kenrick back to school; a visitfraught, as it turned out, with evil consequences, and one which henever afterwards ceased to look back upon with regret.

  The railroad, after leaving far behind the glorious hills of Semlyn,passes through country flatter and more uninteresting at every mile,until it finds itself fairly committed to the fens. Nothing but drearydykes, muddy and straight, guarded by the ghosts of suicidal pollards,and by rows of dreary and desolate mills, occur to break the blank greymonotony of the landscape. Walter was looking out of the window withcurious eyes, and he was wondering what life in such conditions could belike, when the train uttered a despairing scream, and reached a stationwhich the porter announced as Fuzby-le-Mud. Walter jumped down, and hishand was instantly seized by Kenrick with a warm and affectionate grasp.

  "So you're really here, Walter. I can hardly believe it. I half repenthaving brought you to such a place; but I was _so_ dull."

  "I shall enjoy it exceedingly, Ken, with you. Shall I give myportmanteau to some man to take up to the village?"

  "O, no; here's a--well, I may as well call it a _cart_ at once--to takeit up in. The curate lent it me, and he calls it a pony-carriage; butit is, you see, nothing more or less than a cart. I hope you won't beashamed to ride in it."

  "I should think not," said Walter gaily, mounting into
the curiouslittle oblong wooden vehicle.

  "It isn't very far," said Kenrick, "and I daresay you don't know any oneabout here; so it won't matter."

  "Pooh! Ken, as if I minded such nonsense." Indeed, Walter would nothave thought twice about the conveyance, if Kenrick had not harped uponit so much, and seemed so much ashamed of it, and mortified at beingobliged to use it. "Shall I drive?" asked Walter.

  "Drive? Why, the pony is stone blind, and as scraggy as a scarecrow, sothere's not much driving to be had out of him. Fancy if thearistocratic Power, or some other Saint Winifred's fellow saw us! Why,it would supply Henderson with jokes for six weeks," said Kenrick,getting up and touching the old pony with his whip. Both he and Walterwere wholly unconscious that their equipage _had_ been seen, andcontemptuously scrutinised by one of their schoolfellows. Unknown toWalter, Jones was in the train; and, after a long stare at thepony-chaise, had flung himself back in his seat to indulge in a longguffaw, and in anticipating the malicious amusement he should feel inretailing at Saint Winifred's the description of Kenrick's horse andcarriage. Petty malignity was a main feature of Jones's mind.

  "That is Fuzby," said Kenrick laconically, pointing to a stragglingvillage from which a few lights were beginning to glimmer; "and I wishit were buried twenty thousand fathoms under the sea."

  Ungracious as the speech may seem, it cannot be wondered at. A singlemuddy road runs through Fuzby. Except along this road--muddy and ruttyin winter, dusty and rutty in summer--no walk is to be had. The fieldsare all more or less impassable with ditches and bogs. Kenrick hadchristened it "The Dreary Swamp." Nothing in the shape of a view is tobe found anywhere, and barely a single flower will deign to grow. Theair is unhealthy with moisture, and the only element to be had there inperfection is earth.

  All this, Kenrick's father--who had been curate of the village--hadfancied would be at least endurable to any man upheld by a strong senseof duty. So when he had married, and had received the gift of a housein the village, he took thither his young and beautiful bride, intendingthere to live and work until something better could be obtained. He wasright. Over the mere disadvantages of situation he might easily havetriumphed, and he might have secured there, under differentcircumstances, a fair share of happiness, which lies in ourselves andnot in the localities in which we live. But in making his calculationhe had always assumed that it would be easy to get on with theinhabitants of Fuzby; and here lay his mistake.

  The Vicar of Fuzby, a non-resident pluralist, only appeared at rareintervals to receive the adoration which his flock never refused to anyone who was wealthy. His curate, having a very slender income, came infor no share at all of this respect. On the contrary, the wholepopulation assumed a right to patronise him, to interfere with him, toannoy and to thwart him. There was at Fuzby one squire--a rich farmer,coarse, ignorant, and brutal. This man, being the richest person in theparish, generally carried everything in his own way, and among otherattempts to imitate the absurdities of his superiors, had ordered thesexton never to cease ringing the church-bell, however late, until heand his family had taken their seats. A very few Sundays after MrKenrick's arrival the bell was still ringing eight minutes after thetime for morning service, and sending to desire the sexton to leave off,he received the message that--

  "Mr Hugginson hadn't come yet."

  "I will not have the congregation kept waiting for Mr Hugginson or anyone else," said the curate.

  "O zurr, the zervus haint begun afore Muster Hugginson has come in thisten year."

  "Then the sooner Mr Hugginson is made to understand that the hours ofservice are not to be altered at his convenience the better. Let thebell cease immediately."

  But the sexton, a dogged, bovine, bullet-headed labourer, took no noticewhatever of this injunction, and although Mr Kenrick went into thereading-desk, continued lustily to ring the bell until the wholeHugginson family, furious that their dignity should thus be insulted,sailed into church at the beginning of the psalms.

  Next morning Mr Kenrick turned the sexton out of his place, andreceived a most wrathful visit from Mr Hugginson, who, after pouring onhim a torrent of the most disgusting abuse, got scarlet in the forehead,shook his stick in Mr Kenrick's face, flung his poverty in his teeth,and left the cottage, vowing eternal vengeance.

  With him went all the Fuzby population. It would be long to tell thevarious little causes which led to Mr Kenrick's unpopularity amongthem. Every clergyman similarly circumstanced may conjecture these forhimself; they resolved themselves mainly into the fact that Mr Kenrickwas abler, wiser, purer, better, more Christian, than they. Histhoughts were not theirs, nor his ways their ways.

  "He had a daily beauty in his life That made them ugly."

  And so, to pass briefly and lightly, over an unpleasant subject, Fuzbywas brimming over with the concentrated meanness of petty malignantnatures, united in the one sole object of snubbing and worrying theunhappy curate. To live among them was like living in a cloud ofpoisonous flies. If Dante had known Fuzby-le-Mud, he could have foundfor a really generous and noble spirit no more detestable or unendurableinferno than this muddy English village.

  The chief characteristic of Fuzby was a pestilential spirit of gossip.There was no lying scandal, there was no malicious whisper, that did notthrive with rank luxuriance in that mean atmosphere, which, at the sametime, starved up every great and high-minded wish. There was nocircumstance so minute that calumny could not insert into it a venomousclaw. Mr Kenrick was one of the most exemplary, generous, andpure-minded of men; his only fault was quickness of temper. His noblecharacter, his conciliatory manners, his cultivated mind, his Christianforbearance, were all in vain. He was poor, and he could not be atoady: these were two unpardonable sins; and he, a true man, moved likean angel among a set of inferior beings. For a time he struggled on.He tried not to mind the lies they told of him. What was it to him, forinstance, if they took advantage of his hasty language to declare thathe was in the constant habit of swearing, when he knew that even fromboyhood no oath had ever crossed his lips? What was it to him thatthese uneducated boors, in their feeble ignorance, tried constantly toentrap him into something which they called unorthodox, and to twist hiswords into the semblance of fancied heresy? It was more painful to himthat they opposed and vilified every one whom he helped, and whoseinterests, in pity, he endeavoured to forward. But still he bore on, hestruggled on, till the _denouement_ came. It is not worth whileentering into the various schemes invented for his annoyance, but atlast an unfortunate, although purely accidental, discrepancy wasdetected in the accounts of one of the parish charities which MrKenrick officially managed. Mr Hugginson seized his long-looked-foropportunity: he went round the parish, and got a large number of hiscreatures among the congregation to affirm by their signatures that MrKenrick had behaved dishonestly. This memorial he sent to the bishop,and disseminated among all the clergy with malicious assiduity. At thenext clerical meeting Mr Kenrick found himself most coldly received.Compelled in self-defence to take legal proceedings against the squire,he found himself involved in heavy expenses. He won his cause, and hischaracter was cleared; but the jury, attending only to thetechnicalities of the case, and conceiving that there was enough _primafacie_ evidence to justify Mr Hugginson's proceedings, left each sideto pay their own costs. These costs swallowed up the whole of the poorcurate's private resources, and also involved him in debt. The agony,the suspense, the shame, the cruel sense of oppression and injustice,bore with a crushing weight on his weakened health. He could nottolerate that the merest breath of suspicion, however false, should passover his fair and honourable name. He pined away over the atrociouscalumny; it poisoned for him the very life-springs of happiness, anddestroyed his peace of mind for ever. This young man, in the flower ofyouth--a man who might have been a leader and teacher of men--a man ofgracious presence and high power--died of a broken heart. He died of abroken heart, and all Fuzby built his conspicuous tomb, and shedcrocodile tears over hi
s pious memory. Truly, as some one has said,very black stains lie here and there athwart the white conventionalitiesof common life!

  This had happened when our little Kenrick was eight years old; he neverforgot the spectacle of his poor father's heartbreaking misery duringthe last year of his life. He never forgot how, during that year,sorrow and anxiety had aged his father's face, and silvered his hair,young as he was, with premature white, and so quenched his spirits, thatoften he would take his little boy on his knee, and look upon him solong in silence, that the child cried at the intensity of that long,mournful, hopeless gaze, and at the tears which he saw slowly coursingeach other down his father's careworn and furrowed cheeks. Ever sincethen the boy had walked among the Fuzby people with open scorn anddefiance, as among those whose slanders had done to death the fatherwhom he so proudly loved. In spite of his mother's wishes, he would notstoop to pay them even the semblance of courtesy. No wonder that hehated Fuzby with a perfect hatred, and that his home there was amiserable home.

  Yet, if any one _could_ have made happy a home in such a place, it wouldhave been Mrs Kenrick. Never, I think, did a purer, a fairer, asweeter soul live on earth, or one more like the angels of heaven. Thewinning grace of her manners, the simple sweetness of her address, thepathetic beauty and sadness of her face, would have won for her, and_had_ won for her, in any other place but Fuzby, the love and admirationwhich were her due.

  "She had a mind that envy could not but call fair."

  But at Fuzby, from the dominant faction of Hugginson, and the smallvulgar-minded sets who always tried to brow-beat those who were poor,particularly if their birth and breeding were gentle, she found nothingbut insulting coldness, or still more insulting patronage. When firstshe heard the marriage-bells clang out from the old church tower of herhome, and had walked by the side of her young husband, a glad and lovelybride, she had looked forward to many happy years. With _him_, at anyrate, it seemed that no place could be very miserable. Poor lady! herlife had been one long martyrdom, all the more hard to bear because itwas made up for the most part of small annoyances, petty mortifications,little recurring incessant bitternesses. And now, during the sevenyears of her widowhood, she had gained a calmer and serener atmosphere,in which she was raised above the _possibility_ of humiliation from thedwarfed natures and malicious hearts in the midst of which she lived.They could hurt her feelings, they could embitter her days no longer.To the hopes and pleasures of earth she had bidden farewell. Stillyoung, still beautiful, she had reached the full maturity of Christianlife, meekly bearing the load of scorn, and disappointment, and poverty,looking only for that rest which remaineth to the people of God. In herlonely home, with no friend at Fuzby to whom she could turn for counselor for consolation, shut up with the sorrows of her own lonely heart,she often mused at the slight sources, the _little sins_ of others, fromwhich her misery had sprung; she marvelled at the mystery that manshould be to man "the sorest, surest ill." Truly, it _is_ a strangethought! O! it is pitiable that, as though death, and want, and sinwere not enough, we too must add to the sum of human miseries bydespising, by neglecting, by injuring others. We wound by our harshwords, we dishonour by our coarse judgments, we grieve by our untenderpride, the souls for whom Christ died; and we wound most deeply, andgrieve most irreparably, the noblest and the best.

  The one tie that bound her to earth was her orphan son--her hope, herpride; all her affections were centred in that beautiful boy. Now, if Iwere writing a romance, I should of course represent that yearningmother's affection as reciprocated with all the warmth and passion ofthe boy's heart. But it was not so. Harry Kenrick did indeed love hismother; he would have borne anything rather than see her suffer anygreat pain; but his manners were too often cold, his conduct wilful orthoughtless. He did not love her--perhaps no child can love hisparents--with all the _abandon_ and intensity wherewith she loved him.The fact is, a blight lay upon Kenrick whenever he was at home--theFuzby blight he called it. He hated the place so much, he hated thepeople in it so much, he felt the annoyances of their situation with sokeen and fretful a sensibility, that at Fuzby, even though with hismother, he was never happy. Even her society could not make up to himfor the detestation with which he not unnaturally regarded the villageand its inhabitants. At school he was bright, warm-hearted, and full oflife; at home he seemed to draw himself into a shell of reserve andcoldness; and it was a deep unspoken trial to that gentle mother's heartthat she could not make home happy to the boy whom she so fondly loved,and that even to her he seemed indifferent; for his manners--since hehad been to school and learned how very differently other boys werecircumstanced, and what untold pleasures centred for them in that word"home"--were to her always shy and silent, appeared sometimes almostharsh.

  I wish I could represent it otherwise; but things are not often trulyrepresented in books; and is not this a very common as well as a verytragic case? Not even in her son could Mrs Kenrick look for happiness;even his society brought with it trials almost as hard to bear as thosewhich his absence caused. Yet no mother could have brought up her childmore wisely, more tenderly, with more undivided and devoted care.Harry's _heart_ was true could she have looked into it; but at Fuzby acold, repellent manner fell on him like a mildew. And Mrs Kenrick weptin silence, as she thought--though it was not true--that even her ownson did not love her, or at least did not love her as she had hoped hewould. It was the last bitter drop in that overflowing cup which it hadpleased God that she should be called upon to drink.

  The boys drove up to the door of the little cottage. It stood in agarden, but as the garden was overlooked by Fuzbeians on all sides, itoffered few attractions, and was otherwise very small and plain. Theywere greeted by Mrs Kenrick's soft and pleasant voice.

  "Well, dear Harry, I am delighted that you have brought back yourfriend."

  Harry's mind was pre-occupied with the poverty-stricken aspect which hethought the house must present to his friend, and he did not answer her,but said to Walter--

  "Well, Walter, here is the hut we inhabit. We have only one girl, asservant. I'll carry up the box. I do pretty nearly everything butclean the shoes."

  Mrs Kenrick's eyes filled with sad tears at the bitter words; but shechecked them to greet Walter, who advanced and shook her by the hand socordially, and with a manner so respectfully affectionate, that he wonher heart at once.

  "Harry has not yet learned," she said playfully, "that poverty is not athing to be ashamed of; but I am sure, Walter--forgive my using the namewhich my boy has made so familiar to me--that you will not mind anylittle inconveniences during your short stay with us."

  "Oh, no, Mrs Kenrick," said Walter; "to be with you and him will be thegreatest possible enjoyment."

  "I wish you wouldn't flap our poverty in every one's face, mother," saidKenrick, almost angrily, when Walter had barely left the room.

  "O Harry, Harry," said Mrs Kenrick, speaking sadly, "you surely forget,dear boy, that it is your mother to whom you are speaking. And was it Iwho mentioned our poverty first? O Harry, when will you learn to becontented with the dispensations of God? Believe me, dearest, we mightmake our poverty as happy as any wealth, if we would but have eyes tosee the blessings it involves." The boy turned away impatiently, and ashe ran upstairs to rejoin his friend, the lady sat down with a deep sighto her work. It was long ere Kenrick learnt how much his conduct was toblame; but long after, when his mother was dead, he was remindedpainfully of this scene, when he accidentally found in her handwritingthis extract from one of her favourite authors--

  "It has been reserved for this age to perceive the blessedness ofanother kind of poverty; not voluntary nor proud, but accepted andsubmissive; not clear-sighted nor triumphant, but subdued and patient;partly patient in tenderness--of God's will; partly patient inblindness--of man's oppression; too laborious to be thoughtful, tooinnocent to be conscious; too much experienced in sorrow to be hopeful--waiting in its peaceful darkness for the unconceived dawn; yet notwithout its
sweet, complete, untainted happiness, like intermittentnotes of birds before the daybreak, or the first gleams of heaven'samber on the eastern grey. Such poverty as this it has been reservedfor this age of ours to honour while it afflicted; it is reserved forthe age to come to honour it and to spare."