Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 16

"If he does," said his uncle, with a look as if her consent would not be asked to what would follow.

CHAPTER VIII. -- THE FOLLY.

There will we sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks By summer rivers, by whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.--Marlowe.

"How does my little schoolfellow get on?" asked Mary Ogilvie, when she had sat down for her first meal with her brother in her summer holidays.

"Much as Ariel did in the split pine, I fancy."

"For shame, David! I'm afraid you are teaching her to see Sycorax and Caliban in her neighbours."

"Not I! How should I ever see her! Do you hear from her?"

"Sometimes; and I heard of her from the Actons, who had an immense regard for her husband, who, they say, was a very superior man."

"It is hardly necessary to be told so."

"They mean to take lodgings somewhere near here this next month, and see what they can do to cheer her in her present life, which must be the greatest possible contrast to her former one. Do you wish to set out on our expedition before August, Davie? I should like you to see them."

"By all means let us wait for them. Indeed I should not be at liberty till the last week in July."

"And how go the brains of Kenminster? You look enlivened since last time I saw you."

"It is the infusion the brains have received. That one woman has made more difference to the school than I could have done in ten years."

"You find her boys, at any rate, pupils worth teaching."

"More than that. Of course it is something to have a fellow capable of ideas before one; but besides that, lads who had gone on contentedly at their own level have had to bestir themselves not to be taken down by him. When he refused to have it forced upon him that study was not the thing at Kenminster, they found the only way to make him know his place was to keep theirs, and some of them have really found the use of their wits, and rejoice in them. Even in the lower form, the Colonel's second boy has developed an intellect. Then the way those boys bring their work prepared has raised the standard!"

"I heard something of that on my way."

"You did?"

"Yes; two ladies were in full career of talk when the train stopped at the Junction, and I heard--'I am always obliged to spend one hour every evening seeing that Arthur knows his lessons. So troublesome you know; but since that Mrs. Joseph Brownlow has come, she helps her boys so with their home-work that the others have not a chance if one does not look to it oneself.' Then it appeared that she told Mr. Ogilvie it wasn't fair, and that he would give her no redress."

"Absurd woman! It is not a matter of unfairness, as I told her. They don't get help in sums or exercises; they only have grammar to learn and construing to prepare, and all my concern is that it should be got up thoroughly. If their mothers help them, so much the better."

"The mothers don't seem to think so. However, she branched off into incredulity that Mrs. Joe Brownlow could ever really teach her children anything, for she was always tramping all over the country with them at all hours of the day and night. She has met her herself, with all those boys after her, three miles from home, in a great straw hat, when her husband hadn't been dead a year."

"I'm sure she is always in regulation veils, and all the rest of it, at Church, if that's what you ladies want."

"But the crown of the misdoings seemed to be that she had been met at some old castle, sacred to picnics, alone with her children--no party nor anything. I could not make out whether the offence consisted in making the ruin too cheap, or in caring for it for its own sake, and not as a lion for guests."

"The latter probably. She has the reputation of being very affected!!!"

"Poor dear! I heard that she was a great trial to dear Mrs. Brownlow,"

said Mary, in an imitative voice. "Why, do you know, she sometimes is up and out with her children before six o'clock in the morning; and then Colonel Brownlow went in one day at twelve o'clock, and found the whole family fast asleep on different sofas."

"The sensible way, too, to spend such days as these. To go out in the cool of the morning, and take a siesta, is the only rational plan!"

"I'm afraid one must conform to one's neighbours' ways."

"Trust a woman for being conventional."

"I confess I did not like the tone in which my poor Carey was spoken of. I am afraid she can hardly have taken care enough not to be thought flighty."

"Mary! you are as absurd as the rest of them!"

"Why? what have you seen of her?"

"Nothing, I tell you, except once meeting her in the street, and once calling on her to ask whether her boy should learn German." And David Ogilvie spoke with a vehemence that somewhat startled his sister.

It was a July evening, and though the walls of the schoolmaster's house were thick, it was sultry enough within to lead the brother and sister out immediately after dinner, looking first into the play-fields, where cricket was of course going on among the bigger boys, but where Mary looked in vain for her friend's sons.

"No, they are not much of cricketers," said her brother; "they are small for it yet, and only take their turn in watching-out by compulsion. I wish the senior had more play in him. Shall we walk on by the river?"

So they did, along a paved causeway which presently got clear of the cottages and gables of old factories, and led along, with the brightly gla.s.sy sheet of water on one side, and the steep wooded slope on the other, loose-strife and meadow-sweet growing thickly on the bank, amid long weeds with feathery tops, rich brown fingers of sedge, and bur-reeds like German morgensterns, while above the long wreaths of dog-roses projected, the sweet honeysuckle twined about, and the white blossoms of traveller's joy hung in festoons from the hedge of the bordering plantation. After a time they came on a kind of glade, opening upwards though the wood, with one large oak-tree standing alone in the centre, and behold! on the gra.s.s below sat or lay a company--Mrs. Joseph Brownlow in the midst, under the obnoxious mushroom-hat, reading aloud.

Radiating from her were five boys, the biggest of all on his back, with his hat over his eyes, fast asleep; another cross-legged, with a basket between his knees, dividing his attention between it and the book; two more lying frog-like, with elbows on the ground, feet erected behind them, chin in hand, devouring the narrative with their eyes; the fifth wriggling restlessly about, evidently in search of opportunities of mischief or of tormenting tricks. Just within earshot, but sketching the picturesque wooden bridge below, sat one girl. The little one, with her youngest brother, was close at their mother's feet, threading flowers to make a garland. It was a pretty sight, and so intent were most of the party on their occupations that they never saw the pair on the bank till Joe, the idler, started and rolled round with "Hollo!" when all turned, it may be feared with muttered growls from some of the boys; but Carey herself gave a cry of joy, ran down the bank like a girl, and greeted Mary Ogilvie with an eager embrace.

"You are holding a Court here," said the school-master.

"We have had tea out here. It is too hot for indoors, and I am reading them the 'Water Babies.'"

"To a large audience, I see."

"Yes, and some of which are not quite sure whether it is fact or fiction. Come and sit down."

"The boys will hate us for breaking up their reading," said Mary.

"Why should not we listen!" said her brother.

"Don't disturb yourselves, boys; we've met before to-day."

Bobus and Jock were, however, on their feet, and Johnny had half risen; Robin lay still snoring, and Joe had retreated into the wood from the alarming spectacle of "the schoolmaster abroad."

After a greeting to the two girls, who comported themselves, according to their ages, as young ladies might be expected to do, the Ogilvies found accommodation on the roots of the tree, and listened. The "Water Babies" were then new, and Mr. Ogilvie had never heard them. Luckily the reading had just come to the history of the "Do as You Likes," and the interview between the last of the race and M. Du Chaillu diverted him beyond measure. He laughed so much over the poor fellow's abortive attempt to say "Am I not a man and a brother?" that his three scholars burst out into a second edition of shouts of laughter at the sight of him, and thus succeeded in waking Robin, who, after a great contortion, sat up on the gra.s.s, and, rubbing his eyes, demanded in an injured tone what was the row?

"'The Last of the Do as You Likes,'" said Armine.

"Oh I say--isn't it jolly," cried Jock, beating his breast gorilla-fas.h.i.+on and uttering a wild murmur of "Am I not a man and a brother?" then tumbling head over heels, half in ecstasy, half in imitation of the fate of the Do as You Like, setting everybody off into fits again.