Part 6

“Yoi, yo’r honours,” answered Simon, making a sort of bow.

“Who can bear witness to that?”

“Aw con”—“An’ aw con,” responded Simon and Matt Cooper in a breath. “It wur uz as got him eawt o’ th’ wayter.”

“Anyone else?”

Bessy stepped forward modestly.

“He wur put i’ moi arms on Tanners’ Bridge, an’ aw’ve browt him oop iver sin’.”

“Have you never sought for his parents?”

“Ay, mony a time. Matt an’ me have spent mony a day i’ seekin’ ’em,” said Simon promptly, “an’ we could fand no moore than that papper tells”—referring to a sheet in the questioning feoffee’s hand.

“Then how do you date the boy’s age with such precision?”

The nurse now sidled confidently to the front.

“If it please your honour’s worship, aw wur called to stiff-backed Nan’s dowter in the last pinch, when hoo wur loike to die, an’ that little chap wur born afore aw left, an’ that wur o’ th’ fifth o’ May, seventeen hunderd an’ noinety-noine. Aw know it, fur aw broke mi arm th’ varry next day.”

“And the mother died.”

“Yea!—afore the week wur eawt.”

“And you think she was lawfully married? Where was her husband?”

“Ay! that’s it! Hoo had a guinea-goold weddin-ring on; an’ owd Nan said it wur a sad thing th’ lass had ever got wedded, an’ moore o’ the same soort. An’ aw geet eawt o’ her that they’n bin wedded at Crumpsail, an’ a’ th’ neebors knew as th’ husbant had had a letter to fatch him to Liverpool, an’ had niver come back. Onybody i’ Smedley knows that!”

“And you think they were honest, industrious people?”

“Ay, that they were, but rayther stiff i’ th’ joints, yo’ know—seemed to think theirsel’s too good to talk to folk like; or mebbe we’d ha’ known th’ lad’s neäme an’ o’ belongin’ to him. They owed nobbody nowt, an’ aw wur paid fur moi job.”

Jabez was called forward and examined, and he came pretty well out of the fire. They found that he could read a little, knew part of his catechism, and they saw that he was a well-behaved, intelligent boy, with truthful dark grey eyes and a reflective brow.

There was a long and animated discussion, during which the boy and his friends were bidden to retire. It was contended that the marriage of the boy’s parents was not proven—that his very name was dubious,—and that the founder’s will was specific on that head.

Then one of Mrs. Clough’s friends rose and grew eloquent. He asked if they were to interpret the will of the great and benevolent man, whose portrait looked down upon them, by the spirit or by the letter? If they themselves did not _feel_ that the boy was eligible, as the nurse’s testimony went to prove? That this was a case peculiarly marked out for their charitable construction. And he wound up by inquiring if they thought Humphrey Chetham would expect his representatives to be less humane, less charitable, less conscientious in dealing with a bounty not their own, than that poor struggling, hardworking tanner and his daughter, who had maintained and cherished the orphan in spite of cruelly hard times, and still more cruel slander. And then he told, as an episode, what Sally Cooper had confessed, and how and why Bess had lost her lover.

This turned the quivering scale. “Jabez Clegg and his friends” were called in; the verdict which changed the current of his life, was pronounced—Jabez Clegg was a Blue-coat boy!

Before the night was out, while the flood-gates of all their hearts were open, Matthew Cooper, though nearly twenty years her senior, asked Bess to be his wife!

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

THE SNAKE.

However ambitious either Jabez or his kind fosterers had been to see him a Blue-coat boy, the parting between them was a terrible wrench. They were to him all the friends or parents he had ever known.

Then there were his playmates in the yard, with liberty to run in and out at will; and lastly, there were his dumb pets—his kitten (grown to a cat), his pigeons, and the lame linnet, hopping from perch to finger, and paying him for his love with the sweetest of songs.

He was not more stunned by the noise and Easter Monday bustle in the College Yard, or more awed by the imposing presence of Governor Terry and the feoffees, than by the magnitude, order, and antique grandeur of the building henceforth to be his home. Nevertheless, wide open as the gates were for the day, he felt that they would close, and shut him in among the cold strong walls and strangers, never to see his pets or his loving friends again until Whitsuntide should bring another holiday.

They older, more experienced, with a better knowledge of all the boy would gain—all the privation and premature labour he would escape—felt only how dull their humble home would be without the willing feet and hands, the smiling face, and the cheerful voice of the sturdy little fellow who for more than seven years had been as their own child.

He had given his last charge respecting his furry and feathered brood, exchanged the last clinging embrace under the dark arch, then tore away in quest of a deserted corner, where he might hide the tears he could not wholly restrain.

At first the new dress of which he was so proud, the blue stockings and clasped shoes in place of clogs, the yellow baize petticoat, the long-skirted blue overcoat or gown, the blue muffin-cap, the white clerical band at the throat (all neat, and fresh, and unpatched as they were), felt awkward and uncomfortable—the long petticoat especially incommoded him. But in a few days this wore off. There were other lads equally strange and unaccustomed to robes and rules. Fellow-feeling drew them towards each other, and with the wonderful adaptability of childhood, they fell into the regular grooves, and were as much at home as the eldest there in less than a fortnight. And from the Chetham Gallery in the Old Church he could see and be seen by Simon and Bess on Sabbath mornings from the free seats in the aisle, and that contented them.

The training and education of the Chetham College boys was, and is, conducted on principles best adapted for boys expected to fight their own way upwards in the world. They were not cumbered with a number of “ologies” and “isms” (the highest education did not stand on a par then with the moderate ones of this day); their range of books and studies was limited. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, sound and practical information, alone were imparted, so much as was needed to fit the dullest for an ordinary tradesman, and supply the persevering and intelligent with a fulcrum and a lever. Nor did their education end with their lessons in the school-room, nor was it drawn from books and slates alone.

Their meals were regular, their diet pure and ample, but plain. They rose at six, began the day with prayer, and retired to rest at eight. Besides their duties in the school-room, they darned their own stockings, made their own beds, helped the servants to keep their rooms clean, and six of the elder boys were set apart to run errands and carry messages beyond the precincts of the College.

Strength of muscle and limb were gained in the open courtyard in such games as trap and football; patience and ingenuity had scope in the bead purses, the carved apple-scoops and marrow-spoons, the worsted balls and pincushions they made to fill their leisure hours indoors. There was no idleness. Their very play had its purpose.

Let us set Jabez Clegg under the kind guardianship of Christopher Terry, the governor, and under the direct supervision of the Reverend John Gresswell, the schoolmaster, to con his Mavor, and make pothooks-and-ladles, on a form in the large school-room at the west end of the College; and to rise, step by step, up the first difficult rungs of that long ladder of learning which may indeed rest on our common earth, but which reaches far above the clouds and human ken.

Christmas and Midsummer vacations came and went, so did those red-letter days of his College life, Easter and Whitsuntide, when he was free to rush to the old yard, so near at hand, and after hugging Bess and Simon, whom he astonished with his learning, could assure himself his dumb family had been well cared for.

And if those passing seasons traced deeper lines on Simon’s brow, gave more womanly solidity to Bess’s form and character, they brought no change the foundling could mark. Tom Hulme’s whereabouts was still undiscovered. Matt Cooper was still a widower. But they and his masters could note the steady progress _he_ made, and his chivalrous love of truth and sense of honour shown in many ways in little things. Yet there was one event a grief to him. His little brown linnet pined for its young friend, and died before the first Whitsunday came.

He was not much over ten years old when he was proved to possess courage, as well as truth and honour.

For some time Nancy, the cook, had observed that the cream was skimmed surreptitiously from the milk-pans in the dairy, that the milk itself was regularly abstracted, and she was loud in complaint. She could scarcely find cream enough to set on the governor’s table, and servants and schoolboys were in turn accused of being the depredators.

Complaints were made to Mr. Terry; servants and boys were alike interrogated and watched, and punished on suspicion; but nothing could be proved, and no precautions could save the milk. The lofty and spacious kitchen had its entrance almost under the porch, and close beside it was a flight of stone steps leading to the dairy, a cellar below the kitchen, lit by a small window high up on the side towards the river, and of course opposite to the steps.

Stone tables occupied the two other sides, on which were ranged a number of wide shallow pans of good milk. In the extreme corner at right angles with the door at the head of the stairs was another entrance, a small open door in a Gothic frame, which opened on another and shorter flight of steps, cut in the rock and washed by the river, which sometimes rose and beat against the cellar-door for admission, beat so oft and importunately as to wear away the oak where it met the floor.

It was nearly breakfast time. Long rows of wooden bowls and trenchers were ranged on the white kitchen-table. The oatmeal porridge was ready to pour out. The cook ran short of milk. Through a window overlooking the yard she espied Jabez, whip in hand, driving a biped team of play-horses.

“Jabez, Jabez Clegg!” she called out at the pitch of her voice, “come hither.”

Down went the reins, and the prancing steeds proceeded without a driver.

“Fetch a can of milk from the cellar, Jabez; an’ look sharp. an’ see as yo’ dunna drink none!”

“I never do,” said Jabez, not overpleased at the imputation.

“Well, see as yo’ don’t, for some on yo’ do.”

Jabez took the bright tin can, without putting down the whip, and descended the unguarded cellar-stairs, whistling as he went. He gave a jump down the last few steps, and to his utter surprise, I cannot say dismay, saw that he had disturbed a great greenish-brown snake spotted with black, and having a yellowish ring round its neck. It lay coiled on the stone table opposite to him, and with its head elevated above the rim of a milk-pan was taking its morning draught, and in so doing reckoning without its host.

“Oh, you’re the thief, are you, Mr. Snake? It’s you’ve robbed us of our milk, and got us boys thrashed for it!” cried Jabez, without a thought of danger, planting himself between the culprit and the small postern door, as the snake, gliding from the slab, turned thither for exit, putting out its forked tongue and hissing at him as it came.

Without thought or consideration—without a cry of alarm to those above, he struck at the threatening foe with his whip; and as the resentful snake darted at him, jumped nimbly aside, and struck and struck again; and as the angry snake writhed and twisted, and again and again darted its frightful head at him with distended jaws, he whipped and whipped away as though a top and not a formidable reptile had been before him.

Cook, out of patience, called “Jabez Clegg!” more than once, in anything but satisfactory tones; and then, patience exhausted, came to the top of the dairy-stairs. Then she heard Jabez, as if addressing some one, say: “Oh, you would, would you?” and the commotion having drawn her so far down the steps that she could peer into the cellar and see what was going on, she set up a prolonged scream. This was just as Jabez, shifting the position of his whip, brought the butt-end down on the head of the snake with all the force of his stout young arm, and his exhausted foe dropped, literally whipped to death.

The woman’s screams brought not only the governor and the school-master, but Dr. Stone, the librarian, to the spot. And there stood Jabez, all his prowess gone, with his back towards them, his head down on his arms, which rested on the stone slab, sobbing violently for the very life he had just destroyed.

“Oh, he’s bin bitten—he’s been bitten! The vemonous thing’s bitten the lad! He’ll die after it!” cried the cook in an ecstacy of terror.

“Stand aside, Nancy,” said Dr. Stone; “that snake is not venomous. If I mistake not, the brave boy’s heart is wounded, not his skin.”

And, coming down, the kind, discerning librarian lifted the snake with the one hand, and took hold of Jabez with the other, simply saying to him—

“Come into the governor’s room, Jabez, and tell us all about it.”

And Jabez, drying his red eyes on the cuff of his coat, was ushered before the Doctor up the stairs, and into the governor’s room, where breakfast was laid for the three gentlemen. There he briefly told how he had found the snake drinking the milk; and having intercepted the reptile’s retreat, had been obliged, in self-defence, to fight with it until he had whipped it to death—a consummation as unlooked for as regreted.

He had not, as at first surmised, escaped unwounded in the contest; but, as Dr. Stone had said, and the surgeon who dressed the bites confirmed, the terrible-looking reptile was but the common ringed-snake, which takes freely to the water; and its bite was harmless. From the dais in the refectory both snake and whip were exhibited to the boys after breakfast.

“My lads,” said the governor, “I daresay you will all be glad to know that the thief who stole the milk has been taken.”

There was a general shout of assent, with here and there a wondering glance at the vacant seat of Jabez, who, having his wounds washed and bound up, had not sat down with them, but had a sort of complimentary breakfast with the servants in the kitchen.

“And I daresay you would like to see the thief, and know how he was caught.”

There was another general “Ay, ay, sir!”

“Well, here he is,” (and he held the snake aloft); “but I don’t think any of you will be thrashed on his account again. Jabez Clegg, here” (and he pulled the reluctant boy forward by the shoulder), “caught the sly robber drinking the milk, and, with nothing but this whip and a fearless resolute arm, put a stop to his depredations, and restored the lost character of the school.”

There was a loud hurrah for Jabez Clegg, who, for the time being was a hero. Then, the snake being carried to the school-room, the Rev. John Gresswell improved the occasion by a lesson on snakes in general, and that one in particular. But when he dissipated the popular belief that all snakes were venomous, and assured the boys that the bite of this was innocuous, more than one of the Blue-coated lads thought Jabez was not such a hero after all.

The heads of the College thought otherwise. The snake, and whip also, were placed high up against a wall in the College museum, close beside the “woman’s clog which was split by a thunderbolt, and hoo wasn’t hurt.” They made part of the catalogue of the Blue-coat guides—nay, even Jabez may have run the rapid chronicle from the reel himself; but the pain and shock of having wilfully killed a living creature neutralised and prevented the harm which might have followed self-glorification.

The long unknown secret spoiler of the dairy had been such a blemish on the spotless character of the Chetham Hospital—such a scandal in its little world—that its capture became of sufficient importance for Dr. Thomas Stone to communicate to the Reverend Joshua Brookes on his next visit to the library, Jabez being considered a sort of _protege_ of his.

Before the day was out the parson found his cough troublesome, and of course went to Mrs. Clowes for horehound-drops.

“Well, what do you think of young Cheat-the-fishes now?” came raspily from his lips, as he leaned on the counter, evidently prepared for a gossip, shop-chairs being unheard-of superfluities in those days.

Mrs. Clowes knew perfectly well whom the parson meant by “young Cheat-the-fishes”; indeed, the boy, on his rare holidays, had been a customer, as were the boys of College and Grammar School generally.

“Now! Why, what’s th’ lad been doing? Naught wrong, I reckon?”

You see she had faith in the boy’s open countenance.

“Humph! that’s as folk think,” he growled, keeping his own opinion to himself. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you the hubbub there’s been over there” (jerking his finger in the direction of the College) “about the stolen milk? That tale’s old enough.”

Mrs. Clowes nodded her mob-cap in assent.

“Well, that lad Jabez found a snake, four feet long, with its head in the milk pans the other morning. The sly thief turned spiteful, and the two had a battle-royal all to themselves in the cellar. The pugnacious rapscallion had a whip in his hand, and he—lashed the snake to death!”

Mrs. Clowes echoed his last words, and uplifted her hands in amazement. A snake was a terrible reptile to her.

“Ah! and then blubbered like a cry-a-babby because he had killed it! What do you think of that, Dame Clowes?”

“Eh! I think he was a brave little chap to face a sarpent, but I think a fine sight more of his blubbering, as you call it,” said she, taking a tin canister from a shelf, and putting it on the counter with an emphatic bounce.

“Ah! I thought I could match the young fool with an old one,” said he derisively, to hide his own satisfaction, as he took his short legs to the door.

But Mrs. Clowes called him back, put a large paper parcel in his hand, and said,

“Here, Jotty, see you give these sweetmeats to your cry-a-babby, and tell him an old woman says there’s no harm in fighting in self-defence with any kind of a snake, or for his own good name, or to protect the helpless; but, if he fights just to show off his own bravery, he’s a coward. And you tell him from me never to be ashamed of tears he has shed in repentance for injury he may have done to any living thing. Now see you tell him, parson; and maybe my preachment may be worth more to him than my cakes and toffy, or your sermons.” And she nodded her head till her cap-border flapped like a bird’s wings.

“Ugh! dame, you’ll be for wagging that tongue and mutch of yours in my pulpit next,” said he, gruffly.

But he delivered the parcel and the “preachment” both faithfully, and, moreover, turned over his stores of old school books for a Latin grammar, which he put into the hand of Jabez, with a promise to instruct the boy in the language, if he would like to learn.

Forthwith Jabez, not caring to seem ungracious, though without any special liking for the task, had to encroach upon his playhours for a new study, under-rated by the pupil, over-rated by the teacher.

Could Joshua Brookes have put mathematical instruments within his reach, or given him pencils and colours, the boy’s eyes would have sparkled, and study been a pleasure.

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

FIRST ANTAGONISM.

The extensive oblong enclosure known as Ardwick Green, situated at the south-eastern extremity of the town, on the left-hand side of the highway to Stockport and London, was in 1809 part of a suburban village, and from Piccadilly to a blacksmith’s forge a little beyond Ardwick Bridge, fields and hedges were interspersed with the newly-erected houses along Bank Top.

The Green, studded here and there with tall poplars and other trees, was fenced round with quite an army of stumpy wooden posts some six feet apart, connected by squared iron rods, a barrier against cattle only. A long, slightly serpentine lake spread its shining waters from end to end within the soft circlet of green; and this grassy belt served as a promenade for the fashionable inhabitants. And there must have been such in that village of Ardwick early in the century, as now, for the one bell in the tiny turret of St. Thomas’s small plain red-brick chapel, rang a fashionable congregation into its neat pews, to listen to the well-toned organ and the devoutly-toned voice of the perpetual curate, the Reverend R. Tweddle, if we may credit an historian of the time.

Red-brick church, red-brick houses, hard and cold outside, solid and roomy and comfortable within as Georgian architecture ever was, overlooked green and pond, but, luckily, overlooked them from a reasonable distance, and, moreover, did not elbow each other too closely, but were individually set in masses of foliage, which toned down the staring brickwork, Time and smoke have done so more effectually since.

One of the best, and best-looking, of these houses, near the church, was the one in which the delicate Mrs. Aspinall had presided for a few brief years. An iron palisade, enclosing a few shrubs and evergreens, separated it from the wide roadway, but behind the screen of brick ran a formal but extensive garden and orchard, well-kept and well stocked, with a fish-pond as formal in the midst.

Fish-ponds encourage damp, and damp encourages frogs, efts, and their kin. Here they abounded, and Master Laurence had a sort of instinctive belief that they were created solely for his sport and amusement. Mr. Aspinall, his father, immersed in business during the day, and occupied with friends at home or abroad until late hours at night, saw very little of his son, who was thus consigned to servants during those hours not spent, or supposed to be spent, at a preparatory school close at hand.

The boy was quick and intelligent, had his mother’s amber curls and azure eyes, her delicate skin and brilliant colour, but the handsome face had more of the father therein, and was too unformed to brook description here.

What he might have been with other training is not to be told, but under the supposition that he inherited his mother’s fragile constitution, he had been woefully spoiled and pampered. Opposition to his will was forbidden.

“Bear with him, Kitty, for my sake, and do not thwart him, or you will break his fine spirit,” had been Mrs. Aspinall’s dying charge to her old nurse; and as every demonstration of temper was ascribed by both parents to this same “fine spirit,” what wonder that he grew up masterful—and worse?

His imperious disposition early ingratiated him into the favour of Bob, his father’s groom; and this man, thinking no evil, ignorantly sowed the seeds of cruelty in his young heart.

When the horses were singed, the boy was allowed to be a spectator; if a whelp had his ears cropped, or the end of its tail bitten off, he was treated to a sight. If a brood of kittens or a litter of puppies had to be drowned, Master Laurence was sure to be in at the death. He was taken to surreptitious cock-fights and rat-hunts; and though, when too late, Mr. Aspinall turned the man away for inclining his son to “low pursuits,” nothing was said or done to counteract these lessons of cruelty! No wonder, then, that to him the sight of pain inflicted brought pleasure, or that inhumanity went hand-in-hand with self-will.

One incident—a real one—will suffice to show what Laurence Aspinall was, when Jabez Clegg shed tears over the snake he had killed perforce.