Part 19 (2/2)
Never mind, my dear; 'tisn' too late to begin. There's none of this crew knows how to swim but me and Tenny here,” she pointed out a boy of eleven or twelve. ”We'll just row out to harbour's mouth; there's a cove where we can put the littlest ones to paddle. And after that I'll larn 'ee how to strike out and use your legs, if you've a mind to. It'll do 'ee good to kick a bit, I'll wage, after a dose of Mister Sam. Well, and how did you like 'en?”
”I didn't like him at all.” Hester almost broke down. ”Please, Nuncey, be good to me! It--it seems as everyone was banded against me to-day, to think badly of me.”
”Be good to 'ee? Why, to be sure I will! Sit 'ee down and unlace your boots, while me and Tenny pulls. Care killed the cat--'cos why?
He wouldn't wash it off in salt water.”
They rowed down past the quays and out beyond the ancient fort at the harbour's mouth. On the opposite sh.o.r.e a reef of rock ran out, and on the ridge stood a white wooden cross, ”put up,” so Nuncey informed her, ”because Pontius Pilate landed here one time.” Beyond this ridge they found a s.h.i.+ngly beach secluded from the town, warmed by the full rays of the westering sun. There they undressed, one and all, and for half an hour were completely happy. To be sure, Hester's happiness contained a fair admixture of fright when Nuncey took her hand and led her out till the water rose more than waist-high about her.
”Now trust to me; lean forward, and see if you can't lift your feet off the ground,” said Nuncey, slipping a hand under her breast. Hester tried her hardest to be brave, and although no swimming was accomplished that day, the trial ended in peals of laughter. She splashed ash.o.r.e at length, gleeful, refreshed in body and mind, and resolved to make herself as good a swimmer as Nuncey, who swam like a duck.
CHAPTER XII.
THE OPENING DAY.
It often happens, when a number of persons meet together for some purpose in itself unselfish, that there prevails in the a.s.sembly a spirit of its own, recognisably good, surprising even the pettiest with a sudden glow in their hearts, and a sudden revelation that the world is a cheerfuller place than in their daily lives they take it for. This cheerful congregational spirit I take to flow from a far deeper source than the emotion, for example, which a great preacher commands in his audience.
It may be--indeed, usually is--accompanied by very poor oratory.
The occasion may be trivial as you please; that it be unselfish will suffice to unlock the goodness within men, who, if often worse than they believe, and usually than they make believe, are always better than they know.
This spirit prevailed at the school opening, and because of it Hester felt happy and confident during the little function, and ever afterwards remembered it with pleasure. For the moment Church and Dissent seemed to forget their meannesses and jealousies. The morning sun shone without; the breeze played through the open windows with a thousand hedgerow scents; the two score of children ranged by their desks, fresh-faced and in their cleanest clothes, suggested thoughts innocent and deep as the gospel story; and if Parson Endicott was long-winded, and Mr. Sam spoke tunelessly and accompanied his performance on the bones, so to speak--that is, by pulling at his knuckles till the joints cracked--consolation soon followed. For third and last came the turn of the Inspector, who had halted on his progress through the county to attend a ceremony of the kind in which he took delight. He had lately been transferred from the Charity Commission to this new work, and it fell to him at a time when the selfish ambitions die down, and in their place, if a man's heart be sound, there springs up a fatherly tenderness for the young, with a pa.s.sionate desire to help them. Hester could not guess that this grave and courteous gentleman, grey-haired, clean shaven, scholarly in his accent, neat even to primness in his dress, spoke with a vision before him of an England to be made happy by making its children happy, that the roots of the few simple thoughts he uttered were watered by ideal springs--
”I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.”
Simple as the thoughts were, and directly spoken, the children gazed at him with set faces, not appearing to kindle with any understanding; and yet, after the manner of children, they were secreting a seed here and there, to germinate in their dark little minds later on, as in due time Hester discovered. She herself, seated at the harmonium, felt a lift of the heart and mist gathering over her sight at the close of his quiet peroration, and a tear fell as she stretched out her hands over the opening chords of the 'Old Hundredth.' All sang it with a will, and Parson Endicott with an unction he usually reserved for 'The Church's One Foundation.'
With a brief prayer and the benediction the ceremony ended, and while the elders filed out the Inspector walked over for a few words with Hester.
”Ever since I learnt your name, Miss Marvin--excuse me, it is not a common one--I have been wanting to ask you a question. I used to have an old friend--Jeremy Marvin--who lived at Warwick, and found for me some scores of old books in his time. I was wondering--”
”He was my father, sir.”
”Indeed? Then, please, you must let me shake hands with his daughter.
Yes, yes,”--with a glance down at her black skirt--”I heard of his death, and with a real sense of bereavement.”
”I have addressed and posted many a parcel to you, sir, in the days before I left home to earn my living.”
”And you weren't going to tell me that? You left me to find out--yes, yes; 'formidable Inspector,' and that sort of thing, eh? I'm not an ogre, though. Now this little discovery has just put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to a delightful morning!”
Hester, encouraged by his smile, laughed merrily, and so did he; less at the spoken words than because of the good gladness br.i.m.m.i.n.g their hearts.
”But tell me,” he went on, becoming serious again, ”if a child, out of shyness, hid from you a small secret of that sort, you would be sorry--eh?
And you would rightly be sorry, because by missing that little of his entire trust you had by so much fallen short of being a perfect teacher.”
”And two of these children,” thought Hester, with a glance at Clem and Myra, ”solemnly believe I am a witch!”
As the Inspector went down the hill towards the ferry, he overtook another and older acquaintance in an old college friend. This was Sir George Dinham of Troy, who had attended the ceremony uninvited, and greatly to the awe of everyone a.s.sembled--the Inspector and Hester alone excepted.
Indeed, his presence had bidden fair at the start to upset the proceedings; for Parson Endicott and Mr. Sam had both approached him hat in hand, and begged him, not without servility, to preside. This proposal he had declined with his habitual shy, melancholy smile, and shrunk away to a back row of the audience. In his great house over Troy he lived a recluse: a scholar, a childless man, the last of his race, rarely seen by the townsfolk, of whom two-thirds at least were his tenants. He had heard of the Inspector's coming, and some ray of remembered affection had enticed him forth from his sh.e.l.l, to listen. Now, at the sound of the Inspector's footstep on the road behind him, he turned and waited, leaning on his stick. The two men had not met since a Commemoration Ball when young Dinham led his friend proudly up to a beautiful girl, his bride that was to be. She died a bare six weeks later; and from that day her lover had buried himself with his woe.
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