The Curate's Discipline

Chapter I. It

was four o'clock on a cold snowy afternoon in January, when the great bell of the Mid dlesex College School sounded, as a signal to the boys that studies were over for the day ; and books were quickly packed up in satchels or placed not too carefully in the lockers, caps and great-coats donned, and after a race with rapid feet through the passages and corridors, and a shouting with many voices, above three hundred boys emerged into the large playground of the school, from which the i gates opened that gave them egress into the outer world. Gave them egress generally, that is ; but to day the chief porter, whose office it was to lock and unlock these gates, and keep all in due order, both inside and out about them, was un able to perform his duties, through being laid VOL. I. B up with a fit of rheumatism ; and the temporary substitute he had employed was so inadequate to the task, that, after unlocking the gates, he had gone into the building to warm his hands and toast his feet, leaving the boys to find their way out without any supervision on his part.

Not but what they could have done very well without it, as far as they themselves were concerned, being most of them hungry and eager to get home, and there was no great temptation to loiter about the play-ground at the close of a dull winter day ; but still Jones should have been there, to disperse the crowd of butchers' and grocers' boys, and roughs of a lower class, who, having observed the absence of the school porter, had gathered round the gates for the purpose of amusing themselves at the expense of the school-boys. As these latter came towards the portals, a shower of snow-balls greeted them, and when thej7, no whit daunted by the missiles, attempted to make their exit even at the risk of en countering more, they found the gates held fast by some of the troop outside, while others pelted them afresh.

They had no choice but to stand there and endure the storm, and make what return they best could to it, or retreat further back into the playground, and wait till their opponents were tired of the siege. Some of the more quietly disposed were ready to do this, but others still endeavoured to force the gate open, though almost blinded by the snow balls that came thick and fast upon them. " I'm not going to give in to a lot of cads !" said one of these, a tall, slight youth of fif teen to a round-faced, pleasant-looking little fellow, with fair, wavy hair, about three years his junior. " Rolles, I'll try it at the gate ; and do you get a lot of snowballs ready. If they won't let us out, I shan't stand here and be peppered for nothing. We'll give them back as good as they send." ' All right," replied Rolles, doing precisely as his elder brother told him, which generally was the case when, as in the present instance, such directions perfectly agreed with Master Roley's B own inclinations.

" Tug away at the gate, Cliffe, and I'll soon have a lot ready." Master Roland Marchdale set to work with his small red chubby hands, and soon had a pile of ammunition prepared; and his brother, finding his efforts fruitless in opening the gate, drew back, and turned away with his compan ions who had been assisting his endeavours. There was a shout of triumph from those out side, but Master Clifford appeared to consider it beneath his notice, for he scarcely seemed to hear it. But he looked at the pile Roley had got together, and said, " Pretty well, young one. I hope you've made them stingers." "Hard as stones," replied Roley. Clifford stood in front of his ammunition, and surveyed the crowd outside. "That's the ring-leader — that cabman, chaffing and jeering away. Pity you should open your mouth so wide for nothing, old fellow," and taking up a ball he kneaded it with his hands behind his back to give it additional hardness, and then it came with unerring force and aim right in to cabby's mouth, bruising it severely, and caus ing the blood to flow.

Another followed, as well directed, at a butcher's eye — it was black and blue for a week after — and the remainder of Roley's store was quickly distributed by Clif ford and his friends amongst the crowd, who, not expecting anything of the kind would be so scientifically followed up, shrank back from the gate for a second, and while some applied their hands, or, if they had them, handkerchiefs to their wounds — for Roley's snow-balls were no joke — others began preparing missiles with which to retaliate. " All right," cried Clifford ; " now's our time. Let's make a run for it. Keep close to me, Roley," and the two boys, followed by a few others who had courage enough for the purpose, dashed through the crowd. But their progress was stopped by some of the rougher members of it — amongst others, by the butcher's boy, who had received one black eye already at Clifford's hands.

He was a stout, thick-set fellow, at least a year older than the slender lad he attempted to stop, pulling him back by his great-coat, and crying out — " Not so fast, young fellow. You owe me something for making my eye swell so as I can't see out of it." " Let's have no more nonsense — I want my dinner," cried Cliffe, shaking him off. " And why should you have it any more than the rest V asked the butcher's boy. " How fine we are with our late dinners, and our Latin and Greek, and our little white hands !" " Try what white hands can do," retorted Cliffe, aiming a blow at the butcher's other eye, that made it quite equal in appearance to the one first marked. " We learn something in our place besides Greek and Latin, you see." The butcher staggered back, and the school boys rushed on. They might not have got so easily clear of their opponents, but for the appear ance of a policeman, who soon dispersed the crowd, and enabled those still in the playground to make their escape.

Clifford and Roland tore on through the lighted streets, never pausing even to take breath till they reached the Great Northern Terminus, where Cliffe, glancing up at the clock over the entrance, said, " It's no go, Rolles. We're past time, and the train's gone without us. We shall have to trudge it through the snow, after all, and be late for dinner into the bargain." " We'll take a good rest, any w7ay," replied Roland, philosophically making the best of the mischance, and flinging himself down on the nearest seat, while Clifford took a place by him, and amused himself by watching the different passengers as they came into the entrance-hall. Presently he whispered to his brother — " If there isn't old Thornleigh, and got a girl with him ! She's not so bad-looking, either," he added, critically, " if she didn't seem quite so down about something.

I wonder where the old fellow picked her up, and what he's going to do with her ? She has a tidy lot of luggage. Go ing to his place on a visit, I suppose. Fancy old Thornleigh beauing a girl about !" The gentleman in question gave the luggage in charge to the station-porter ; then, taking his companion, a tall, slight girl of perhaps eighteen, dressed in mourning, which, though new, bore the evident imprint of a country dress-maker upon it, to the ladies' waiting-room, returned to the entrance-hall, and commenced walking up and down it, looking now and then impatiently at the clock, which showed that some time must yet elapse before the departure of the next train. He was a man on the shady side of fifty, tall and well made, and with that erect bearing and carriage which we are apt to consider is the peculiar property of soldiers alone.

His hair and whiskers were of a grizzled iron grey, and his face, though the features were well cut and finely formed, had an almost unbending sternness of expression. Two keen black eyes gleamed out upon the world from under a pair of shaggy, overhanging eyebrows ; the forehead was both broad and high ; the mouth, though large, would have been a handsome one, had it not been for the set, over-firm compression of the lips — lips that were very rarely seen to smile, and seldom heard to utter a needless word — lips that could guard a secret as closely as the grave, and that you might question as fruitlessly and vainly. His dress was shabby — almost sordid, but the linen was fine and scrupulously clean, and every garment was carefully put on, and worn with the air of a man who dressed meanly not from necessity, but choice.

Certainly, in spite of the poor apparel, very few who saw him would not have given John Thornleigh credit for being something better, in a worldly point of view, than he really was — a large brick-maker and tile-manufacturer, a man known to be well-to-do, and sufficiently respected in his own parish. If you had seen him that evening pacing up and down, you would scarcely have been surprised to be told that he was one of the largest landowners in his county, or even a nobleman going down quietly to his country-seat ; there was the thorough-bred stamp of race in the man's appearance, that showed itself in spite of muddy boots, thread-bare coat, and worn-out trousers. Miss Becky Thornleigh, his sister, always boasted that they came of a gentle stock, and that there was good blood running in John Thornleigh's veins, though some people were ill-natured enough to say that, if it were so, he had got his own share and hers too.

The station bell rang the five minute signal, and Mr. Thornleigh went in search of his young companion. The two boys rose and proceeded to the train, and getting into a first-class carriage, were just congratulating themselves upon its having no other occupants, when the young lady in black entered, followed by Mr. Thorn leigh. "I'll have a good look at her now," thought Clifford, and pulling out the College, Chronicle, a paper the schoolboys published and supported themselves, and to which he was a great con tributor, held it before his face, and glanced at the young lady under cover of its pages. It was a pretty face — he soon decided that ; and Clifford's eyes were rather critical ones too — but she was a great deal more, which Clifford, clever and critical as he was, failed to see. Pretty, though the word would come readiest to a schoolboy, was scarcely the word for her.

Cliffe might with justice have styled her beautiful ; but the beauty was of a sad and painful kind for a face so young to wear. There was too much expression in the large black eyes and the down-drawn mouth ; too much of a weary, wistful gloom, that had no right to have shown itself so early. If Clifford had been ten years older, he would have seen that the face was prematurely thoughtful, and marred before its time by the anxious look of doubt and unrest that appeared almost habitual to it. What right had those young eyes to wear that eager, ques tioning, almost defiant look? What right had that mouth, so rosy and so richly curved, to be almost as compressed and stern in its stillness as Mr. Thornleigh's? It was a strange fancy of Clifford's, but he almost thought he could trace a resemblance between the fresh, rounded, girlish countenance and the hard stern lines of John Thornleigh's. It might have been that each face had a peculiar character of its own, and the boy's eyes could only see a gloom and stillness that pervaded each, without discerning that beneath the silence and the gloom were very different elements at work.

In the man's eyes you read of a strong, stern nature, that had known grief and troubles, taken them after the first shock as things of course, and put aside or conquered them ; that had waged its warfare with the world, and come off conqueror, bearing off, by sheer strength and force of will, the prizes it most cared for ; that was now content to take its rest, satisfied with what good things it had won, and forgetting or caring no more for what it had lost. But in the girl's face might be seen that the strife was on, and her soul in the very thickest of it ; that she was fighting a battle, and sinking in the fray ; that the young fierce spirit knew not what rest was ; that her troubles were around or all before her, and hers no nature to take troubles meekly, but one in its un tried strength to struggle and rebel against, or even murmur at the Hand that sent them.

How should Clifford Marchdale, first of the fifth though he was, see all this? If the boy's eyes could have discerned it all, it would have been almost as sad a thing, as it was for the girl that on her face so much was written for older eyes more versed in grief and ill than his to read.

Chapter II. Mr

THORNLEIGH'S phaeton was in waiting for him at the Elmsley Station, which was about fourteen miles from London. After placing his charge in it, and not unkindly seeing to her being duly covered by the large carriage rug, and directing the station porter to send her luggage on the first thing in the morning, he got in, took the reins, and in about twenty minutes entered his own domains. It was a moonlight night, and the reflection from the snow made everything doubly clear, so that the girl, whose first visit it was to this part of the world, could see the leading features of the road, and most of the external character istics of the house which she had been led to expect would be her future home. The drive would have been pleasant enough if not so cold, for Elmsley is one of the prettiest places in the environs of London — well wooded, with not much arable, but plenty of pasture and meadow land, and with undulations, dignified by the name of hills, quite sufficient to try the horses, and to vary the features of the country charmingly for the lovers of the picturesque.

Mr. Thornleigh's house was not quite two miles from the station ; but the old brown mare, Peg, was not accustomed to hurry herself, seldom going beyond six miles an hour, and the twenty minutes were all too short for the young girl who sat beside her silent companion, fearfully looking for ward to her reception by those to whom she was utterly unknown. Peg turned in by a white gate, and trotted up a gravel drive, just wide enough for the roadway of the phaeton or a cart. On one side grew a couple of fine old trees, with a large field stretching behind them — though trees, fields, and all were now white with hoar frost. At a little distance from the trees was a small shed, or counting-house, as it was called, where Mr. Thornleigh's foreman took orders, or received payments ; but the master's own especial sanctum for transaction was within the house itself.

On the other side of the drive were open sheds, with pots, and pans, and tiles stored be neath them. But there was a broad border of grass between these and the carriage-way, and they were overshadowed by as fine an oak as any in the county, so that though there were many signs of a thriving business around, it was business with much that was pleasant and picturesque in its adjuncts — thanks to the winding country road, out of which one entered the tile-yard, to the meadow-land on either side of the path, to the fine old trees, and the roomy, comfortable red brick house, by which the gravel drive wound. All that was objectionable and disagreeable in the trade was carried on at some distance from the dwelling-place, there being two large fields kept entirely for pasture and hay-making be tween the tile-yard where the goods were stacked and sold, and the place where they were manu factured.

The path through these two fields commanded one of the prettiest views in Elmsley, and from the windows of the house you might see not only the road with its varying traffic of waggons, carriages, and carts, ladies on horseback with their cavaliers and grooms, gipsies with their donkeys, and children upon ponies, but also field after field, hedge row and tree, stretching far away for miles into the dim distance, where earth and sky blended together ; so that it would have been difficult to find a pleasanter or a prettier place for a thriving trade to be carried on in, if need were that a man must live amidst his business. Still the house, to those who often visited the tile-yard, and who knew what the belongings of a house should be, was a disappointment and a failure. True, there are many who never do know what a house should have to make it complete ; to whom, if the builder has done his part in putting together so many rooms, of just proportions and fair height, with a due number of doors and windows, and the upholsterer has furnished his quota by properly supplying all VOL. r. C kinds of household goods, especially all that is needful in the way of blinds and window draperies, to cause it to make a creditable external appearance, there seems nothing wanting ; who never remember that a house — (I am speaking of a country house, remember, and not of the long lines of dreary uniformities parted off for separate households that form our London streets) — has a character of its own ; and if that character is strongly impressed upon it, one fancies it should be inhabited accordingly.

And the character of Mr. Thornleigh's house was a most unfit one for a dwelling to possess, which was inhabited only by an old bachelor and his maiden sister. For it was essentially the home for a family — homely, pleasant-looking, un pretending, with plenty of room within for nurseries for tiny ones, and bed-rooms for elder brothers and sisters, and spare chambers for guests. And a great bow-windowed best bed-room, seem ing just the one to be called "Mother's," with ample space in it to have held the large four-post bedstead for babies to be born on, or those to whom they owed their life to pass away from theirs on. As you went up the gravel path, and had your first view of the house, you looked, if a stranger, for curly heads to be peering out of the upper windows ; or you half expected to see a smart comely nursemaid, with one infant charge in her arms, and another toddling by her side ; or you thought, each second, a side-door would open, and two or three noisy boys come rushing and shouting out, and perhaps at the parlour window a matronly face be seen, and the mother's voice be heard calling them to order.

But there were no signs of such glad young life at Mr. Thornleigh's ; and instead you saw the brightest and cleanest of windows, and the most stainless of hearthstohed steps, curtains whose snowy whiteness showed that some one within had ample time to attend to all such niceties; but over the red-brick surface of the house no creeping plant or vine flung out its arms, for Miss Thornleigh voted all such pleasant green nesses a nuisance, on the score of the earwigs and caterpillars they harboured. So when she C became mistress of the house, the finest magnolia in the county, which it had taken twenty years to bring to its glory, was levelled to the ground, along with a number of minor creeping shrubs, sweet-scented clematis, maiden-blush roses, pur ple grape-like wisteria, and rich luscious honey suckle.

Then, when every branch and tendril had been cleared away, and the house scraped down and fresh painted, Miss Thornleigh glanced up with satisfaction, and said the place " looked wholesome now, and fit for decent folks to live in." Very dreary and uninviting the house looked this winter's night to the girlish eyes that were raised questioningly towards it. No red light flashed forth, no cheery lamp-rays shone out as if to give a welcome to the stranger. A faint glimmer might be seen between the parlour shutters, but in the upper rooms all looked still and bare and cold. Mr. Thornleigh helped his charge out, still with the same rough gentleness, if I may use the term, he had shown since he had formally constituted himself her protector, and advancing to a side door, knocked sharply, and was quickly admitted (for " master's knock " was known and expected) into a stone-paved place, where Job Grange, his man-of-all-work, cleaned boots and brushed clothes, and which served as the general entrance for the household.

There was a hall, of course, duly furnished with floor-cloth, seats, and hat-stand, in the centre of the building, but this was reserved for state occasions, and Miss Thornleigh's special visitors. The master himself scarcely ever went in or out that way. It was ground almost as sacred as the prim, stiff drawing-room on the first-floor. " Take Miss Grant to her own room, Susan," said Mr. Thornleigh to the servant who had let them in, " and then let's have tea as soon as we 1J can. Susan led the way through a long stone passage, up a flight of stairs, carpeted, and covered with brown holland, which, considering it was meant to be trodden upon, was exquisitely, painfully clean. Magdalene Grant started as she saw the imprint of her foot on the first stair, and looked at Susan as if conscious she had already com mitted an infraction of the rules of the house hold.

"Never mind, miss," said the girl, good naturedly. " I'll wipe it off before missis sees it. She is particular, there's no denying it." She opened the door of a large room, sparely and meagrely furnished, with a small curtainless bed, round which ran the narrowest possible strip of carpet, leaving a wide chilling expanse of bare boards. There was no fire in the grate, which shone again with labour and black lead, and when Magdalene attempted to pour out some water to wash with, she found the contents of the jug frozen. "I'll fetch some warm, miss," cried Susan. "I won't be a minute gone," and laying down the wraps of which she had divested Magdalene, she ran downstairs, and presently returned with a jug full. Magdalene was tired and worn out with a long journey, and the death-like stillness of the room seemed doubly hard to bear coming in from her cold ride ; so, sinking in a chair as soon as she found herself alone, she gave vent to the tears and sobs she had pent in during the long journey.

It was a girl's spasmodic grief, full of self-pity at her utter loneliness and the dreary unpromising home that had opened to her — a brief wild storm, that subsided in a few minutes, while Susan fluttered about her, saying all she could think of in the way of consolation and comfort, and mean while rubbing the poor chilled hands, and trying to smooth out the long dishevelled hair, which had fallen loose on the removal of the bonnet. Very beautiful was this mass of thick luxuriant hair, soft, silky, and waving, with a tendency to curl. A rich deep brown, with here and there a gleam of chestnut in it. Susan could scarcely help coveting this wealth of tresses, with all her pity for their owner. The girl had been anxiously looking forward to the advent of a young lady in the household. The situation was one not at all to her taste, for being a London girl, rather given to flirting and gossiping, a place where there was so little opportunity of indulging in these recreations was not one likely to give her satisfaction.

Besides, she was decidedly gushing in disposition — a dam sel of a very genial communicative turn of mind, and there was no one here to gush out upon, her fellow-servant Charlotte being of a sober, sedate disposition, that was fitter, Susan declared, for an old woman of fifty than for one of twenty-five ; and what was the use of showing a new bonnet to any one who was decidedly opposed to all kinds of finery, or a Valentine to one who only "set any man down for a fool who threw his money away in that fashion." So, though Susan had not plainly said even to herself that the "coming" young lady might be suitable for a confidante, she certainly had some very decided if dimly expressed hope that way. " And at any rate," as she openly said, " it would be a comfort to have some thing young in the place besides herself and the kitten."

But the young lady, now she had come, was altogether different to what Susan had antici pated ; and being a good-natured girl, in spite of her bell-like crinoline, and her cap half off her head, the sight of one so evidently more desolate and friendless than herself appealed to her warmest sympathies. She was a thorough ser vant-girl, of the careless, untidy, finery-loving, flaunting modern school ; but beneath the showy dress, which so excited Miss Thornleigh's ire, was a warm, true, womanly heart, and Magdalene's burst of tears had won it. She was so utterly cast down, that even Susan's kind words were acceptable ; and after a little time the tears sub sided like a summer storm, and she was able to take out a few little adornments from the small bag she had brought with her, and make herself sufficiently trim and neat to follow Susan down stairs to the parlour.

Tea was all read}7, and a grateful smell of mutton chops greeted Magdalene as she entered the room. Miss Thornleigh came one step for ward and touched her hand — just touched it, and no more — for whatever Susan might be, her mistress was certainly not of the gushing order — and pointed to a chair. Magdalene took it, and swallowed her tea ; and, as with all her weariness and low spirits she was hungry, ate the chop placed before her, and stole furtive glances from under her dark eyelashes at her hostess. Miss Thornleigh was a tall, bony woman, whose dress was always too scanty and too short, a style some tall bony women are apt to affect. She was not unlike her brother in features, but his style of countenance was one that, though well enough in a man, was rather hard and un lovely for a woman.

She had not been blessed with much education. The Thornleighs had not always been in such easy circumstances as now, or she might have adopted the strong-minded style of intellectuality ; but as that was beyond her, she contented herself with being simply a sensible, thoroughly practical woman who ruled her household, and governed her maids, as far as such a thing could be done in the nineteenth century, with a rod of iron. Miss Thornleigh was fond of saying there was no nonsense about her. Anyone might see that at a glance ; there was nothing half so amusing or pleasant about that hard angular face and figure as a bit of nonsense often is. Still John Thornleigh had been known to use the term with regard to her; for Miss Thornleigh, sensible woman as she was, and innocent of crinoline, had her weak points like other people.

It was the aim and end of her existence to be genteel ; gentility and she had not had much in common in her earlier clays, and she was very anxious to make up for it now by being in the best set that Elmsley afforded ; and I suppose there is no place, however small, that has not its upper ten, and there was plenty of room in Elmsley and its environs for a fair share of exclusives. Miss Thornleigh got on pretty well. How much of her success she owed to her sturdy, old-fashioned, ill-dressing brother, she never knew ; for, in the first place, John Thornleigh was one of those men who, however rich, are sure to be set down as still wealthier than they really are, owing to a certain solid self-assertion, an unflinching independence, a positiveness about them, that compels the world to take them not at their own valuation, but above it.

People felt that John Thornleigh dressed shabbily because he could afford to do it, and I think his old gar ments did his sister more service among the fashionable folks at Elmsley than all her store of rainbow-coloured silks and gorgeous shawls. For Miss Thornleigh was a great dresser in her own style — as fond, every bit, of finery as her maid Susan, though it was difficult to see how she could reconcile it to her conscience to lecture that unhappy girl upon her sins in the way of ribbons and steel hoops, and shut her eyes to her own peacock -like display. This evening she was very radiant in a well-preserved, but still hand some moire, and a cap resplendent with crimson ribbons and black velvet. She meant to make an impression upon the young stranger, of whose antecedents she knew so little, and certainly succeeded, for Magdalene sat and sipped her tea, and felt, as she gazed at the hard cold face and stiff elaborate dress, more chilled and overawed than she had ever done in her life.