Take Courage (5 page)

While we were all kneeling thus together on the ground, I heard a movement, and looking up, saw John standing in the doorway, we having left the door open. There was a strange look on his dark plain face, a mixture of anger, contempt and affection. I bade him come in and welcome, and he said gruffly he could not stay long, he was on his way home from school. Our house was not in the way from Bradford School to Little Holroyd at all, and I feared lest Francis should say so; however, he made no remark, but throwing himself down on the settle, which Sarah quickly dusted with her apron, he took Tabby in his arms and made Thunder sit by him with his great head on his master's knee, and continued his attempts to make them like each other. Indeed Thunder was willing enough, laying his great paw gently on the cat and seeming almost to smile over his puppy face, but Tabby's fur was still erect, and her green eyes glowed angrily. I now remembered my manners and offered John a chair, but he seemed too shy to take it, and sat himself awkwardly on a buffet.

The settle on which Francis was lounging was splintered at its foot, and John, spying this as he looked about him with his kind brown eyes, now offered to mend it, forgetting that he had said he could not stay. I was doubtful at first, for neither Will nor my father had much skill in carpentry and I was not used to seeing such work, but Sarah was very eager for him to try his hand, and bustled about fetching him such tools as she could discover. The settle was heavy and ill-placed for light, and John asked me to hold a candle for him so that he could manage better. Pleased, as children are, to be doing something new, I lighted a candle and bent down to him, gladly obeying his directions, David
watching eagerly. I soon saw that John was able at the work, and exclaimed at his skill and kindness in performing it. At this he lifted his face, crimson from stooping, and remarked gruffly:

“While you hold the candle, Penninah, I am content.”

“It's a high payment, certainly,” laughed Francis, caressing Tabby so that she purred.

“Higher than you'll ever earn,” said John, sardonic.

“Don't be too sure,” cried Francis hotly.

“You'll never addle owt in all your life, Francis Ferrand,” said John, using the homely country speech to vex his cousin.

“I have no need,” said Francis haughtily.

“No—you're a gentleman, or so I've heard,” said John.

“I don't like your tune,” said Francis. He rose, throwing down the cat, and stood over John, flushing ominously.

“Hold the candle still, Penninah,” commanded John, and he put his hand on my wrist to steady it, for at the thought of further contention between these two my fingers trembled.

Then Francis shook the settle purposely with his foot, and John sprang at him, and they rolled over and over on the floor, wrestling and striking. David and I cried out, frightened, and my father ran down from the loom-chamber again at the noise, and with a look of gentle displeasure on his face ordered them to behave more mannerly. At the sound of his voice the two boys disentangled themselves and rose up, dusty and panting and regarding each other sheepishly, but not, as I saw with relief, really angry. My father dismissed them sharply, and they went out without a word.

I ran to the window to watch them up the street; and saw that Francis had thrown his arm round John's shoulder and was laughing in his ear, while John, though somewhat grimly, was smiling. Seeing my surprise at this sudden reconciliation, my father told me I was not to trouble myself over their battles. It was natural for boys to fight, he said, and there was no malice between them afterwards.
I should often, he repeated, see John and Francis fighting and then friends.

It was a true word. Whenever John and Francis met, they quarrelled and made friends again, and I saw it often, for from that time onwards, the Clarksons and the Thorpes and the Ferrands were very close in intimacy.

There was much visiting between Fairgap and The Breck. Many a Sunday we Clarksons dined there, roaming through the fields of Little Holroyd in the afternoon, or gathering bluebells in the woods, or climbing higher, when the heather was out, to the purple moors. Mr. Thorpe often dined at our house on Thursday, when he came into Bradford for Market Day, and John's way from school seemed often to lie past our door. When he left school, as he did in a few months' time, his visits were scarcely rarer; almost every day he brought some message about cloth from his father to mine, or about meeting, from Eliza to Will, or came in on his own account to see how things went with us. It came to be taken for granted that when a hinge, or the leg of a chair, or a loom treadle, or Sarah's churn, needed repair, it was shown to John, who forthwith mended it, while I held the candle.

Francis also came much to our house, because he began to read Latin with Will. It seemed he was much behind in his studies, from carelessness and truantry, and Mr. Ferrand, who thought of sending him to Oxford university with the sons of his friends the Tempests of Boiling Hall, had been told by the schoolmaster, Mr. Wilcocke, that if Francis did not mend his ways he would disgrace himself as a scholar. So twice a week Francis, Thunder lolloping behind him, came to Will with his Tully. Such a volume you never saw; dirty and dog's-eared, with great scrawled jokes in the margin, some of which Francis would not let me see. I was so young and so unworldly then that I did not understand what this meant, but took it for simple unkindness on his part and was hurt by it, whereat he seemed very sorry. The exercises that he wrote for Will, too, were so blotted and untidy as to be almost illegible, and declensions
and conjugations seemed to pass in at one of Francis's handsome ears only to pass out at the other. Indeed he nearly drove poor Will distracted, so that one afternoon, in a fit of warm temper such as sometimes took him, he rushed up to Holroyd Hall and threw the money for his tutoring on the table in front of Mr. Ferrand, crying that he could not in conscience take it, for he had not earned it. Mr. Ferrand was quite taken aback, and he must for once have berated his son severely, for Francis came down to Fairgap that night with a very hangdog look, and made many expressions of contrition and better behaviour for the future. For a week or two he was a model pupil, but soon slipped back into his old careless ways again, so that Will's worried look grew deeper.

But for all that we all loved Francis. Even our long-faced Sarah, who was very prim and godly and had been betrothed for years to a strict Puritan who had twice been fined for absenting himself from church on grounds of conscience, though she professed to regard Francis as an offspring of the evil one, did not scold when he pulled her apron-strings undone or called her Maypole in jest, and only pretended to box his ears when he stole up on her and kissed her. When Francis came she baked fresh oatcake, and gave the chairs a polish beyond ordinary; she would not wear the bright ribbons he brought her, but she kept them folded away in a wooden box which my mother had given her before she died. Tabby too became quite enamoured of Thunder, and the two played together often, Thunder rolling the cat over with his great jowl, and Tabby dabbing at his nose with her soft paws. I did not much like to see them, nor did David, for their play looked to us too much like cruelty, but when I wished to interfere Francis held me back, laughing heartily, and with sparkling eyes told me they enjoyed it. Francis in those days had such a pleasantness and gaiety of humour, such a clear high courage, such a real sweetness of nature beneath his rushing spirits, such charm of manner and such a grace of person as endeared him to all who knew him. It was
very agreeable to me to see him standing in our house before my father, one hand on hip, the other swinging his hat, his eyes sparkling with the laughter affection kept from his lips, listening with a great air of respect to my father's gentle admonitions, and promising him in a teasing voice to amend.

“Noise and swiftness,” my father told him in his clear mild tones, looking over his spectacles at the lad's bright face: “are not to be confused with action, Francis.”

“No, sir,” returned Francis. “Nor silence and slowness either, I suppose, sir.”

“God,” said my father, a little fluttered, “was not in the great wind or the earthquake or the fire; He was in the still small voice.”

“Yes, sir,” agreed Francis. He smothered a yawn, for the moment any talk grew religious his attention wandered.

My father sighed, then smiled. “Well, be off with you into the sunshine,” he said. “I fear you will never be a wise man, Frank Ferrand.”

“No, sir!” cried Francis, springing away in great joyous bounds. “Come out into the orchard, Pen.”

Besides Will, Francis had many other tutors, for music, dancing, fencing and the like; indeed in Bradford some folk laughed at Giles Ferrand, who was bringing his son up as though he were a nobleman, they said, and wondered how long his estate would stand it. I have heard Mr. Thorpe, for instance, say to my father that if Giles would mind his bowls less and his land more, things would be in a better way at Holroyd Hall.

When I was with the Thorpes I felt that this was doubtless true, but when I was with the Ferrands I was apt to think it was better to spend and be happy than save and be glum, and I did not take Mr. Thorpe's observations seriously, for I never saw any sign of distress over business or scarcity of money—such as we sometimes had at Fairgap, when my father looked grave and talked soberly to Will—at Holroyd Hall. We children ran in and out of the Hall whenever we liked, without a set invitation, as we dared not do at The
Breck; and I could not help liking to go there, for everything there seemed bright and quick and easy. There was always much rich meat and drink, and many serving men and maids hastening to and fro, and Mr. Ferrand roaring away cheerfully in his fine stables or playing at bowls on a little alley he had made, and Mrs. Ferrand dressing her hair before the mirror, or coaxing her husband with her pretty eyes and sweet silly speech to get money from him for some piece of furniture or new gown, and Francis fencing, very supple and nimble on his feet, or playing on the lute, of which he had some mastery. When I think of Holroyd Hall in those days, I always see it in golden sunshine, with tall daisies and buttercups in thick grass, and an elder-bush in flower, and music and laughter spilling from the windows. The meals were often unpunctual, the panelling was dusty, there was such a waste of food and drink as the mere thought of would have made Mrs. Thorpe mad; but nobody scolded us if we came to the table with hands unwashed or tore our clothes; it was thought natural for us, being children, to play; and whenever Mrs. Ferrand saw us she carelessly and lightly and serenely gave us something—an apple, a ribbon, a drink of milk. I marvelled sometimes how she could be so, being Mr. Thorpe's sister, but it seemed Mr. Ferrand was a great match for a Thorpe and had condescended in marrying her, and she, being a sunny feather-headed girl easily swayed, took all his ways for gospel and was happy in them. Certainly she was happy enough when I first knew her; everyone was happy then at Holroyd Hall. Occasionally Mr. Ferrand would burst out into a tremendous storm of anger, from which we all ran and hid ourselves, but soon it would be over and the sky clear again—Mrs. Ferrand had only to weep to bring him to heel, for he had a soft heart beneath his blustering. Yes, life at Holroyd Hall seemed to me a perpetual holiday; and yet there was something missing in it. There was pleasure enough there, to be sure, but never that deep content and satisfaction which comes from a good deed nobly done. There was no gathering of one's
powers firmly and sternly together for the performance of some task one set oneself; anything done there was done, it seemed, by chance and without intention.

At The Breck it was just the reverse. There was little joy or laughter there, but always the deep satisfaction of rigorous duties, honourably performed. The Thorpes rose early, laboured honestly all day, gave thanks to God and went to rest. Every corner of their life, as of their house, was fit at all times to be scanned, being clean, orderly and sober. Their integrity was of the strictest; no weaver or spinner of theirs was ever defrauded by so much as a halfpenny, their word was their bond, they owed no man anything and bought nothing for which they could not instantly pay. They dealt as carefully with poor folks as with rich, and despised all ostentation as vain and foolish. In charity they were punctual, in friendship steady. Indeed there was a great steadiness in them all, especially in John; he never began anything lightly, nor turned back from it when it was begun. He could not be tempted from the loom during his hours of work, nor would he delay seeing after the animals by so much as a minute, though he did not love them and have a natural mastery over them, like Francis. At The Breck there was no rich colour, no sweet sound; but there was always a dark implacable strength—the Thorpes indeed were as strong in their unyielding principles as those grim black crags one saw on the moors, while the Ferrands were like the slender blue harebells that danced and flowered at their foot.

It seems strange to me now that a little maid in her teens, such as I was then, should have seen the natures of the Thorpes and the Ferrands so clearly. But it was customary then to talk often, among sober and godly people, of the higher nature and the soul and the approach of men of different beliefs to God, so that I was used to discourse about abstract qualities. Then, too, I spent much time with my father, who made a companion of me in default of my mother and spoke to me of many lofty matters; and since his eyes were apt to ache and water if he read overlong,
and I was fond of my book, I read often aloud to him from the diurnals or from religious pamphlets, and learned much so. Besides, my family, as I see now, were rather above the common in intellect.

This appeared clearly in little David, who began to attend Bradford School the year after I first met the Thorpes and Ferrands. So swift was he in learning that he stayed little more than a twelvemonth in Petty School; he was moved up into the Grammar School and began Latin accidence before he was seven. Through anxious listening to Francis's lessons I had learned enough Latin to be able to hear David his tasks, which he said was helpful to him, though I do not think this can have been so, for the child hardly ever made a mistake or needed prompting. He sat beside me on the settle, his fair round face very quiet and attentive, and almost before the question was out of my mouth he would sing out the answer in his high childish treble, pronouncing his quantities very strictly and giving copious examples and exceptions. My father, who knew no Latin and had always longed for it, listened with a happy smile to this; and dear Will, whose studies had required much arduous application, was delighted and amazed at the ease with which little David got his lessons. The child passed swiftly through Aesop's Fables and Cato's Maxims and came to Caesar and Tully, and found those authors easy, and on Fridays when the Grammar School boys translated their week's translations back into Latin, David's lines were often commended most highly of any for the grace and purity of their latinity. Will was so proud of his brother that he constantly boasted of him, and would sometimes even reproach Francis for being a worse scholar than a so much younger child.