CHAPTER X.

THE NEW SCHOOL.

AS soon as Tom had done a little gardening, and seemed strong enough to return to school, Mrs. Winn called to see the schoolmaster about Tom entering the village school. The master himself was not at home, but she saw his wife, and the two had a long talk, during which she learned that they had only one child, a daughter, about Elsie's age, who was afflicted with what seemed like a spinal complaint, but about which the doctors could not agree, except upon one point, and that was that she must lie upon her back for a year or two.

"She frets about it terribly, poor girl," said her mother, with a sigh; "and I sometimes wish we had never come here, though we did it for Mary's sake, and my husband gave up a much better school than this for the sake of being in the country."

"I came here chiefly on my son's account," remarked Mrs. Winn; and then she told her neighbour about Tom's long illness. "I have a daughter, too, about the age of yours, and it would do both girls good, perhaps, if they could meet sometimes; though Elsie is rather shy of strangers, I find."

"My Mary will not see anyone if she can help it, I am sorry to say. I often wish we had a resident clergyman here now; it would be better for the people and everybody about; but as it is, there is no society for her—no one to come in and see her, and—"

"But surely there is a clergyman here; the church is open every Sunday," said Mrs. Winn.

"Oh, yes, one of Mr. Topham's curates comes over from Somerville every Sunday for service, and sometimes during the week, to look in at the school. But Mr. Topham is a bachelor, so that it is very different from having a rector or vicar with a wife and family living in the village. And it falls hard on my poor Mollie, who used to have a good deal of attention from our former vicar's family."

"Ah! And I shall feel the difference, too," said Mrs. Winn, "for without asking about it, I made sure the vicar's wife would help me. You see, I am a dressmaker, and hoped to find customers among the gentry round."

Mrs. Murray shook her head. "I am afraid there is not much dressmaking to be had in this neighbourhood," she said.

"Oh, but I have several dresses to make now from the doctor's wife," interrupted the widow, for she did not want to hear discouraging news as to her future prospects. Tom was so much better, and the house was so nice and comfortable, that she did not wish to think she could have made a mistake in coming here.

"The doctor is very nice, and so is his wife. I really think Mary would be worse than she is, if it was not for them; for Mrs. Perceval comes to see her sometimes, and being the doctor's wife, and such a perfect lady as she is, Mary cannot refuse to see her."

Mrs. Winn hinted that Elsie might perhaps call and sit half an hour with the invalid, although she had very little time to spare for visiting, as she had the cooking and the children to look after.

But Mrs. Murray shook her head at the proposal. "My poor Mollie is too sensitive to see strangers," she said, with another sigh; "she is like a sweet fading flower," she added.

"But don't you think that is all the more reason why she should have a little cheerful society," said Mrs. Winn.

"She could not bear it," said Mrs. Murray, and then she turned the conversation back to its original theme, and spoke of the school, and her husband's work among the boys, and how rough and backward many of them were.

It was not encouraging to Mrs. Winn to hear such an account of the school, for she was afraid Tom would not benefit much by attending it; and the worst of it was, there seemed to be no other within reach.

Of course, Mrs. Murray said her husband was an excellent teacher, and Tom would be sure to do very well. But Mrs. Winn was by no means so sure of it, for he was just the age when he needed to be at a good school, and which his own folly had rendered impossible.

She went home rather dispirited, but she did not say a word to Tom or Elsie about this. And it was arranged that Tom should go to school the following Monday morning.

The boy was not sorry to hear that he was to go back to school, for he had been away from books and lessons for some months now; and fond as he undoubtedly was of gardening, he had had enough of it to satisfy him for the present, and he was well content to hear that he was to go back to his books again.

So the following Monday morning Tom went to school, fully expecting to see a similar assemblage of boys as he had been accustomed to.

But he stopped short at the door of the schoolroom, and looked round, thinking he must surely have made a mistake; for, to his amazement, there were as many girls as boys seated at the desks, and all were talking together in a fashion that astonished him.

But the sight of the new-comer, standing on the mat, hushed half the voices in the room, and this sudden hush attracting the notice of one of the teachers, he stepped forward and asked Tom what he wanted.

"I have come to school," said Tom, looking round for a class that he thought he might enter.

The young teacher looked puzzled, and sent him to the head-master; and presently Tom was directed to join a class at the further end of the room, as lessons were about to begin.

Tom went to his place, feeling a little shy of his new school-fellows, for they all seemed to stare at him so much. His jacket, his stockings, and even his boots seemed to undergo a critical examination by the class, and this culminated in a roar of laughter when Tom gave his name to his new teacher.

"What is there to laugh at?" the young man asked calmly, while Tom grew furiously angry, for he could hear half a dozen voices repeating his name, and mimicking the tone in which he spoke. Whispers about the "new chap" were passed from one to the other as Tom went to his seat.

And when it came to his turn to read, there was a fresh burst of laughter before he had uttered half a dozen words. But Tom read the sentence unmoved, and then he said, "Please, sir, I can read a harder book than this," hoping he might be moved into another class.

"Harder book than this!" muttered two or three. "Hear to him, Charley," said one, in a loud whisper; "new chap wants harder book that we may all get the cane, 'cos we can't read un. I'll tell my brother Bill to wollop un when us gets out."

Tom did not hear this, but his fluent reading was evidently an offence to some of his class-mates. For while they spelled and stumbled through the words, Tom read them out in a half whisper. And when it came to his turn in the reading lesson again, he read his piece in great triumph.

When the lesson came to an end, he said, "Please, sir, hadn't I better go into another class; I was in the Sixth Standard at my other school, and—"

"There, go back to your place, my boy," said the teacher, "and I'll speak to Mr. Murray after school."

But before school was over, Tom learned to his dismay that this was the highest class. And he heard the teacher say that, work as hard as they might, they would never get above half a dozen boys fit for the Sixth Standard.

Tom went home greatly disgusted. He rushed in to where his mother sat sewing, hot and angry.

"I'm not going to that miserable old school again," he said. "Why, it isn't a bit like Mr. Potter's."

"It's the best there is here, my boy; and we shall have to put up with it," said his mother, looking up from her work.

"Tom, I do think you might wipe your feet when you come in," said Elsie, at this point. "Just look what a muddy mess you have made all through the passage."

"The roads are so dirty," complained Tom in turn. "I did try to find a clean place, but it rained all day yesterday, and the mud is an inch thick. Nobody comes to sweep it away, or make the road passable," he added.

"Well, you might have rubbed your boots on the mat. For if any ladies should come to see mother about her work, what would they think to see such a passage?"

Mrs. Winn sighed, but only sewed the faster, for she was beginning to fear that she had made a mistake in coming here, for more reasons than one; and that Elsie would have no chance of feeling hurt that customers had seen a dirty passage when they called.

When Tom had rubbed his boots on the doormat, he went back to his mother. "I really can't go to that beastly old school," he began again; "why, they're half girls, mother."

"Well, it would not hurt you to learn your lessons among girls," said Mrs. Winn. "Elsie is a better scholar than you are, and she is a girl."

Tom winced as he thought of his neglected opportunities at the Board School. "It isn't that they are only girls," he went on, "but they don't seem to have a Seventh Standard class at all, and I don't believe they have got a Sixth. The teacher said the examination was just over, and the biggest boys had left; but I expect they were all big dunces, for the rest are that are left behind; and I am sure I shall never learn anything there."

"But why not? You must try to learn, Tom, and make the most of the time you are there, for there is no telling how long you may be able to stay at school," said Mrs. Winn.

"Try? I'd like to know what's the good of trying to learn in such a row as they make at that place," grumbled Tom.

His mother smiled. "You used to complain that your other master was so particular that you couldn't wink without the teacher hearing."

"Yes. I thought of that to-day when I was trying to do a sum. Why, it was as easy as pie—the sum I mean; but the buzz, buzz, chatter, chatter, that went on all round, sent my wits woolgathering, and I actually took it up wrong; though a Fourth Standard boy would have got it right in the other school."

"You are hard to please, my boy, I am afraid," said his mother. "At the other school you were always complaining that they were so strict during class time that you could not speak a word, and now this school—"

"Mother, did you see it when you went to speak to the master?" interrupted Tom.

"No, my boy. A half-holiday had been given that day, and so I went to Mr. Murray's house."

"Well, the next time you go out, just go round that way, and stand by the window for five minutes, and you'll know then that it's no good trying to learn in such a Bedlam as that is."

"It is a noisy school, mother," said Elsie, who had come to say that dinner was ready.

"Perhaps it is; but Tom used to grumble before that the other school was so quiet," said Mrs. Winn.

"That was because I did not know what a noisy one was like. I didn't know when I was well off, Elsie," he added.

"I wonder whether they have scholarships here," said his sister, who had not given up the hope that her brother might yet distinguish himself in this way.

Toni shook his head. "No chance of that now," he said; "for nobody could ever get a scholarship in this school, if there were fifty to be had for the trying."

"Tom, I don't like to hear you talk like that," said his mother; "as though you had made up your mind to give up at once, without trying to overcome the difficulties that are in the way of your getting a good education now. Why, what is to become of you, if—"

"I can read better than any boy in the school," said Tom, proudly.

"Perhaps you can, you were always fond of reading. But, according to your own account, you could not do the sum that was set you; and yet you ask me to let you leave school, because of the difficulties that are in the way of your learning. I should be a foolish mother if I gave way to you, my boy."

"But I don't want to be a clerk, and stick at a desk all day," muttered Tom. "Old Mother Gunn says I shall make a first-rate gardener; and she'll tell me lots of things her father told her about grafting, and budding, and other things."

"It's very kind of Betsy Gunn, and I am very much obliged to her for helping you as she does. But you must consider this, Tom, that the sort of gardening that would do when her father and grandfather were young, would not do now. If you are to be a gardener, I should like you to be a good one, and learn it, if possible, at one of the agricultural or horticultural colleges; though how it is to be managed, now you have thrown over the chance of getting a scholarship like Elsie's, I don't know."

Tom opened his eyes in blank amazement. "I never thought a scholarship would help me to be a gardener," he said. "Oh, mother, why didn't you tell me this when I had my chance of getting one," and the tears rose to Tom's eyes, though he brushed them away, for fear his mother or Elsie should see them.

"I did not know you so greatly wished to be a gardener until we came here, and I thought it was enough to tell you that father and I would be glad if you could get a scholarship, when it was first talked about. That if you knew it was your duty to try for this, you would do it without much regard to what would follow. That is where you made the mistake, Tom—you did not do your duty for duty's sake; and now you learn, when it is too late, that if you had taken this course, it would have been the means of gratifying your heart's desire."

"Oh, mother, I never knew I was losing such a chance," said Tom, bitterly.

"Poor Tom, I am sorry," said Elsie; "I wish you could have had my scholarship, and then you would not have had to go to this nasty, noisy school."

"It's of no use crying over spilt milk, Elsie," said her mother. "What Tom has to do now is to take care that he does not repeat the mistake he made before, and neglect the duty that lies plainly before him."

"What do you mean, mother?" asked Elsie, who was inclined to think her mother rather hard on Tom in wishing him to go to this noisy school, where he said he could not do any good.

"Why, Tom's duty now is to make the best he can of his present opportunities, as it is impossible to recall the past."

"But what are his opportunities? He don't seem to have any now," said Elsie, who was always ready to take up the cudgels on Tom's behalf, although his neglect of duty had cost them all so dearly.

"Got no opportunities!" repeated Mrs. Winn. "Why, there is this school we are talking about. It may not be so good as the one we left behind us, but still it will be of service to him, if he will only set his mind to learn all they can teach, and patiently overcome the difficulties that are in the way.

"He must make the best of a bad job, as we are all trying to do, for to sit down with his hands before him, or to spend all his time in the garden, would just be wasting it. And by-and-bye, he might have as great cause to regret doing that as he now has for the losing the chance of getting a scholarship, that would help him so much to the attainment of his heart's desire."

"But there is no chance of getting a scholarship now," complained Tom. He was very angry with himself for his past folly, and disposed to be angry with other people.

"I am afraid that opportunity has gone for ever, my boy; but I want you to see that you may be repeating the mistake that cost you this, if you do not take the present opportunity of learning all you can at this village school. Although it may not be so good as the other, or afford you the same opportunities as you had before, do it because it is your duty, if you cannot like it. And in trying to do this, things will grow easier as time goes on. You will get used to the noise in the schoolroom and the ways of the boys."

"Ah! And get like them, too," said Tom, sourly.

"I hope not, my boy," said his mother, quickly. "Jack Bond told me one day you had taught him to behave himself properly, and so I do not see why you should sink to the level of these rude, rough boys!"

"Poor old Jack! I liked him," said Tom. "I wonder what he is doing now—whether they have got to their new home, and how they like it." The mention of his old school-fellow had turned Tom's thoughts into a pleasant channel, and he said, "Wouldn't you like to see Jack again, Elsie?"

"Yes, I shouldn't mind," said Elsie, "for he wasn't so bad when you came to know him, and he was very kind to you."

"Jack was a brick," said Tom, admiringly.

"Yes, but he led you into all the mischief that caused our trouble," said his mother, "and so for his sake, as well as for your own, you ought not to let it go further than you can help, but make the best of this school, hard as it may be."

It was not very palatable advice to give the boy just now, and he could not make up his mind to follow it all at once. But he determined to go to school in the afternoon without further grumbling, though whether he would try to make the best of things when he got there was another matter. If it was only like his old school, he would give all his mind to his lessons, he thought, but the chance of going to a school like that was over for ever, and once more Tom sighed in vain regret over his misused opportunities.