Kitty Alone. Baring-Gould Sabine
discouraged, he took his violin and began to play. This instrument was to be to him in exile companion, friend, and confidant. Presently he heard a male voice downstairs talking loudly to his landlady. He stayed his bow, and in another moment a stout and florid man stumbled up the staircase.
“How do’y, schoolmaister?” said this visitor, extending a big and moist hand. “I’m Jonas Southcott, landlord of the Lamb and Flag. As I was passing, I heard your fiddle squeak. You’re just the chap us wants. Peter Adams as played first fiddle at church is dead; he was the man for you--he could turn you off a country dance, a hornpipe, or a reel.”
“What, in church?”
“No, not exact-ly that. At our little hops at the Lamb and Flag; and on Sunday he was wonderful at an anthem or a psalm. We want someone who can take his place. You please to come and be sociable when the young folks want a dance. What can you play--‘Moll in the Wad,’ ‘The Devil among the Tailors,’ ‘Oil of Barley,’ ‘Johnny, come tie my cravat’? These were some of Peter Adams’s tunes. And on Sunday you should have heard him in Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum,’ or at Christmas in ‘While shepherds watched.’ It was something worth going to church for.”
“I hardly know what to say,” gasped Walter Bramber. “I am but newly arrived, and have not as yet shaken into my place.”
“This is practising night. The instruments will all be in my parlour this evening at half-past six. If you like to come and be sociable, and have a glass of spirits and water, and try your hand at Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum,’ I reckon the orchestra will be uncommon gratified.”
“You are very good, but”--
“And when the practice is over, we’ll whip in some young folks and have a dance, and if you’ll fiddle some of them tunes--‘Moll in the Wad,’ or ‘The Parson among the Peas,’ or ‘The Devil among the Tailors,’ you’ll get intimate with young and old alike. Then, also, you can keep your eyes open, and pick out a clean, comely maiden, and keep company with her, and walk her out on Sundays--and so look to settling among us. You have a head-wind and a strong tide against you. The old master was such a favourite, and so greatly respected, that I doubt, unless you make an effort, you won’t go down here.”
“This evening you must excuse me; I’m very tired.”
“Well, this was kindly intended. I thought to put you on good terms with the parish at once. Perhaps you’re shy of playing Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’ till you’ve tried it over privately. I’ll see if I can borrow you the notes. Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’”--
“I presume you mean the ‘Te Deum.’”
“We always call it ‘Tee-dum’ here, and if you give it any other name, no one will understand you. We are English, not French or Chinese, in Coombe-in-Teignhead.”
The landlord of the Lamb and Flag descended the stairs, and Bramber, fearing lest he should have given offence, accompanied him to the street door. His landlady was a widow. When Jonas Southcott was out of the house, she beckoned to Walter Bramber, and said--
“I be main glad you ain’t going to the practice to-night, for I have axed Jane Cann in to tea.”
“Who is Jane Cann?”
“Her teaches sewing and the infants in the National School. I thought you’d best become acquainted in a friendly way at the outset. She used to keep a dame’s school herself, and a very good school it was. But when the parson set up the new National School, he did not want exactly to offend folk, and to take the bread out of Jane Cann’s mouth,--you know she’s akin to me, and to several in the place,--so he appointed her to the infants. Her’s a nice respectable young woman, but her had a bit o’ a misfortune as a child; falled and hurt her back, and so is rather crooked and short. Her may be a trifle older than you, but folk do say that is always best so; for when the wife is young”--
“Goodness preserve us! you don’t suppose I am going to marry her because she is the sewing-mistress?”
“You might do worse. Folk are sure to talk anyhow, and it’s best to give ’em some grounds for their talk. You see, she and you must walk together going to school and coming away, and she lives close by here. As I was saying, people say that when the wife is much younger than her husband there comes a long family, and the man is old and past work when some of the youngest are still no better than babies.”
Bramber felt a chill down his spinal marrow, as though iced water were trickling there.
“I speak against my own interest,” continued the widow, “but it does seem a pity that you should not put your salaries together and occupy one house. She gets twenty pounds a year. If you was to marry her, you’d be twenty pounds the richer. ’Twas unfortunate, though, about that cricket ball.”
“What about a cricket ball?”
“Why, Jane Cann was looking on at a cricket match among the boys, and a ball came by accident and hit her on the side of her head, so that she’s hard o’ hearing in her right ear. You’ll please to sit by her on the left, and then she can hear well enough. Jane Cann is my cousin, and I’d like to do her a good turn, and as she’s maybe about seven years older than you, you need not fear a long family.”
“Preserve me!” gasped the schoolmaster.
“I’ll set you a stool on her left side, and give her a high chair, then you’ll be about on a level with her hearing ear.”
“I--I am going out to tea,” said Bramber, snatching up his hat to fly the cottage; but was arrested at the door by a burly farmer who entered.
“This is Mr. Prowse of Wonnacot,” said the widow to Bramber. Then to the farmer, “This, sir, is the new teacher, who is going to lodge with me.”
“I’ve heard of him from Southcott,” said Prowse. “I’ve been told you play the fiddle. Perhaps you know also how to finger the pianer. My girls, Susanna and Eliza, are tremendously eager to learn the pianer, and I thought that after school hours you might drop in at my little place--Wonnacot--and give the young ladies lessons. I’d take it as a favour, and as I am a not inconsiderable subscriber to the National School, and”--
The widow, in a tone of admiration, threw in an aside to Bramber--“He subscribes half a sovereign.”
The farmer inflated his chest, smiled, raised himself in his boots, and, thrusting his right hand into his pocket, rattled some money. He had heard the aside, as it was intended that he should.
“I may say,” continued Mr. Prowse, “that I am a bulwark and a buttress of the National School, and as such I lay claim to the services of the teacher; and if, after hours, he can hop over to my little place and give my girls an hour three times a week, then”--he raised his chin and smiled down on the schoolmaster--“then I shall not begrudge my subscription.”
“It is true,” said Bramber, “that I can play a little on the piano, but--I am not sure that I am competent to give lessons. Moreover, I doubt if I shall have the time at my disposal. I am still young, and must prosecute my studies.”
“If you expect to remain here in comfort,” said the farmer testily, “you’ll have to do what you are asked. You don’t expect me to subscribe to the National School and get no advantage out of it?”
Thus it was--some made demands on the time, some on the purse, and others desired to dispose of the person of the new-comer.
To escape meeting the crooked sewing-mistress, deaf of the right ear, Walter ran into the street, and walked through the village.
A labourer came up to him.
“I want a word with you, Mr. Schoolmaister,” said he. “My boy goes to the National School, and I gives you fair warning, if you touches him with your hand or a stick, I’ll have the law of you.”
“But suppose he be disobedient, rude, disorderly?”
“My boy is not to be punished. He is well enough