Pastors and Masters

“Well, this is a nice thing! A nice thing this schoolmastering! Up at seven, and in a room with a black fire⁠ ⁠… I should have thought it might have occurred to one out of forty boys to poke it⁠ ⁠… and hard at work, before other men think it time to be awake! And while you are about it, don’t pile on as much coal as it would take the day’s profits of the school to pay for. And here is a thing I have to see every morning of my life! Here is a thing I have to be degraded by, every morning when I come down to an honest day’s work, a middle-aged man working to support his family! I am surprised to see people with such a want of self-respect. I admit that I am. I would rather see a boy come in roundly late, than slip in on the stroke, half dressed and half asleep, and pass as being in time. It is an ungentlemanly thing to do.”

Mr. Merry, a tall, thin man about fifty, leaned back in his chair, and fixed on his pupils his little, pale, screwed up eyes, to which he had the gift of imparting an alluring kindness. His feelings towards them, affection, disgust, pride and despair, seemed to oust each other over his face.

“Yes, I am sick and tired of this sort of thing. I will not mince matters with you. And get to your seats without upsetting everything on your way, will you please? Oh, who would be a schoolmaster?

It was Mrs. Merry’s birthday, and she knew that a present from the boys would be placed on the table at tea. It had been subscribed for by them in private consultation with Miss Basden, and chosen by that lady and Mrs. Merry in the town together.

By tea time Mrs. Merry had reached the state, which justified her yearly message, that she was prevented by a headache from appearing. The boys begged Miss Basden to approach her. Mr. Merry sat vaguely ill at ease, kept as it were in bands by the parcel at the head of the table.

Mrs. Merry sent word that she would try and come for a moment; and entered, flushed and unexpectant, and approached her place.

“Why, what is this? What can this be? Why, I do not understand this, boys.”

Miss Basden stepped forward and quickly cut the string, in the manner of one tying gunpowder to a friend at the stake.

“Oh, boys,” said Mrs. Merry. “Oh, boys! Oh, what is this? Oh, you should not spend your money on me. I had no expectation of anything like this. And the very thing that I needed! Some good fairy must have⁠ ⁠…”

Her voice failed.

“There, Mother, there, you’re not well,” said Mr. Merry. “You’re not well, as you told us, Mother. And so you get upset. We know how it is.

“This is a good room to come back to,” said Herrick. “That hall and the woman, and poor Merry shuffling up to do his duty! It made me shiver.”

“The sight of duty does make one shiver,” said Miss Herrick. “The actual doing of it would kill one, I think.”

Emily Herrick was a tall, dark woman of fifty, half-sister to Herrick, with a face that somehow recalled an attractive idol’s, iron-grey hair wound in plaits about her head, and a quick, deep voice.

“Merry knows what the duty is,” said Herrick. “For my life, I don’t.”

“One couldn’t know what that duty was,” said Miss Herrick. “It could only be felt, and perhaps you have too good a brain to do things in that way.”

“Let us leave it at that,” said Herrick.

“To think that you made the school!” said Emily. “For it was you who made it. But of course you would do the creative part.”

“Yes, yes. And I could go on with it,” said Herrick.

“Of course you could,” said Emily. “Wouldn’t it be dreadful if you had to? Or if you did? It is almost dreadful that you could.”

“Yes, yes, it is,” said Herrick. “I am an ordinary man.”

“I didn’t mean that, darling,” said Emily. “They say that teachers are born, not made. I know that schoolmasters are. And it was for a schoolmaster that we wanted Mr. Merry.”

“It is for a schoolmaster we have him, anyhow,” said Herrick, sitting down at his desk.

“We must get out of the way of talking as if we were not honest, Nicholas,” said Emily.

“Are the boys coming?” said the Reverend Henry Bentley.

“They are out of their room, Father,” said his daughter.

“I asked you if they were coming.”

“They are out of their room, Father. We are all a little late this morning.”

“I know we are late. I asked you if they were coming.”

Mr. Bentley rang the bell, and took his seat. He was an upright, white-haired man in the fifties. He had been a parson and a younger son, and had come later into the family estate.

Two boys of twelve and thirteen edged into the room, with the words, “Good morning, Father.”

Mr. Bentley simply turned his eyes on them; and the younger showed the behaviour natural to continual gratitude, by vaguely capering.

The daughter was a tall young woman of thirty, with a pointed chin, and a small, compressed, peaceful mouth. She was the child of Mr. Bentley by an earlier marriage. He was a widower for the second time.

“I am sorry we are late, Father.”

Mr. Bentley did not look at her. He bowed his head over the breakfast with an air of not sharing the general thanklessness. Delia raised her head a little after the rest. There was a suggestion about her of remembering their being late.

“We shall have a windy walk to the college chapel,” said Mr. Bentley.

“What did you say, Father?” said Delia.

Mr. Bentley did not answer.

“We shall have a windy walk to the chapel,” he presently said, in a still lower voice.

“It was really too much reward,” said Emily. “But of course you deserved it.”

“Why, Bumpus,” said Herrick, looking at Bumpus’ papers over his shoulder; “your beginning sentence is the same as mine!”

“The same as yours?” said Bumpus. “Why, it can’t be. It can’t be, surely. Why, there wouldn’t be anything in common in our books.”

“Dickie, don’t say out what is in your mind openly to Nicholas,” said Emily.

“Why, what is there in an opening sentence?” said Herrick. “All opening sentences are much on a line, aren’t they? All books have got to begin.”

“Nicholas, you have had faith in yourself,” said Emily. “Do let us get it over. Anyhow, you have one sentence as good as Dickie. So let us have the beginning. That may be the only part we can bear.”

“Yes, get on, Herrick,” said Bumpus. “Your book is ready to the word, and mine isn’t. You are a greater than I. You have your own mind in hand.”

“I have sympathy with boasting,” said Emily. “I hope Nicholas has.”

“Yes, it is ready, Bumpus, it is ready,” said Herrick. “It may be the last and only thing, but something it is at last. You may all like to remember the day, when you heard it from my own lips.”

“But don’t spoil it for me by reminding me that I may be without a breadwinner,” said Emily; “especially as you don’t win any bread. Dickie is not doing things like that. I think I have proposed to you, Dickie. But we haven’t time to go on about it now.”