Badham, the lawyer, came to the assistance of the discomfited Barton. He had a supercilious, sarcastic manner, almost more disgusting to Franks than the coarseness of Sir Lacy himself.
"You are well up in the commandments, I perceive, my good friend," he observed, addressing himself to the school-master, "and no doubt your knowledge on all other parts of education is equally deep. May I ask in what college you have studied?" Badham winked at the baronet as he asked the question.
"I was never at college," replied Ned Franks; "I was brought up at a village school, but left it early to go to sea."
"But of course you have read and studied a good deal since, or you would hardly have been placed by the late Sir Lacy Barton in the position which you now hold."
Ned Franks flushed. He felt as if he were being put upon his trial, and before judges determined beforehand to condemn him. "I have not great book-learning," he replied; "but Mr. Curtis recommended me to Sir Lacy as one who could fulfil the duties of school-master here."
"But the present Sir Lacy takes such a fatherly interest in the school which his ancestors founded," said the lawyer, winking again at the baronet, "that he wishes to judge for himself as to the competency of one entrusted with such a responsible charge as yours. He has desired me to ask you a few educational questions, to which, I have not the slightest doubt, you will give a prompt and able reply."
"I do not think this the time or place for such an examination," said the school-master, whose countenance was glowing with indignation at the insidious proposal. "I will wait upon Sir Lacy at the Hall at any hour that he may choose to appoint."
"No time or place like the present!" cried the baronet, who had a keen relish in the "baiting and badgering" of the school-master in the presence of his pupils. "As I'm the patron of this school, I've a good right, I take it, to see that the teacher isn't a blockhead or a dunce."
And then, at a sign from him, the flippant lawyer began to aim a shower of questions, like a flight of arrows, against the unfortunate school-master,—questions ingeniously contrived to perplex and puzzle even one who had received a better education than had fallen to the lot of Ned Franks. At every query to which no reply was or could be given by him who had passed his youth at sea, the baronet burst out into an insulting laugh, which was echoed by the medical student; as if the ignorance of Franks regarding Neri and Bianchi, Palleschi and Piagnone, the respective styles of French, German, and Dutch infidel writers, and the names of female favorites of Bourbon kings, was as absurd as if he had been unable to repeat the multiplication-table. Certainly, Sir Lacy could not have himself answered one of the questions. But what of that? One needs no deep study to learn how to laugh; and it was rare fun to him to humble and degrade the teacher before all his pupils. Franks was more annoyed by the titter from some of his scholars, which now followed the gentlemen's uproarious mirth, than he was by the more direct insults of the strangers. That his "jovial crew," that a single boy amongst them, should be mean enough to join in the laugh against him, was almost more than his spirit could endure.
I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress, had been the text which Franks had chosen on that morning for his meditation during the day. Sorely he needed it now. As he stood silent before his persecutor, with flushed cheek and flashing eye, again and again he repeated that text to himself, to keep in the burning words that were rising to his tongue. He had spoken out boldly when the insult was against his Master; there was the more need that he should show self-command when the attack was personal to himself.