Part 1, Chapter XXIII.
Clerical Difficulties.
The Fullerton party proved triumphant in the struggle which ensued, and in spite of the Rector’s efforts to produce a better state of things at the boys’ school, Mr Humphrey Bone kept on teaching in his good old-fashioned way—good in the eyes of many of the Lawfordites—when he was sober, but breaking out with a week’s drinking fit from time to time, when the school would be either closed or carried on by the principal monitors, Sage Portlock going in from time to time at the Rector’s request when the noise became uproarious.
Those who had been the most determined on Bone’s retention shut their eyes to these little weaknesses on the master’s part; and, if the boys were not well taught, the tradesmen’s accounts were written in a copperplate hand, while the length and amount of the bill was made less painful to its recipient by finding his name made to look quite handsome with a wonderful flourish which literally framed it in curves—a flourish which it had taken Mr Bone years to acquire.
The Rector resigned himself in disgust to the state of things, and devoted his attention to the girls’ school.
“It can’t be helped, Miss Portlock,” he said, with a smile; “if we cannot make good boys in the place we must make super-excellent girls, and by and by as they grow up they’ll exercise their influence on the young men.”
He thought a great deal of his words as he went homewards, according to his custom, with his hands behind his back, holding his walking-cane as if it were a tail, thinking very deeply of his sons, and whether some day good, true women would have an influence upon their lives and make them better men.
The Rector never knew why the boys laughed at him, setting it down entirely to their rudeness and Humphrey Bone’s bad teaching, for no one ever took the trouble to tell him it was on account of that thick black stick he was so fond of carrying, depending from his clasped hands behind.