At first, whenever they took the lower road through Angel Meadow, they did their best to ferret out the parentage and connections of Jabez, hoping by their inquiries even to keep alive the memory of his marvellous deliverance, so that in case the missing father should return, there might be a mutual restoration.
These Sunday excursions did not drop with the sere autumnal leaves. A crisp clear day called them forth surely as sunshine had done, Jabez mounting pick-a-back on the shoulders of Simon or Matt when his little feet could no longer keep up their trot beside the bigger Cooper boys. Frames were invigorated, cheerfulness came back to face and home, and Simon, who had a deep-seated love of Nature in his soul, finding her so good a physician, kept up the acquaintance through rounding seasons and years. And from Nature he drew lessons which he dropped as seed into the boy’s heart, as unconscious of the great work he was doing as was Jabez himself.
The boy throve and grew hardy. Companionship with older and rougher lads, sturdy fellows with wills of their own, made him sturdy too; a lad who would take a blow and give one on occasion; who would run a race and lose, and a second, and third, until he could win. But Bessy’s gentle training was something very different from Sal’s, and Jabez grew up tender as well as strong and bold.
A persecuted kitten had taken refuge under Bessy’s batting-frame in the foundling’s go-cart days, and in care for that kitten, and for a wounded brown linnet brought home one Sunday, he learned humanity. Matthew’s lads were given to bird-nesting, and Matt himself saw no harm in it; but when that young linnet’s wing was broken in a scuffle for the nest stolen from a clump of brushwood, Simon read the robbers such a homily they had never heard in their young lives, and as a corollary he took the bird home to be fed and nursed by Bess and Jabez till it could fly, an event which never came about.
In hot weather the lads pulled off clogs and stockings (there were no trousers to turn up—they wore breeches), and waded into pools and brooks, and Jabez would be no whit behind. On one of these occasions, either the current was too strong for the venturesome child, or the gravel slipped from under his feet, or his companions pushed him—no matter which,—but in he went, and, but for the presence of Simon, would have been drowned. Simon had been born on the river-banks, and could swim like a fish. At once he resolved that Jabez should learn to do the same, and begin at once.
“Yo’ see, Bess, if aw hadna bin theer he’d a bin dreawnded, sure as wayter’s wet, an’ th’ third toime pays off fur o’; so he mun larn to tak’ care on himsel’ th’ next toime he marlocks gambols among th’ Jack-sharps.”
Jabez was not six years old when Simon Clegg gave him and the young Coopers their first lesson in swimming, in a delightful and sequestered part of Smedley Vale, where the Irk was clear and bright. He had shown them, nearer home, how a frog used its limbs, and then, after a few preliminary evolutions, to show how a man used his, took the lad on his back, and, after swimming with him awhile shook him off into the water to flounder about for himself.
Bess was often left at home on Sundays after that; and Jabez was not merely the better for his bath, but by the time he was eight years old was a fearless swimmer.
Yet, although these country rambles had become an institution, Simon Clegg never neglected his Sabbath duties. Sunday morning was sure to see him, clean-shaven, in his best suit, with Jabez by the hand, and mild-eyed Bess beside, on the free seats of the Old Church, under the eye of parsons and churchwardens; and Jabez if he could understand little of the service, could gather in a sense of the beautiful from the grand old architecture, from the swell of the solemn organ, the harmonious voices of the choristers—of the Blue-coat boys in the Chetham-gallery over the churchwarden’s pew, and of the Green-coat children farther on. Then the silver mace carried before the parson was a thing to wonder at, and fill him with awe; and no one could tell how the clerical robes, and choristers’ surplices, transfigured common mortals in his admiring eyes.
But those years of Jabez Clegg’s young life had been full of history for Manchester and Europe. The town had grown as well as the foundling. Invention had been busy. Volunteer regiments had been one by one disbanded, a daily newspaper was started, and peaceful arts nourished. Then, ere another year expired, Napoleon declared the British Isles in a state of blockade; British subjects on French soil, whether civil or military, to be prisoners of war: British commodities lawful spoil; and so War—red-handed War—broke loose once more. Again Manchester rose up in arms to defend country and commerce. A “Loyalty Fund” of £22,000 was raised for the support of Government. No fewer than nine separate volunteer corps sprang from the ashes of the old ones, and the town was one huge garrison. The commander of one regiment—the Loyal Masonic Rifle Volunteer Corps,—Colonel Hanson—a remarkable man in many ways,—was distinguished by a command from George III. to appear at Court in full regimentals, and with his hat on.