The Manchester Man

by Mrs. G. Linnaeus Banks

He had given his last charge respecting his furry and feathered brood, exchanged the last clinging embrace under the dark arch, then tore away in quest of a deserted corner, where he might hide the tears he could not wholly restrain.

At first the new dress of which he was so proud, the blue stockings and clasped shoes in place of clogs, the yellow baize petticoat, the long-skirted blue overcoat or gown, the blue muffin-cap, the white clerical band at the throat (all neat, and fresh, and unpatched as they were), felt awkward and uncomfortable—the long petticoat especially incommoded him. But in a few days this wore off. There were other lads equally strange and unaccustomed to robes and rules. Fellow-feeling drew them towards each other, and with the wonderful adaptability of childhood, they fell into the regular grooves, and were as much at home as the eldest there in less than a fortnight. And from the Chetham Gallery in the Old Church he could see and be seen by Simon and Bess on Sabbath mornings from the free seats in the aisle, and that contented them.

The training and education of the Chetham College boys was, and is, conducted on principles best adapted for boys expected to fight their own way upwards in the world. They were not cumbered with a number of “ologies” and “isms” (the highest education did not stand on a par then with the moderate ones of this day); their range of books and studies was limited. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, sound and practical information, alone were imparted, so much as was needed to fit the dullest for an ordinary tradesman, and supply the persevering and intelligent with a fulcrum and a lever. Nor did their education end with their lessons in the school-room, nor was it drawn from books and slates alone.

Their meals were regular, their diet pure and ample, but plain. They rose at six, began the day with prayer, and retired to rest at eight. Besides their duties in the school-room, they darned their own stockings, made their own beds, helped the servants to keep their rooms clean, and six of the elder boys were set apart to run errands and carry messages beyond the precincts of the College.

Strength of muscle and limb were gained in the open courtyard in such games as trap and football; patience and ingenuity had scope in the bead purses, the carved apple-scoops and marrow-spoons, the worsted balls and pincushions they made to fill their leisure hours indoors. There was no idleness. Their very play had its purpose.

Let us set Jabez Clegg under the kind guardianship of Christopher Terry, the governor, and under the direct supervision of the Reverend John Gresswell, the schoolmaster, to con his Mavor, and make pothooks-and-ladles, on a form in the large school-room at the west end of the College; and to rise, step by step, up the first difficult rungs of that long ladder of learning which may indeed rest on our common earth, but which reaches far above the clouds and human ken.

Christmas and Midsummer vacations came and went, so did those red-letter days of his College life, Easter and Whitsuntide, when he was free to rush to the old yard, so near at hand, and after hugging Bess and Simon, whom he astonished with his learning, could assure himself his dumb family had been well cared for.

And if those passing seasons traced deeper lines on Simon’s brow, gave more womanly solidity to Bess’s form and character, they brought no change the foundling could mark. Tom Hulme’s whereabouts was still undiscovered. Matt Cooper was still a widower. But they and his masters could note the steady progress he made, and his chivalrous love of truth and sense of honour shown in many ways in little things. Yet there was one event a grief to him. His little brown linnet pined for its young friend, and died before the first Whitsunday came.

He was not much over ten years old when he was proved to possess courage, as well as truth and honour.

For some time Nancy, the cook, had observed that the cream was skimmed surreptitiously from the milk-pans in the dairy, that the milk itself was regularly abstracted, and she was loud in complaint. She could scarcely find cream enough to set on the governor’s table, and servants and schoolboys were in turn accused of being the depredators.