As months and seasons sped onwards, they plucked the hairs from Simon Clegg’s crown, and left a bald patch to tell of care or coming age; they stole the roundness from Bessy’s figure, the hope from her heart and eyes. There was less vigour in the beat of her batting-wand, less elasticity in her step. The periodical holidays and cheering visits of Jabez were the only pleasant breaks in the monotonous life of the Cleggs. Beyond the knowledge obtained at the billeting office in King Street that Tom Hulme had entered the army and gone abroad with his regiment, no tidings of the self-exiled soldier had come to them. In the great vortex of war his name had been swallowed up and lost. But she never said “Ay” to Matthew Cooper, though he waited and waited, smoking his Sunday pipe by the fireside even till his own Molly was old enough to have a sweetheart, and to want to leave her father’s crowded hearth for a quieter one of her own.
Those same months and years added alike to the stature and attainments of Jabez Clegg and Laurence Aspinall, though in very unequal ratio. The former, though he had long since astonished Simon with his fluent rendering of the big Bible, was but a plodding scholar of average ability, the range of whose studies was limited, notwithstanding Parson Joshua’s voluntary Latin lessons. The latter had an aptitude for learning, which made his masters press him forward; and Joshua Brookes forgave the tricks he played, his translations were so clear and so correct. Yet, when he wrote stinging couplets or “St. Crispin” on the Parson’s door, or put cobblers’-wax on the pedagogue’s chair, the covert reference to his parentage, stung the irascible man more than the damage to kerseymere, and in his wrath he birched his pupil into penitence.
His penitence took a peculiar form. A discovery was made that a general dance in the school-room would shake the pewter platters and crockery down from dresser and corner cupboard in Joshua’s house adjoining. Whenever the dominie had growled over bad lessons with least cause, Laurence was sure to propose a grand hornpipe after school hours. Back would rush Joshua fast as his short legs would carry him, spluttering with passion; but the nimbler lads disappeared when they heard the crash, and, as a rule Joshua’s temper cooled before morning.
Laurence Aspinall’s chief source of amusement from his first entrance into the Grammar School had been the crippled father of Joshua Brookes. As the old fellow staggered home drunk, the street-boys would hoot at him, pull him about, pelt him with mud, and mock at him, till his impotent fury found vent in a storm of vile and opprobrious language. Laurence was sure to enjoy a scene of this kind, but he was generally sly enough to act as prompter, not as principal.
The old man was a great angler; and that he might enjoy unmolested his favourite pastime, his son had obtained from Colonel Hansom permission for him to fish in Strangeways Park ponds. Thither he had an empty hogshead conveyed, and the crippled old cobbler, with a flask of rum for company, sat within it, often the night through, to catch fish. The Irk had not then lost its repute for fine eels, and old Brookes—who, by the way, wore his hair in a pigtail—was likewise wont to plant himself, with rod and line, on what was the Waterworth Field, on the Irwell side of Irk Bridge, to catch eels.
Returning one afternoon (Joshua was busied with clerical duties), Laurence Aspinall and his fellows met the old man staggering along with his rod over his shoulder and a basket of eels in one hand.
He had called at the “Packhorse” for a dram, and went on, as was his wont, talking noisily to himself. He had steered round the corner in safety; but hearing one lively voice call out, “Here’s old Fishtail;” and another, “Here’s St. Crispin’s Cripple;” and a third, “Make way for Diogenes,” as he was passing the high-master’s ancient house he gave a lurch, meaning to reprove them solemnly—the top of his rod caught in the prominent pillar of the doorway, and was torn from his insecure grasp. Striving to recover it, he pitched forward, and in falling dropped his basket in the mud, and set the writhing, long-lived fish at liberty to swim in the gutter swollen with recent rain.
The lounging lads at once set up a shout; but Laurence, with a timely recollection that the front of Dr. Smith’s was scarcely the most convenient place for his purpose, winked at his companions, and, with an aspect of mock commiseration, politely assisted the old man to rise, begged the others to capture the eels and carry the basket for him, and, under pretence of putting the angler’s rod in order, contrived to fasten the hook to the end of his old-fashioned pigtail.
Then he helped his unsteady steps until they were fairly out of Dr. Smith’s sight and hearing; but they did not suffer him to reach his son’s house before they showed their true colours. Loosing his hold, Laurence snatched at the rod, and, darting with it towards the College gate, cried out in high glee, “I’ve been fishing; look at the fine snig (eel) I’ve caught!” And, as he capered about, he dragged the poor old cripple hither and thither backwards by his pigtail, to which hook and line were attached.
Old Brookes screamed in impotent rage and pain; the boys laughed and shouted the louder. The one with his basket set it on his head, and paraded about, crying, “Who’ll buy my snigs? Fine fresh snigs!” with the nasal drawl of a genuine fish-seller.