‘His entertainment! His teetotal entertainment! Stuff and nonsense—cramming the fellows’ heads with pride and folly, as if they were better than their neighbours.’
‘Oh, James!’ said his wife, ‘let them be as silly as they like. What does that matter in comparison with ruining their families by drink?’
‘They’ll ruin their families by something else,’ said the Rector; ‘if not in one way they’ll get it out in another—politics, most likely, and socialism, and that sort of thing. What Osborne will do is to make them all a set of insufferable, narrow-minded prigs.’
‘Even that, James——’ began Mrs. Plowden.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said the Rector, ‘that you’ll make men Christians by teaching them that there’s a curse on one of the gifts of God. You may abuse any and all of the gifts of God; but to make a young ass think he is superior to his honest father, because he abstains, forsooth, and the old man likes his honest glass of beer!’
‘Mr. Osborne doesn’t teach them that, papa,’ said Florry from the further corner of the room, in which, her eyes, she said, being a little weak, she had established herself. Mr. Plowden turned upon her like a tempest.
‘Who are you?’ he said; ‘a little chit of a girl, to tell me what Osborne teaches them or doesn’t teach them! I should hope I am still able to judge for myself—at least, in such a question as this.’
‘Hush, Florry!’ said her mother, with a little nod at Florence. They were all aware that in certain conjunctures it was inexpedient to contradict the Rector. As for Jim, he held up two books to his mother behind backs over Mr. Plowden’s head and disappeared with them, shutting the door softly behind him. He was too much in the habit of closing doors softly and stealing out; but Mrs. Plowden’s mind being otherwise occupied, she did not think of this to-night.
If there had been anything wanted to throw Jim into the arms of the curate, that tirade did it. Had his father sent him forth to Mr. Osborne’s company with a blessing, it would have spoiled all; but to escape for all the world as if he were going to spend the evening with Mrs. Brown, put things at once on a right footing. Jim walked through the village, not in his usual lounging way, but with a long stride and head high. He glanced at the ‘Blue Boar,’ with the cheerful light shining through its red curtains, and thought with a little contempt of the fellows who were seated, he knew, in a cloud of smoke within, and with talk as smoky as the air, he thought to himself lightly. It was a place where a man might go to pass the time when he had nothing else to do; but he had never entertained any illusion on the subject of its dulness, Jim said to himself.
It is doubtful whether Mr. Osborne heard Jim’s step coming through the little garden of the cottage in which he lodged with the same exhilaration. The curate, indeed, had been of opinion that Jim was not at all likely to come, and had settled himself to his evening’s occupation with that view. He had not found much pleasure in the young man’s companionship during their long walk. He had caught the look of surprise, the lifting of the eyebrows, with which the people of Winwick testified their amazement to see such a superior person as Mr. Osborne accompanied by that unlucky Jim—and Mr. Osborne had not liked it. The fact that he did not like it, however, was the one good thing in the matter, for it gave him the conviction that since he did not like it, it must be the right thing. He had liked that little glorification of taking the pledge to induce old Mrs. Lloyd to do it; and this sensation had made him much less strong than he might have been as to the absolute virtue of the act. Mr. Osborne, as will be perceived, was really a very superior young man. When Mr. Ormerod had taken him aside, with again a lifting of the eyebrows, and asked him whether that young cub of Plowden’s had turned over a new leaf as he (Osborne) had taken him in tow, the curate of Watcham had been angry. ‘Don’t you think it might be perhaps my duty to help him to turn over a new leaf?’ he had said, with some asperity, at which the Winwick curate had lifted his eyebrows more and more. They had all thought that to consort with Jim was rather a token that Mr. Osborne himself was acquiring a relish for indifferent society, than that it was his duty to endeavour to reclaim that species of lost sheep. This naturally and beneficially excited the temper of Edward Osborne, which was a fine, animated, vigorous sort of temper, capable of doing a great deal to encourage him in an unpopular way. If it had been a young boatman on Riverside there would have been no lifting of eyebrows. So much the more was it evident that this particular thing was his duty, and that he was bound to pursue what these asses took upon them to disapprove of. A man may be a very good man, and yet feel his virtuous determination strengthened by the consciousness that those who are against him are asses. And just as Jim was encouraged by his father’s angry opposition, so was Mr. Osborne by the surprise, whether put in words or not, of his Winwick friends. They had all been greatly complimentary and touched to the heart by the episode of old Mrs. Lloyd.