“That’s a misfortune. If you could be born again, and in the west country, it would be a mercy for you. From where do you come?”
“From Hampshire.”
“That’s right up in the north.”
The schoolmaster raised his eyebrows. “Of course--in the south of England.”
“It doesn’t follow,” said Zerah; “by your speech I took you to be foreign.”
“And what may your name be,” said Pasco, “if I may be so bold as to ask? I have heard it, but it sounded French, and I couldn’t recollect it.”
“My name is very English--Walter Bramber.”
“Never heard anyone so called before. Brambles, and Bramptons, and Branscombes. It don’t sound English to our ears. I may as well tell you--sit down, and take a fork--that we liked our last schoolmaster uncommon much. He was just the right sort of man for us; but the rector took against him.”
“I thought he was rather given to the”--
“Well, what of that? We have, all of us, our failings. A trout is an uncommon good fish, but it has bones like needles. You have your failings, my wife has hers. I will say this for Mr. Solomon Puddicombe--he never got tight in our parish. When he was out for a spree, he went elsewhere--to Newton, or Teignmouth, and sometimes to Ashburton. He couldn’t help it. Some folks have fits, others have bilious attacks. When he wasn’t bad, he was very good; the children liked him, the parents liked him. I liked him, and I’m the churchwarden. He had means of his own, beside the school pence and his salary. A man has a right to spend his money as he chooses. If he had got tight on the school pence, I can understand that there might have been some kind of objection; but when it was on his private means, then I don’t see that we have anything to do with it. Have you means of your own?”