To Marcel these hours of instruction were the best and sweetest recreation. The boy seemed to yearn after knowledge, and the progress he made was really surprising. He was even after a while able to undertake to teach a class of new-comers to read, and proud and happy was he the day this honorable task was assigned to him!
But music especially soon became his greatest source of pleasure. It soothed, cheered, and elevated him; it awakened in him the tenderest and highest sentiments. It saddened him, too, sometimes, but that was a solemn sadness that refined rather than depressed the boy's sensitive nature. The patriotic songs taught in the school roused his enthusiasm and inspired him with the most ardent love of his country. The soft strains of the simple catechism-hymns he and his brothers sang when the good chaplain prepared them for their first communion entered into his inmost heart, bringing peace and hope. But deep, very deep was his emotion when they sang some of those pieces composed expressly for them, and bearing reference to their past or present state. How his heart swelled when he joined his voice, high and sweet, to his fellow castaways, as they chaunted—
"Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round thee;
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee;
Look at yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee;
Rest not content in thy darkness a clod.
Work for some good—be it ever so slowly,
Cherish some flower—be it ever so lowly.
Let thy good deeds be a prayer to thy God."
How every stirring line re-echoed in his inmost soul, awakening there gratitude so deep and full to all those who had rescued him from sin that no language could have expressed it. We are told that there is "joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth;" how many blessings, then, must rest on the heads of those who have conducted sinning children to repentance—children whom he loves and wishes to be brought to him.
Two hours of school and the clarion sounded for supper. The repast over, after five minutes' play the refectory was converted into a dormitory by suspending the hammocks, and then came the evening prayer and hymn. The day was ended, and our orphan and his companions climbed into their clean beds, to sleep peacefully under the protection of that Heavenly Father who had permitted them in his inscrutable wisdom to bear the brunt of the battle while unprepared, but had saved them, scotched and bleeding, it is true, yet still with vitality enough to recover from their wounds, and fight again, and win at last—if they would!
Chapter X.
"I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
Tennyson.
Polycarpe Poquet found it more difficult to conform himself to the rules of the establishment, and the law of obedience to the Elder Brother especially was peculiarly galling to him. The Father of the Family he could submit to; but this superior, the Elder Brother, elected every month by themselves from among themselves, was regarded by him as a kind of hypocritical upstart, whom he took every opportunity to annoy. Many were the insulting words he addressed to the poor boys who received this mark of their companions' esteem, but who by their very position were forced to report every fault committed by those same companions, and many a weary hour did he pass in solitary confinement, making nails, before he had learned that first duty of a good citizen, obedience to constituted authorities.