Luke Barnicott, and Other Stories

by William Howitt

To-day, however, the children were not sleepy, but neither were they industrious. Whilst they were reading, they kept looking up continually from their books to the door, as if expecting somebody, and yet at this time there seldom came any one, unless now and then an over-anxious mother who thought that her Michael or little Jacob had been too hardly dealt with. To-day, however, according to old custom, the schoolmaster's daughter Mina, and the bailiff's Emma, were gone to the clergyman's to ask about the breaking-up. For always as the time of the holidays approached, Mr. Erdmann, the schoolmaster, drew up a very politely expressed document in the name of the children, in which the clergyman was requested, "now the harvest season was at hand," that he would give permission to the children to discontinue their attendance at school "in order," said the writing, "that we may be able to assist our parents in the laborious business of the field."

These petitions were then beautifully copied out by the best-writer in the school, and two little girls chosen to present them to the clergyman, because they were so much gentler and better-behaved than the unmannerly boy population.

It was never known that the clergyman had returned a negative to these petitions for the school vacation, and yet there was always an uneasiness and an excitement amongst the children which could not be allayed. They might now almost have been on the eve of a little revolution; even Fritz, the schoolmaster's son, could not keep himself quiet, but fidgeted restlessly hither and thither. And yet Fritz was the best and cleverest scholar in the school; he was destined for the church, and had been instructed in Latin and Greek by the clergyman; therefore it was his duty to set a good example to all the others. This honourable post, it is true, had cost him an extra number of canings from his father, till finally he was advanced so far that the schoolmaster was able to say, with fatherly pride, when the others were lazy or behaved ill, "There, look at my Fritz!"

At length the door opened, and the girls entered, who had on this occasion an especial importance in the eyes of the boys, and who, with their smooth, beautifully plaited hair and pink frocks, looked very pretty.

"We are to break up!" said they, delivering thus to the schoolmaster, with beaming countenances, the answer to the embassy. "We are to break up!" was whispered loud and low throughout the school; but the master struck a blow with the hazel stick upon his desk, and amidst an instantaneous silence he said in a clear voice, "Silentium! that is to say, keep your tongues still! The clergyman has consented to the breaking up. Fritz, say it in Latin."

"Hodie feriæ habemus!" proclaimed Fritz in a shrill voice.

"Good! That is to say, to-day we break up," explained the schoolmaster. "But you must, every one of you, write three beautiful copies; farther, you must commit to memory the six hymns that are marked, and two pages of selections, as well as ''Tis harvest time, the nodding corn!' Now, behave well, all of you, and be industrious; and go very quietly home, every one of you, like well-conducted children."

Yes, indeed, very quietly and well-conducted! The little troop burst forth like a wild herd into the open air, as soon as the door was opened.

"Hurrah! Breaking up!" shouted they, wild with joy; even the exemplary Fritz set up such an unbecoming shout of exultation that his father, who, however, was well pleased himself, thought it right to give him an admonitory pluck by the hair. Soon after the wild herd dispersed; many amongst them entering into such poor, joyless homes, that in comparison the school must have appeared a paradise, and yet they rejoiced that they had broken up, and we cannot be angry with them. It is the fact of labour, of regular occupation, which makes the feeling of liberty so like a golden blessing; the neglected lad, who lounges about idly one day after another, certainly never experiences the happy sense of a breaking up.

Arrived at home, the schoolmaster exchanged his thin school-coat for his house-doublet, and seated himself comfortably on the wooden squab, for which his wife had made a cushion, for he had neither a house-coat nor yet a sofa.