“An’ if th’ advertisin’ comes to nowt, what then?” said Molly.

Aye, what then! There was indeed the rub.

“Mr. Black’s nooan finished yet,” said Mrs Schofield.

The schoolmaster thoughtfully stirred his rum toddy with the metal crusher.

“I should dearly like to take the child as my own and rear him up to follow me when I’ve closed the school door for the last time and the long vacation begins for the old dominie. I could bring the lad on in arithmetic, grammar, the use of the globes, mensuration, algebra up to quadratic equations, Latin as far as Caesar De Bello and the Greek Testament as far as Matthew,” and Mr. Black’s eyes glistened at the alluring prospect.

“To be sure yo’ could, no man better,” assented Mr. Redfearn, none the less stoutly that he did not know what Mr. Black meant. “Aw’d a dog once called Caesar, but Bello’s beyond me.”

“It’s to ’prentice him to th’ blacksmith, can’t ta see?” said Aleck.

“Aw see, an’ a very gooid notion too.”

“But I cannot take the child on, though fain I’d be to do it. You know Priscilla’s never wed. She says it’s for my sake, and doubtless she knows best. But she isn’t as young as she was, and those plaguy boys have tried her temper. I wouldn’t say it to anyone, but Priscilla is a little, just a little, mind you, tetchy, so to speak, and certain sure I am she’d neither be willing nor able to do for a helpless bairn.”

“Aw see how it’ll end,” cried Molly. “Sakes alive! Farmer, missus, an’ schoolmaster all backin aat, like those folk i’ th’ Bible ’at wer’ bid to th’ weddin’, an’ nooan on ’em could come. There’s nobbut one end for yo’ an’ that’s th’ work’us, th’ big hoil o’th’ hill yonder, as weel say it as think it,” and the incensed virago bounced out of the kitchen and joined the company in the taproom in a game of “checkers” and sparing neither partner nor opponent the rasp of her biting tongue.

“Yo’ could make it, easy for th’ bairn?” went on Mr. Black.

“An’ th’ matron’s a motherly body wi’ childer o’ her own,” put in the hostess.

“An’ we needn’t lose sight o’ th’ lad,” added Mr. Redfearn.

“And I could spare an hour or two a day, when he’s big enough. I’ll make a course of study this very day. It’s the 

 Prev. P 19/194 next