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IT was early summer now. In the depths of the greening woods the school-master lay reading: "And thus it passed on from Candlemass until after Easter that the month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise, every lusty heart that is any manner a lover springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds.
She fired up at the arrogance of the squire, and the prudery of the daughter; and as to the school-master, she wondered where was the use of having school-masters, and why boys could not remain at home and be educated by tutors, under the eye of their mothers. She asked to see the verses I had written, and she was delighted with them; for to confess the truth, she had a pretty taste in poetry.
But great as was the shock, it was small to the storm of shame and agony that came over me when I realized that every comrade who had been around the lad had saved himself by a rush to the bank, where we huddled together, a gaping crowd of foolhardy cowards, without skill to do anything or heart to dare anything to save him. "Yon's the school-master, sir;" and then I saw Mr. "What's the matter?"
I didn't want the children's only idea of Christmas to be cakes and toys; and that was rather difficult to arrange, as the situation is so strained between the clergy and the laïques, particularly the curé and the school-master. However, he was most amiable; would do anything I wanted. I said I held very much to having the church open and that I would like as many people to come as it would hold.
"Really, Mr. Pedagog," returned the Idiot, with an irritating shake of his head, as if he were confidentially hinting to the School-Master to keep quiet "really you pain me by these futile denials. Nobody forced you into the confession. You made it entirely of your own volition. Now I ask you, as a man and brother, what's the use of saying anything more about it?
The Bishop wanted me to be a clergyman, my mother thought that if Fred was going to be a school-master there was no reason why I should not be one, and although my father did not say anything he was not the man to see me finish my time at Oxford and then sit down to wait for some employment to turn up.
Amongst us we can reach every one of the Council of Ten, except old Contarini, who has the soul of a school-master and the intelligence of a crab. If I did not like the fellow, I suppose I should let him be hanged several times rather than take so much trouble. Sins of omission are my strongest point.
And sometimes on a summer's evening, when we talked and read aloud to each other across a quaint oak table that had been the miser's, of far-away lands and strange birds of gorgeous plumage, the school-master sat silent in the arm-chair by the open lattice, resting his white head against the mullion that the ivy was creeping up, and listened to the blackbirds and thrushes as their songs dropped by odd notes into silence, and gazed at the near fields and trees, and the little homestead with its hayricks on the hill, when the grass was apple-green in the gold mist of sunset: and went on gazing when that had faded into fog, and the hedgerow elms were black against the sky, as if the eye could not be filled with seeing, nor the ear with hearing!
Yes, I am her school-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think, everything considered. Everything considered being translated means holidays. But the fact is, she was not born for study, and it comes hard.
He hastened from the room, got into his air-man suit, covered it with an overall, emptied his cash-box into his pocket, and returned to say good-bye. Kate accompanied him to the door. "Buck up, old girl," he said, as he kissed her. "I'll let you know what happens, if I can. By the way, there's a globe in the shed I want you to send back to Dawkins, the school-master, first thing to-morrow.
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