Tales and Novels, vol 1 | Page 8

it
just ready in his hand: he knew that he could call again at the
watchmaker's, and give what he pleased, without ostentation.
Upon questioning the little girl further, concerning her grandmother's
illness, Henry discovered, that the old woman had sat up late at night
knitting, and that, feeling herself extremely cold, she got a pan of
charcoal into her room; that, soon afterwards, she felt uncommonly
drowsy; and when her little grand-daughter spoke to her, and asked her
why she did not come to bed, she made no answer: a few minutes after
this, she dropped from her chair. The child was extremely frightened,

and though she felt it very difficult to rouse herself, she said, she got up
as fast as she could, opened the door, and called to the watchmaker's
wife, who luckily had been at work late, and was now raking the
kitchen fire. With her assistance the old woman was brought into the
air, and presently returned to her senses: the pan of charcoal had been
taken away before the apothecary came in the morning; as he was in a
great hurry when he called, he made but few inquiries, and
consequently condemned the geranium without sufficient evidence. As
he left the house, he carelessly said, "My wife would like that geranium,
I think." And the poor old woman, who had but a very small fee to
offer, was eager to give any thing that seemed to please the doctor.
Forester, when he heard this story, burst into a contemptuous
exclamation against the meanness of this and of all other apothecaries.
Henry informed the little girl, that the charcoal had been the cause of
her grandmother's illness, and advised them never, upon any account,
to keep a pan of charcoal again in her bedchamber; he told her, that
many people had been killed by this practice. "Then," cried the little
girl, joyfully, "if it was the charcoal, and not the geranium, that made
grandmother ill, I may keep my beautiful geranium:" and she ran
immediately to gather some of the flowers, which she offered to Henry
and to Forester. Forester, who was still absorbed in the contemplation
of the apothecary's meanness, took the flowers, without perceiving that
he took them, and pulled them to pieces as he went on thinking. Henry,
when the little girl held the geraniums up to him, observed, that the
back of her hand was bruised and black; he asked her how she had hurt
herself, and she replied innocently, "that she had not hurt herself, but
that her schoolmistress was a very strict woman." Forester, roused from
his reverie, desired to hear what the little girl meant by a strict woman,
and she explained herself more fully: she said, that, as a favour, her
grandmother had obtained leave from some great lady to send her to a
charity school: that she went there every day to learn to read and work,
but that the mistress of the charity school used her scholars very
severely, and often kept them for hours, after they had done their own
tasks, to spin for her; and that she beat them if they did not spin as
much as she expected. The little girl's grandmother then said, that she
knew all this, but that she did not dare to complain, because the
schoolmistress was under the patronage of some of "the grandest ladies

in Edinburgh," and that, as she could not afford to pay for her little
lass's schooling, she was forced to have her taught as well as she could
for nothing.
Forester, fired with indignation at this history of injustice, resolved, at
all events, to stand forth immediately in the child's defence; but,
without staying to consider how the wrong could be redressed, he
thought only of the quickest, or, as he said, the most manly means of
doing the business: he declared, that if the little girl would show him
the way to the school, he would go that instant and speak to the woman
in the midst of all her scholars. Henry in vain represented that this
would not he a prudent mode of proceeding.
Forester disdained prudence, and, trusting securely to the power of his
own eloquence, he set out with the child, who seemed rather afraid to
come to open war with her tyrant. Henry was obliged to return home to
his father, who had usually business for him to do about this time. The
little girl had stayed at home on account of her grandmother's illness,
but all the other scholars were hard at work, spinning in a close room,
when Forester arrived.
He marched directly into the schoolroom. The wheels stopped at once
on his appearance, and the schoolmistress, a raw-boned,
intrepid-looking woman eyed him with amazement: he broke