Working in the Shade | Page 5

of energy, but with a little more
discretion; bright as a sunbeam, and honest as the day; abounding also
in good works. Such were the three families who maintained an
intimacy with Colonel Dawson, when the rest of the neighbouring
gentry dropped off into ordinary acquaintances.
CHAPTER THREE.
"THE NEW SCHOOL."

When the family had occupied Park House about four months, a great
deal of curiosity and excitement was felt by the inhabitants of
Bridgepath, the little hamlet of five hundred persons in the rear of
Riverton Park, in consequence of sundry cart-loads of bricks, stone, and
lime being deposited on a field which was situated a few yards from the
principal beer-shop. The colonel was going to build, it seemed,--but
what? Possibly a full-grown public-house. Well, that would be a very
questionable improvement. Was it to be a school, or a reading-room?
There was a school already, held in the parlour of the blacksmith's
cottage, where a master attended on week-days, weather permitting,
and imparted as much of the three R's as the children, whose parents
thought it worth while to send them, could be induced to acquire under
the pressure of a moderate amount of persuasion and an immoderate
amount of castigation.
The master came in a pony-cart from Franchope, and returned in the
same the moment the afternoon school broke up, so that his scholars
had ample opportunity, when he was fairly gone, to settle any little
disputes which might have arisen during school hours by vigorous
fights on the open green, the combatants being usually encouraged to
prolong their encounters to the utmost by the cheers of the men who
gathered round them out of the neighbouring beer-shops.
As for religious instruction, the master, it is true, made his scholars
read a portion of the Scriptures twice a week, and learn a few verses.
But they would have been almost better without this; for the hard,
matter-of-fact way in which he dealt with the Holy Book and its
teachings would make the children rather hate than love their Bible
lesson.
And what was done for the improvement, mental or spiritual, of the
grown-up people? Nothing. Neither church nor chapel existed in the
place. A few old and middle-aged people walked occasionally to the
nearest place of worship, some two miles off; but nine-tenths of the
villagers went nowhere on a Sunday--that is to say, nowhere where
they could hear anything to do them good, though they were ready
enough to leave their homes on the Sabbath to congregate where they

could drink and game together, and sing profane and immoral songs.
So Bridgepath was rightly called "a lost place;" and indeed it had been
"lost" for so many years, that there seemed scarcely the remotest
prospect of its being "found" by any one disposed to do it good.
However, even in this dark spot there was a corner from which there
shone a little flickering light. John Price and his family tenanted a
tolerably roomy cottage at the entrance to the village, close to the
horse-pond. The poor man had seen better days, having acted as
steward to the young squire from the time he came into the property till
he disappeared with his infant son and an old nurse who had lived for
nearly two generations on the Riverton estate. Poor John had served the
squire's father also as steward, and loved the young master as if he had
been his own child; and it was known that, when ruin fell on the young
man, the poor steward was dragged down also to poverty, having been
somehow or other involved in his employer's ruin. But never did John
Price utter a word that would throw light on this subject to anyone
outside his own family. All he would let people know was, that the
squire had left him his cottage rent-free for his life,--which was, indeed,
all that the master had to leave his faithful servant.
The worthy man had struggled hard to keep himself and his family; but
now he was bed-ridden, and had been so for some five or six years past.
However, he had a patient wife, who made the most and best of a very
little, and loving children, some of them in service, who helped him
through. And he found a measure of peace in studying his old,
well-worn Bible, though he read it as yet but ignorantly. Still, what
light he had he strove to impart to those of the villagers who came to sit
and condole with him; while his wife, and an unmarried daughter who
lived at home, both deploring the wickedness of Bridgepath, tried to
throw in a word of scriptural truth now and then, for the sake of
instructing and improving their heathenish neighbours.
It may be