“Then you’ll go to the town at once, John.  We shall want the things as soon as possible.  You’d better take the pony, and we’ll have the list ready for you.”

Bill heard no more words; but as he left the grounds the laughter of the young gentlemen rang out into the road.

What did it all mean?

CHAPTER IV

“The night was now pitmirk; the wind soughed amid the headstones and railings of the gentry (for we all must die), and the black corbies in the steeple-holes cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner.”

     MANSIE WAUGH.

Bill was early at the night-school.  No other of his class had arrived, so he took the corner by the fire sacred to first-comers, and watched the gradual gathering of the school.  Presently Master Arthur appeared, and close behind him came his friend.  Mr. Bartram Lindsay looked more attractive now than he had done in the garden.  When standing, he was an elegant though plain-looking young man, neat in his dress, and with an admirable figure.  He was apt to stand very still and silent for a length of time, and had a habit of holding his chin up in the air, which led some people to say that he “held himself very high.”  This was the opinion that Bill had formed, and he was rather alarmed by hearing Master Arthur pressing his friend to take his class instead of the more backward one, over which the gardener usually presided; and he was proportionably relieved when Mr. Bartram steadily declined.

“To say the truth, Bartram,” said the young gentleman, “I am much obliged to you, for I am used to my own boys, and prefer them.”

Then up came the schoolmaster.

“Mr. Lindsay going to take John’s class?  Thank you, Sir.  I’ve put out the books; if you want anything else, Sir, p’raps you’ll mention it.  When they have done reading, perhaps, Sir, you will kindly draft them off for writing, and take the upper classes in arithmetic, if you don’t object, Sir.”

Mr. Lindsay did not object.

“If you have a picture or two,” he said.  “Thank you.  Know their letters?  All right.  Different stages of progression.  Very good.  I’ve no doubt we shall get on together.”

“Between ourselves, Bartram,” whispered Master Arthur into his friend’s ear, “the class is composed of boys who ought to have been to school, and haven’t; or who have been, and are none the better for it.  Some of them can what they call ‘read in the Testament,’ and all of them confound b and d when they meet with them.  They are at one point of general information—­namely, they all know what you have just told them, and will none of them know it by next time.  I call it the rag-tag and bob-tail class.  John says they are like forced tulips.  They won’t blossom simultaneously.  He can’t get them all to one standard of reading.”

Mr. Lindsay laughed and said—­

“He had better read less, and try a little general oral instruction.  Perhaps they don’t remember because they can’t understand;”—­and the Rector coming in at that moment, the business of the evening commenced.