“Let me go into your own chamber, Mistress Dale,” said he, “where is, I know, such an easy-chair as would fit judge or bishop, let alone a humble clerk, and where the fire hath burnt all day. Your best parlour, sure, is very fine accommodation, but cold, mistress, cold.”
“Why, surely,” said my mother, “an I had known your Reverence was coming there should have been a fire lighted hours ago. However, my own parlour hath had a fire in it since noon.”
Whereupon she led him to the easy-chair in her own room, and Lucy and myself followed in and paid our respects to the Vicar, and admired his white bands and the silver buckles of his shoes, and looked at his staff, which was a clouded cane with a heavy silver knob of great value. And the Parson having stretched forth his hands to the blaze, and asked us how we did, and if we were faithful in our duties to our parents, I was sent forth into the yard to find my father, who had gone out awhile before to consult Timothy Grass and Jacob Trusty about certain yearlings which he had just bought at Wakefield fair. And finding him, he at once broke off his discourse and went into the house and greeted the Vicar, and brought forth tobacco and pipes, and they both smoked, and my mother went into the kitchen and made a pitcher of mulled ale, of which grateful drink Parson Drumbleforth was an admirer. And my father and the Vicar discoursed of the weather, and the crop of lambs, and the prospect of the coming harvests, hay and corn, and Lucy and I listened and strove hard to behave ourselves with propriety. And the mulled ale having been brought in and the glasses filled, the Vicar pledged us all and commended the drink mightily, after which the pitcher was put on the hob to keep warm, and my mother sat down to her needle.
“Master and Mistress Dale,” presently said Parson Drumbleforth, “I am come here tonight on an important matter. Ye have here a great lad—stand up, William, my child, and let us look at thee; why, thou art nearly to my shoulder already!—ye have here, I say, a great lad, who is fast growing towards manhood.”
“Oh, sir!” cried my mother. “Manhood! Why, ’tis but a child.”
“Softly, softly, mistress. I say manhood, and rightly. For before ye see the change he will be a youth, and then a man, ay, and a bigger man than his father.”
“He will, he will,” said my father. “Ay, he will be an inch bigger than I am all ways. However, I am six foot three in my stockings.”
“ ’Tis a fine lad, indeed,” said Parson Drumbleforth, measuring me with a critical eye. “Wherefore the greater responsibility resteth upon you.”
“Your own boy, sir, Master John, is a big-made boy, too,” said my mother, anxious to return the Vicar’s compliments.
“So, so. A sturdy knave is Jack, and strong enough, but rather broad than long. However, your mention of Jack, Mistress Dale, brings me back to where I set out from. It is time, Master Dale, that this great lad went to school.”
“He hath learnt from me, sir,” said my mother, looking anxiously at me. “What I could teach him he hath learnt, so that now he can read his Catechism in the Prayerbook, and knoweth his duty, and—”
“Mistress Dale,” interrupted Parson Drumbleforth, “I know well that you are a scholar, and able to impart knowledge to your children. As for this little maiden, let her continue to learn from her mother. But as for Will here, let him to school, where men will teach him, and he will mix with his fellows.”
“But, sir,” said my mother, “there is no school at hand. For it is too far for him to walk twice a day ’twixt here and Pontefract.”
“Then he must board with the master, my good friend Dr. Parsons,” said Parson Drumbleforth. “He will not charge you overmuch for the lad’s eating and sleeping. On a Saturday let him come home, so that he may enjoy the benefit of my ministry on a Sunday, and on a Monday morning let him be off again bright and early.”
“He hath never slept away from home in his life,” said my mother. “And I always fear damp beds in strange houses. Our own, sir, if not slept in for awhile, are aired for days before we use them again, but all folks are not so particular.”
“Tut, tut, mistress, the beds will be aired I warrant. Mistress Parsons is a careful housewife. What say’st thou, Master Dale?”
“I am for the lad to go,” said my father. “ ’Twill do him no harm to live with others of his age.”
“ ’Tis a good school, the Queen’s School at Pontefract,” said the Vicar. “My own lad, Jack, hath been there since Christmas, and though somewhat of a woodenhead, he hath picked up a good deal. Wouldst like to go with Jack to school, Will?”
“Yes, sir, very much,” I answered.
And in the end it was decided that I should go; and my father promised to ride into Pontefract the next morning, and there make arrangements with Dr. Parsons about my board and lodging in the master’s house. And so overjoyed
