Alison, the reserved, had held her tongue on his antecedents; but Ermine

was drawn into explaining that his father had been a minor canon, who

had eked out his means with a combination of chaplaincies and parts

of curacies, and by teaching at the school where his son was educated.

Indignant at the hack estimation in which his father had been held, the

son, far more justly viewing both the dignity and duty of his office,

was resolved to be respected; but bred up in second rate society,

had neither weight, talent, nor manners to veil his aggressive

self-assertion, and he was at this time especially trying to the

Curtises.

Cathedral music had been too natural to him for the endurance of an

unchoral service, and the prime labour of his life was to work up his

choir; but he was musical by education rather than nature, and having

begun his career with such mortal offence to the native fiddlers and

singers as to impel them into the arms of dissent, he could only supply

the loss from the school by his own voice, of which he was not chary,

though using it with better will than taste. The staple of his choir

were Rachel's scholars. Her turn had always been for boys, and her

class on Sunday mornings and two evenings in the week had long been

in operation before the reign of Mr. Touchett. Then two lads, whose

paternal fiddles had seceded to the Plymouth Brethren, were suspended

from all advantages by the curate, and Rachel was with difficulty

withheld from an explosion; but even this was less annoying than the

summons at the class-room door every Sunday morning, that, in the midst

of her lesson, carried off the chief of her scholars to practise their

chants. Moreover, the blame of all imperfect lessons was laid on the

"singing for the parson," and all faults in the singing by the tasks for

Miss Rachel; and one night, the excellent Zack excused his failure in

geography by saying that Mr. Touchett had thrown away his book, and said

that it was no better than sacrilege, omitting, however, to mention that

he had been caught studying it under his surplice during the lessons.

At last, with his usual fatality, the curate fixed the grand practice

for the Saturday evenings that were Rachel's great days for instruction

in the three R's, and for a sort of popular lecture. Cricket was to

succeed the singing, and novelty carried the day, but only by the

desertion of her scholars did Rachel learn the new arrangement, and she

could hardly credit the assertion that the curate was not aware that it

was her day. In fact, it was the only one when the fisher lads were sure

not to be at sea, and neither party would yield it. Mr. Touchett was

determined not to truckle to dictation from the great house; so when

Rachel declared she would have nothing to do with the boys unless the

Saturdays were conceded to her, he owned that he thought the clergyman

had the first right to his lads, and had only not claimed them before

out of deference for the feelings of a well-meaning parishioner.




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