openly banged their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to
speak. He said many acid and withering things, as he stood there on
the rostrum. But what is the good of saying acid things to those
little fiends and gall-bladders, the colliery children. The
situation was saved by Miss Frost's sweeping together all the big
girls, under her surveillance, and by her organizing that the tall
and handsome blacksmith who taught the lower boys should extend his
influence over the upper boys. His influence was more than
effectual. It consisted in gripping any recalcitrant boy just above
the knee, and jesting with him in a jocular manner, in the dialect.
The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith's hand need be, and his
dialect was as broad as could be wished. Between the grip and the
homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. So the Sunday
School paid more attention to James, whose prayers were beautiful.
But then one of the boys, a protegé of Miss Frost, having been left
for half an hour in the obscure room with Mrs. Houghton, gave away
the secret of the blacksmith's grip, which secret so haunted the
poor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of her malady, and
made Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Houghton
resented something in the coarse Scotch manner of the minister of
that day. So that the superintendency of the Sunday School came to
an end.
At the same time, Solomon had to divide his baby. That is, he let
the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor and
haberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bear
analysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joiners
appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room in
the shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and sawing,
and suffered. W. H. Johnson came out with a spick-and-span window,
and had his wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a
handsome, loud girl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked
in--even women, buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They
could have bought a tie for four-three from James Houghton. But no,
they would rather give sixpence-halfpenny for W.H. Johnson's fresh
but rubbishy stuff. And James, who had tried to rise to another
successful sale, saw the streams pass into the other doorway, and
heard the heavy feet on the hollow boards of the other shop: his
shop no more.
After this cut at his pride and integrity he lay in retirement for a
while, mystically inclined. Probably he would have come to
Swedenborg, had not his clipt wings spread for a new flight. He hit
<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>