| 370 | 371 | 372 | 373 | 374 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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of the clergyman's wife, which had happened fifteen years before. He
had been his college friend and always his close companion; in the
first shock of his grief he had come to console and comfort him; and
from that time they had never parted company. The little old
gentleman was the active spirit of the place, the adjuster of all
differences, the promoter of all merry-makings, the dispenser of his
friend's bounty, and of no small charity of his own besides; the
universal mediator, comforter, and friend. None of the simple villagers
had cared to ask his name, or, when they knew it, to store it in their
memory. Perhaps from some vague rumour of his college honours
which had been whispered abroad on his first arrival, perhaps
because he was an unmarried, unencumbered gentleman, he had
been called the bachelor. The name pleased him, or suited him as well
as any other, and the Bachelor he had ever since remained. And the
bachelor it was, it may be added, who with his own hands had laid in
the stock of fuel which the wanderers had found in their new
habitation.
The bachelor, then - to call him by his usual appellation - lifted the
latch, showed his little round mild face for a moment at the door, and
stepped into the room like one who was no stranger to it.
'You are Mr Marton, the new schoolmaster?' he said, greeting Nell's
kind friend.
'I am, sir.'
'You come well recommended, and I am glad to see you. I should have
been in the way yesterday, expecting you, but I rode across the
country to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in
service some miles off, and have but just now returned. This is our
young church-keeper? You are not the less welcome, friend, for her
sake, or for this old man's; nor the worse teacher for having learnt
humanity.' 'She has been ill, sir, very lately,' said the schoolmaster, in
answer to the look with which their visitor regarded Nell when he had
kissed her cheek.
'
Yes, yes. I know she has,' he rejoined. 'There have been suffering and
heartache here.'
'
Indeed there have, sir.'
The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at
the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his, and held.
'
You will be happier here,' he said; 'we will try, at least, to make you
so. You have made great improvements here already. Are they the
work of your hands?'
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