Persis sat with her work in her hand by her open window in the little room over that in which the school was assembled below. Pleasant to her ear was the hum of voices rising from beneath, for it told her that her husband was, as usual, opening the day by devotion, and her busy needle stopped, and she silently joined in the Lord's prayer repeated by many young voices.

Persis was then about to set to her work again, when, chancing to glance out of the window, her attention was drawn to three gentlemen walking along the road, each smoking a cigar. Though Mrs. Franks had not before seen the baronet, who never appeared at church, she instantly recognized him as the central person in the group, by the description which she had heard of him. There was no mistaking the short, thick figure, the face where the color lay in patches of purplish-red, and the hat cocked a good deal upon one side, over a mass of sandy-colored hair. Sir Lacy's companions were a young lawyer and a medical student, neither of whom looked as if they would be likely to do much credit to their respective professions.

Persis Franks dropped her work on her knees, instinctively clasped her hands, and drew back a little from the window, while keeping her eyes anxiously fixed upon the unwelcome strangers.

"I hope and trust that they'll pass by the school without entering it," she said to herself, while the sound of their coarse laughter grew louder as they drew nearer.

The hopes of Franks's wife were not realized. The three men were evidently on their way to the school. Persis could catch a few of their words,—something about badgering and baiting, and putting the fellow to the question.

Hot as was that July morning, Persis grew cold and trembled, and for the first time let her baby cry in his cradle for at least two minutes before she went to see what her darling wanted. She had a terrible misgiving that nothing good could come of the visit of those three men who had just disappeared under the porch. Earnestly Persis prayed that her husband might be able to command his temper under any provocation, and so defeat the malice of one whom she could not but regard as an enemy.

Franks, upon every Monday morning, as soon as prayers were ended, questioned his boys on the subject of the sermon heard on the preceding day. This was his invariable custom, and he found it to be followed by two good results: it made the boys listen more attentively to the sermon, and it enabled him to explain to them in his simple, homely way, whatever had been too hard for them to understand. The addresses of the young curate, unlike those of the vicar, were often above the comprehension of some of his ignorant hearers.

Franks, upon this particular Monday morning, had just begun his questioning with the words, "Now, Sims, what was the text?" when there was a murmur of "Sir Lacy, Sir Lacy," heard through the school-room, and every eye was turned towards the door through which the three gentlemen were entering.

It must be owned that to Franks the visitors were extremely unwelcome, and especially at that time. The influence of the baronet was already working for evil amongst the Colme boys, and he was but too likely, not only to take offence at the subject of the sermon, but to try to turn into ridicule any religious instruction that he might hear. There was some stiffness in the air of the school-master as he received the lord of the manor.

"Go on, go on, just as if I were not here," said the baronet, replacing the cigar which he had taken out of his mouth for a moment; and Franks felt that for the sake of his boys he must go on. His pupils must see in him no cringing fear of man overcoming the fear of God. Had he changed his regular custom on account of the baronet's presence, he would have shown himself unfit to train boys to do their duty faithfully and fearlessly in the face of all the world.

"What was the text of the sermon?" repeated Ned Franks, addressing himself again to young Sims.

But if the one-armed school-master preserved his presence of mind, the scholar certainly did not do so also. Sims, the same boy who had had his ear twitched by Sir Lacy in Wild Rose Hollow, looked with an uneasy, frightened expression, not at his questioner, but at the formidable visitor who was standing with his hands behind his back to listen. The boy began to stammer forth, "Remember the—the," and then stopped short, not daring to finish the verse.

Sir Lacy Barton burst out laughing at his evident confusion. "A precious bright scholar you!" he exclaimed. "If you'd been questioned as to whether Sharpspur or Redcomb had the best of it yesterday, you'd have answered him a deal quicker;" and the baronet wound up his sentence with a loud oath, such as had never been heard before within the walls of that school-room.

Franks felt that the honor of his Master, the welfare of his pupils, forbade him to pass over in silence, on account of the rank of the offender, what in the case of any one else would have called forth instant and stern rebuke. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," he said, in a tone not loud but clear, which, in the breathless silence kept by the awe-struck boys, was heard distinctly in the farthest corner of the room; and, as he spoke the message of God, the master fixed his eyes calmly and fearlessly upon the profane young man, who quailed and blanched under their gaze. The effect upon the astonished boys was greater than would have been produced by the most eloquent sermon against swearing. They saw that in Franks they had a leader who would not only bid them wage war against vice in every shape, but who would himself head the charge, and expose himself freely in the conflict.

Badham, the lawyer, came to the assistance of the discomfited Barton. He had a supercilious, sarcastic manner, almost more disgusting to Franks than the coarseness of Sir Lacy himself.

"You are well up in the commandments, I perceive, my good friend," he observed, addressing himself to the school-master, "and no doubt your knowledge on all other parts of education is equally deep. May I ask in what college you have studied?" Badham winked at the baronet as he asked the question.

"I was never at college," replied Ned Franks; "I was brought up at a village school, but left it early to go to sea."

"But of course you have read and studied a good deal since, or you would hardly have been placed by the late Sir Lacy Barton in the position which you now hold."

Ned Franks flushed. He felt as if he were being put upon his trial, and before judges determined beforehand to condemn him. "I have not great book-learning," he replied; "but Mr. Curtis recommended me to Sir Lacy as one who could fulfil the duties of school-master here."

"But the present Sir Lacy takes such a fatherly interest in the school which his ancestors founded," said the lawyer, winking again at the baronet, "that he wishes to judge for himself as to the competency of one entrusted with such a responsible charge as yours. He has desired me to ask you a few educational questions, to which, I have not the slightest doubt, you will give a prompt and able reply."

"I do not think this the time or place for such an examination," said the school-master, whose countenance was glowing with indignation at the insidious proposal. "I will wait upon Sir Lacy at the Hall at any hour that he may choose to appoint."

"No time or place like the present!" cried the baronet, who had a keen relish in the "baiting and badgering" of the school-master in the presence of his pupils. "As I'm the patron of this school, I've a good right, I take it, to see that the teacher isn't a blockhead or a dunce."

And then, at a sign from him, the flippant lawyer began to aim a shower of questions, like a flight of arrows, against the unfortunate school-master,—questions ingeniously contrived to perplex and puzzle even one who had received a better education than had fallen to the lot of Ned Franks. At every query to which no reply was or could be given by him who had passed his youth at sea, the baronet burst out into an insulting laugh, which was echoed by the medical student; as if the ignorance of Franks regarding Neri and Bianchi, Palleschi and Piagnone, the respective styles of French, German, and Dutch infidel writers, and the names of female favorites of Bourbon kings, was as absurd as if he had been unable to repeat the multiplication-table. Certainly, Sir Lacy could not have himself answered one of the questions. But what of that? One needs no deep study to learn how to laugh; and it was rare fun to him to humble and degrade the teacher before all his pupils. Franks was more annoyed by the titter from some of his scholars, which now followed the gentlemen's uproarious mirth, than he was by the more direct insults of the strangers. That his "jovial crew," that a single boy amongst them, should be mean enough to join in the laugh against him, was almost more than his spirit could endure.

I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress, had been the text which Franks had chosen on that morning for his meditation during the day. Sorely he needed it now. As he stood silent before his persecutor, with flushed cheek and flashing eye, again and again he repeated that text to himself, to keep in the burning words that were rising to his tongue. He had spoken out boldly when the insult was against his Master; there was the more need that he should show self-command when the attack was personal to himself.

"You don't mean us to conclude," said Badham at last, "that you have never so much as heard of all these well-known matters before?"

"Sir," replied Franks, as calmly as he could, though his tone betrayed some emotion, "my work is to train village lads for usefulness here and happiness hereafter; and I do not suppose that farm-lads will be the less suited for either the one or the other because they can't give the names of Italian factions or of the favorites of French kings."

Badham shrugged his shoulders, the baronet and the medical student shrugged theirs, to express their utter contempt for such a very ridiculous observation. The baronet was the first to break the silence which followed, which he did by addressing himself to Badham.

"What say you to our master here,—you who have all kinds of learning at the ends of your fingers,—is he fit to be a teacher of boys?"

"About as fit as to be a performer on a lady's grand piano," said the lawyer.

"While he remains here, the motto of the school had better be, 'Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise,'" observed the medical student.

"It was a shame for Mr. Curtis to recommend such a fellow to my father," said Sir Lacy. "You see how unfit he is for the place."

"Utterly unfit!" cried the lawyer.

"Disgracefully incompetent!" chimed in the student.

"I suppose," said Sir Lacy, in his insolent manner, "that school-masters, like footmen, expect their masters to give a month's warning. What day is this?—the sixth of July. Well, on the sixth of August you will bundle yourself off, my fine fellow, and I'll take precious good care not to consult the old parson as to whom your successor should be. He might, in his wisdom, recommend some saint from the Idiot Asylum!" and with another laugh at this brilliant joke, which was echoed by his two companions, but by none of the boys, who stood aghast at the sudden dismissal of their master, Sir Lacy sauntered out of the school-room, accompanied by the lawyer and medical student.

There were a few moments of silence after they had left, during which the ticking of the large school-clock sounded almost painfully loud. It was broken by Ned Franks himself, who, turning towards his class, resumed the interrupted thread of the morning studies by asking Sims for the third time the question, "What was the text of yesterday's sermon?"