Sheer Off: A Tale

"Why, there are the church-bells a-ringing! as if it wasn't enough to have all the school-boys going in procession with their garlands, and nosegays, and nonsense!" exclaimed Nancy Sands, the wife of the Clerk of Colme, as she stood in the shop of Ben Stone the carpenter, with her arms a-kimbo, and an expression anything but amiable upon her flushed face. "One might fancy that our new young baronet was a-coming home, or bringing a bride, or that the queen and all the royal family were a-visiting Colme, instead of this fuss being for nothing but the christening of a school-master's brat!"

"Ned Franks is a prime favorite with all the village," observed the stout, good-humored carpenter, as he went on with his occupation of planing a bit of mahogany, which his visitor wanted for a shelf in her cottage.

"A broken-down sailor, with only one arm!" exclaimed Nancy, with a snort of disdain.

"But with a good head and a better heart," observed the carpenter. "Ned Franks manages so well to keep his lads in order without thrashing them, that one arm is one too many for all that they need in that way. Not but that the wooden affair which I knocked up for him myself, with an iron hook for fingers and thumb, might serve well enough on a pinch to knock a little wit into a blockhead, if that were Ned Franks's fashion of teaching," added Ben Stone with a little chuckle.

"Teaching! he has no more learning in him than my mangle," muttered the scornful Nancy.

"But, like your mangle, he has a wonderful knack of getting things smooth and straight. I don't know what we'd have done in Colme without him, now our poor vicar has been tied up so long; it's Ned as has kept everything going like clockwork. Of course the young curate isn't just at once up to the ways of the place, letting alone that he looks as young as a boy, and as shy as a girl; he does his best, no doubt, but he couldn't get on without Ned Franks showing him the ins and outs of everything."

Nancy gave another contemptuous snort, but without specifying for whom it was intended. Ben Stone went on with his planing of the shelf and his praise of the school-master, his hand having a very different effect from his tongue; for the more he planed, the smoother grew the wood; while the more he praised, the rougher grew the temper of Nancy. Ben Stone saw this, and took a little malicious pleasure in stirring up the envy and jealousy of his customer; for, though he was not one to break the peace himself, and had never been known to be either out of spirits or out of temper, Ben Stone was certainly not a man to be reckoned amongst the peacemakers. He rather enjoyed "poking the fire in a neighbor's grate," as he once jestingly observed to his wife, and there was always plenty of dry fuel in Nancy's.

But why should praise of Ned Franks be as gall and wormwood to the clerk's wife, seeing that the one-armed sailor, now school-master at Colme, had never willingly wronged a person in his life, but was, on the contrary, ready to do a good turn for any one? Nancy had never forgiven Ned for having been given the place of school-master, to which she thought her own husband better entitled.

Ned's appointment was, in her eyes, a standing grievance, a shameful injustice, a cause for quarrelling, not only with him, but with all the world. "As if a fellow who has been accustomed to nothing but tarring old ropes, and running like a cat up the rigging, could be compared for one moment with a man like John Sands, who has been clerk for ten years in the parish, next to a parson, one might say, and who can draw out a certificate of baptism or marriage in the neatest and clearest of hands." Not that Nancy had herself much veneration for her husband, or, if report spoke truly, treated him with any kind of respect; but she did not choose that any one should be put over his head, least of all "that canting tar with a wooden arm," as she scornfully termed Ned Franks. Whenever Nancy met the school-master, she scowled at him under her black brows, as if he had done her a wrong. And she was never tired of speaking against him whenever she could get a listener. Now she spoke of the arts with which he had wheedled himself into the favor of Mr. Curtis, the vicar, though every one knew that Ned was simple and straightforward as a child; then she spoke of his violent temper, pitied his wife, "poor unlucky soul!" from the bottom of her heart, though all in the village were aware that Persis Franks was one of the happiest wives in the world, and that if ever a young couple deserved the famous Dunmow flitch, she and Ned might have claimed it. The happiness of Persis was now as complete as earthly happiness can be; for after nearly three years of wedded life, the desire and prayer of her heart had been granted,—she had presented her first-born babe to his father. But this seemed a new grievance to Nancy Sands. Had not she, too, once had a son? and was he not lying under the shadow of the church-yard wall? Why should these Franks be so happy when she was childless? Why should all be sunshine with them when her sky was clouded with gloom? Nancy did not attempt to answer the question, but it soured her spirit; and the sound of the merry church-bells, chiming for the baptism of Franks's little son made her feel as gloomy and wretched as when she had heard the knell tolled at the funeral of her own.