Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/12

4 The buildings of the national school were two miles distant, near the village. The church stood in the grounds of Orleigh Park, and its satellite, the Sunday school, most certainly ought to be near it.

There had been some difficulty about a habitat for the Sunday school. Lady Lamerton had tried to hold it in the laundry of the great house, but the children in muddy weather had brought in so much dirt that no laundry-work could be done in the room on Monday till it had been scoured out. Besides—a fearful discovery had been made, better left to the imagination than particularised. Suffice it to say that after this discovery the children were banished the laundry. It must have come from them. From whom else could it have been derived? The laundry-maids were Aphrodites, foam, or rather soapsud-born, and it could not proceed from such as they. Some said—but nonsense—there is no such a thing as spontaneous generation. Pasteur has exploded that. So all the pupils, with their prayer-books and Ancient-and-Moderns under their arms, made an exodus, and went for a while into an outhouse in the stable-yard. There they did not remain long, for the boys hid behind doors instead of coming in to lessons, and then dived into the stables to see the horses. One of them nearly died from drinking embrocation for spavin, thinking it was cherry-brandy, and another scratched his ignoble name on the panel of one of my lord's carriages, with a pin.

So, on the complaint of the coachman, my lord spoke out, and the Sunday scholars again tucked their prayer-books and hymnals under their arms, and, under the guidance of Lady Lamerton, migrated to a settled habitation in the basement of the keeper's cottage. The place was hardly commodious, but it had its advantages—it was near the church.