That call did not come nearly as soon as
Hester Baines had anticipated; not, indeed,
until nearly a score of years after she gave
up Bible-teaching, and became Andrew
Joyce's wife. In the second year of her
marriage a son was born to her, and thence-
forward she lived for him, and for him
alone. He was a small, delicate, sallow-faced
boy, with enormous liquid eyes, and rich red
lips, and a long throat, and thin limbs, and
long skinny hands. A shy retiring lad,
with an invincible dislike to society of any
kind, even that of other boys; with a hatred
of games, and fun; and an irrepressible
tendency to hide away somewhere, anywhere,
in an old lumber-room amid the
disused trunks and broken clothes-horses,
and general lumber, or under the wide-
spreading branches of a tree, and then,
extended prone on his stomach, to lie, with his
head resting on his hands, and a book
flat between his face-supporting arms. He
got licked before he had been a week at
the school, because he openly stated he did
not like half-holidays, a doctrine which when
first whispered among his schoolfellows was
looked upon as incredible, but which, on
proof of its promulgation, brought down
upon its holder severe punishment. Despite
of all Dr. Munch's somnolency and neglect,
despite of all his class- fellows' idleness,
ridicule, or contumely, young Joyce would
learn, would make progress, would acquire
accurate information in a very extraordinary
way. When Mr. Ashurst assumed
the reins of government at Helmingham
Grammar School, the proficiency, promise,
and industry of Walter Joyce were the only
things that gave the new dominie the smallest
gleam of interest in his new avocation.
With the advent of the new head master
Walter Joyce entered upon a new career;
for the first time in his life he found some
one to appreciate him, some one who could
understand his work, praise what he had
done, and encourage him to greater efforts.
This had hitherto been wanting in the
young man's life. His father liked to
know that the boy "stuck to his book;"
but was at last incapable of understanding
what that sticking to the book produced,
and his mother, though conscious that her
son possessed talent such as she had always
coveted for him, had no idea of the real
extent of his learning. James Ashurst was
the only one in Helmingham who could
rate his scholar's gifts at their proper value,
and the dominie's kind heart yearned with
delight at the prospect of raising such a
creditable flower of learning in such
unpromising soil. He praised himself, not
merely with the young man's present but
with his future. It was his greatest hope
that one of the scholarships at his old college
should be gained by a pupil from
Helmingham, and that that pupil should
be Walter Joyce. Mr. Ashurst had been in
communication with the college authorities
on the subject; he had obtained a very unwilling
assent—an assent that would have
been a refusal had it not been for Mrs.
Joyce's influence—from Walter's father that
he would give his son an adequate sum
for his maintenance at the University, and
he was looking forward to a quick coming
time when a scholarship should be vacant,
for which he was certain Walter had a
most excellent chance, when Mrs. Joyce
had a fit and died. From that time forth
Andrew Joyce was a changed man. He
had loved his wife in his grim, sour, puritanical
way, loved her sufficiently to strive
against this grimness and puritanism to
the extent of his consenting to live for the
most part in the ordinary fashion of the
world. But when that gentle influence
was once removed, when the hard-headed,
narrow-minded man had no longer the soft
answer to turn away his wrath, the soft
face to look appealingly up against his
harsh judgment, the quick intellect to
combat his one-sided dogmatisms, he fell
away at once, and blossomed out as the
bitter bigot into which he had gradually
but surely been growing. No college education
for his son then; no assistance for
him from a bloated hierarchy, as he remarked
at a public meeting, glancing at
Mr. Sefton, the curate, who had eighty
pounds a year and four children; no money
of his to be spent by his son in a dissolute
and debauched career at the university.
Mr. Stoker had not been at any university
—as, indeed, he had not, having picked
up most of his limited education from a
travelling tinker, who combined pot-mending
and knife-grinding with Bible and tract
selling—and where would you meet with
a better preacher of the Gawspel, a more
shining light, or a comelier vessel? Mr.
Stoker was all in all to Andrew Joyce then,
and when Andrew Joyce died, six months
afterwards, it was found that, with the
exception of the legacy of a couple of
hundred pounds to his son, he had left all
his money to Mr. Stoker, and to the chapel
and charities represented by that erudite
divine.

It was a sad blow to Walter Joyce, and
almost as sharp a one to James Ashurst.