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The Warden



by Anthony Trollope



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THE WARDEN



Anthony Trollope









CONTENTS



I.  Hiram's Hospital

II.  The Barchester Reformer

III.  The Bishop of Barchester

IV.  Hiram's Bedesmen

v.  Dr Grantly Visits the Hospital

VI.  The Warden's Tea Party

VII.  The Jupiter

VIII.  Plumstead Episcopi

IX.  The Conference

X.  Tribulation

XI.  Iphigenia

XII.  Mr Bold's Visit to Plumstead

XIII.  The Warden's Decision

XIV.  Mount Olympus

XV.  Tom Towers, Dr Anticant, and Mr Sentiment

XVI.  A Long Day in London

XVII.  Sir Abraham Haphazard

XVIII.  The Warden is very Obstinate

XIX.  The Warden Resigns

XX.  Farewell

XXI.  Conclusion









CHAPTER I

Hiram's Hospital





The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed

clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ---;

let us call it Barchester.  Were we to name Wells or Salisbury,

Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it might be presumed that

something personal was intended; and as this tale will refer

mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we

are anxious that no personality may be suspected.  Let us presume

that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England,

more remarkable for the beauty of its cathedral and the

antiquity of its monuments than for any commercial prosperity;

that the west end of Barchester is the cathedral close, and that

the aristocracy of Barchester are the bishop, dean, and canons,

with their respective wives and daughters.



Early in life Mr Harding found himself located at Barchester.

A fine voice and a taste for sacred music had decided the

position in which he was to exercise his calling, and for

many years he performed the easy but not highly paid duties

of a minor canon.  At the age of forty a small living in the close

vicinity of the town increased both his work and his income,

and at the age of fifty he became precentor of the cathedral.



Mr Harding had married early in life, and was the father

of two daughters.  The eldest, Susan, was born soon after his

marriage; the other, Eleanor, not till ten years later.



At the time at which we introduce him to our readers he was

living as precentor at Barchester with his youngest daughter,

then twenty-four years of age; having been many years a

widower, and having married his eldest daughter to a son of

the bishop a very short time before his installation to the office

of precentor.



Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the

beauty of his daughter, Mr Harding would have remained a

minor canon, but here probably Scandal lied, as she so often

does; for even as a minor canon no one had been more popular

among his reverend brethren in the close than Mr Harding;

and Scandal, before she had reprobated Mr Harding for being

made precentor by his friend the bishop, had loudly blamed

the bishop for having so long omitted to do something for his

friend Mr Harding.  Be this as it may, Susan Harding, some

twelve years since, had married the Rev. Dr Theophilus

Grantly, son of the bishop, archdeacon of Barchester, and

rector of Plumstead Episcopi, and her father became, a few

months later, precentor of Barchester Cathedral, that office

being, as is not usual, in the bishop's gift.



Now there are peculiar circumstances connected with the

precentorship which must be explained.  In the year 1434

there died at Barchester one John Hiram, who had made

money in the town as a wool-stapler, and in his will he left

the house in which he died and certain meadows and closes

near the town, still called Hiram's Butts, and Hiram's Patch,

for the support of twelve superannuated wool-carders, all of

whom should have been born and bred and spent their days in

Barchester; he also appointed that an alms-house should be

built for their abode, with a fitting residence for a warden,

which warden was also to receive a certain sum annually out

of the rents of the said butts and patches.  He, moreover,

willed, having had a soul alive to harmony, that the precentor

of the cathedral should have the option of being also warden

of the almshouses, if the bishop in each case approved.



From that day to this the charity had gone on and prospered

--at least, the charity had gone on, and the estates had prospered.

Wool-carding in Barchester there was no longer any;

so the bishop, dean, and warden, who took it in turn to put in

the old men, generally appointed some hangers-on of their

own; worn-out gardeners, decrepit grave-diggers, or octogenarian

sextons, who thankfully received a comfortable lodging

and one shilling and fourpence a day, such being the

stipend to which, under the will of John Hiram, they were

declared to be entitled.  Formerly, indeed--that is, till within

some fifty years of the present time--they received but sixpence

a day, and their breakfast and dinner was found them

at a common table by the warden, such an arrangement being

in stricter conformity with the absolute wording of old Hiram's

will: but this was thought to be inconvenient, and to suit the

tastes of neither warden nor bedesmen, and the daily one

shilling and fourpence was substituted with the common

consent of all parties, including the bishop and the corporation

of Barchester.

Such was the condition of Hiram's twelve old men when

Mr Harding was appointed warden; but if they may be

considered as well-to-do in the world according to their condition,

the happy warden was much more so.  The patches and

butts which, in John Hiram's time, produced hay or fed cows,

were now covered with rows of houses; the value of the property

had gradually increased from year to year and century to

century, and was now presumed by those who knew anything

about it, to bring in a very nice income; and by some

who knew nothing about it, to have increased to an almost

fabulous extent.



The property was farmed by a gentleman in Barchester,

who also acted as the bishop's steward--a man whose father

and grandfather had been stewards to the bishops of Barchester,

and farmers of John Hiram's estate.  The Chadwicks

had earned a good name in Barchester; they had lived

respected by bishops, deans, canons, and precentors; they

had been buried in the precincts of the cathedral; they had

never been known as griping, hard men, but had always lived

comfortably, maintained a good house, and held a high position

in Barchester society.  The present Mr Chadwick was a

worthy scion of a worthy stock, and the tenants living on the

butts and patches, as well as those on the wide episcopal

domains of the see, were well pleased to have to do with so

worthy and liberal a steward.



For many, many years--records hardly tell how many,

probably from the time when Hiram's wishes had been first

fully carried out--the proceeds of the estate had been paid

by the steward or farmer to the warden, and by him divided

among the bedesmen; after which division he paid himself

such sums as became his due.  Times had been when the poor

warden got nothing but his bare house, for the patches had

been subject to floods, and the land of Barchester butts was

said to be unproductive; and in these hard times the warden

was hardly able to make out the daily dole for his twelve

dependents.  But by degrees things mended; the patches

were drained, and cottages began to rise upon the butts, and

the wardens, with fairness enough, repaid themselves for the

evil days gone by.  In bad times the poor men had had their

due, and therefore in good times they could expect no more.

In this manner the income of the warden had increased; the

picturesque house attached to the hospital had been enlarged

and adorned, and the office had become one of the most

coveted of the snug clerical sinecures attached to our church.

It was now wholly in the bishop's gift, and though the dean

and chapter, in former days, made a stand on the subject,

they had thought it more conducive to their honour to have

a rich precentor appointed by the bishop, than a poor one

appointed by themselves.  The stipend of the precentor of

Barchester was eighty pounds a year.  The income arising

from the wardenship of the hospital was eight hundred,

besides the value of the house.

Murmurs, very slight murmurs, had been heard in

Barchester--few indeed, and far between--that the proceeds of

John Hiram's property had not been fairly divided: but they

can hardly be said to have been of such a nature as to have

caused uneasiness to anyone: still the thing had been whispered,

and Mr Harding had heard it.  Such was his character in

Barchester, so universal was his popularity, that the very

fact of his appointment would have quieted louder whispers

than those which had been heard; but Mr Harding was an

open-handed, just-minded man, and feeling that there might

be truth in what had been said, he had, on his instalment,

declared his intention of adding twopence a day to each man's

pittance, making a sum of sixty-two pounds eleven shillings

and fourpence, which he was to pay out of his own pocket.

In doing so, however, he distinctly and repeatedly observed

to the men, that though he promised for himself, he could

not promise for his successors, and that the extra twopence

could only be looked on as a gift from himself, and not from

the trust.  The bedesmen, however, were most of them older

than Mr Harding, and were quite satisfied with the security

on which their extra income was based.



This munificence on the part of Mr Harding had not been

unopposed.  Mr Chadwick had mildly but seriously dissuaded

him from it; and his strong-minded son-in-law, the

archdeacon, the man of whom alone Mr Harding stood in awe,

had urgently, nay, vehemently, opposed so impolitic a concession:

but the warden had made known his intention to the

hospital before the archdeacon had been able to interfere, and

the deed was done.



Hiram's Hospital, as the retreat is called, is a picturesque

building enough, and shows the correct taste with which the

ecclesiastical architects of those days were imbued.  It stands

on the banks of the little river, which flows nearly round the

cathedral close, being on the side furthest from the town.  The

London road crosses the river by a pretty one-arched bridge,

and, looking from this bridge, the stranger will see the windows

of the old men's rooms, each pair of windows separated by a

small buttress.  A broad gravel walk runs between the building

and the river, which is always trim and cared for; and at

the end of the walk, under the parapet of the approach to the

bridge, is a large and well-worn seat, on which, in mild

weather, three or four of Hiram's bedesmen are sure to be seen

seated.  Beyond this row of buttresses, and further from the

bridge, and also further from the water which here suddenly

bends, are the pretty oriel windows of Mr Harding's house,

and his well-mown lawn.  The entrance to the hospital is

from the London road, and is made through a ponderous

gateway under a heavy stone arch, unnecessary, one would

suppose, at any time, for the protection of twelve old men,

but greatly conducive to the good appearance of Hiram's

charity.  On passing through this portal, never closed to anyone

from 6 A.M.  till 10 P.M., and never open afterwards,

except on application to a huge, intricately hung mediaeval

bell, the handle of which no uninitiated intruder can possibly

find, the six doors of the old men's abodes are seen, and beyond

them is a slight iron screen, through which the more happy

portion of the Barchester elite pass into the Elysium of Mr

Harding's dwelling.



Mr Harding is a small man, now verging on sixty years, but

bearing few of the signs of age; his hair is rather grizzled,

though not gray; his eye is very mild, but clear and bright,

though the double glasses which are held swinging from his

hand, unless when fixed upon his nose, show that time has told

upon his sight; his hands are delicately white, and both

hands and feet are small; he always wears a black frock coat,

black knee-breeches, and black gaiters, and somewhat scandalises

some of his more hyperclerical brethren by a black

neck-handkerchief.



Mr Harding's warmest admirers cannot say that he was

ever an industrious man; the circumstances of his life have

not called on him to be so; and yet he can hardly be called

an idler.  Since his appointment to his precentorship, he has

published, with all possible additions of vellum, typography,

and gilding, a collection of our ancient church music, with

some correct dissertations on Purcell, Crotch, and Nares.  He

has greatly improved the choir of Barchester, which, under

his dominion, now rivals that of any cathedral in England.

He has taken something more than his fair share in the

cathedral services, and has played the violoncello daily to

such audiences as he could collect, or, faute de mieux, to no

audience at all.



We must mention one other peculiarity of Mr Harding.  As

we have before stated, he has an income of eight hundred a

year, and has no family but his one daughter; and yet he is

never quite at ease in money matters.  The vellum and gilding

of 'Harding's Church Music' cost more than any one knows,

except the author, the publisher, and the Rev. Theophilus

Grantly, who allows none of his father-in-law's extravagances

to escape him.  Then he is generous to his daughter, for whose

service he keeps a small carriage and pair of ponies.  He is,

indeed, generous to all, but especially to the twelve old men

who are in a peculiar manner under his care.  No doubt with

such an income Mr Harding should be above the world, as

the saying is; but, at any rate, he is not above Archdeacon

Theophilus Grantly, for he is always more or less in debt to

his son-in-law, who has, to a certain extent, assumed the

arrangement of the precentor's pecuniary affairs.







CHAPTER II

The Barchester Reformer

Mr Harding has been now precentor of Barchester for

ten years; and, alas, the murmurs respecting the proceeds

of Hiram's estate are again becoming audible.  It is not

that any one begrudges to Mr Harding the income which he

enjoys, and the comfortable place which so well becomes him;

but such matters have begun to be talked of in various parts

of England.  Eager pushing politicians have asserted in the

House of Commons, with very telling indignation, that the

grasping priests of the Church of England are gorged with the

wealth which the charity of former times has left for the solace

of the aged, or the education of the young.  The well-known

case of the Hospital of St Cross has even come before the law

courts of the country, and the struggles of Mr Whiston, at

Rochester, have met with sympathy and support.  Men are

beginning to say that these things must be looked into.



Mr Harding, whose conscience in the matter is clear, and

who has never felt that he had received a pound from Hiram's

will to which he was not entitled, has naturally taken the part

of the church in talking over these matters with his friend, the

bishop, and his son-in-law, the archdeacon.  The archdeacon,

indeed, Dr Grantly, has been somewhat loud in the matter.

He is a personal friend of the dignitaries of the Rochester

Chapter, and has written letters in the public press on the

subject of that turbulent Dr Whiston, which, his admirers

think, must wellnigh set the question at rest.  It is also known

at Oxford that he is the author of the pamphlet signed

'Sacerdos' on the subject of the Earl of Guildford and St

Cross, in which it is so clearly argued that the manners of the

present times do not admit of a literal adhesion to the very

words of the founder's will, but that the interests of the church

for which the founder was so deeply concerned are best consulted

in enabling its bishops to reward those shining lights whose

services have been most signally serviceable to Christianity.

In answer to this, it is asserted that Henry de Blois,

founder of St Cross, was not greatly interested in the welfare

of the reformed church, and that the masters of St Cross, for

many years past, cannot be called shining lights in the service

of Christianity; it is, however, stoutly maintained, and no

doubt felt, by all the archdeacon's friends, that his logic is

conclusive, and has not, in fact, been answered.



With such a tower of strength to back both his arguments

and his conscience, it may be imagined that Mr Harding has

never felt any compunction as to receiving his quarterly sum

of two hundred pounds.  Indeed, the subject has never presented

itself to his mind in that shape.  He has talked not unfrequently,

and heard very much about the wills of old founders and

the incomes arising from their estates, during the last year

or two; he did even, at one moment, feel a doubt (since expelled

by his son-in-law's logic) as to whether Lord Guildford

was clearly entitled to receive so enormous an income as he

does from the revenues of St Cross; but that he himself was

overpaid with his modest eight hundred pounds--he who, out

of that, voluntarily gave up sixty-two pounds eleven shillings

and fourpence a year to his twelve old neighbours--he who,

for the money, does his precentor's work as no precentor

has done it before, since Barchester Cathedral was built,--such

an idea has never sullied his quiet, or disturbed his conscience.



Nevertheless, Mr Harding is becoming uneasy at the rumour

which he knows to prevail in Barchester on the subject.  He is

aware that, at any rate, two of his old men have been heard to

say, that if everyone had his own, they might each have their

hundred pounds a year, and live like gentlemen, instead of a

beggarly one shilling and sixpence a day; and that they had

slender cause to be thankful for a miserable dole of twopence,

when Mr Harding and Mr Chadwick, between them, ran

away with thousands of pounds which good old John Hiram

never intended for the like of them.  It is the ingratitude of

this which stings Mr Harding.  One of this discontented pair,

Abel Handy, was put into the hospital by himself; he had

been a stone-mason in Barchester, and had broken his thigh

by a fall from a scaffolding, while employed about the cathedral;

and Mr Harding had given him the first vacancy in the

hospital after the occurrence, although Dr Grantly had been

very anxious to put into it an insufferable clerk of his at

Plumstead Episcopi, who had lost all his teeth, and whom the

archdeacon hardly knew how to get rid of by other means.  Dr

Grantly has not forgotten to remind Mr Harding how well

satisfied with his one-and-sixpence a day old Joe Mutters would

have been, and how injudicious it was on the part of Mr

Harding to allow a radical from the town to get into the concern.

Probably Dr Grantly forgot at the moment, that the

charity was intended for broken-down journeymen of Barchester.



There is living at Barchester, a young man, a surgeon,

named John Bold, and both Mr Harding and Dr Grantly are

well aware that to him is owing the pestilent rebellious feeling

which has shown itself in the hospital; yes, and the renewal,

too, of that disagreeable talk about Hiram's estates which is

now again prevalent in Barchester.  Nevertheless, Mr Harding

and Mr Bold are acquainted with each other; we may say,

are friends, considering the great disparity in their years.  Dr

Grantly, however, has a holy horror of the impious demagogue,

as on one occasion he called Bold, when speaking of him

to the precentor; and being a more prudent far-seeing man

than Mr Harding, and possessed of a stronger head, he

already perceives that this John Bold will work great trouble in

Barchester.  He considers that he is to be regarded as an enemy,

and thinks that he should not be admitted into the camp on

anything like friendly terms.  As John Bold will occupy much

of our attention we must endeavour to explain who he is, and

why he takes the part of John Hiram's bedesmen.



John Bold is a young surgeon, who passed many of his boyish

years at Barchester.  His father was a physician in the city of

London, where he made a moderate fortune, which he invested

in houses in that city.  The Dragon of Wantly inn and posting-

house belonged to him, also four shops in the High Street,

and a moiety of the new row of genteel villas (so called in

the advertisements), built outside the town just beyond

Hiram's Hospital.  To one of these Dr Bold retired to spend

the evening of his life, and to die; and here his son John spent

his holidays, and afterwards his Christmas vacation when he

went from school to study surgery in the London hospitals.

Just as John Bold was entitled to write himself surgeon and

apothecary, old Dr Bold died, leaving his Barchester property to

his son, and a certain sum in the three per cents. to his daughter

Mary, who is some four or five years older than her brother.



John Bold determined to settle himself at Barchester, and

look after his own property, as well as the bones and bodies of

such of his neighbours as would call upon him for assistance in

their troubles.  He therefore put up a large brass plate with

'John Bold, Surgeon' on it, to the great disgust of the nine

practitioners who were already trying to get a living out of the

bishop, dean, and canons; and began house-keeping with the

aid of his sister.  At this time he was not more than twenty-

four years old; and though he has now been three years in

Barchester, we have not heard that he has done much harm

to the nine worthy practitioners.  Indeed, their dread of him

has died away; for in three years he has not taken three fees.



Nevertheless, John Bold is a clever man, and would, with

practice, be a clever surgeon; but he has got quite into another

line of life.  Having enough to live on, he has not been forced

to work for bread; he has declined to subject himself to what

he calls the drudgery of the profession, by which, I believe, he

means the general work of a practising surgeon; and has

found other employment.  He frequently binds up the bruises

and sets the limbs of such of the poorer classes as profess his

way of thinking--but this he does for love.  Now I will not

say that the archdeacon is strictly correct in stigmatising John

Bold as a demagogue, for I hardly know how extreme must be

a man's opinions before he can be justly so called; but Bold is

a strong reformer.  His passion is the reform of all abuses;

state abuses, church abuses, corporation abuses (he has got

himself elected a town councillor of Barchester, and has so

worried three consecutive mayors, that it became somewhat

difficult to find a fourth), abuses in medical practice, and

general abuses in the world at large.  Bold is thoroughly sincere

in his patriotic endeavours to mend mankind, and there

is something to be admired in the energy with which he devotes

himself to remedying evil and stopping injustice; but I fear

that he is too much imbued with the idea that he has a special

mission for reforming.  It would be well if one so young had

a little more diffidence himself, and more trust in the honest

purposes of others--if he could be brought to believe that old

customs need not necessarily be evil, and that changes may

possibly be dangerous; but no, Bold has all the ardour and all

the self-assurance of a Danton, and hurls his anathemas against

time-honoured practices with the violence of a French Jacobin.

No wonder that Dr Grantly should regard Bold as a firebrand,

falling, as he has done, almost in the centre of the quiet

ancient close of Barchester Cathedral.  Dr Grantly would

have him avoided as the plague; but the old Doctor and Mr

Harding were fast friends.  Young Johnny Bold used to play

as a boy on Mr Harding's lawn; he has many a time won the

precentor's heart by listening with rapt attention to his sacred

strains; and since those days, to tell the truth at once, he has

nearly won another heart within the same walls.



Eleanor Harding has not plighted her troth to John Bold,

nor has she, perhaps, owned to herself how dear to her the

young reformer is; but she cannot endure that anyone should

speak harshly of him.  She does not dare to defend him when

her brother-in-law is so loud against him; for she, like her

father, is somewhat afraid of Dr Grantly; but she is beginning

greatly to dislike the archdeacon.  She persuades her father

that it would be both unjust and injudicious to banish his

young friend because of his politics; she cares little to go to

houses where she will not meet him, and, in fact, she is in love.



Nor is there any good reason why Eleanor Harding should

not love John Bold.  He has all those qualities which are likely

to touch a girl's heart.  He is brave, eager, and amusing;

well-made and good-looking; young and enterprising; his

character is in all respects good; he has sufficient income to

support a wife; he is her father's friend; and, above all, he

is in love with her: then why should not Eleanor Harding be

attached to John Bold?



Dr Grantly, who has as many eyes as Argus, and has long

seen how the wind blows in that direction, thinks there are

various strong reasons why this should not be so.  He has not

thought it wise as yet to speak to his father-in-law on the

subject, for he knows how foolishly indulgent is Mr Harding in

everything that concerns his daughter; but he has discussed the

matter with his all-trusted helpmate, within that sacred recess

formed by the clerical bed-curtains at Plumstead Episcopi.



How much sweet solace, how much valued counsel has our

archdeacon received within that sainted enclosure!  'Tis there

alone that he unbends, and comes down from his high church

pedestal to the level of a mortal man.  In the world Dr Grantly

never lays aside that demeanour which so well becomes him.

He has all the dignity of an ancient saint with the sleekness of

a modern bishop; he is always the same; he is always the

archdeacon; unlike Homer, he never nods.  Even with his

father-in-law, even with the bishop and dean, he maintains

that sonorous tone and lofty deportment which strikes awe

into the young hearts of Barchester, and absolutely cows the

whole parish of Plumstead Episcopi.  'Tis only when he has

exchanged that ever-new shovel hat for a tasselled nightcap,

and those shining black habiliments for his accustomed robe

de nuit, that Dr Grantly talks, and looks, and thinks like an

ordinary man.



Many of us have often thought how severe a trial of faith

must this be to the wives of our great church dignitaries.  To

us these men are personifications of St Paul; their very gait is

a speaking sermon; their clean and sombre apparel exacts

from us faith and submission, and the cardinal virtues seem to

hover round their sacred hats.  A dean or archbishop, in the

garb of his order, is sure of our reverence, and a well-got-up

bishop fills our very souls with awe.  But how can this feeling

be perpetuated in the bosoms of those who see the bishops

without their aprons, and the archdeacons even in a lower state

of dishabille?



Do we not all know some reverend, all but sacred, personage

before whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be

elastic?  But were we once to see him stretch himself beneath

the bed-clothes, yawn widely, and bury his face upon his

pillow, we could chatter before him as glibly as before a doctor

or a lawyer.  From some such cause, doubtless, it arose that

our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his wife, though he

considered himself entitled to give counsel to every other being

whom he met.



'My dear,' he said, as he adjusted the copious folds of his

nightcap, 'there was that John Bold at your father's again

today.  I must say your father is very imprudent.'



'He is imprudent--he always was,' replied Mrs Grantly,

speaking from under the comfortable bed-clothes.  'There's

nothing new in that.'



'No, my dear, there's nothing new--I know that; but, at

the present juncture of affairs, such imprudence is--is--I'll

tell you what, my dear, if he does not take care what he's about,

John Bold will be off with Eleanor.'



'I think he will, whether papa takes care or no; and why not?'



'Why not!' almost screamed the archdeacon, giving so

rough a pull at his nightcap as almost to bring it over his nose;

'why not!-that pestilent, interfering upstart, John Bold--the

most vulgar young person I ever met!  Do you know that he

is meddling with your father's affairs in a most uncalled-for--

most--' And being at a loss for an epithet sufficiently

injurious, he finished his expressions of horror by muttering,

'Good heavens!' in a manner that had been found very

efficacious in clerical meetings of the diocese.  He must for

the moment have forgotten where he was.



'As to his vulgarity, archdeacon' (Mrs Grantly had never

assumed a more familiar term than this in addressing her

husband), 'I don't agree with you.  Not that I like Mr Bold

--he is a great deal too conceited for me; but then Eleanor

does, and it would be the best thing in the world for papa if

they were to marry.  Bold would never trouble himself about

Hiram's Hospital if he were papa's son-in-law.'  And the lady

turned herself round under the bed-clothes, in a manner to

which the doctor was well accustomed, and which told him,

as plainly as words, that as far as she was concerned the subject

was over for that night.



'Good heavens!' murmured the doctor again--he was evidently

much put beside himself.



Dr Grantly is by no means a bad man; he is exactly the

man which such an education as his was most likely to form;

his intellect being sufficient for such a place in the world, but

not sufficient to put him in advance of it.  He performs with a

rigid constancy such of the duties of a parish clergyman as are,

to his thinking, above the sphere of his curate, but it is as an

archdeacon that he shines.



We believe, as a general rule, that either a bishop or his

archdeacons have sinecures: where a bishop works, archdeacons

have but little to do, and vice versa.  In the diocese of

Barchester the Archdeacon of Barchester does the work.  In

that capacity he is diligent, authoritative, and, as his friends

particularly boast, judicious.  His great fault is an overbearing

assurance of the virtues and claims of his order, and his great

foible is an equally strong confidence in the dignity of his own

manner and the eloquence of his own words.  He is a moral

man, believing the precepts which he teaches, and believing

also that he acts up to them; though we cannot say that he

would give his coat to the man who took his cloak, or that he

is prepared to forgive his brother even seven times.  He is

severe enough in exacting his dues, considering that any laxity

in this respect would endanger the security of the church; and,

could he have his way, he would consign to darkness and

perdition, not only every individual reformer, but every

committee and every commission that would even dare to ask a

question respecting the appropriation of church revenues.



'They are church revenues: the laity admit it.  Surely the

church is able to administer her own revenues.'  'Twas thus

he was accustomed to argue, when the sacrilegious doings of

Lord John Russell and others were discussed either at Barchester

or at Oxford.



It was no wonder that Dr Grantly did not like John Bold,

and that his wife's suggestion that he should become closely

connected with such a man dismayed him.  To give him his

due, the archdeacon never wanted courage; he was quite

willing to meet his enemy on any field and with any weapon.

He had that belief in his own arguments that he felt sure of

success, could he only be sure of a fair fight on the part of his

adversary.  He had no idea that John Bold could really prove

that the income of the hospital was malappropriated; why,

then, should peace be sought for on such base terms?  What!

bribe an unbelieving enemy of the church with the sister-in-law

of one dignitary and the daughter of another--with a

young lady whose connections with the diocese and chapter of

Barchester were so close as to give her an undeniable claim to

a husband endowed with some of its sacred wealth!  When

Dr Grantly talks of unbelieving enemies, he does not mean to

imply want of belief in the doctrines of the church, but an

equally dangerous scepticism as to its purity in money matters.



Mrs Grantly is not usually deaf to the claims of the high

order to which she belongs.  She and her husband rarely

disagree as to the tone with which the church should be defended;

how singular, then, that in such a case as this she should be

willing to succumb!  The archdeacon again murmurs 'Good

heavens!' as he lays himself beside her, but he does so in a

voice audible only to himself, and he repeats it till sleep relieves

him from deep thought.



Mr Harding himself has seen no reason why his daughter

should not love John Bold.  He has not been unobservant of

her feelings, and perhaps his deepest regret at the part which

he fears Bold is about to take regarding the hospital arises from

the dread that he may be separated from his daughter, or that

she may be separated from the man she loves.  He has never

spoken to Eleanor about her lover; he is the last man in the

world to allude to such a subject unconsulted, even with his

own daughter; and had he considered that he had ground to

disapprove of Bold, he would have removed her, or forbidden

him his house; but he saw no such ground.  He would probably

have preferred a second clerical son-in-law, for Mr Harding,

also, is attached to his order; and, failing in that, he

would at any rate have wished that so near a connection should

have thought alike with him on church matters.  He would

not, however, reject the man his daughter loved because he

differed on such subjects with himself.



Hitherto Bold had taken no steps in the matter in any way

annoying to Mr Harding personally.  Some months since,

after a severe battle, which cost him not a little money, he

gained a victory over a certain old turnpike woman in the

neighbourhood, of whose charges another old woman had

complained to him.  He got the Act of Parliament relating to

the trust, found that his protegee had been wrongly taxed,

rode through the gate himself, paying the toll, then brought

an action against the gate-keeper, and proved that all people

coming up a certain by-lane, and going down a certain other

by-lane, were toll-free.  The fame of his success spread widely

abroad, and he began to be looked on as the upholder of the

rights of the poor of Barchester.  Not long after this success, he

heard from different quarters that Hiram's bedesmen were

treated as paupers, whereas the property to which they were,

in effect, heirs was very large; and he was instigated by the

lawyer whom he had employed in the case of the turnpike to call

upon Mr Chadwick for a statement as to the funds of the estate.



Bold had often expressed his indignation at the malappropriation

of church funds in general, in the hearing of his friend

the precentor; but the conversation had never referred to

anything at Barchester; and when Finney, the attorney, induced

him to interfere with the affairs of the hospital, it was

against Mr Chadwick that his efforts were to be directed.

Bold soon found that if he interfered with Mr Chadwick as

steward, he must also interfere with Mr Harding as warden;

and though he regretted the situation in which this would

place him, he was not the man to flinch from his undertaking

from personal motives.



As soon as he had determined to take the matter in hand, he

set about his work with his usual energy.  He got a copy of

John Hiram's will, of the wording of which he made himself

perfectly master.  He ascertained the extent of the property,

and as nearly as he could the value of it; and made out a

schedule of what he was informed was the present distribution

of its income.  Armed with these particulars, he called on

Mr Chadwick, having given that gentleman notice of his visit;

and asked him for a statement of the income and expenditure

of the hospital for the last twenty-five years.



This was of course refused, Mr Chadwick alleging that he

had no authority for making public the concerns of a property

in managing which he was only a paid servant.



'And who is competent to give you that authority, Mr Chadwick?'

asked Bold.



'Only those who employ me, Mr Bold,' said the steward.



'And who are those, Mr Chadwick?' demanded Bold.



Mr Chadwick begged to say that if these inquiries were

made merely out of curiosity, he must decline answering them:

if Mr Bold had any ulterior proceeding in view, perhaps it

would be desirable that any necessary information should be

sought for in a professional way by a professional man.  Mr

Chadwick's attorneys were Messrs Cox and Cummins, of

Lincoln's Inn.  Mr Bold took down the address of Cox and

Cummins, remarked that the weather was cold for the time of

the year, and wished Mr Chadwick good-morning.  Mr Chadwick

said it was cold for June, and bowed him out.



He at once went to his lawyer, Finney.  Now, Bold was not

very fond of his attorney, but, as he said, he merely wanted a

man who knew the forms of law, and who would do what he

was told for his money.  He had no idea of putting himself in

the hands of a lawyer.  He wanted law from a lawyer as he

did a coat from a tailor, because he could not make it so well

himself; and he thought Finney the fittest man in Barchester

for his purpose.  In one respect, at any rate, he was right:

Finney was humility itself.



Finney advised an instant letter to Cox and Cummins,

mindful of his six-and-eightpence.  'Slap at them at once,

Mr Bold.  Demand categorically and explicitly a full statement

of the affairs of the hospital.'



'Suppose I were to see Mr Harding first,' suggested Bold.



'Yes, yes, by all means,' said the acquiescing Finney;

'though, perhaps, as Mr Harding is no man of business, it may

lead--lead to some little difficulties; but perhaps you're right.

Mr Bold, I don't think seeing Mr Harding can do any harm.'

Finney saw from the expression of his client's face that he

intended to have his own way.





















CHAPTER III

The Bishop of Barchester





Bold at once repaired to the hospital.  The day was now

far advanced, but he knew that Mr Harding dined in the

summer at four, that Eleanor was accustomed to drive in the

evening, and that he might therefore probably find Mr Harding

alone.  It was between seven and eight when he reached

the slight iron gate leading into the precentor's garden, and

though, as Mr Chadwick observed, the day had been cold for

June, the evening was mild, and soft, and sweet.  The little

gate was open.  As he raised the latch he heard the notes of

Mr Harding's violoncello from the far end of the garden, and,

advancing before the house and across the lawn, he found him

playing: and not without an audience.  The musician was

seated in a garden-chair just within the summer-house, so as

to allow the violoncello which he held between his knees to

rest upon the dry stone flooring; before him stood a rough

music desk, on which was open a page of that dear sacred book,

that much-laboured and much-loved volume of church music,

which had cost so many guineas; and around sat, and lay,

and stood, and leaned, ten of the twelve old men who dwelt

with him beneath old John Hiram's roof.  The two reformers

were not there.  I will not say that in their hearts they were

conscious of any wrong done or to be done to their mild

warden, but latterly they had kept aloof from him, and his

music was no longer to their taste.

It was amusing to see the positions, and eager listening faces

of these well-to-do old men.  I will not say that they all

appreciated the music which they heard, but they were intent

on appearing to do so; pleased at being where they were, they

were determined, as far as in them lay, to give pleasure in

return; and they were not unsuccessful.  It gladdened the

precentor's heart to think that the old bedesmen whom he

loved so well admired the strains which were to him so full of

almost ecstatic joy; and he used to boast that such was the

air of the hospital, as to make it a precinct specially fit for the

worship of St Cecilia.



Immediately before him, on the extreme corner of the bench

which ran round the summer-house, sat one old man, with his

handkerchief smoothly lain upon his knees, who did enjoy the

moment, or acted enjoyment well.  He was one on whose

large frame many years, for he was over eighty, had made

small havoc--he was still an upright, burly, handsome figure,

with an open, ponderous brow, round which clung a few,

though very few, thin gray locks.  The coarse black gown of

the hospital, the breeches, and buckled shoes became him

well; and as he sat with his hands folded on his staff, and his

chin resting on his hands, he was such a listener as most

musicians would be glad to welcome.



This man was certainly the pride of the hospital.  It had

always been the custom that one should be selected as being

to some extent in authority over the others; and though

Mr Bunce, for such was his name, and so he was always designated

by his inferior brethren, had no greater emoluments than

they, he had assumed, and well knew how to maintain, the

dignity of his elevation.  The precentor delighted to call

him his sub-warden, and was not ashamed, occasionally, when

no other guest was there, to bid him sit down by the same

parlour fire, and drink the full glass of port which was placed

near him.  Bunce never went without the second glass, but no

entreaty ever made him take a third.



'Well, well, Mr Harding; you're too good, much too good,' 

he'd always say, as the second glass was filled; but when that

was drunk, and the half hour over, Bunce stood erect, and

with a benediction which his patron valued, retired to his own

abode.  He knew the world too well to risk the comfort of such

halcyon moments, by prolonging them till they were disagreeable.



Mr Bunce, as may be imagined, was most strongly opposed

to innovation.  Not even Dr Grantly had a more holy horror

of those who would interfere in the affairs of the hospital; he

was every inch a churchman, and though he was not very fond

of Dr Grantly personally, that arose from there not being room

in the hospital for two people so much alike as the doctor and

himself, rather than from any dissimilarity in feeling.  Mr

Bunce was inclined to think that the warden and himself could

manage the hospital without further assistance; and that,

though the bishop was the constitutional visitor, and as such

entitled to special reverence from all connected with John

Hiram's will, John Hiram never intended that his affairs

should be interfered with by an archdeacon.



At the present moment, however, these cares were off his

mind, and he was looking at his warden, as though he thought

the music heavenly, and the musician hardly less so.



As Bold walked silently over the lawn, Mr Harding did not

at first perceive him, and continued to draw his bow slowly

across the plaintive wires; but he soon found from his audience

that some stranger was there, and looking up, began to

welcome his young friend with frank hospitality.



'Pray, Mr Harding--pray don't let me disturb you,' said

Bold; 'you know how fond I am of sacred music.'



'Oh! it's nothing,' said the precentor, shutting up the book

and then opening it again as he saw the delightfully imploring

look of his old friend Bunce.  Oh, Bunce, Bunce, Bunce, I fear

that after all thou art but a flatterer.  'Well, I'll just finish it

then; it's a favourite little bit of Bishop's; and then, Mr Bold,

we'll have a stroll and a chat till Eleanor comes in and gives

us tea.'  And so Bold sat down on the soft turf to listen, or

rather to think how, after such sweet harmony, he might best

introduce a theme of so much discord, to disturb the peace of

him who was so ready to welcome him kindly.



Bold thought that the performance was soon over, for he

felt that he had a somewhat difficult task, and he almost

regretted the final leave-taking of the last of the old men, slow

as they were in going through their adieux.



Bold's heart was in his mouth, as the precentor made some

ordinary but kind remark as to the friendliness of the visit.



'One evening call,' said he, 'is worth ten in the morning.

It's all formality in the morning; real social talk never begins

till after dinner.  That's why I dine early so as to get as much

as I can of it.'



'Quite true, Mr Harding,' said the other; 'but I fear I've

reversed the order of things, and I owe you much apology for

troubling you on business at such an hour; but it is on business

that I have called just now.'



Mr Harding looked blank and annoyed; there was something

in the tone of the young man's voice which told him that

the interview was intended to be disagreeable, and he shrank

back at finding his kindly greeting so repulsed.



'I wish to speak to you about the hospital,' continued Bold.



'Well, well, anything I can tell you I shall be most happy--'



'It's about the accounts.'



'Then, my dear fellow, I can tell you nothing, for I'm as

ignorant as a child.  All I know is, that they pay me #800 a year.

Go to Chadwick, he knows all about the accounts; and now tell

me, will poor Mary Jones ever get the use of her limb again?'



'Well, I think she will, if she's careful; but, Mr Harding,

I hope you won't object to discuss with me what I have to say

about the hospital.'



Mr Harding gave a deep, long-drawn sigh.  He did object,

very strongly object, to discuss any such subject with John

Bold; but he had not the business tact of Mr Chadwick, and

did not know how to relieve himself from the coming evil; he

sighed sadly, but made no answer.



'I have the greatest regard for you, Mr Harding,' continued

Bold; 'the truest respect, the most sincere--'



'Thank ye, thank ye, Mr Bold,' interjaculated the precentor

somewhat impatiently; 'I'm much obliged, but never mind

that; I'm as likely to be in the wrong as another man--quite

as likely.'



'But, Mr Harding, I must express what I feel, lest you

should think there is personal enmity in what I'm going to do.'



'Personal enmity!  Going to do!  Why, you're not going

to cut my throat, nor put me into the Ecclesiastical Court!'



Bold tried to laugh, but he couldn't.  He was quite in

earnest, and determined in his course, and couldn't make a

joke of it.  He walked on awhile in silence before he recommenced

his attack, during which Mr Harding, who had still the bow

in his hand, played rapidly on an imaginary violoncello.  'I

fear there is reason to think that John Hiram's will is not

carried out to the letter, Mr Harding,' said the young man at

last; 'and I have been asked to see into it.'



'Very well, I've no objection on earth; and now we need

not say another word about it.'



'Only one word more, Mr Harding.  Chadwick has referred

me to Cox and Cummins, and I think it my duty to apply to

them for some statement about the hospital.  In what I do I

may appear to be interfering with you, and I hope you will

forgive me for doing so.'



'Mr Bold,' said the other, stopping, and speaking with some

solemnity, 'if you act justly, say nothing in this matter but the

truth, and use no unfair weapons in carrying out your purposes,

I shall have nothing to forgive.  I presume you think

I am not entitled to the income I receive from the hospital,

and that others are entitled to it.  Whatever some may do, I

shall never attribute to you base motives because you hold an

opinion opposed to my own and adverse to my interests: pray

do what you consider to be your duty; I can give you no

assistance, neither will I offer you any obstacle.  Let me,

however, suggest to you, that you can in no wise forward your

views nor I mine, by any discussion between us.  Here comes

Eleanor and the ponies, and we'll go in to tea.'



Bold, however, felt that he could not sit down at ease with

Mr Harding and his daughter after what had passed, and

therefore excused himself with much awkward apology; and

merely raising his hat and bowing as he passed Eleanor and the

pony chair, left her in disappointed amazement at his departure.



Mr Harding's demeanour certainly impressed Bold with a

full conviction that the warden felt that he stood on strong

grounds, and almost made him think that he was about to

interfere without due warrant in the private affairs of a just

and honourable man; but Mr Harding himself was anything

but satisfied with his own view of the case.



In the first place, he wished for Eleanor's sake to think well

of Bold and to like him, and yet he could not but feel disgusted

at the arrogance of his conduct.  What right had he to say

that John Hiram's will was not fairly carried out?  But then

the question would arise within his heart,--Was that will fairly

acted on?  Did John Hiram mean that the warden of his

hospital should receive considerably more out of the legacy

than all the twelve old men together for whose behoof the

hospital was built?  Could it be possible that John Bold was

right, and that the reverend warden of the hospital had been

for the last ten years and more the unjust recipient of an income

legally and equitably belonging to others?  What if it should

be proved before the light of day that he, whose life had been

so happy, so quiet, so respected, had absorbed #800 to which

he had no title, and which he could never repay?  I do not

say that he feared that such was really the case; but the first

shade of doubt now fell across his mind, and from this evening,

for many a long, long day, our good, kind loving warden was

neither happy nor at ease.



Thoughts of this kind, these first moments of much misery,

oppressed Mr Harding as he sat sipping his tea, absent and

ill at ease.  Poor Eleanor felt that all was not right, but her

ideas as to the cause of the evening's discomfort did not go

beyond her lover, and his sudden and uncivil departure.  She

thought there must have been some quarrel between Bold and

her father, and she was half angry with both, though she did

not attempt to explain to herself why she was so.



Mr Harding thought long and deeply over these things, both

before he went to bed and after it, as he lay awake, questioning

within himself the validity of his claim to the income which he

enjoyed.  It seemed clear at any rate that, however unfortunate

he might be at having been placed in such a position, no one

could say that he ought either to have refused the appointment

first, or to have rejected the income afterwards.  All the

world--meaning the ecclesiastical world as confined to the

English church--knew that the wardenship of the Barchester

Hospital was a snug sinecure, but no one had ever been

blamed for accepting it.  To how much blame, however,

would he have been open had he rejected it!  How mad would

he have been thought had he declared, when the situation was

vacant and offered to him, that he had scruples as to receiving

#800 a year from John Hiram's property, and that he had

rather some stranger should possess it!  How would Dr

Grantly have shaken his wise head, and have consulted with

his friends in the close as to some decent retreat for the coming

insanity of the poor minor canon!  If he was right in accepting

the place, it was clear to him also that he would be wrong in

rejecting any part of the income attached to it.  The patronage

was a valuable appanage of the bishopric; and surely it would

not be his duty to lessen the value of that preferment which

had been bestowed on himself; surely he was bound to stand

by his order.



But somehow these arguments, though they seemed logical,

were not satisfactory.  Was John Hiram's will fairly carried

out? that was the true question: and if not, was it not his

especial duty to see that this was done--his especial duty,

whatever injury it might do to his order--however ill such

duty might be received by his patron and his friends?  At the

idea of his friends, his mind turned unhappily to his son-in-law.

He knew well how strongly he would be supported by Dr Grantly,

if he could bring himself to put his case into the archdeacon's

hands and to allow him to fight the battle; but he knew also that

he would find no sympathy there for his doubts, no friendly

feeling, no inward comfort.  Dr Grantly would be ready enough to

take up his cudgel against all comers on behalf of the church

militant, but he would do so on the distasteful ground of the

church's infallibility.  Such a contest would give no comfort to

Mr Harding's doubts.  He was not so anxious to prove himself

right, as to be so.



I have said before that Dr Grantly was the working man of

the diocese, and that his father the bishop was somewhat

inclined to an idle life.  So it was; but the bishop, though he

had never been an active man, was one whose qualities had

rendered him dear to all who knew him.  He was the very

opposite to his son; he was a bland and a kind old man, opposed

by every feeling to authoritative demonstrations and episcopal

ostentation.  It was perhaps well for him, in his situation,

that his son had early in life been able to do that which

he could not well do when he was younger, and which he could

not have done at all now that he was over seventy.  The

bishop knew how to entertain the clergy of his diocese, to

talk easy small-talk with the rectors' wives, and put curates at

their ease; but it required the strong hand of the archdeacon

to deal with such as were refractory either in their doctrines or

their lives.



The bishop and Mr Harding loved each other warmly.

They had grown old together, and had together spent many,

many years in clerical pursuits and clerical conversation.

When one of them was a bishop and the other only a minor

canon they were even then much together; but since their

children had married, and Mr Harding had become warden

and precentor, they were all in all to each other.  I will

not say that they managed the diocese between them, but they

spent much time in discussing the man who did, and in forming

little plans to mitigate his wrath against church delinquents,

and soften his aspirations for church dominion.



Mr Harding determined to open his mind, and confess his

doubts to his old friend; and to him he went on the morning

after John Bold's uncourteous visit.



Up to this period no rumour of these cruel proceedings

against the hospital had reached the bishop's ears.  He had

doubtless heard that men existed who questioned his right to

present to a sinecure of #800 a year, as he had heard from

time to time of some special immorality or disgraceful

disturbance in the usually decent and quiet city of Barchester:

but all he did, and all he was called on to do, on such occasions,

was to shake his head, and to beg his son, the great

dictator, to see that no harm happened to the church.



It was a long story that Mr Harding had to tell before he

made the bishop comprehend his own view of the case; but

we need not follow him through the tale.  At first the bishop

counselled but one step, recommended but one remedy, had

but one medicine in his whole pharmacopoeia strong enough

to touch so grave a disorder--he prescribed the archdeacon.

'Refer him to the archdeacon,' he repeated, as Mr Harding

spoke of Bold and his visit.  'The archdeacon will set you quite

right about that,' he kindly said, when his friend spoke with

hesitation of the justness of his cause.  'No man has got up all

that so well as the archdeacon'; but the dose, though large,

failed to quiet the patient; indeed it almost produced nausea.



'But, bishop,' said he, 'did you ever read John Hiram's

will?'



The bishop thought probably he had, thirty-five years ago,

when first instituted to his see, but could not state positively:

however, he very well knew that he had the absolute right to

present to the wardenship, and that the income of the warden

had been regularly settled.



'But, bishop, the question is, who has the power to settle it?

If, as this young man says, the will provides that the proceeds

of the property are to be divided into shares, who has the

power to alter these provisions?'  The bishop had an indistinct

idea that they altered themselves by the lapse of years;

that a kind of ecclesiastical statute of limitation barred the

rights of the twelve bedesmen to any increase of income

arising from the increased value of property.  He said something

about tradition; more of the many learned men who by their

practice had confirmed the present arrangement; then went

at some length into the propriety of maintaining the due

difference in rank and income between a beneficed clergyman

and certain poor old men who were dependent on charity; and

concluded his argument by another reference to the archdeacon.



The precentor sat thoughtfully gazing at the fire, and listening

to the good-natured reasoning of his friend.  What the

bishop said had a sort of comfort in it, but it was not a sustaining

comfort.  It made Mr Harding feel that many others--

indeed, all others of his own order--would think him right;

but it failed to prove to him that he truly was so.



Bishop,' said he, at last, after both had sat silent for a while,

'I should deceive you and myself too, if I did not tell you that

I am very unhappy about this.  Suppose that I cannot bring myself

to agree with Dr Grantly!--that I find, after inquiry, that the

young man is right, and that I am wrong--what then?'



The two old men were sitting near each other--so near that

the bishop was able to lay his hand upon the other's knee, and

he did so with a gentle pressure.  Mr Harding well knew what

that pressure meant.  The bishop had no further argument to

adduce; he could not fight for the cause as his son would do;

he could not prove all the precentor's doubts to be groundless;

but he could sympathise with his friend, and he did so; and

Mr Harding felt that he had received that for which he came.

There was another period of silence, after which the bishop

asked, with a degree of irritable energy very unusual with him,

whether this 'pestilent intruder' (meaning John Bold) had

any friends in Barchester.



Mr Harding had fully made up his mind to tell the bishop

everything; to speak of his daughter's love, as well as his own

troubles; to talk of John Bold in his double capacity of future

son-in-law and present enemy; and though he felt it to be

sufficiently disagreeable, now was his time to do it.



'He is very intimate at my own house, bishop.'  The bishop

stared.  He was not so far gone in orthodoxy and church

militancy as his son, but still he could not bring himself to

understand how so declared an enemy of the establishment

could be admitted on terms of intimacy into the house, not

only of so firm a pillar as Mr Harding, but one so much injured

as the warden of the hospital.

'Indeed, I like Mr Bold much, personally,' continued the

disinterested victim; 'and to tell you the "truth"'--he hesitated

as he brought out the dreadful tidings--'I have sometimes

thought it not improbable that he would be my second son-in-law.'

The bishop did not whistle: we believe that they lose the power of

doing so on being consecrated; and that in these days one might

as easily meet a corrupt judge as a whistling bishop; but he

looked as though he would have done so, but for his apron.



What a brother-in-law for the archdeacon! what an alliance

for Barchester close! what a connection for even the episcopal

palace!  The bishop, in his simple mind, felt no doubt that

John Bold, had he so much power, would shut up all cathedrals,

and probably all parish churches; distribute all tithes

among Methodists, Baptists, and other savage tribes; utterly

annihilate the sacred bench, and make shovel hats and lawn

sleeves as illegal as cowls, sandals, and sackcloth!  Here was

a nice man to be initiated into the comfortable arcana of

ecclesiastical snuggeries; one who doubted the integrity of

parsons, and probably disbelieved the Trinity!



Mr Harding saw what an effect his communication had

made, and almost repented the openness of his disclosure; he,

however, did what he could to moderate the grief of his friend

and patron.  'I do not say that there is any engagement between

them.  Had there been, Eleanor would have told me; I know her

well enough to be assured that she would have done so; but I see

that they are fond of each other; and as a man and a father, I

have had no objection to urge against their intimacy.'



'But, Mr Harding,' said the bishop, 'how are you to oppose

him, if he is your son-in-law?'



'I don't mean to oppose him; it is he who opposes me; if

anything is to be done in defence, I suppose Chadwick will do

it.  I suppose--'



'Oh, the archdeacon will see to that: were the young man

twice his brother-in-law, the archdeacon will never be deterred

from doing what he feels to be right.'



Mr Harding reminded the bishop that the archdeacon and

the reformer were not yet brothers, and very probably never

would be; exacted from him a promise that Eleanor's name

should not be mentioned in any discussion between the father

bishop and son archdeacon respecting the hospital; and then

took his departure, leaving his poor old friend bewildered,

amazed, and confounded.







CHAPTER IV

Hiram's Bedesmen



The parties most interested in the movement which is about

to set Barchester by the ears were not the foremost to

discuss the merit of the question, as is often the case; but

when the bishop, the archdeacon, the warden, the steward,

and Messrs Cox and Cummins, were all busy with the matter,

each in his own way, it is not to be supposed that Hiram's

bedesmen themselves were altogether passive spectators.

Finney, the attorney, had been among them, asking sly questions,

and raising immoderate hopes, creating a party hostile to

the warden, and establishing a corps in the enemy's camp, as

he figuratively calls it to himself.  Poor old men: whoever

may be righted or wronged by this inquiry, they at any rate

will assuredly be only injured: to them it can only be an

unmixed evil.  How can their lot be improved? all their wants

are supplied; every comfort is administered; they have

warm houses, good clothes, plentiful diet, and rest after a life

of labour; and above all, that treasure so inestimable in

declining years, a true and kind friend to listen to their

sorrows, watch over their sickness, and administer comfort

as regards this world, and the world to come!



John Bold sometimes thinks of this, when he is talking loudly

of the rights of the bedesmen, whom he has taken under his

protection; but he quiets the suggestion within his breast

with the high-sounding name of justice: 'Fiat justitia ruat

coelum.'  These old men should, by rights, have one hundred

pounds a year instead of one shilling and sixpence a day, and

the warden should have two hundred or three hundred pounds

instead of eight hundred pounds.  What is unjust must be

wrong; what is wrong should be righted; and if he declined

the task, who else would do it?



'Each one of you is clearly entitled to one hundred pounds

a year by common law': such had been the important whisper

made by Finney into the ears of Abel Handy, and by him retailed

to his eleven brethren.



Too much must not be expected from the flesh and blood

even of John Hiram's bedesmen, and the positive promise of

one hundred a year to each of the twelve old men had its way

with most of them.  The great Bunce was not to be wiled away,

and was upheld in his orthodoxy by two adherents.  Abel

Handy, who was the leader of the aspirants after wealth, had,

alas, a stronger following.  No less than five of the twelve soon

believed that his views were just, making with their leader a

moiety of the hospital.  The other three, volatile unstable

minds, vacillated between the two chieftains, now led away by

the hope of gold, now anxious to propitiate the powers that

still existed.



It had been proposed to address a petition to the bishop

as visitor, praying his lordship to see justice done to the legal

recipients of John Hiram's Charity, and to send copies of this

petition and of the reply it would elicit to all the leading London

papers, and thereby to obtain notoriety for the subject.  This

it was thought would pave the way for ulterior legal proceedings.

It would have been a great thing to have had the signatures

and marks of all the twelve injured legatees; but this

was impossible: Bunce would have cut his hand off sooner

than have signed it.  It was then suggested by Finney that if

even eleven could be induced to sanction the document, the

one obstinate recusant might have been represented as unfit to

judge on such a question--in fact, as being non compos mentis--

and the petition would have been taken as representing the

feeling of the men.  But this could not be done: Bunce's

friends were as firm as himself, and as yet only six crosses

adorned the document.  It was the more provoking, as Bunce

himself could write his name legibly, and one of those three

doubting souls had for years boasted of like power, and

possessed, indeed, a Bible, in which he was proud to show his

name written by himself some thirty years ago--'Job Skulpit';

but it was thought that job Skulpit, having forgotten his

scholarship, on that account recoiled from the petition, and

that the other doubters would follow as he led them.  A petition

signed by half the hospital would have but a poor effect.



It was in Skulpit's room that the petition was now lying,

waiting such additional signatures as Abel Handy, by his

eloquence, could obtain for it.  The six marks it bore were

duly attested, thus:



his       his       his

     Abel X Handy, Gregory X Moody, Mathew X Spriggs,

          mark      mark      mark



&c., and places were duly designated in pencil for those

brethren who were now expected to join: for Skulpit alone

was left a spot on which his genuine signature might be written

in fair clerk-like style.  Handy had brought in the document,

and spread it out on the small deal table, and was now standing

by it persuasive and eager.  Moody had followed with an

inkhorn, carefully left behind by Finney; and Spriggs bore

aloft, as though it were a sword, a well-worn ink-black pen,

which from time to time he endeavoured to thrust into

Skulpit's unwilling hand.



With the learned man were his two abettors in indecision,

William Gazy and Jonathan Crumple.  If ever the petition

were to be forwarded, now was the time, so said Mr Finney;

and great was the anxiety on the part of those whose one hundred

pounds a year, as they believed, mainly depended on the

document in question.



'To be kept out of all that money,' as the avaricious Moody

had muttered to his friend Handy, 'by an old fool saying that

he can write his own name like his betters!'



'Well, job,' said Handy, trying to impart to his own sour,

ill-omened visage a smile of approbation, in which he greatly

failed; 'so you're ready now, Mr Finney says; here's the

place, d'ye see'--and he put his huge brown finger down on

the dirty paper-'name or mark, it's all one.  Come along,

old boy; if so be we're to have the spending of this money,

why the sooner the better--that's my maxim.'



'To be sure,' said Moody.  'We a'n't none of us so young;

we can't stay waiting for old Catgut no longer.'



It was thus these miscreants named our excellent friend.

The nickname he could easily have forgiven, but the allusion

to the divine source of all his melodious joy would have irritated

even him.  Let us hope he never knew the insult.



'Only think, old Billy Gazy,' said Spriggs, who rejoiced in

greater youth than his brethren, but having fallen into a fire

when drunk, had had one eye burnt out, one cheek burnt

through, and one arm nearly burnt off, and who, therefore,

in regard to personal appearance, was not the most prepossessing

of men, 'a hundred a year, and all to spend; only think, old

Billy Gazy'; and he gave a hideous grin that showed off his

misfortunes to their full extent.



Old Billy Gazy was not alive to much enthusiasm.  Even

these golden prospects did not arouse him to do more than rub

his poor old bleared eyes with the cuff of his bedesman's gown,

and gently mutter; 'he didn't know, not he; he didn't know.'



'But you'd know, Jonathan,' continued Spriggs, turning to

the other friend of Skulpit's, who was sitting on a stool by the

table, gazing vacantly at the petition.  Jonathan Crumple was

a meek, mild man, who had known better days; his means

had been wasted by bad children, who had made his life

wretched till he had been received into the hospital, of which

he had not long been a member.  Since that day he had known

neither sorrow nor trouble, and this attempt to fill him with

new hopes was, indeed, a cruelty.



'A hundred a year's a nice thing, for sartain, neighbour

Spriggs,' said he.  'I once had nigh to that myself, but it

didn't do me no good.'  And he gave a low sigh, as he thought

of the children of his own loins who had robbed him.



'And shall have again, Joe,' said Handy; 'and will have

someone to keep it right and tight for you this time.'



Crumple sighed again--he had learned the impotency of

worldly wealth, and would have been satisfied, if left

untempted, to have remained happy with one and sixpence a day.



'Come, Skulpit,' repeated Handy, getting impatient, 'you're

not going to go along with old Bunce in helping that parson

to rob us all.  Take the pen, man, and right yourself.  Well,' 

he added, seeing that Skulpit still doubted, 'to see a man as is

afraid to stand by hisself is, to my thinking, the meanest thing

as is.'



'Sink them all for parsons, says I,' growled Moody;

'hungry beggars, as never thinks their bellies full till they have

robbed all and everything!'



'Who's to harm you, man?' argued Spriggs.  'Let them

look never so black at you, they can't get you put out when

you're once in--no, not old Catgut, with Calves to help him!'

I am sorry to say the archdeacon himself was designated by

this scurrilous allusion to his nether person.



'A hundred a year to win, and nothing to lose,' continued

Handy.  'My eyes!  Well, how a man's to doubt about sich

a bit of cheese as that passes me--but some men is timorous--

some men is born with no pluck in them--some men is cowed

at the very first sight of a gentleman's coat and waistcoat.'



Oh, Mr Harding, if you had but taken the archdeacon's

advice in that disputed case, when Joe Mutters was this

ungrateful demagogue's rival candidate!



'Afraid of a parson,' growled Moody, with a look of ineffable

scorn.  'I tell ye what I'd be afraid of--I'd be afraid of

not getting nothing from 'em but just what I could take by

might and right--that's the most I'd be afraid on of any

parson of 'em all.'



'But,' said Skulpit, apologetically, 'Mr Harding's not so

bad--he did give us twopence a day, didn't he now?'



'Twopence a day!' exclaimed Spriggs with scorn, opening

awfully the red cavern of his lost eye.



'Twopence a day!' muttered Moody with a curse; 'sink

his twopence!'



'Twopence a day!' exclaimed Handy; 'and I'm to go, hat

in hand, and thank a chap for twopence a day, when he owes

me a hundred pounds a year; no, thank ye; that may do for

you, but it won't for me.  Come, I say, Skulpit, are you a going

to put your mark to this here paper, or are you not?'



Skulpit looked round in wretched indecision to his two

friends.  'What d'ye think, Bill Gazy?' said he.



But Bill Gazy couldn't think.  He made a noise like the

bleating of an old sheep, which was intended to express the

agony of his doubt, and again muttered that 'he didn't know.'



'Take hold, you old cripple,' said Handy, thrusting the pen

into poor Billy's hand: 'there, so--ugh! you old fool, you've

been and smeared it all--there--that'll do for you--that's as

good as the best name as ever was written': and a big blotch

of ink was presumed to represent Billy Gazy's acquiescence.



'Now, Jonathan,' said Handy, turning to Crumple.



'A hundred a year's a nice thing, for sartain,' again argued

Crumple.  'Well, neighbour Skulpit, how's it to be?'



'Oh, please yourself,' said Skulpit: 'please yourself, and

you'll please me.'



The pen was thrust into Crumple's hand, and a faint,

wandering, meaningless sign was made, betokening such

sanction and authority as Jonathan Crumple was able to convey.



'Come, job,' said Handy, softened by success, 'don't let

'em have to say that old Bunce has a man like you under his

thumb--a man that always holds his head in the hospital as

high as Bunce himself, though you're never axed to drink

wine, and sneak, and tell lies about your betters as he does.'



Skulpit held the pen, and made little flourishes with it in the

air, but still hesitated.



'And if you'll be said by me,' continued Handy, 'you'll not

write your name to it at all, but just put your mark like the

others,' --the cloud began to clear from Skulpit's brow--'we

all know you can do it if you like, but maybe you wouldn't

like to seem uppish, you know.'



'Well, the mark would be best,' said Skulpit.  'One name

and the rest marks wouldn't look well, would it?'



'The worst in the world,' said Handy; 'there--there': and

stooping over the petition, the learned clerk made a huge

cross on the place left for his signature.



'That's the game,' said Handy, triumphantly pocketing the

petition; 'we're all in a boat now, that is, the nine of us; and

as for old Bunce, and his cronies, they may--' But as he was

hobbling off to the door, with a crutch on one side and a

stick on the other, he was met by Bunce himself.



'Well Handy, and what may old Bunce do?' said the gray-

haired, upright senior.



Handy muttered something, and was departing; but he

was stopped in the doorway by the huge frame of the newcomer.



'You've been doing no good here, Abel Handy,' said he, ''tis

plain to see that; and 'tisn't much good, I'm thinking, you

ever do.'



'I mind my own business, Master Bunce,' muttered the

other, 'and do you do the same.  It ain't nothing to you what

I does--and your spying and poking here won't do no good

nor yet no harm.'



'I suppose then, job,' continued Bunce, not noticing his

opponent, 'if the truth must out, you've stuck your name to

that petition of theirs at last.'



Skulpit looked as though he were about to sink into the

ground with shame.



'What is it to you what he signs?' said Handy.  'I suppose

if we all wants to ax for our own, we needn't ax leave of you

first, Mr Bunce, big a man as you are; and as to your sneaking

in here, into Job's room when he's busy, and where you're

not wanted--'



'I've knowed job Skulpit, man and boy, sixty years,' said

Bunce, looking at the man of whom he spoke, 'and that's ever

since the day he was born.  I knowed the mother that bore

him, when she and I were little wee things, picking daisies

together in the close yonder; and I've lived under the same

roof with him more nor ten years; and after that I may come

into his room without axing leave, and yet no sneaking neither.'



'So you can, Mr Bunce,' said Skulpit; 'so you can, any

hour, day or night.'



'And I'm free also to tell him my mind,' continued Bunce,

looking at the one man and addressing the other; 'and I tell

him now that he's done a foolish and a wrong thing.  He's

turned his back upon one who is his best friend; and is playing

the game of others, who care nothing for him, whether he be

poor or rich, well or ill, alive or dead.  A hundred a year?

Are the lot of you soft enough to think that if a hundred a

year be to be given, it's the likes of you that will get it?'--and

he pointed to Billy Gazy, Spriggs, and Crumple.  'Did any of

us ever do anything worth half the money?  Was it to make

gentlemen of us we were brought in here, when all the world

turned against us, and we couldn't longer earn our daily

bread?  A'n't you all as rich in your ways as he in his?'--and

the orator pointed to the side on which the warden lived.

'A'n't you getting all you hoped for, ay, and more than you

hoped for?  Wouldn't each of you have given the dearest limb

of his body to secure that which now makes you so unthankful?'



'We wants what John Hiram left us,' said Handy.  'We

wants what's ourn by law; it don't matter what we expected.

What's ourn by law should be ourn, and by goles we'll have it.'



'Law!' said Bunce, with all the scorn he knew how to

command--'law!  Did ye ever know a poor man yet was the

better for law, or for a lawyer?  Will Mr Finney ever be as

good to you, job, as that man has been?  Will he see to you

when you're sick, and comfort you when you're wretched?

Will he--'



'No, nor give you port wine, old boy, on cold winter nights!

he won't do that, will he?' asked Handy; and laughing at the

severity of his own wit, he and his colleagues retired, carrying

with them, however, the now powerful petition.



There is no help for spilt milk; and Mr Bunce could only

retire to his own room, disgusted at the frailty of human nature.

Job Skulpit scratched his head--Jonathan Crumple again

remarked, that, 'for sartain, sure a hundred a year was very

nice'--and Billy Gazy again rubbed his eyes, and lowly

muttered that 'he didn't know.'







CHAPTER V

Dr Grantly Visits the Hospital





Though doubt and hesitation disturbed the rest of our poor

warden, no such weakness perplexed the nobler

breast of his son-in-law.  As the indomitable cock preparing

for the combat sharpens his spurs, shakes his feathers, and

erects his comb, so did the archdeacon arrange his weapons

for the coming war, without misgiving and without fear.  That

he was fully confident of the justice of his cause let no one

doubt.  Many a man can fight his battle with good courage,

but with a doubting conscience.  Such was not the case with

Dr Grantly.  He did not believe in the Gospel with more

assurance than he did in the sacred justice of all ecclesiastical

revenues.  When he put his shoulder to the wheel to defend

the income of the present and future precentors of Barchester,

he was animated by as strong a sense of a holy cause, as that

which gives courage to a missionary in Africa, or enables a

sister of mercy to give up the pleasures of the world for the

wards of a hospital.  He was about to defend the holy of holies

from the touch of the profane; to guard the citadel of his

church from the most rampant of its enemies; to put on his

good armour in the best of fights; and secure, if possible, the

comforts of his creed for coming generations of ecclesiastical

dignitaries.  Such a work required no ordinary vigour; and

the archdeacon was, therefore, extraordinarily vigorous.  It

demanded a buoyant courage, and a heart happy in its toil; and

the archdeacon's heart was happy, and his courage was buoyant.



He knew that he would not be able to animate his father-in-law

with feelings like his own, but this did not much disturb

him.  He preferred to bear the brunt of the battle alone, and

did not doubt that the warden would resign himself into his

hands with passive submission.



'Well, Mr Chadwick,' he said, walking into the steward's

office a day or two after the signing of the petition as

commemorated in the last chapter: 'anything from Cox and

Cummins this morning?'  Mr Chadwick handed him a letter;

which he read, stroking the tight-gaitered calf of his right leg

as he did so.  Messrs Cox and Cummins merely said that they

had as yet received no notice from their adversaries; that they

could recommend no preliminary steps; but that should any

proceeding really be taken by the bedesmen, it would be

expedient to consult that very eminent Queen's Counsel, Sir

Abraham Haphazard.



'I quite agree with them,' said Dr Grantly, refolding the

letter.  'I perfectly agree with them.  Haphazard is no doubt

the best man; a thorough churchman, a sound conservative,

and in every respect the best man we could get--he's in the

House, too, which is a great thing.'



Mr Chadwick quite agreed.



'You remember how completely he put down that scoundrel

Horseman about the Bishop of Beverley's income; how completely

he set them all adrift in the earl's case.'  Since the question

of St Cross had been mooted by the public, one noble lord had

become 'the earl,' par excellence, in the doctor's estimation.

'How he silenced that fellow at Rochester.  Of course

we must have Haphazard; and I'll tell you what, Mr Chadwick,

we must take care to be in time, or the other party will

forestall us.'



With all his admiration for Sir Abraham, the doctor seemed

to think it not impossible that that great man might be induced

to lend his gigantic powers to the side of the church's enemies.



Having settled this point to his satisfaction, the doctor

stepped down to the hospital, to learn how matters were going

on there; and as he walked across the hallowed close, and

looked up at the ravens who cawed with a peculiar reverence

as he wended his way, he thought with increased acerbity of

those whose impiety would venture to disturb the goodly grace

of cathedral institutions.



And who has not felt the same?  We believe that Mr Horseman

himself would relent, and the spirit of Sir Benjamin Hall

give way, were those great reformers to allow themselves to

stroll by moonlight round the towers of some of our ancient

churches.  Who would not feel charity for a prebendary when

walking the quiet length of that long aisle at Winchester, looking

at those decent houses, that trim grass-plat, and feeling, as

one must, the solemn, orderly comfort of the spot!  Who could

be hard upon a dean while wandering round the sweet close

of Hereford, and owning that in that precinct, tone and colour,

design and form, solemn tower and storied window, are all in

unison, and all perfect!  Who could lie basking in the cloisters

of Salisbury, and gaze on Jewel's library and that unequalled

spire, without feeling that bishops should sometimes be rich!



The tone of our archdeacon's mind must not astonish us;

it has been the growth of centuries of church ascendancy; and

though some fungi now disfigure the tree, though there be

much dead wood, for how much good fruit have not we to be

thankful?  Who, without remorse, can batter down the dead

branches of an old oak, now useless, but, ah! still so beautiful,

or drag out the fragments of the ancient forest, without feeling

that they sheltered the younger plants, to which they are now

summoned to give way in a tone so peremptory and so harsh?



The archdeacon, with all his virtues, was not a man of

delicate feeling; and after having made his morning salutations

in the warden's drawing-room, he did not scruple to

commence an attack on 'pestilent' John Bold in the presence

of Miss Harding, though he rightly guessed that that lady was

not indifferent to the name of his enemy.



'Nelly, my dear, fetch me my spectacles from the back

room,' said her father, anxious to save both her blushes and

her feelings.



Eleanor brought the spectacles, while her father was trying,

in ambiguous phrases, to explain to her too-practical brother-

in-law that it might be as well not to say anything about Bold

before her, and then retreated.  Nothing had been explained

to her about Bold and the hospital; but, with a woman's

instinct she knew that things were going wrong.



'We must soon be doing something,' commenced the archdeacon,

wiping his brows with a large, bright-coloured handkerchief,

for he had felt busy, and had walked quick, and it was a broiling

summer's day.  'Of course you have heard of the petition?'



Mr Harding owned, somewhat unwillingly, that he had

heard of it.



'Well'--the archdeacon looked for some expressions of

opinion, but none coming, he continued--' We must be doing

something, you know; we mustn't allow these people to cut the

ground from under us while we sit looking on.'  The archdeacon,

who was a practical man, allowed himself the use of everyday

expressive modes of speech when among his closest intimates,

though no one could soar into a more intricate labyrinth of

refined phraseology when the church was the subject, and his

lower brethren were his auditors.



The warden still looked mutely in his face, making the

slightest possible passes with an imaginary fiddle bow, and

stopping, as he did so, sundry imaginary strings with the

fingers of his other hand.  'Twas his constant consolation in

conversational troubles.  While these vexed him sorely, the

passes would be short and slow, and the upper hand would not

be seen to work; nay, the strings on which it operated would

sometimes lie concealed in the musician's pocket, and the

instrument on which he played would be beneath his chair--

but as his spirit warmed to the subject--as his trusting heart

looking to the bottom of that which vexed him, would see its

clear way out--he would rise to a higher melody, sweep the

unseen strings with a bolder hand, and swiftly fingering the

cords from his neck, down along his waistcoat, and up again

to his very ear, create an ecstatic strain of perfect music,

audible to himself and to St Cecilia, and not without effect.



'I quite agree with Cox and Cummins,' continued the

archdeacon.  'They say we must secure Sir Abraham Haphazard.

I shall not have the slightest fear in leaving the case

in Sir Abraham's hands.'



The warden played the slowest and saddest of tunes.  It was

but a dirge on one string.



'I think Sir Abraham will not be long in letting Master

Bold know what he's about.  I fancy I hear Sir Abraham

cross-questioning him at the Common Pleas.'



The warden thought of his income being thus discussed, his

modest life, his daily habits, and his easy work; and nothing

issued from that single cord, but a low wail of sorrow.  'I

suppose they've sent this petition up to my father.'  The

warden didn't know; he imagined they would do so this very day.



'What I can't understand is, how you let them do it, with

such a command as you have in the place, or should have with

such a man as Bunce.  I cannot understand why you let them do it.'



'Do what?' asked the warden.



'Why, listen to this fellow Bold, and that other low pettifogger,

Finney--and get up this petition too.  Why didn't you tell

Bunce to destroy the petition?'



'That would have been hardly wise,' said the warden.



'Wise--yes, it would have been very wise if they'd done it

among themselves.  I must go up to the palace and answer it now,

I suppose.  It's a very short answer they'll get, I can tell you.'



'But why shouldn't they petition, doctor?'



'Why shouldn't they!' responded the archdeacon, in a loud

brazen voice, as though all the men in the hospital were

expected to hear him through the walls; 'why shouldn't they?

I'll let them know why they shouldn't: by the bye, warden,

I'd like to say a few words to them all together.'



The warden's mind misgave him, and even for a moment he

forgot to play.  He by no means wished to delegate to his

son-in-law his place and authority of warden; he had expressly

determined not to interfere in any step which the men might

wish to take in the matter under dispute; he was most

anxious neither to accuse them nor to defend himself.  All

these things he was aware the archdeacon would do in his

behalf, and that not in the mildest manner; and yet he knew

not how to refuse the permission requested.



'I'd so much sooner remain quiet in the matter,' said he, in

an apologetic voice.



Quiet!' said the archdeacon, still speaking with his brazen

trumpet; 'do you wish to be ruined in quiet?'



'Why, if I am to be ruined, certainly.'



'Nonsense, warden; I tell you something must be done--

we must act; just let me ring the bell, and send the men word

that I'll speak to them in the quad.'



Mr Harding knew not how to resist, and the disagreeable

order was given.  The quad, as it was familiarly called, was a

small quadrangle, open on one side to the river, and surrounded

on the others by the high wall of Mr Harding's garden, by one

gable end of Mr Harding's house, and by the end of the row of

buildings which formed the residences of the bedesmen.  It was

flagged all round, and the centre was stoned; small stone

gutters ran from the four corners of the square to a grating in

the centre; and attached to the end of Mr Harding's house was a

conduit with four cocks covered over from the weather, at which

the old men got their water, and very generally performed their

morning toilet.  It was a quiet, sombre place, shaded over by the

trees of the warden's garden.  On the side towards the river,

there stood a row of stone seats, on which the old men would sit

and gaze at the little fish, as they flitted by in the running

stream.  On the other side of the river was a rich, green meadow,

running up to and joining the deanery, and as little open to the

public as the garden of the dean itself.  Nothing, therefore,

could be more private than the quad of the hospital; and it was

there that the archdeacon determined to convey to them his sense

of their refractory proceedings.



The servant soon brought in word that the men were

assembled in the quad, and the archdeacon, big with his

purpose, rose to address them.



'Well, warden, of course you're coming,' said he, seeing that

Mr Harding did not prepare to follow him.



'I wish you'd excuse me,' said Mr Harding.



'For heaven's sake, don't let us have division in the camp,' 

replied the archdeacon: 'let us have a long pull and a strong

pull, but above all a pull all together; come warden, come;

don't be afraid of your duty.'



Mr Harding was afraid; he was afraid that he was being

led to do that which was not his duty: he was not, however,

strong enough to resist, so he got up and followed his son-in-law.



The old men were assembled in groups in the quadrangle--

eleven of them at least, for poor old Johnny Bell was bed-ridden,

and couldn't come; he had, however, put his mark to the

petition, as one of Handy's earliest followers.  'Tis true he

could not move from the bed where he lay; 'tis true he had

no friend on earth, but those whom the hospital contained;

and of those the warden and his daughter were the most constant

and most appreciated; 'tis true that everything was administered

to him which his failing body could require, or which his faint

appetite could enjoy; but still his dull eye had glistened for a

moment at the idea of possessing a hundred pounds a year 'to his

own cheek,' as Abel Handy had eloquently expressed it; and poor

old Johnny Bell had greedily put his mark to the petition.



When the two clergymen appeared, they all uncovered their

heads.  Handy was slow to do it, and hesitated; but the black

coat and waistcoat of which he had spoken so irreverently in

Skulpit's room, had its effect even on him, and he too doffed

his hat.  Bunce, advancing before the others, bowed lowly to

the archdeacon, and with affectionate reverence expressed his

wish, that the warden and Miss Eleanor were quite well; 'and

the doctor's lady,' he added, turning to the archdeacon, 'and

the children at Plumstead, and my lord'; and having made

his speech, he also retired among the others, and took his place

with the rest upon the stone benches.



As the archdeacon stood up to make his speech, erect in the

middle of that little square , he looked like an ecclesiastical

statue placed there, as a fitting impersonation of the church

militant here on earth; his shovel hat, large, new, and well-

pronounced, a churchman's hat in every inch, declared the

profession as plainly as does the Quaker's broad brim; his

heavy eyebrows, large open eyes, and full mouth and chin

expressed the solidity of his order; the broad chest, amply

covered with fine cloth, told how well to do was its estate; one

hand ensconced within his pocket, evinced the practical hold

which our mother church keeps on her temporal possessions;

and the other, loose for action, was ready to fight if need be in

her defence; and, below these, the decorous breeches, and

neat black gaiters showing so admirably that well-turned leg,

betokened the decency, the outward beauty and grace of our

church establishment.



'Now, my men,' he began, when he had settled himself well

in his position, 'I want to say a few words to you.  Your good

friend, the warden here, and myself, and my lord the bishop,

on whose behalf I wish to speak to you, would all be very sorry,

very sorry indeed, that you should have any just ground of

complaint.  Any just ground of complaint on your part would

be removed at once by the warden, or by his lordship, or by

me on his behalf, without the necessity of any petition on your

part.'  Here the orator stopped for a moment, expecting that

some little murmurs of applause would show that the weakest

of the men were beginning to give way; but no such murmurs

came.  Bunce, himself, even sat with closed lips, mute and

unsatisfactory.  'Without the necessity of any petition at all,' 

he repeated.  'I'm told you have addressed a petition to my

lord.'  He paused for a reply from the men, and after a while,

Handy plucked up courage and said, 'Yes, we has.'



' You have addressed a petition to my lord, in which, as I am

informed, you express an opinion that you do not receive from

Hiram's estate all that is your due.'  Here most of the men

expressed their assent.  'Now what is it you ask for?  What is

it you want that you hav'n't got here?  What is it--'



'A hundred a year,' muttered old Moody, with a voice as

if it came out of the ground.



'A hundred a year!' ejaculated the archdeacon militant,

defying the impudence of these claimants with one hand

stretched out and closed, while with the other he tightly

grasped, and secured within his breeches pocket, that symbol

of the church's wealth which his own loose half-crowns not

unaptly represented.  'A hundred a year!  Why, my men, you

must be mad; and you talk about John Hiram's will!  When

John Hiram built a hospital for worn-out old men, worn-out

old labouring men, infirm old men past their work, cripples,

blind, bed-ridden, and such like, do you think he meant to

make gentlemen of them?  Do you think John Hiram intended

to give a hundred a year to old single men, who earned perhaps

two shillings or half-a-crown a day for themselves and families

in the best of their time?  No, my men, I'll tell you what John

Hiram meant: he meant that twelve poor old worn-out

labourers, men who could no longer support themselves, who

had no friends to support them, who must starve and perish

miserably if not protected by the hand of charity; he meant

that twelve such men as these should come in here in their

poverty and wretchedness, and find within these walls shelter

and food before their death, and a little leisure to make their

peace with God.  That was what John Hiram meant: you

have not read John Hiram's will, and I doubt whether those

wicked men who are advising you have done so.  I have; I

know what his will was; and I tell you that that was his will,

and that that was his intention.'



Not a sound came from the eleven bedesmen, as they sat

listening to what, according to the archdeacon, was their

intended estate.  They grimly stared upon his burly figure, but

did not then express, by word or sign, the anger and disgust to

which such language was sure to give rise.



'Now let me ask you,' he continued: 'do you think you are

worse off than John Hiram intended to make you?  Have you

not shelter, and food, and leisure?  Have you not much more?

Have you not every indulgence which you are capable of

enjoying?  Have you not twice better food, twice a better bed,

ten times more money in your pocket than you were ever able

to earn for yourselves before you were lucky enough to get into

this place?  And now you send a petition to the bishop, asking

for a hundred pounds a year!  I tell you what, my friends;

you are deluded, and made fools of by wicked men who are

acting for their own ends.  You will never get a hundred pence

a year more than what you have now: it is very possible that

you may get less; it is very possible that my lord the bishop,

and your warden, may make changes--'



'No, no, no,' interrupted Mr Harding, who had been listening

with indescribable misery to the tirade of his son-in-law;

'no, my friends.  I want no changes--at least no changes that

shall make you worse off than you now are, as long as you and

I live together.'



'God bless you, Mr Harding,' said Bunce; and 'God bless

you, Mr Harding, God bless you, sir: we know you was

always our friend,' was exclaimed by enough of the men to

make it appear that the sentiment was general.



The archdeacon had been interrupted in his speech before he

had quite finished it; but he felt that he could not recommence

with dignity after this little ebullition, and he led the way

back into the garden, followed by his father-in-law.



'Well,' said he, as soon as he found himself within the cool

retreat of the warden's garden; 'I think I spoke to them

plainly.'  And he wiped the perspiration from his brow; for

making a speech under a broiling mid-day sun in summer, in a

full suit of thick black cloth, is warm work.



'Yes, you were plain enough,' replied the warden, in a tone

which did not express approbation.



'And that's everything,' said the other, who was clearly well

satisfied with himself; 'that's everything: with those sort of

people one must be plain, or one will not be understood.  Now,

I think they did understand me--I think they knew what I meant.'



The warden agreed.  He certainly thought they had understood

to the full what had been said to them.



'They know pretty well what they have to expect from us;

they know how we shall meet any refractory spirit on their

part; they know that we are not afraid of them.  And now I'll just

step into Chadwick's, and tell him what I've done; and then I'll

go up to the palace, and answer this petition of theirs.'



The warden's mind was very full--full nearly to overcharging

itself; and had it done so--had he allowed himself to speak

the thoughts which were working within him, he would indeed

have astonished the archdeacon by the reprobation he would

have expressed as to the proceeding of which he had been so

unwilling a witness.  But different feelings kept him silent; he

was as yet afraid of differing from his son-in-law--he was

anxious beyond measure to avoid even a semblance of rupture

with any of his order, and was painfully fearful of having to

come to an open quarrel with any person on any subject.  His

life had hitherto been so quiet, so free from strife; his little

early troubles had required nothing but passive fortitude; his

subsequent prosperity had never forced upon him any active

cares--had never brought him into disagreeable contact with

anyone.  He felt that he would give almost anything--much

more than he knew he ought to do--to relieve himself from the

storm which he feared was coming.  It was so hard that the

pleasant waters of his little stream should be disturbed and

muddied by rough hands; that his quiet paths should be made a

battlefield; that the unobtrusive corner of the world which had

been allotted to him, as though by Providence, should be invaded

and desecrated, and all within it made miserable and unsound.



Money he had none to give; the knack of putting guineas

together had never belonged to him; but how willingly, with

what a foolish easiness, with what happy alacrity, would he

have abandoned the half of his income for all time to come,

could he by so doing have quietly dispelled the clouds that

were gathering over him--could he have thus compromised

the matter between the reformer and the conservative, between

his possible son-in-law, Bold, and his positive son-in-law,

the archdeacon.



And this compromise would not have been made from any

prudential motive of saving what would yet remain, for Mr

Harding still felt little doubt but he should be left for life in

quiet possession of the good things he had, if he chose to retain

them.  No; he would have done so from the sheer love of

quiet, and from a horror of being made the subject of public

talk.  He had very often been moved to pity--to that inward

weeping of the heart for others' woes; but none had he ever

pitied more than that old lord, whose almost fabulous wealth,

drawn from his church preferments, had become the subject

of so much opprobrium, of such public scorn; that wretched

clerical octogenarian Croesus, whom men would not allow to

die in peace--whom all the world united to decry and to abhor.



Was he to suffer such a fate?  Was his humble name to be

bandied in men's mouths, as the gormandiser of the resources

of the poor, as of one who had filched from the charity of other

ages wealth which had been intended to relieve the old and the

infirm?  Was he to be gibbeted in the press, to become a byword

for oppression, to be named as an example of the greed of the

English church?  Should it ever be said that he had robbed those

old men, whom he so truly and so tenderly loved in his heart

of hearts?  As he slowly paced, hour after hour, under those noble

lime-trees, turning these sad thoughts within him, he became all

but fixed in his resolve that some great step must be taken to

relieve him from the risk of so terrible a fate.



In the meanwhile, the archdeacon, with contented mind and

unruffled spirit, went about his business.  He said a word or

two to Mr Chadwick, and then finding, as he expected, the

petition lying in his father's library, he wrote a short answer to

the men, in which he told them that they had no evils to

redress, but rather great mercies for which to be thankful;

and having seen the bishop sign it, he got into his brougham

and returned home to Mrs Grantly, and Plumstead Episcopi.







CHAPTER VI

The Warden's Tea Party





After much painful doubting, on one thing only could

Mr Harding resolve.  He determined that at any rate he

would take no offence, and that he would make this question

no cause of quarrel either with Bold or with the bedesmen.  In

furtherance of this resolution, he himself wrote a note to Mr

Bold, the same afternoon, inviting him to meet a few friends

and hear some music on an evening named in the next week.

Had not this little party been promised to Eleanor, in his

present state of mind he would probably have avoided such

gaiety; but the promise had been given, the invitations were

to be written, and when Eleanor consulted her father on the

subject, she was not ill pleased to hear him say, 'Oh, I was

thinking of Bold, so I took it into my head to write to him

myself, but you must write to his sister.'



Mary Bold was older than her brother, and, at the time of

our story, was just over thirty.  She was not an unattractive

young woman, though by no means beautiful.  Her great

merit was the kindliness of her disposition.  She was not very

clever, nor very animated, nor had she apparently the energy

of her brother; but she was guided by a high principle of right

and wrong; her temper was sweet, and her faults were fewer

in number than her virtues.  Those who casually met Mary

Bold thought little of her; but those who knew her well loved

her well, and the longer they knew her the more they loved

her.  Among those who were fondest of her was Eleanor

Harding; and though Eleanor had never openly talked to her

of her brother, each understood the other's feelings about him.

The brother and sister were sitting together when the two

notes were brought in.



'How odd,' said Mary, 'that they should send two notes.

Well, if Mr Harding becomes fashionable, the world is going

to change.'



Her brother understood immediately the nature and intention

of the peace-offering; but it was not so easy for him to

behave well in the matter, as it was for Mr Harding.  It is

much less difficult for the sufferer to be generous than for the

oppressor.  John Bold felt that he could not go to the warden's

party: he never loved Eleanor better than he did now; he

had never so strongly felt how anxious he was to make her his

wife as now, when so many obstacles to his doing so appeared

in view.  Yet here was her father himself, as it were, clearing

away those very obstacles, and still he felt that he could not go

to the house any more as an open friend.



As he sat thinking of these things with the note in his hand,

his sister was waiting for his decision.



'Well,' said she, 'I suppose we must write separate answers,

and both say we shall be very happy.'



'You'll go, of course, Mary,' said he; to which she readily

assented.  'I cannot,' he continued, looking serious and

gloomy.  'I wish I could, with all my heart.'



'And why not, John?' said she.  She had as yet heard

nothing of the new-found abuse which her brother was about

to reform--at least nothing which connected it with her

brother's name.



He sat thinking for a while till he determined that it would

be best to tell her at once what it was that he was about: it

must be done sooner or later.



'I fear I cannot go to Mr Harding's house any more as a

friend, just at present.'



'Oh, John!  Why not?  Ah, you've quarrelled with Eleanor!'



'No, indeed,' said he; 'I've no quarrel with her as yet.'



'What is it, John?' said she, looking at him with an anxious,

loving face, for she knew well how much of his heart was there

in that house which he said he could no longer enter.



'Why,' said he at last, 'I've taken up the case of these

twelve old men of Hiram's Hospital, and of course that brings

me into contact with Mr Harding.  I may have to oppose

him, interfere with him, perhaps injure him.'



Mary looked at him steadily for some time before she committed

herself to reply, and then merely asked him what he meant to do

for the old men.

'Why, it's a long story, and I don't know that I can make

you understand it.  John Hiram made a will, and left his

property in charity for certain poor old men, and the proceeds,

instead of going to the benefit of these men, goes chiefly into

the pocket of the warden and the bishop's steward.'



'And you mean to take away from Mr Harding his share of it?'



'I don't know what I mean yet.  I mean to inquire about it.

I mean to see who is entitled to this property.  I mean to see,

if I can, that justice be done to the poor of the city of Barchester

generally, who are, in fact, the legatees under the will.  I mean,

in short, to put the matter right, if I can.'



'And why are you to do this, John?'



'You might ask the same question of anybody else,' said he;

'and according to that the duty of righting these poor men

would belong to nobody.  If we are to act on that principle,

the weak are never to be protected, injustice is never to be

opposed, and no one is to struggle for the poor!'  And Bold

began to comfort himself in the warmth of his own virtue.



'But is there no one to do this but you, who have known

Mr Harding so long?  Surely, John, as a friend, as a young

friend, so much younger than Mr Harding--'



'That's woman's logic, all over, Mary.  What has age to

do with it?  Another man might plead that he was too old;

and as to his friendship, if the thing itself be right, private

motives should never be allowed to interfere.  Because I

esteem Mr Harding, is that a reason that I should neglect a

duty which I owe to these old men? or should I give up a

work which my conscience tells me is a good one, because I

regret the loss of his society?'



'And Eleanor, John?' said the sister, looking timidly into

her brother's face.



'Eleanor, that is, Miss Harding, if she thinks fit--that is, if

her father--or, rather, if she--or, indeed, he--if they find it

necessary--but there is no necessity now to talk about Eleanor

Harding; but this I will say, that if she has the kind of spirit

for which I give her credit, she will not condemn me for doing

what I think to be a duty.'  And Bold consoled himself with

the consolation of a Roman.



Mary sat silent for a while, till at last her brother reminded

her that the notes must be answered, and she got up, and

placed her desk before her, took out her pen and paper,

wrote on it slowly:



                              'PAKENHAM VILLAS

                              'Tuesday morning

'MY DEAR ELEANOR,



'I--'



and then stopped, and looked at her brother.



'Well, Mary, why don't you write it?'



'Oh, John,' said she, 'dear John, pray think better of this.'



'Think better of what?' said he.



'Of this about the hospital--of all this about Mr Harding--

of what you say about those old men.  Nothing can call upon

you--no duty can require you to set yourself against your

oldest, your best friend.  Oh, John, think of Eleanor.  You'll

break her heart, and your own.'



'Nonsense, Mary; Miss Harding's heart is as safe as yours.'



'Pray, pray, for my sake, John, give it up.  You know how

dearly you love her.'  And she came and knelt before him on

the rug.  'Pray give it up.  You are going to make yourself,

and her, and her father miserable: you are going to make us

all miserable.  And for what?  For a dream of justice.  You

will never make those twelve men happier than they now are.'



'You don't understand it, my dear girl,' said he, smoothing

her hair with his hand.



'I do understand it, John.  I understand that this is a

chimera--a dream that you have got.  I know well that no

duty can require you to do this mad--this suicidal thing.  I

know you love Eleanor Harding with all your heart, and I tell

you now that she loves you as well.  If there was a plain, a

positive duty before you, I would be the last to bid you neglect

it for any woman's love; but this--oh, think again, before

you do anything to make it necessary that you and Mr Harding

should be at variance.'  He did not answer, as she knelt there,

leaning on his knees, but by his face she thought that he was

inclined to yield.  'At any rate let me say that you will go to

this party.  At any rate do not break with them while your

mind is in doubt.'  And she got up, hoping to conclude her

note in the way she desired.



'My mind is not in doubt,' at last he said, rising.  'I could

never respect myself again were I to give way now, because

Eleanor Harding is beautiful.  I do love her: I would give a

hand to hear her tell me what you have said, speaking on her

behalf; but I cannot for her sake go back from the task which

I have commenced.  I hope she may hereafter acknowledge

and respect my motives, but I cannot now go as a guest to her

father's house.'  And the Barchester Brutus went out to fortify

his own resolution by meditations on his own virtue.

Poor Mary Bold sat down, and sadly finished her note,

saying that she would herself attend the party, but that her

brother was unavoidably prevented from doing so.  I fear that

she did not admire as she should have done the self-devotion

of his singular virtue.



The party went off as such parties do.  There were fat old

ladies, in fine silk dresses, and slim young ladies, in gauzy

muslin frocks; old gentlemen stood up with their backs to the

empty fire-place, looking by no means so comfortable as they

would have done in their own arm-chairs at home; and young

gentlemen, rather stiff about the neck, clustered near the door,

not as yet sufficiently in courage to attack the muslin frocks,

who awaited the battle, drawn up in a semicircular array.

The warden endeavoured to induce a charge, but failed signally,

not having the tact of a general; his daughter did what she

could to comfort the forces under her command, who took in

refreshing rations of cake and tea, and patiently looked for

the coming engagement: but she herself, Eleanor, had no

spirit for the work ; the only enemy whose lance she cared to

encounter was not there, and she and others were somewhat dull.



Loud above all voices was heard the clear sonorous tones of

the archdeacon as he dilated to brother parsons of the danger

of the church, of the fearful rumours of mad reforms even at

Oxford, and of the damnable heresies of Dr Whiston.



Soon, however, sweeter sounds began timidly to make themselves

audible.  Little movements were made in a quarter notable for

round stools and music stands.  Wax candles were arranged in

sconces, big books were brought from hidden recesses, and the

work of the evening commenced.



How often were those pegs twisted and re-twisted before

our friend found that he had twisted them enough; how many

discordant scrapes gave promise of the coming harmony.

How much the muslin fluttered and crumpled before Eleanor

and another nymph were duly seated at the piano; how

closely did that tall Apollo pack himself against the wall, with

his flute, long as himself, extending high over the heads of his

pretty neighbours; into how small a corner crept that round

and florid little minor canon, and there with skill amazing

found room to tune his accustomed fiddle!



And now the crash begins: away they go in full flow of

harmony together--up hill and down dale--now louder and

louder, then lower and lower; now loud, as though stirring

the battle; then low, as though mourning the slain.  In all,

through all, and above all, is heard the violoncello.  Ah, not

for nothing were those pegs so twisted and re-twisted--listen,

listen!  Now alone that saddest of instruments tells its touching

tale.  Silent, and in awe, stand fiddle, flute, and piano, to hear

the sorrows of their wailing brother.  'Tis but for a moment:

before the melancholy of those low notes has been fully realised,

again comes the full force of all the band--down go the

pedals, away rush twenty fingers scouring over the bass notes

with all the impetus of passion.  Apollo blows till his stiff

neckcloth is no better than a rope, and the minor canon works

with both arms till he falls in a syncope of exhaustion against

the wall.



How comes it that now, when all should be silent, when

courtesy, if not taste, should make men listen--how is it at this

moment the black-coated corps leave their retreat and begin

skirmishing?  One by one they creep forth, and fire off little

guns timidly, and without precision.  Ah, my men, efforts such

as these will take no cities, even though the enemy should be

never so open to assault.  At length a more deadly artillery is

brought to bear; slowly, but with effect, the advance is made;

the muslin ranks are broken, and fall into confusion; the

formidable array of chairs gives way; the battle is no longer

between opposing regiments, but hand to hand, and foot to

foot with single combatants, as in the glorious days of old,

when fighting was really noble.  In corners, and under the

shadow of curtains, behind sofas and half hidden by doors, in

retiring windows, and sheltered by hanging tapestry, are blows

given and returned, fatal, incurable, dealing death.



Apart from this another combat arises, more sober and more

serious.  The archdeacon is engaged against two prebendaries,

a pursy full-blown rector assisting him, in all the perils and all

the enjoyments of short whist.  With solemn energy do they

watch the shuffled pack, and, all-expectant, eye the coming

trump.  With what anxious nicety do they arrange their cards,

jealous of each other's eyes!  Why is that lean doctor so slow--

cadaverous man with hollow jaw and sunken eye, ill beseeming

the richness of his mother church!  Ah, why so slow, thou

meagre doctor?  See how the archdeacon, speechless in his

agony, deposits on the board his cards, and looks to heaven or

to the ceiling for support.  Hark, how he sighs, as with thumbs

in his waistcoat pocket he seems to signify that the end of such

torment is not yet even nigh at hand!  Vain is the hope, if

hope there be, to disturb that meagre doctor.  With care

precise he places every card, weighs well the value of each

mighty ace, each guarded king, and comfort-giving queen;

speculates on knave and ten, counts all his suits, and sets his

price upon the whole.  At length a card is led, and quick three

others fall upon the board.  The little doctor leads again, while

with lustrous eye his partner absorbs the trick.  Now thrice has

this been done--thrice has constant fortune favoured the brace

of prebendaries, ere the archdeacon rouses himself to the

battle; but at the fourth assault he pins to the earth a prostrate

king, laying low his crown and sceptre, bushy beard, and

lowering brow, with a poor deuce.



'As David did Goliath,' says the archdeacon, pushing over

the four cards to his partner.  And then a trump is led, then

another trump; then a king--and then an ace--and then a

long ten, which brings down from the meagre doctor his only

remaining tower of strength--his cherished queen of trumps.



'What, no second club?' says the archdeacon to his partner.



'Only one club,' mutters from his inmost stomach the pursy

rector, who sits there red-faced, silent, impervious, careful, a

safe but not a brilliant ally.



But the archdeacon cares not for many clubs, or for none.

He dashes out his remaining cards with a speed most annoying

to his antagonists, pushes over to them some four cards as their

allotted portion, shoves the remainder across the table to the

red-faced rector; calls out 'two by cards and two by honours,

and the odd trick last time,' marks a treble under the candle-

stick, and has dealt round the second pack before the meagre

doctor has calculated his losses.



And so went off the warden's party, and men and women

arranging shawls and shoes declared how pleasant it had been;

and Mrs Goodenough, the red-faced rector's wife, pressing the

warden's hand, declared she had never enjoyed herself better;

which showed how little pleasure she allowed herself in this

world, as she had sat the whole evening through in the same

chair without occupation, not speaking, and unspoken to.

And Matilda Johnson, when she allowed young Dickson of the

bank to fasten her cloak round her neck, thought that two

hundred pounds a year and a little cottage would really do for

happiness; besides, he was sure to be manager some day.

And Apollo, folding his flute into his pocket, felt that he had

acquitted himself with honour; and the archdeacon pleasantly

jingled his gains; but the meagre doctor went off without

much audible speech, muttering ever and anon as he went,

'three and thirty points!' 'three and thirty points!'





And so they all were gone, and Mr Harding was left alone

with his daughter.





What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold

need not be told.  It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that

neither the historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by

their heroes or heroines, or how would three volumes or

twenty suffice!  In the present case so little of this sort have

I overheard, that I live in hopes of finishing my work within

300 pages, and of completing that pleasant task--a novel in

one volume; but something had passed between them, and as

the warden blew out the wax candles, and put his instrument

into its case, his daughter stood sad and thoughtful by the

empty fire-place, determined to speak to her father, but

irresolute as to what she would say.



'Well, Eleanor,' said he, 'are you for bed?'

'Yes,' said she, moving, 'I suppose so; but papa--Mr Bold

was not here tonight; do you know why not?'



'He was asked; I wrote to him myself,' said the warden.



'But do you know why he did not come, papa?'



'Well, Eleanor, I could guess; but it's no use guessing at

such things, my dear.  What makes you look so earnest

about it?'



'Oh, papa, do tell me,' she exclaimed, throwing her arms

round him, and looking into his face; 'what is it he is going

to do?  What is it all about?  Is there any--any--any--' she

didn't well know what word to use--'any danger?'



'Danger, my dear, what sort of danger?'



'Danger to you, danger of trouble, and of loss, and of--

Oh, papa, why haven't you told me of all this before?'



Mr Harding was not the man to judge harshly of anyone,

much less of the daughter whom he now loved better than any

living creature; but still he did judge her wrongly at this

moment.  He knew that she loved John Bold; he fully sympathised

in her affection; day after day he thought more of the matter,

and, with the tender care of a loving father, tried to arrange in

his own mind how matters might be so managed that his daughter's

heart should not be made the sacrifice to the dispute which was

likely to exist between him and Bold.  Now, when she spoke to him

for the first time on the subject, it was natural that he should

think more of her than of himself, and that he should imagine

that her own cares, and not his, were troubling her.



He stood silent before her awhile, as she gazed up into his

face, and then kissing her forehead he placed her on the sofa.



'Tell me, Nelly,' he said (he only called her Nelly in his

kindest, softest, sweetest moods, and yet all his moods were

kind and sweet), 'tell me, Nelly, do you like Mr Bold--much?'



She was quite taken aback by the question.  I will not say

that she had forgotten herself, and her own love in thinking

about John Bold, and while conversing with Mary: she certainly

had not done so.  She had been sick at heart to think that a man

of whom she could not but own to herself that she loved him, of

whose regard she had been so proud, that such a man should turn

against her father to ruin him.  She had felt her vanity hurt,

that his affection for her had not kept him from such a course;

had he really cared for her, he would not have risked her love

by such an outrage.  But her main fear had been for her father,

and when she spoke of danger, it was of danger to him and not

to herself.



She was taken aback by the question altogether: 'Do I like

him, papa?'



'Yes, Nelly, do you like him?  Why shouldn't you like him?

but that's a poor word--do you love him?'  She sat still in his

arms without answering him.  She certainly had not prepared

herself for an avowal of affection, intending, as she had done,

to abuse John Bold herself, and to hear her father do so also.

'Come, my love,' said he, 'let us make a clean breast of it: do

you tell me what concerns yourself, and I will tell you what

concerns me and the hospital.'



And then, without waiting for an answer, he described to

her, as he best could, the accusation that was made about

Hiram's will; the claims which the old men put forward;

what he considered the strength and what the weakness of his

own position; the course which Bold had taken, and that

which he presumed he was about to take; and then by

degrees, without further question, he presumed on the fact of

Eleanor's love, and spoke of that love as a feeling which he

could in no way disapprove: he apologised for Bold, excused

what he was doing; nay, praised him for his energy and

intentions; made much of his good qualities, and harped on

none of his foibles; then, reminding his daughter how late it

was, and comforting her with much assurance which he hardly

felt himself, he sent her to her room, with flowing eyes and a

full heart.



When Mr Harding met his daughter at breakfast the next

morning, there was no further discussion on the matter, nor

was the subject mentioned between them for some days.  Soon

after the party Mary Bold called at the hospital, but there were

various persons in the drawing-room at the time, and she

therefore said nothing about her brother.  On the day following,

John Bold met Miss Harding in one of the quiet, sombre,

shaded walks of the close.  He was most anxious to see her, but

unwilling to call at the warden's house, and had in truth

waylaid her in her private haunts.



'My sister tells me,' said he, abruptly hurrying on with his

premeditated speech, 'my sister tells me that you had a delightful

party the other evening.  I was so sorry I could not be there.'



'We were all sorry,' said Eleanor, with dignified composure.



'I believe, Miss Harding, you understand why, at this

moment--' And Bold hesitated, muttered, stopped, commenced his

explanation again, and again broke down.



Eleanor would not help him in the least.



'I think my sister explained to you, Miss Harding?'



'Pray don't apologise, Mr Bold; my father will, I am sure,

always be glad to see you, if you like to come to the house now

as formerly; nothing has occurred to alter his feelings: of

your own views you are, of course, the best judge.'



'Your father is all that is kind and generous; he always was

so; but you, Miss Harding, yourself--I hope you will not

judge me harshly, because--'



'Mr Bold,' said she, 'you may be sure of one thing; I shall

always judge my father to be right, and those who oppose him

I shall judge to be wrong.  If those who do not know him

oppose him, I shall have charity enough to believe that they

are wrong, through error of judgment; but should I see him

attacked by those who ought to know him, and to love him,

and revere him, of such I shall be constrained to form a

different opinion.'  And then curtseying low she sailed on,

leaving her lover in anything but a happy state of mind.







CHAPTER VII

'The Jupiter'





Though Eleanor Harding rode off from John Bold on a high horse,

it must not be supposed that her heart was so elate as her

demeanour.  In the first place, she had a natural repugnance to

losing her lover; and in the next, she was not quite So sure that

she was in the right as she pretended to be.  Her father had told

her, and that now repeatedly, that Bold was doing nothing unjust

or ungenerous; and why then should she rebuke him, and throw him

off, when she felt herself so ill able to bear his loss?--but

such is human nature, and young-lady-nature especially.  As she

walked off from him beneath the shady elms of the close, her

look, her tone, every motion and gesture of her body, belied her

heart; she would have given the world to have taken him by the

hand, to have reasoned with him, persuaded him, cajoled him,

coaxed him out of his project; to have overcome him with all her

female artillery, and to have redeemed her father at the cost of

herself; but pride would not let her do this, and she left him

without a look of love or a word of kindness.



Had Bold been judging of another lover and of another

lady, he might have understood all this as well as we do; but

in matters of love men do not see clearly in their own affairs.

They say that faint heart never won fair lady; and it is

amazing to me how fair ladies are won, so faint are often men's

hearts!  Were it not for the kindness of their nature, that

seeing the weakness of our courage they will occasionally

descend from their impregnable fortresses, and themselves aid

us in effecting their own defeat, too often would they escape

unconquered if not unscathed, and free of body if not of heart.



Poor Bold crept off quite crestfallen; he felt that as regarded

Eleanor Harding his fate was sealed, unless he could consent

to give up a task to which he had pledged himself and which

indeed it would not be easy for him to give up.  Lawyers were

engaged, and the question had to a certain extent been taken

up by the public; besides, how could a high-spirited girl like

Eleanor Harding really learn to love a man for neglecting a

duty which he assumed!  Could she allow her affection to be

purchased at the cost of his own self-respect?



As regarded the issue of his attempt at reformation in the

hospital, Bold had no reason hitherto to be discontented with

his success.  All Barchester was by the ears about it.  The

bishop, the archdeacon, the warden, the steward, and several

other clerical allies, had daily meetings, discussing their tactics,

and preparing for the great attack.  Sir Abraham Haphazard

had been consulted, but his opinion was not yet received:

copies of Hiram's will, copies of wardens' journals, copies of

leases, copies of accounts, copies of everything that could be

copied, and of some that could not, had been sent to him;

and the case was assuming most creditable dimensions.  But,

above all, it had been mentioned in the daily Jupiter.  That all-

powerful organ of the press in one of its leading thunderbolts

launched at St Cross, had thus remarked: 'Another case,

of smaller dimensions indeed, but of similar import, is now

likely to come under public notice.  We are informed that the

warden or master of an old almshouse attached to Barchester

Cathedral is in receipt of twenty-five times the annual income

appointed for him by the will of the founder, while the sum

yearly expended on the absolute purposes of the charity has

always remained fixed.  In other words, the legatees under

the founder's will have received no advantage from the increase

in the value of the property during the last four centuries,

such increase having been absorbed by the so-called warden.

It is impossible to conceive a case of greater injustice.

It is no answer to say that some six or nine or twelve old men

receive as much of the goods of this world as such old men

require.  On what foundation, moral or divine, traditional or

legal, is grounded the warden's claim to the large income he

receives for doing nothing?  The contentment of these almsmen,

if content they be, can give him no title to this wealth!

Does he ever ask himself, when he stretches wide his clerical

palm to receive the pay of some dozen of the working clergy,

for what service he is so remunerated?  Does his conscience

ever entertain the question of his right to such subsidies?  Or

is it possible that the subject never so presents itself to his

mind; that he has received for many years, and intends,

should God spare him, to receive for years to come these fruits

of the industrious piety of past ages, indifferent as to any right

on his own part, or of any injustice to others!  We must

express an opinion that nowhere but in the Church of England,

and only there among its priests, could such a state of moral

indifference be found.'



I must for the present leave my readers to imagine the state

of Mr Harding's mind after reading the above article.  They

say that forty thousand copies of The Jupiter are daily sold, and

that each copy is read by five persons at the least.  Two hundred

thousand readers then would hear this accusation against him;

two hundred thousand hearts would swell with indignation at

the griping injustice, the barefaced robbery of the warden

of Barchester Hospital!  And how was he to answer this?  How

was he to open his inmost heart to this multitude, to these

thousands, the educated, the polished, the picked men of

his own country; how show them that he was no robber, no

avaricious, lazy priest scrambling for gold, but a retiring,

humble-spirited man, who had innocently taken what had

innocently been offered to him?



'Write to The Jupiter,' suggested the bishop.



'Yes,' said the archdeacon, more worldly wise than his

father, 'yes, and be smothered with ridicule; tossed over and

over again with scorn; shaken this way and that, as a rat in

the mouth of a practised terrier.  You will leave out some

word or letter in your answer, and the ignorance of the cathedral

clergy will be harped upon; you will make some small

mistake, which will be a falsehood, or some admission, which

will be self-condemnation; you will find yourself to have

been vulgar, ill-tempered, irreverend, and illiterate, and the

chances are ten to one, but that being a clergyman, you will

have been guilty of blasphemy!  A man may have the best of

causes, the best of talents, and the best of tempers; he may write

as well as Addison, or as strongly as Junius; but even with all

this he cannot successfully answer, when attacked by The Jupiter.

In such matters it is omnipotent.  What the Czar is in Russia, or

the mob in America, that The Jupiter is in England.  Answer

such an article!  No, warden; whatever you do, don't do that.

We were to look for this sort of thing, you know; but we need

not draw down on our heads more of it than is necessary.'



The article in The Jupiter, while it so greatly harassed our

poor warden, was an immense triumph to some of the opposite

party.  Sorry as Bold was to see Mr Harding attacked so personally,

it still gave him a feeling of elation to find his cause taken up

by so powerful an advocate: and as to Finney, the attorney, he

was beside himself.  What! to be engaged in the same cause and on

the same side with The Jupiter; to have the views he had

recommended seconded, and furthered, and battled for by The

Jupiter!  Perhaps to have his own name mentioned as that of the

learned gentleman whose efforts had been so successful on behalf

of the poor of Barchester!  He might be examined before committees

of the House of Commons, with heaven knows how much a day for his

personal expenses--he might be engaged for years on such a suit!

There was no end to the glorious golden dreams which this

leader in The Jupiter produced in the soaring mind of Finney.



And the old bedesmen, they also heard of this article, and

had a glimmering, indistinct idea of the marvellous advocate

which had now taken up their cause.  Abel Handy limped

hither and thither through the rooms, repeating all that he

understood to have been printed, with some additions of his

own which he thought should have been added.  He told

them how The Jupiter had declared that their warden was no

better than a robber, and that what The Jupiter said was

acknowledged by the world to be true.  How The Jupiter had

affirmed that each one of them--'each one of us, Jonathan

Crumple, think of that!'--had a clear right to a hundred a

year; and that if The Jupiter had said so, it was better than a

decision of the Lord Chancellor: and then he carried about

the paper, supplied by Mr Finney, which, though none of

them could read it, still afforded in its very touch and aspect

positive corroboration of what was told them; and Jonathan

Crumple pondered deeply over his returning wealth; and

job Skulpit saw how right he had been in signing the petition,

and said so many scores of times; and Spriggs leered fearfully

with his one eye; and Moody, as he more nearly approached

the coming golden age, hated more deeply than ever those who

still kept possession of what he so coveted.  Even Billy Gazy and

poor bed-ridden Bell became active and uneasy, and the great

Bunce stood apart with lowering brow, with deep grief seated

in his heart, for he perceived that evil days were coming.



It had been decided, the archdeacon advising, that no

remonstrance, explanation, or defence should be addressed from

the Barchester conclave to the editor of The Jupiter; but

hitherto that was the only decision to which they had come.



Sir Abraham Haphazard was deeply engaged in preparing

a bill for the mortification of papists, to be called the 'Convent

Custody Bill,' the purport of which was to enable any Protestant

clergyman over fifty years of age to search any nun whom he

suspected of being in possession of treasonable papers or

Jesuitical symbols; and as there were to be a hundred and

thirty-seven clauses in the bill, each clause containing a

separate thorn for the side of the papist, and as it was known

the bill would be fought inch by inch, by fifty maddened

Irishmen, the due construction and adequate dovetailing of

it did consume much of Sir Abraham's time.  The bill had all

its desired effect.  Of course it never passed into law; but it

so completely divided the ranks of the Irish members, who had

bound themselves together to force on the ministry a bill for

compelling all men to drink Irish whiskey, and all women to

wear Irish poplins, that for the remainder of the session the

Great Poplin and Whiskey League was utterly harmless.



Thus it happened that Sir Abraham's opinion was not at once

forthcoming, and the uncertainty, the expectation, and suffering

of the folk of Barchester was maintained at a high pitch.







CHAPTER VIII

Plumstead Episcopi





The reader must now be requested to visit the rectory of

Plumstead Episcopi; and as it is as yet still early morning,

to ascend again with us into the bedroom of the archdeacon.

The mistress of the mansion was at her toilet; on which we

will not dwell with profane eyes, but proceed into a small

inner room, where the doctor dressed and kept his boots and

sermons; and here we will take our stand, premising that the

door of the room was so open as to admit of a conversation

between our reverend Adam and his valued Eve.



'It's all your own fault, archdeacon,' said the latter.  'I

told you from the beginning how it would end, and papa has

no one to thank but you.'



'Good gracious, my dear,' said the doctor, appearing at the

door of his dressing-room, with his face and head enveloped

in the rough towel which he was violently using; 'how can

you say so?  I am doing my very best.'



'I wish you had never done so much,' said the lady, interrupting

him.  'If you'd just have let John Bold come and go there, as he

and papa liked, he and Eleanor would have been married by this

time, and we should not have heard one word about all this affair.'



'But, my dear--'



'Oh, it's all very well, archdeacon; and of course you're

right; I don't for a moment think you'll ever admit that you

could be wrong; but the fact is.  you've brought this young

man down upon papa by buffing him as you have done.'



'But, my love--'



'And all because you didn't like John Bold for a brother-

in-law.  How is she ever to do better?  Papa hasn't got a

shilling; and though Eleanor is well enough, she has not at

all a taking style of beauty.  I'm sure I don't know how she's

to do better than marry John Bold; or as well indeed,' added

the anxious sister, giving the last twist to her last shoe-string.



Dr Grantly felt keenly the injustice of this attack; but what

could he say?  He certainly had buffed John Bold; he certainly

had objected to him as a brother-in-law, and a very few

months ago the very idea had excited his wrath: but now

matters were changed; John Bold had shown his power, and,

though he was as odious as ever to the archdeacon, power is

always respected, and the reverend dignitary began to think

that such an alliance might not have been imprudent.  Nevertheless,

his motto was still 'no surrender'; he would still fight

it out; he believed confidently in Oxford, in the bench of

bishops, in Sir Abraham Haphazard, and in himself; and it

was only when alone with his wife that doubts of defeat ever

beset him.  He once more tried to communicate this confidence

to Mrs Grantly, and for the twentieth time began to tell

her of Sir Abraham.



'Oh, Sir Abraham!' said she, collecting all her house keys

into her basket before she descended; 'Sir Abraham won't

get Eleanor a husband; Sir Abraham won't get papa another

income when he has been worreted out of the hospital.  Mark

what I tell you, archdeacon: while you and Sir Abraham are

fighting, papa will lose his preferment; and what will you do

then with him and Eleanor on your hands? besides, who's to

pay Sir Abraham?  I suppose he won't take the case up for

nothing?'  And so the lady descended to family worship

among her children and servants, the pattern of a good and

prudent wife.



Dr Grantly was blessed with a happy, thriving family.

There were, first, three boys, now at home from school for the

holidays.  They were called, respectively, Charles James,

Henry, and Samuel.  The two younger (there were five in all)

were girls; the elder, Florinda, bore the name of the Archbishop

of York's wife, whose godchild she was: and the younger had

been christened Grizzel, after a sister of the Archbishop

of Canterbury.  The boys were all clever, and gave good promise of

being well able to meet the cares and trials of the world; and

yet they were not alike in their dispositions, and each had

his individual character, and each his separate admirers

among the doctor's friends.



Charles James was an exact and careful boy; he never

committed himself; he well knew how much was expected

from the eldest son of the Archdeacon of Barchester, and was

therefore mindful not to mix too freely with other boys.  He

had not the great talents of his younger brothers, but he

exceeded them in judgment and propriety of demeanour; his fault,

if he had one, was an over-attention to words instead of things;

there was a thought too much finesse about him, and, as even his

father sometimes told him, he was too fond of a compromise.



The second was the archdeacon's favourite son, and Henry

was indeed a brilliant boy.  The versatility of his genius was

surprising, and the visitors at Plumstead Episcopi were often

amazed at the marvellous manner in which he would, when

called on, adapt his capacity to apparently most uncongenial

pursuits.  He appeared once before a large circle as Luther

the reformer, and delighted them with the perfect manner in

which he assumed the character; and within three days he

again astonished them by acting the part of a Capuchin friar

to the very life.  For this last exploit his father gave him a

golden guinea, and his brothers said the reward had been

promised beforehand in the event of the performance being

successful.  He was also sent on a tour into Devonshire; a

treat which the lad was most anxious of enjoying.  His father's

friends there, however, did not appreciate his talents, and sad

accounts were sent home of the perversity of his nature.  He

was a most courageous lad, game to the backbone.



It was soon known, both at home, where he lived, and within

some miles of Barchester Cathedral, and also at Westminster,

where he was at school, that young Henry could box

well and would never own himself beat; other boys would

fight while they had a leg to stand on, but he would fight with

no leg at all.  Those backing him would sometimes think him

crushed by the weight of blows and faint with loss of blood,

and his friends would endeavour to withdraw him from the

contest; but no, Henry never gave in, was never weary of the

battle.  The ring was the only element in which he seemed to

enjoy himself; and while other boys were happy in the

number of their friends, he rejoiced most in the multitude of

his foes.



His relations could not but admire his pluck, but they sometimes

were forced to regret that he was inclined to be a bully; and

those not so partial to him as his father was, observed with pain

that, though he could fawn to the masters and the archdeacon's

friends, he was imperious and masterful to the servants and

the poor.



But perhaps Samuel was the general favourite; and dear

little Soapy, as he was familiarly called, was as engaging a

child as ever fond mother petted.  He was soft and gentle in

his manners, and attractive in his speech; the tone of his voice

was melody, and every action was a grace; unlike his brothers,

he was courteous to all, he was affable to the lowly, and meek

even to the very scullery-maid.  He was a boy of great promise,

minding his books and delighting the hearts of his masters.

His brothers, however, were not particularly fond of him; they

would complain to their mother that Soapy's civility all meant

something; they thought that his voice was too often listened

to at Plumstead Episcopi, and evidently feared that, as he

grew up, he would have more weight in the house than either

of them; there was, therefore, a sort of agreement among

them to put young Soapy down.  This, however, was not so

easy to be done; Samuel, though young, was sharp; he could

not assume the stiff decorum of Charles James, nor could he

fight like Henry; but he was a perfect master of his own

weapons, and contrived, in the teeth of both of them, to hold

the place which he had assumed.  Henry declared that he

was a false, cunning creature; and Charles James, though he

always spoke of him as his dear brother Samuel, was not slow

to say a word against him when opportunity offered.  To speak

the truth, Samuel was a cunning boy, and those even who

loved him best could not but own that for one so young he was

too adroit in choosing his words, and too skilled in modulating

his voice.



The two little girls Florinda and Grizzel were nice little girls

enough, but they did not possess the strong sterling qualities

of their brothers; their voices were not often heard at

Plumstead Episcopi; they were bashful and timid by nature,

slow to speak before company even when asked to do so; and

though they looked very nice in their clean white muslin frocks

and pink sashes, they were but little noticed by the

archdeacon's visitors.



Whatever of submissive humility may have appeared in the

gait and visage of the archdeacon during his colloquy with his

wife in the sanctum of their dressing-rooms was dispelled as

he entered his breakfast-parlour with erect head and powerful

step.  In the presence of a third person he assumed the lord

and master; and that wise and talented lady too well knew

the man to whom her lot for life was bound, to stretch her

authority beyond the point at which it would be borne.

Strangers at Plumstead Episcopi, when they saw the imperious

brow with which he commanded silence from the large circle

of visitors, children, and servants who came together in the

morning to hear him read the word of God, and watched how

meekly that wife seated herself behind her basket of keys with

a little girl on each side, as she caught that commanding

glance; strangers, I say, seeing this, could little guess that some

fifteen minutes since she had stoutly held her ground against

him, hardly allowing him to open his mouth in his own defence.

But such is the tact and talent of women!



And now let us observe the well-furnished breakfast-parlour

at Plumstead Episcopi, and the comfortable air of all the

belongings of the rectory.  Comfortable they certainly were,

but neither gorgeous nor even grand; indeed, considering the

money that had been spent there, the eye and taste might

have been better served; there was an air of heaviness about

the rooms which might have been avoided without any sacrifice

of propriety; colours might have been better chosen and lights

more perfectly diffused; but perhaps in doing so the thorough

clerical aspect of the whole might have been somewhat marred; at

any rate, it was not without ample consideration that those

thick, dark, costly carpets were put down; those embossed, but

sombre papers hung up; those heavy curtains draped so as to half

exclude the light of the sun: nor were these old-fashioned

chairs, bought at a price far exceeding that now given for more

modern goods, without a purpose.  The breakfast-service on the

table was equally costly and equally plain; the apparent object

had been to spend money without obtaining brilliancy or splendour.

The urn was of thick and solid silver, as were also the tea-pot,

coffee-pot, cream-ewer, and sugar-bowl; the cups were old, dim

dragon china, worth about a pound a piece, but very despicable in

the eyes of the uninitiated.  The silver forks were so heavy as

to be disagreeable to the hand, and the bread-basket was of a

weight really formidable to any but robust persons.  The tea

consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the

cream the very thickest; there was dry toast and buttered

toast, muffins and crumpets; hot bread and cold bread, white

bread and brown bread, home-made bread and bakers'

bread, wheaten bread and oaten bread; and if there be other

breads than these, they were there; there were eggs in napkins,

and crispy bits of bacon under silver covers; and there were

little fishes in a little box, and devilled kidneys frizzling on

a hot-water dish; which, by the bye, were placed closely

contiguous to the plate of the worthy archdeacon himself.

Over and above this, on a snow-white napkin, spread upon

the sideboard, was a huge ham and a huge sirloin; the latter

having laden the dinner table on the previous evening.  Such

was the ordinary fare at Plumstead Episcopi.



And yet I have never found the rectory a pleasant house.

The fact that man shall not live by bread alone seemed to be

somewhat forgotten; and noble as was the appearance of

the host, and sweet and good-natured as was the face of the

hostess, talented as were the children, and excellent as were the

viands and the wines, in spite of these attractions, I generally

found the rectory somewhat dull.  After breakfast the archdeacon

would retire, of course to his clerical pursuits.  Mrs

Grantly, I presume, inspected her kitchen, though she had a

first-rate housekeeper, with sixty pounds a year; and attended

to the lessons of Florinda and Grizzel, though she had an

excellent governess with thirty pounds a year: but at any rate

she disappeared: and I never could make companions of the

boys.  Charles James, though he always looked as though

there was something in him, never seemed to have much to

say; and what he did say he would always unsay the next

minute.  He told me once that he considered cricket, on the

whole, to be a gentlemanlike game for boys, provided they

would play without running about; and that fives, also, was a

seemly game, so that those who played it never heated themselves.

Henry once quarrelled with me for taking his sister

Grizzel's part in a contest between them as to the best mode

of using a watering-pot for the garden flowers; and from that

day to this he has not spoken to me, though he speaks at me

often enough.  For half an hour or so I certainly did like

Sammy's gentle speeches; but one gets tired of honey, and I

found that he preferred the more admiring listeners whom he

met in the kitchen-garden and back precincts of the establishment;

besides, I think I once caught Sammy fibbing.



On the whole, therefore, I found the rectory a dull house,

though it must be admitted that everything there was of the

very best.



After breakfast, on the morning of which we are writing,

the archdeacon, as usual, retired to his study, intimating that

he was going to be very busy, but that he would see Mr Chadwick

if he called.  On entering this sacred room he carefully

opened the paper case on which he was wont to compose his

favourite sermons, and spread on it a fair sheet of paper and

one partly written on; he then placed his inkstand, looked at

his pen, and folded his blotting paper; having done so, he got

up again from his seat, stood with his back to the fire-place,

and yawned comfortably, stretching out vastly his huge arms

and opening his burly chest.  He then walked across the room

and locked the door; and having so prepared himself, he

threw himself into his easy-chair, took from a secret drawer

beneath his table a volume of Rabelais, and began to amuse

himself with the witty mischief of Panurge; and so passed the

archdeacon's morning on that day.



He was left undisturbed at his studies for an hour or two,

when a knock came to the door, and Mr Chadwick was announced.

Rabelais retired into the secret drawer, the easy-chair seemed

knowingly to betake itself off, and when the archdeacon quickly

undid his bolt, he was discovered by the steward working, as

usual, for that church of which he was so useful a pillar.

Mr Chadwick had just come from London, and was, therefore, known

to be the bearer of important news.



'We've got Sir Abraham's opinion at last,' said Mr Chadwick, as

he seated himself.



'Well, well, well!' exclaimed the archdeacon impatiently.



'Oh, it's as long as my arm,' said the other; 'it can't be told

in a word, but you can read it'; and he handed him a copy,

in heaven knows how many spun-out folios, of the opinion

which the attorney-general had managed to cram on the back

and sides of the case as originally submitted to him.



'The upshot is,' said Chadwick, 'that there's a screw loose in

their case, and we had better do nothing.  They are proceeding

against Mr Harding and myself, and Sir Abraham holds

that, under the wording of the will, and subsequent arrangements

legally sanctioned, Mr Harding and I are only paid servants.

The defendants should have been either the Corporation of

Barchester, or possibly the chapter of your father.'



'W-hoo!' said the archdeacon; 'so Master Bold is on the

wrong scent, is he?'



'That's Sir Abraham's opinion; but any scent almost would

be a wrong scent.  Sir Abraham thinks that if they'd taken the

corporation, or the chapter, we could have baffled them.  The

bishop, he thinks, would be the surest shot; but even there we

could plead that the bishop is only a visitor, and that he has

never made himself a consenting party to the performance of

other duties.'



'That's quite clear,' said the archdeacon.



'Not quite so clear,' said the other.  'You see the will says,

"My lord, the bishop, being graciously pleased to see that due

justice be done."  Now, it may be a question whether, in

accepting and administering the patronage, your father has

not accepted also the other duties assigned.  It is doubtful,

however; but even if they hit that nail--and they are far off

from that yet--the point is so nice, as Sir Abraham says, that

you would force them into fifteen thousand pounds' cost before

they could bring it to an issue! and where's that sum of money

to come from?'



The archdeacon rubbed his hands with delight; he had

never doubted the justice of his case, but he had begun to have

some dread of unjust success on the part of his enemies.  It was

delightful to him thus to hear that their cause was surrounded

with such rocks and shoals; such causes of shipwreck unseen

by the landsman's eye, but visible enough to the keen eyes of

practical law mariners.  How wrong his wife was to wish that

Bold should marry Eleanor!  Bold! why, if he should be ass

enough to persevere, he would be a beggar before he knew

whom he was at law with!



'That's excellent, Chadwick--that's excellent!  I told you

Sir Abraham was the man for us'; and he put down on the

table the copy of the opinion, and patted it fondly.



'Don't you let that be seen, though, archdeacon.'



'Who?-I!-not for worlds,' said the doctor.



'People will talk, you know, archdeacon.'



'Of course, of course,' said the doctor.



'Because, if that gets abroad, it would teach them how to

fight their own battle.'



'Quite true,' said the doctor.



'No one here in Barchester ought to see that but you and I,

archdeacon.'



'No, no, certainly no one else,' said the archdeacon, pleased

with the closeness of the confidence; 'no one else shall.'



'Mrs Grantly is very interested in the matter, I know,' said

Mr Chadwick.



Did the archdeacon wink, or did he not?  I am inclined to

think he did not quite wink; but that without such, perhaps,

unseemly gesture he communicated to Mr Chadwick, with the

corner of his eye, intimation that, deep as was Mrs Grantly's

interest in the matter, it should not procure for her a perusal

of that document; and at the same time he partly opened the

small drawer, above spoken of, deposited the paper on the

volume of Rabelais, and showed to Mr Chadwick the nature

of the key which guarded these hidden treasures.  The careful

steward then expressed himself contented.  Ah! vain man!

he could fasten up his Rabelais, and other things secret, with

all the skill of Bramah or of Chubb; but where could he fasten

up the key which solved these mechanical mysteries?  It is

probable to us that the contents of no drawer in that house

were unknown to its mistress, and we think, moreover, that she

was entitled to all such knowledge.



'But,' said Mr Chadwick, 'we must, of course, tell your

father and Mr Harding so much of Sir Abraham's opinion as

will satisfy them that the matter is doing well.'



'Oh, certainly--yes, of course,' said the doctor.



'You had better let them know that Sir Abraham is of

opinion that there is no case at any rate against Mr Harding;

and that as the action is worded at present, it must fall to the

ground; they must be nonsuited, if they carry it on; you had

better tell Mr Harding, that Sir Abraham is clearly of opinion

that he is only a servant, and as such not liable--or if you like

it, I'll see Mr Harding myself.'



'Oh, I must see him tomorrow, and my father too, and I'll

explain to them exactly so much--you won't go before lunch,

Mr Chadwick: well, if you will, you must, for I know your

time is precious'; and he shook hands with the diocesan

steward, and bowed him out.



The archdeacon had again recourse to his drawer, and twice

read through the essence of Sir Abraham Haphazard's law-

enlightened and law-bewildered brains.  It was very clear that

to Sir Abraham, the justice of the old men's claim or the justice

of Mr Harding's defence were ideas that had never presented

themselves.  A legal victory over an opposing party was the

service for which Sir Abraham was, as he imagined, to be

paid; and that he, according to his lights, had diligently

laboured to achieve, and with probable hope of success.  Of

the intense desire which Mr Harding felt to be assured on fit

authority that he was wronging no man, that he was entitled

in true equity to his income, that he might sleep at night

without pangs of conscience, that he was no robber, no spoiler of

the poor; that he and all the world might be openly convinced

that he was not the man which The Jupiter had described him

to be; of such longings on the part of Mr Harding, Sir

Abraham was entirely ignorant; nor, indeed, could it be

looked on as part of his business to gratify such desires.  Such

was not the system on which his battles were fought, and

victories gained.  Success was his object, and he was generally

successful.  He conquered his enemies by their weakness rather

than by his own strength, and it had been found almost

impossible to make up a case in which Sir Abraham, as an

antagonist, would not find a flaw.



The archdeacon was delighted with the closeness of the

reasoning.  To do him justice, it was not a selfish triumph that

he desired; he would personally lose nothing by defeat, or at

least what he might lose did not actuate him; but neither was

it love of justice which made him so anxious, nor even mainly

solicitude for his father-in-law.  He was fighting a part of a

never-ending battle against a never-conquered foe--that of the

church against its enemies.



He knew Mr Harding could not pay all the expense of these

doings: for these long opinions of Sir Abraham's, these causes

to be pleaded, these speeches to be made, these various courts

through which the case was, he presumed, to be dragged.  He

knew that he and his father must at least bear the heavier

portion of this tremendous cost; but to do the archdeacon

justice, he did not recoil from this.  He was a man fond of

obtaining money, greedy of a large income, but open-handed

enough in expending it, and it was a triumph to him to foresee

the success of this measure, although he might be called on to

pay so dearly for it himself.







CHAPTER IX

The Conference





On the following morning the archdeacon was with his father

betimes, and a note was sent down to the warden begging his

attendance at the palace.  Dr Grantly, as he cogitated on

the matter, leaning back in his brougham as he journeyed into

Barchester, felt that it would be difficult to communicate

his own satisfaction either to his father or his father-in-law.

He wanted success on his own side and discomfiture on that

of his enemies.  The bishop wanted peace on the subject; a

settled peace if possible, but peace at any rate till the

short remainder of his own days had spun itself out.  Mr Harding

required not only success and peace, but he also demanded that

he might stand justified before the world.



The bishop, however, was comparatively easy to deal with;

and before the arrival of the other, the dutiful son had persuaded

his father that all was going on well, and then the warden arrived.



It was Mr Harding's wont, whenever he spent a morning at

the palace, to seat himself immediately at the bishop's elbow,

the bishop occupying a huge arm-chair fitted up with candle-

sticks, a reading table, a drawer, and other paraphernalia, the

position of which chair was never moved, summer or winter;

and when, as was usual, the archdeacon was there also, he

confronted the two elders, who thus were enabled to fight the

battle against him together; and together submit to defeat,

for such was their constant fate.



Our warden now took his accustomed place, having greeted

his son-in-law as he entered, and then affectionately inquired

after his friend's health.  There was a gentleness about the

bishop to which the soft womanly affection of Mr Harding

particularly endeared itself, and it was quaint to see how the

two mild old priests pressed each other's hand, and smiled and

made little signs of love.



'Sir Abraham's opinion has come at last,' began the archdeacon.

Mr Harding had heard so much, and was most anxious to know

the result.



'It is quite favourable,' said the bishop, pressing his friend's

arm.  'I am so glad.'



Mr Harding looked at the mighty bearer of the important

news for confirmation of these glad tidings.



'Yes,' said the archdeacon; 'Sir Abraham has given most

minute attention to the case; indeed, I knew he would--most

minute attention; and his opinion is--and as to his opinion

on such a subject being correct, no one who knows Sir Abraham's

character can doubt--his opinion is, that they hav'n't

got a leg to stand on.'



'But as how, archdeacon?'



'Why, in the first place:--but you're no lawyer, warden,

and I doubt you won't understand it; the gist of the matter is

this:--under Hiram's will two paid guardians have been

selected for the hospital; the law will say two paid servants,

and you and I won't quarrel with the name.'



'At any rate I will not if I am one of the servants,' said

Mr Harding.  'A rose, you know--'



'Yes, yes,' said the archdeacon, impatient of poetry at such

a time.  'Well, two paid servants, we'll say; one to look after

the men, and the other to look after the money.  You and

Chadwick are these two servants, and whether either of you be

paid too much, or too little, more or less in fact than the

founder willed, it's as clear as daylight that no one can fall foul

of either of you for receiving an allotted stipend.'



'That does seem clear,' said the bishop, who had winced

visibly at the words servants and stipend, which, however,

appeared to have caused no uneasiness to the archdeacon.



'Quite clear,' said he, 'and very satisfactory.  In point of

fact, it being necessary to select such servants for the use of the

hospital, the pay to be given to them must depend on the rate

of pay for such services, according to their market value at the

period in question; and those who manage the hospital must

be the only judges of this.'



'And who does manage the hospital?' asked the warden.

'Oh, let them find that out; that's another question: the

action is brought against you and Chadwick; that's your

defence, and a perfect and full defence it is.  Now that I think

very satisfactory.'



'Well,' said the bishop, looking inquiringly up into his friend's

face, who sat silent awhile, and apparently not so well satisfied.



'And conclusive,' continued the archdeacon; 'if they press

it to a jury, which they won't do, no twelve men in England

will take five minutes to decide against them.'



'But according to that' said Mr Harding, 'I might as well

have sixteen hundred a year as eight, if the managers choose to

allot it to me; and as I am one of the managers, if not the chief

manager, myself, that can hardly be a just arrangement.'



'Oh, well; all that's nothing to the question.  The question

is, whether this intruding fellow, and a lot of cheating attorneys

and pestilent dissenters, are to interfere with an arrangement

which everyone knows is essentially just and serviceable to the

church.  Pray don't let us be splitting hairs, and that amongst

ourselves, or there'll never be an end of the cause or the cost.'



Mr Harding again sat silent for a while, during which the

bishop once and again pressed his arm, and looked in his face

to see if he could catch a gleam of a contented and eased mind;

but there was no such gleam, and the poor warden continued

playing sad dirges on invisible stringed instruments in all

manner of positions; he was ruminating in his mind on this

opinion of Sir Abraham, looking to it wearily and earnestly

for satisfaction, but finding none.  At last he said, 'Did you

see the opinion, archdeacon?'



The archdeacon said he had not--that was to say, he -had-

that was, he had not seen the opinion itself; he had seen what

had been called a copy, but he could not say whether of a

whole or part; nor could he say that what he had seen were

the ipsissima verba of the great man himself; but what he had

seen contained exactly the decision which he had announced,

and which he again declared to be to his mind extremely

satisfactory.



'I should like to see the opinion,' said the warden; 'that is,

a copy of it.'



'Well, I suppose you can if you make a point of it; but I

don't see the use myself; of course it is essential that the

purport of it should not be known, and it is therefore unadvisable

to multiply copies.'



'Why should it not be known?' asked the warden.



'What a question for a man to ask!' said the archdeacon,

throwing up his hands in token of his surprise; 'but it is like

you--a child is not more innocent than you are in matters of

business.  Can't you see that if we tell them that no action will

lie against you, but that one may possibly lie against some

other person or persons, that we shall be putting weapons into

their hands, and be teaching them how to cut our own throats?'



The warden again sat silent, and the bishop again looked at

him wistfully: 'The only thing we have now to do,' continued

the archdeacon, 'is to remain quiet, hold our peace, and let

them play their own game as they please.'



'We are not to make known then,' said the warden, 'that

we have consulted the attorney-general, and that we are

advised by him that the founder's will is fully and fairly

carried out.'



'God bless my soul!' said the archdeacon, 'how odd it is

that you will not see that all we are to do is to do nothing:

why should we say anything about the founder's will?  We are

in possession; and we know that they are not in a position to

put us out; surely that is enough for the present.'



Mr Harding rose from his seat and paced thoughtfully up

and down the library, the bishop the while watching him painfully

at every turn, and the archdeacon continuing to pour forth

his convictions that the affair was in a state to satisfy any

prudent mind.



'And The Jupiter?' said the warden, stopping suddenly.



'Oh! The Jupiter,' answered the other.  'The Jupiter can

break no bones.  You must bear with that; there is much, of

course, which it is our bounden duty to bear; it cannot be all

roses for us here,' and the archdeacon looked exceedingly

moral; 'besides, the matter is too trivial, of too little general

interest to be mentioned again in The Jupiter, unless we stir up

the subject.'  And the archdeacon again looked exceedingly

knowing and worldly wise.



The warden continued his walk; the hard and stinging

words of that newspaper article, each one of which had thrust

a thorn as it were into his inmost soul, were fresh in his

memory; he had read it more than once, word by word, and

what was worse, he fancied it was as well known to everyone

as to himself.  Was he to be looked on as the unjust griping

priest he had been there described?  Was he to be pointed at

as the consumer of the bread of the poor, and to be allowed no

means of refuting such charges, of clearing his begrimed name,

of standing innocent in the world, as hitherto he had stood?

Was he to bear all this, to receive as usual his now hated

income, and be known as one of those greedy priests who by

their rapacity have brought disgrace on their church?  And

why?  Why should he bear all this?  Why should he die, for he

felt that he could not live, under such a weight of obloquy?

As he paced up and down the room he resolved in his misery

and enthusiasm that he could with pleasure, if he were allowed,

give up his place, abandon his pleasant home, leave the hospital,

and live poorly, happily, and with an unsullied name, on the

small remainder of his means.



He was a man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even

before those who knew him best, and whom he loved the most;

but at last it burst forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking

eloquence he declared that he could not, would not, bear this

misery any longer.



'If it can be proved,' said he at last, 'that I have a just and

honest right to this, as God well knows I always deemed I had;

if this salary or stipend be really my due, I am not less anxious

than another to retain it.  I have the well-being of my child

to look to.  I am too old to miss without some pain the comforts

to which I have been used; and I am, as others are, anxious

to prove to the world that I have been right, and to uphold

the place I have held; but I cannot do it at such a cost

as this.  I cannot bear this.  Could you tell me to do so?'  And

he appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left his

chair, and was now leaning on the warden's arm as he stood

on the further side of the table facing the archdeacon.  'Could

you tell me to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while

such things as these are said loudly of me in the world?'



The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but

he could not advise him, he could only say, 'No, no, you shall

be asked to do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what

your heart tells you to be right; you shall do whatever you

think best yourself.  Theophilus, don't advise him, pray don't

advise the warden to do anything which is painful.'



But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could

advise; and he saw that the time had come when it behoved

him to do so in a somewhat peremptory manner.



'Why, my lord,' he said, speaking to his father: and when

he called his father 'my lord,' the good old bishop shook in

his shoes, for he knew that an evil time was coming.  'Why,

my lord, there are two ways of giving advice: there is advice

that may be good for the present day; and there is advice that

may be good for days to come: now I cannot bring myself to

give the former, if it be incompatible with the other.'



'No, no, no, I suppose not,' said the bishop, re-seating himself,

and shading his face with his hands.  Mr Harding sat

down with his back to the further wall, playing to himself some

air fitted for so calamitous an occasion, and the archdeacon

said out his say standing, with his back to the empty fire-place.



'It is not to be supposed but that much pain will spring out

of this unnecessarily raised question.  We must all have foreseen

that, and the matter has in no wise gone on worse than we

expected; but it will be weak, yes, and wicked also, to abandon

the cause and own ourselves wrong, because the inquiry is

painful.  It is not only ourselves we have to look to; to a certain

extent the interest of the church is in our keeping.  Should it

be found that one after another of those who hold preferment

abandoned it whenever it might be attacked, is it not plain

that such attacks would be renewed till nothing was left us?

and, that if so deserted, the Church of England must fall to the

ground altogether?  If this be true of many, it is true of one.

Were you, accused as you now are, to throw up the wardenship,

and to relinquish the preferment which is your property,

with the vain object of proving yourself disinterested, you

would fail in that object, you would inflict a desperate blow on

your brother clergymen, you would encourage every cantankerous

dissenter in England to make a similar charge against some

source of clerical revenue, and you would do your best to

dishearten those who are most anxious to defend you and

uphold your position.  I can fancy nothing more weak, or

more wrong.  It is not that you think that there is any justice

in these charges, or that you doubt your own right to the

wardenship: you are convinced of your own honesty, and yet

would yield to them through cowardice.'



'Cowardice!' said the bishop, expostulating.  Mr Harding

sat unmoved, gazing on his son-in-law.



'Well; would it not be cowardice?  Would he not do so

because he is afraid to endure the evil things which will be

falsely spoken of him?  Would that not be cowardice?  And

now let us see the extent of the evil which you dread.  The

Jupiter publishes an article which a great many, no doubt, will

read; but of those who understand the subject how many will

believe The Jupiter?  Everyone knows what its object is: it has

taken up the case against Lord Guildford and against the Dean

of Rochester, and that against half a dozen bishops; and does

not everyone know that it would take up any case of the kind,

right or wrong, false or true, with known justice or known

injustice, if by doing so it could further its own views?  Does

not all the world know this of The Jupiter?  Who that really

knows you will think the worse of you for what The Jupiter says?

And why care for those who do not know you?  I will say

nothing of your own comfort, but I do say that you could not

be justified in throwing up, in a fit of passion, for such it would

be, the only maintenance that Eleanor has; and if you did so,

if you really did vacate the wardenship, and submit to ruin,

what would that profit you?  If you have no future right to

the income, you have had no past right to it; and the very fact

of your abandoning your position would create a demand for

repayment of that which you have already received and spent.'



The poor warden groaned as he sat perfectly still, looking

up at the hard-hearted orator who thus tormented him, and

the bishop echoed the sound faintly from behind his hands;

but the archdeacon cared little for such signs of weakness, and

completed his exhortation.



'But let us suppose the office to be left vacant, and that your

own troubles concerning it were over; would that satisfy you?

Are your only aspirations in the matter confined to yourself

and family?  I know they are not.  I know you are as anxious

as any of us for the church to which we belong; and what a

grievous blow would such an act of apostacy give her!  You

owe it to the church of which you are a member and a minister,

to bear with this affliction, however severe it may be: you owe

it to my father, who instituted you, to support his rights: you

owe it to those who preceded you to assert the legality of their

position; you owe it to those who are to come after you, to

maintain uninjured for them that which you received uninjured

from others; and you owe to us all the unflinching assistance

of perfect brotherhood in this matter, so that upholding

one another we may support our great cause without blushing

and without disgrace.'



And so the archdeacon ceased, and stood self-satisfied,

watching the effect of his spoken wisdom.



The warden felt himself, to a certain extent, stifled; he

would have given the world to get himself out into the open

air without speaking to, or noticing those who were in the

room with him; but this was impossible.  He could not leave

without saying something, and he felt himself confounded by

the archdeacon's eloquence.  There was a heavy, unfeeling,

unanswerable truth in what he had said; there was so much

practical, but odious common sense in it, that he neither knew

how to assent or to differ.  If it were necessary for him to

suffer, he felt that he could endure without complaint and

without cowardice, providing that he was self-satisfied of the

justice of his own cause.  What he could not endure was, that

he should be accused by others, and not acquitted by himself.

Doubting, as he had begun to doubt, the justice of his own

position in the hospital, he knew that his own self-confidence

would not be restored because Mr Bold had been in error as

to some legal form; nor could he be satisfied to escape,

because, through some legal fiction, he who received the greatest

benefit from the hospital might be considered only as one of

its servants.



The archdeacon's speech had silenced him--stupefied him

--annihilated him; anything but satisfied him.  With the

bishop it fared not much better.  He did not discern clearly

how things were, but he saw enough to know that a battle was

to be prepared for; a battle that would destroy his few

remaining comforts, and bring him with sorrow to the grave.



The warden still sat, and still looked at the archdeacon, till

his thoughts fixed themselves wholly on the means of escape

from his present position, and he felt like a bird fascinated by

gazing on a snake.



'I hope you agree with me,' said the archdeacon at last,

breaking the dread silence; 'my lord, I hope you agree with me.'



Oh, what a sigh the bishop gave!  'My lord, I hope you

agree with me,' again repeated the merciless tyrant.



'Yes, I suppose so,' groaned the poor old man, slowly.



'And you, warden?'



Mr Harding was now stirred to action--he must speak and

move, so he got up and took one turn before he answered.



'Do not press me for an answer just at present; I will do

nothing lightly in the matter, and of whatever I do I will give

you and the bishop notice.'  And so without another word he

took his leave, escaping quickly through the palace hall, and

down the lofty steps, nor did he breathe freely till he found

himself alone under the huge elms of the silent close.  Here he

walked long and slowly, thinking on his case with a troubled

air, and trying in vain to confute the archdeacon's argument.

He then went home, resolved to bear it all--ignominy, suspense,

disgrace, self-doubt, and heart-burning--and to do as those

would have him, who he still believed were most fit and most

able to counsel him aright.





















CHAPTER X

Tribulation





Mr Harding was a sadder man than he had ever yet been when

he returned to his own house.  He had been wretched enough

on that well-remembered morning when he was forced to expose

before his son-in-law the publisher's account for ushering into

the world his dear book of sacred music: when after making such

payments as he could do unassisted, he found that he was a debtor of

more than three hundred pounds; but his sufferings then were as

nothing to his present misery;--then he had done wrong, and he

knew it, and was able to resolve that he would not sin in like

manner again; but now he could make no resolution, and comfort

himself by no promises of firmness.  He had been forced to

think that his lot had placed him in a false position, and he

was about to maintain that position against the opinion of the

world and against his own convictions.



He had read with pity, amounting almost to horror, the

strictures which had appeared from time to time against the

Earl of Guildford as master of St Cross, and the invectives that

had been heaped on rich diocesan dignitaries and overgrown

sinecure pluralists.  In judging of them, he judged leniently;

the whole bias of his profession had taught him to think that

they were more sinned against than sinning, and that the animosity

with which they had been pursued was venomous and unjust; but

he had not the less regarded their plight as most miserable.

His hair had stood on end and his flesh had crept as he read the

things which had been written; he had wondered how men could live

under such a load of disgrace; how they could face their

fellow-creatures while their names were bandied about so

injuriously and so publicly--and now this lot was to be his--he,

that shy, retiring man, who had so comforted himself in the

hidden obscurity of his lot, who had

so enjoyed the unassuming warmth of his own little corner, he

was now dragged forth into the glaring day, and gibbeted

before ferocious multitudes.  He entered his own house a

crestfallen, humiliated man, without a hope of overcoming

the wretchedness which affected him.



He wandered into the drawing-room where was his daughter;

but he could not speak to her now, so he left it, and went into

the book-room.  He was not quick enough to escape Eleanor's

glance, or to prevent her from seeing that he was disturbed;

and in a little while she followed him.  She found him seated

in his accustomed chair with no book open before him, no

pen ready in his hand, no ill-shapen notes of blotted music

lying before him as was usual, none of those hospital accounts

with which he was so precise and yet so unmethodical: he

was doing nothing, thinking of nothing, looking at nothing;

he was merely suffering.



'Leave me, Eleanor, my dear,' he said; 'leave me, my

darling, for a few minutes, for I am busy.'



Eleanor saw well how it was, but she did leave him, and

glided silently back to her drawing-room.  When he had sat

a while, thus alone and unoccupied, he got up to walk again--

he could make more of his thoughts walking than sitting, and

was creeping out into his garden, when he met Bunce on the

threshold.



'Well, Bunce,' said he, in a tone that for him was sharp,

'what is it? do you want me?'



'I was only coming to ask after your reverence,' said the

old bedesman, touching his hat; 'and to inquire about the

news from London,' he added after a pause.



The warden winced, and put his hand to his forehead and

felt bewildered.



'Attorney Finney has been there this morning,' continued

Bunce, 'and by his looks I guess he is not so well pleased as he

once was, and it has got abroad somehow that the archdeacon

has had down great news from London, and Handy and

Moody are both as black as devils.  And I hope,' said the man,

trying to assume a cheery tone, 'that things are looking up,

and that there'll be an end soon to all this stuff which bothers

your reverence so sorely.'



'Well, I wish there may be, Bunce.'



'But about the news, your reverence?' said the old man,

almost whispering.



Mr Harding walked on, and shook his head impatiently.

Poor Bunce little knew how he was tormenting his patron.



'If there was anything to cheer you, I should be so glad to

know it,' said he, with a tone of affection which the warden

in all his misery could not resist.



He stopped, and took both the old man's hands in his.

'My friend,' said he, 'my dear old friend, there is nothing;

there is no news to cheer me--God's will be done': and two

small hot tears broke away from his eyes and stole down his

furrowed cheeks.



'Then God's will be done,' said the other solemnly; 'but

they told me that there was good news from London, and I

came to wish your reverence joy; but God's will be done,' 

and so the warden again walked on, and the bedesman, looking

wistfully after him and receiving no encouragement to follow,

returned sadly to his own abode.



For a couple of hours the warden remained thus in the

garden, now walking, now standing motionless on the turf,

and then, as his legs got weary, sitting unconsciously on the

garden seats, and then walking again.  And Eleanor, hidden

behind the muslin curtains of the window, watched him

through the trees as he now came in sight, and then again was

concealed by the turnings of the walk; and thus the time

passed away till five, when the warden crept back to the house

and prepared for dinner.



It was but a sorry meal.  The demure parlour-maid, as she

handed the dishes and changed the plates, saw that all was not

right, and was more demure than ever: neither father nor

daughter could eat, and the hateful food was soon cleared

away, and the bottle of port placed upon the table.



'Would you like Bunce to come in, papa?'said Eleanor, thinking

that the company of the old man might lighten his sorrow.



'No, my dear, thank you, not today; but are not you going out,

Eleanor, this lovely afternoon? don't stay in for me, my dear.'



'I thought you seemed so sad, papa.'



'Sad,' said he, irritated; 'well, people must all have their

share of sadness here; I am not more exempt than another:

but kiss me, dearest, and go now; I will, if possible, be more

sociable when you return.'



And Eleanor was again banished from her father's sorrow.

Ah! her desire now was not to find him happy, but to be

allowed to share his sorrows; not to force him to be sociable,

but to persuade him to be trustful.



She put on her bonnet as desired, and went up to Mary

Bold; this was now her daily haunt, for John Bold was up in

London among lawyers and church reformers, diving deep

into other questions than that of the wardenship of Barchester;

supplying information to one member of Parliament, and

dining with another; subscribing to funds for the abolition of

clerical incomes, and seconding at that great national meeting

at the Crown and Anchor a resolution to the effect, that no

clergyman of the Church of England, be he who he might,

should have more than a thousand a year, and none less than

two hundred and fifty.  His speech on this occasion was short,

for fifteen had to speak, and the room was hired for two hours

only, at the expiration of which the Quakers and Mr Cobden

were to make use of it for an appeal to the public in aid of the

Emperor of Russia; but it was sharp and effective; at least

he was told so by a companion with whom he now lived much,

and on whom he greatly depended--one Tom Towers, a very

leading genius, and supposed to have high employment on

the staff of The Jupiter.



So Eleanor, as was now her wont, went up to Mary Bold,

and Mary listened kindly, while the daughter spoke much of

her father, and, perhaps kinder still, found a listener in

Eleanor, while she spoke about her brother.  In the meantime

the warden sat alone, leaning on the arm of his chair; he had

poured out a glass of wine, but had done so merely from habit,

for he left it untouched; there he sat gazing at the open window,

and thinking, if he can be said to have thought, of the

happiness of his past life.  All manner of past delights came

before his mind, which at the time he had enjoyed without

considering them; his easy days, his absence of all kind of

hard work, his pleasant shady home, those twelve old neighbours

whose welfare till now had been the source of so much pleasant

care, the excellence of his children, the friendship of

the dear old bishop, the solemn grandeur of those vaulted

aisles, through which he loved to hear his own voice pealing;

and then that friend of friends, that choice ally that had never

deserted him, that eloquent companion that would always,

when asked, discourse such pleasant music, that violoncello of

his--ah, how happy he had been! but it was over now; his

easy days and absence of work had been the crime which

brought on him his tribulation; his shady home was pleasant

no longer; maybe it was no longer his; the old neighbours,

whose welfare had been so desired by him, were his enemies;

his daughter was as wretched as himself; and even the bishop

was made miserable by his position.  He could never again

lift up his voice boldly as he had hitherto done among his

brethren, for he felt that he was disgraced; and he feared even

to touch his bow, for he knew how grievous a sound of wailing,

how piteous a lamentation, it would produce.



He was still sitting in the same chair and the same posture,

having hardly moved a limb for two hours, when Eleanor

came back to tea, and succeeded in bringing him with her

into the drawing-room.



The tea seemed as comfortless as the dinner, though the

warden, who had hitherto eaten nothing all day, devoured

the plateful of bread and butter, unconscious of what he was doing.



Eleanor had made up her mind to force him to talk to her,

but she hardly knew how to commence: she must wait till the urn

was gone, till the servant would no longer be coming in and out.



At last everything was gone, and the drawing-room door was

permanently closed; then Eleanor, getting up and going

round to her father, put her arm round his neck, and said,

'Papa, won't you tell me what it is?'



'What what is, my dear?'



'This new sorrow that torments you; I know you are

unhappy,papa.'



'New sorrow! it's no new sorrow, my dear; we have all

our cares sometimes'; and he tried to smile, but it was a

ghastly failure; 'but I shouldn't be so dull a companion;

come, we'll have some music.'



'No, papa, not tonight--it would only trouble you tonight';

and she sat upon his knee, as she sometimes would in their

gayest moods, and with her arm round his neck, she said:

'Papa, I will not leave you till you talk to me; oh, if you only

knew how much good it would do to you, to tell me of it all.'



The father kissed his daughter, and pressed her to his heart;

but still he said nothing: it was so hard to him to speak of his

own sorrows; he was so shy a man even with his own child!



'Oh, papa, do tell me what it is; I know it is about the

hospital, and what they are doing up in London, and what

that cruel newspaper has said; but if there be such cause for

sorrow, let us be sorrowful together; we are all in all to each

other now: dear, dear papa, do speak to me.'



Mr Harding could not well speak now, for the warm tears

were running down his cheeks like rain in May, but he held

his child close to his heart, and squeezed her hand as a lover

might, and she kissed his forehead and his wet cheeks, and lay

upon his bosom, and comforted him as a woman only can do.



, My own child,' he said, as soon as his tears would let him

speak, 'my own, own child, why should you too be unhappy

before it is necessary?  It may come to that, that we must

leave this place, but till that time comes, why should your

young days be clouded?'



'And is that all, papa?  If that be all, let us leave it, and

have light hearts elsewhere: if that be all, let us go.  Oh,

papa, you and I could be happy if we had only bread to eat,

so long as our hearts were light.'



And Eleanor's face was lighted up with enthusiasm as she

told her father how he might banish all his care; and a gleam

of joy shot across his brow as this idea of escape again

presented itself, and he again fancied for a moment that he could

spurn away from him the income which the world envied

him; that he could give the lie to that wielder of the tomahawk

who had dared to write such things of him in The Jupiter;

that he could leave Sir Abraham, and the archdeacon, and

Bold, and the rest of them with their lawsuit among them, and

wipe his hands altogether of so sorrow-stirring a concern.  Ah,

what happiness might there be in the distance, with Eleanor

and him in some small cottage, and nothing left of their former

grandeur but their music!  Yes, they would walk forth with

their music books, and their instruments, and shaking the dust

from off their feet as they went, leave the ungrateful place.

Never did a poor clergyman sigh for a warm benefice more

anxiously than our warden did now to be rid of his.



'Give it up, papa,' she said again, jumping from his knees

and standing on her feet before him, looking boldly into his

face; 'give it up, papa.'



Oh, it was sad to see how that momentary gleam of joy

passed away; how the look of hope was dispersed from that

sorrowful face, as the remembrance of the archdeacon came

back upon our poor warden, and he reflected that he could

not stir from his now hated post.  He was as a man bound with

iron, fettered with adamant: he was in no respect a free

agent; he had no choice.  'Give it up!'  Oh if he only could:

what an easy way that were out of all his troubles!



'Papa, don't doubt about it,' she continued, thinking that

his hesitation arose from his unwillingness to abandon so

comfortable a home; 'is it on my account that you would stay

here?  Do you think that I cannot be happy without a pony-

carriage and a fine drawing-room?  Papa, I never can be

happy here, as long as there is a question as to your honour in

staying here; but I could be gay as the day is long in the

smallest tiny little cottage, if I could see you come in and go

out with a light heart.  Oh! papa, your face tells so much;

though you won't speak to me with your voice, I know how

it is with you every time I look at you.'



How he pressed her to his heart again with almost a spasmodic

pressure!  How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from

his old eyes!  How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred

soft sweet names which now came new to his lips!  How he chid

himself for ever having been unhappy with such a treasure in his

house, such a jewel on his bosom, with so sweet a flower in

the choice garden of his heart!  And then the floodgates of

his tongue were loosed, and, at length, with unsparing detail

of circumstances, he told her all that he wished, and all that

he could not do.  He repeated those arguments of the archdeacon,

not agreeing in their truth, but explaining his inability to

escape from them--how it had been declared to him that he

was bound to remain where he was by the interests of his order,

by gratitude to the bishop, by the wishes of his friends, by

a sense of duty, which, though he could not understand it,

he was fain to acknowledge.  He told her how he had been accused

of cowardice, and though he was not a man to make much of such

a charge before the world, now in the full candour of his heart

he explained to her that such an accusation was grievous to

him; that he did think it would be unmanly to desert his post,

merely to escape his present sufferings, and that, therefore, he

must bear as best he might the misery which was prepared for him.



And did she find these details tedious?  Oh, no; she

encouraged him to dilate on every feeling he expressed, till he

laid bare the inmost corners of his heart to her.  They spoke

together of the archdeacon, as two children might of a stern,

unpopular, but still respected schoolmaster, and of the bishop

as a parent kind as kind could be, but powerless against an

omnipotent pedagogue.



And then when they had discussed all this, when the father

had told all to the child, she could not be less confiding than

he had been; and as John Bold's name was mentioned between

them, she owned how well she had learned to love him--'had

loved him once,' she said, 'but she would not, could not

do so now--no, even had her troth been plighted to him,

she would have taken it back again--had she sworn to love

him as his wife, she would have discarded him, and not felt

herself forsworn, when he proved himself the enemy of her

father.'



But the warden declared that Bold was no enemy of his, and

encouraged her love; and gently rebuked, as he kissed her,

the stern resolve she had made to cast him off; and then he

spoke to her of happier days when their trials would all be

over; and declared that her young heart should not be torn

asunder to please either priest or prelate, dean or archdeacon.

No, not if all Oxford were to convocate together, and agree

as to the necessity of the sacrifice.



And so they greatly comforted each other--and in what

sorrow will not such mutual confidence give consolation!--

and with a last expression of tender love they parted, and went

comparatively happy to their rooms.







CHAPTER XI

Iphigenia





When Eleanor laid her head on her pillow that night,

her mind was anxiously intent on some plan by which

she might extricate her father from his misery; and, in her

warm-hearted enthusiasm, self-sacrifice was decided on as the

means to be adopted.  Was not so good an Agamemnon

worthy of an Iphigenia?  She would herself personally implore

John Bold to desist from his undertaking; she would explain

to him her father's sorrows, the cruel misery of his position;

she would tell him how her father would die if he were thus

dragged before the public and exposed to such unmerited

ignominy; she would appeal to his old friendship, to his

generosity, to his manliness, to his mercy; if need were, she

would kneel to him for the favour she would ask; but before

she did this the idea of love must be banished.  There must

be no bargain in the matter.  To his mercy, to his generosity,

she could appeal; but as a pure maiden, hitherto even

unsolicited, she could not appeal to his love, nor under such

circumstances could she allow him to do so.  Of course, when

so provoked he would declare his passion; that was to be

expected; there had been enough between them to make such

a fact sure; but it was equally certain that he must be

rejected.  She could not be understood as saying, Make my

father free and I am the reward.  There would be no sacrifice

in that--not so had Jephthah's daughter saved her father--

not so could she show to that kindest, dearest of parents how

much she was able to bear for his good.  No; to one resolve

must her whole soul be bound; and so resolving, she felt that

she could make her great request to Bold with as much self-

assured confidence as she could have done to his grandfather.



And now I own I have fears for my heroine; not as to the

upshot of her mission--not in the least as to that; as to the

full success of her generous scheme, and the ultimate result of

such a project, no one conversant with human nature and

novels can have a doubt; but as to the amount of sympathy

she may receive from those of her own sex.  Girls below twenty and

old ladies above sixty will do her justice; for in the female heart

the soft springs of sweet romance reopen after many years, and

again gush out with waters pure as in earlier days, and greatly

refresh the path that leads downwards to the grave.  But I fear

that the majority of those between these two eras will not approve

of Eleanor's plan.  I fear that unmarried ladies of thirty-five

will declare that there can be no probability of so absurd a

project being carried through; that young women on their knees

before their lovers are sure to get kissed, and that they would

not put themselves in such a position did they not expect it;

that Eleanor is going to Bold only because circumstances prevent

Bold from coming to her; that she is certainly a little fool, or a

little schemer, but that in all probability she is thinking a

good deal more about herself than her father.



Dear ladies, you are right as to your appreciation of the

circumstances, but very wrong as to Miss Harding's character.

Miss Harding was much younger than you are, and could not,

therefore, know, as you may do, to what dangers such an

encounter might expose her.  She may get kissed; I think it very

probable that she will; but I give my solemn word and positive

assurance, that the remotest idea of such a catastrophe never

occurred to her as she made the great resolve now alluded to.



And then she slept; and then she rose refreshed; and met

her father with her kindest embrace and most loving smiles;

and on the whole their breakfast was by no means so triste as

had been their dinner the day before; and then, making some

excuse to her father for so soon leaving him, she started on the

commencement of her operations.



She knew that John Bold was in London, and that, therefore,

the scene itself could not be enacted today; but she also

knew that he was soon to be home, probably on the next day,

and it was necessary that some little plan for meeting him

should be concerted with his sister Mary.  When she got up to

the house, she went, as usual, into the morning sitting-room,

and was startled by perceiving, by a stick, a greatcoat, and

sundry parcels which were lying about, that Bold must already

have returned.



'John has come back so suddenly,' said Mary, coming into

the room; 'he has been travelling all night.'



'Then I'll come up again some other time,' said Eleanor,

about to beat a retreat in her sudden dismay.



'He's out now, and will be for the next two hours,' said the

other; 'he's with that horrid Finney; he only came to see

him, and he returns by the mail train tonight.'



Returns by the mail train tonight, thought Eleanor to herself,

as she strove to screw up her courage--away again tonight--then it

must be now or never; and she again sat down, having risen to go.

She wished the ordeal could have been postponed: she had

fully made up her mind to do the deed, but she had not made

up her mind to do it this very day; and now she felt ill at ease,

astray, and in difficulty.



'Mary,' she began, 'I must see your brother before he goes back.'



'Oh yes, of course,' said the other; 'I know he'll be delighted

to see you'; and she tried to treat it as a matter of course,

but she was not the less surprised; for Mary and Eleanor had

daily talked over John Bold and his conduct, and his love, and

Mary would insist on calling Eleanor her sister, and would scold

her for not calling Bold by his Christian name; and Eleanor

would half confess her love, but like a modest maiden would

protest against such familiarities even with the name of her

lover; and so they talked hour after hour, and Mary Bold, who

was much the elder, looked forward with happy confidence to the

day when Eleanor would not be ashamed to call her her sister.

She was, however, fully sure that just at present Eleanor would

be much more likely to avoid her brother than to seek him.



'Mary, I must see your brother, now, today, and beg from

him a great favour'; and she spoke with a solemn air, not at

all usual to her; and then she went on, and opened to her

friend all her plan, her well-weighed scheme for saving her

father from a sorrow which would, she said, if it lasted, bring

him to his grave.  'But, Mary,' she continued, 'you must now,

you know, cease any joking about me and Mr Bold; you must

now say no more about that; I am not ashamed to beg this

favour from your brother, but when I have done so, there can

never be anything further between us'; and this she said with

a staid and solemn air, quite worthy of Jephthah's daughter

or of Iphigenia either.



It was quite clear that Mary Bold did not follow the argument.

That Eleanor Harding should appeal, on behalf of her father, to

Bold's better feelings seemed to Mary quite natural; it

seemed quite natural that he should relent, overcome by

such filial tears, and by so much beauty; but, to her thinking,

it was at any rate equally natural, that having relented, John

should put his arm round his mistress's waist, and say: 'Now

having settled that, let us be man and wife, and all will end

happily!'  Why his good nature should not be rewarded,

when such reward would operate to the disadvantage of none,

Mary, who had more sense than romance, could not understand;

and she said as much.



Eleanor, however, was firm, and made quite an eloquent

speech to support her own view of the question: she could not

condescend, she said, to ask such a favour on any other terms

than those proposed.  Mary might, perhaps, think her high-

flown, but she had her own ideas, and she could not submit to

sacrifice her self-respect.



'But I am sure you love him--don't you?' pleaded Mary;

'and I am sure he loves you better than anything in the world.'



Eleanor was going to make another speech, but a tear came

to each eye, and she could not; so she pretended to blow her

nose, and walked to the window, and made a little inward call

on her own courage, and finding herself somewhat sustained,

said sententiously: 'Mary, this is nonsense.'



'But you do love him,' said Mary, who had followed her

friend to the window, and now spoke with her arms close

wound round the other's waist.  'You do love him with all

your heart--you know you do; I defy you to deny it.'



'I--' commenced Eleanor, turning sharply round to refute

the charge; but the intended falsehood stuck in her throat,

and never came to utterance.  She could not deny her love,

so she took plentifully to tears, and leant upon her friend's

bosom and sobbed there, and protested that, love or no love,

it would make no difference in her resolve, and called Mary,

a thousand times, the most cruel of girls, and swore her to

secrecy by a hundred oaths, and ended by declaring that the

girl who could betray her friend's love, even to a brother,

would be as black a traitor as a soldier in a garrison who should

open the city gates to the enemy.  While they were yet discussing

the matter, Bold returned, and Eleanor was forced into

sudden action: she had either to accomplish or abandon her

plan; and having slipped into her friend's bedroom, as the

gentleman closed the hall door, she washed the marks of tears

from her eyes, and resolved within herself to go through with

it.  'Tell him I am here,' said she, 'and coming in; and mind,

whatever you do, don't leave us.'  So Mary informed her

brother, with a somewhat sombre air, that Miss Harding was

in the next room, and was coming to speak to him.



Eleanor was certainly thinking more of her father than herself,

as she arranged her hair before the glass, and removed the

traces of sorrow from her face; and yet I should be untrue if

I said that she was not anxious to appear well before her lover:

why else was she so sedulous with that stubborn curl that

would rebel against her hand, and smooth so eagerly her

ruffled ribands? why else did she damp her eyes to dispel the

redness, and bite her pretty lips to bring back the colour?  Of

course she was anxious to look her best, for she was but a

mortal angel after all.  But had she been immortal, had she

flitted back to the sitting-room on a cherub's wings, she could

not have had a more faithful heart, or a truer wish to save her

father at any cost to herself.



John Bold had not met her since the day when she left him

in dudgeon in the cathedral close.  Since that his whole time

had been occupied in promoting the cause against her father,

and not unsuccessfully.  He had often thought of her, and

turned over in his mind a hundred schemes for showing her

how disinterested was his love.  He would write to her and

beseech her not to allow the performance of a public duty to

injure him in her estimation; he would write to Mr Harding,

explain all his views, and boldly claim the warden's daughter,

urging that the untoward circumstances between them need

be no bar to their ancient friendship, or to a closer tie; he

would throw himself on his knees before his mistress; he would

wait and marry the daughter when the father has lost his

home and his income; he would give up the lawsuit and go to

Australia, with her of course, leaving The Jupiter and Mr

Finney to complete the case between them.  Sometimes as he

woke in the morning fevered and impatient, he would blow

out his brains and have done with all his cares--but this idea

was generally consequent on an imprudent supper enjoyed in

company with Tom Towers.



How beautiful Eleanor appeared to him as she slowly walked

into the room!  Not for nothing had all those little cares been

taken.  Though her sister, the archdeacon's wife, had spoken

slightingly of her charms, Eleanor was very beautiful when

seen aright.  Hers was not of those impassive faces, which have

the beauty of a marble bust; finely chiselled features, perfect

in every line, true to the rules of symmetry, as lovely to a

stranger as to a friend, unvarying unless in sickness, or as age

affects them.  She had no startling brilliancy of beauty, no

pearly whiteness, no radiant carnation.  She had not the

majestic contour that rivets attention, demands instant wonder

and then disappoints by the coldness of its charms.  You might

pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you

could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.



She had never appeared more lovely to her lover than she

now did.  Her face was animated though it was serious, and

her full dark lustrous eyes shone with anxious energy; her

hand trembled as she took his, and she could hardly pronounce

his name, when she addressed him.  Bold wished with all his

heart that the Australian scheme was in the act of realisation,

and that he and Eleanor were away together, never to hear

further of the lawsuit.



He began to talk, asked after her health--said something

about London being very stupid, and more about Barchester

being very pleasant; declared the weather to be very hot, and

then inquired after Mr Harding.



'My father is not very well,' said Eleanor.



John Bold was very sorry, so sorry: he hoped it was nothing

serious, and put on the unmeaningly solemn face which people

usually use on such occasions.



'I especially want to speak to you about my father, Mr Bold;

indeed, I am now here on purpose to do so.  Papa is very unhappy,

very unhappy indeed, about this affair of the hospital:

you would pity him, Mr Bold, if you could see how wretched

it has made him.'



'Oh, Miss Harding!'



'Indeed you would--anyone would pity him; but a friend,

an old friend as you are--indeed you would.  He is an altered

man; his cheerfulness has all gone, and his sweet temper, and

his kind happy tone of voice; you would hardly know him if

you saw him, Mr Bold, he is so much altered; and--and--if

this goes on, he will die.'  Here Eleanor had recourse to her

handkerchief, and so also had her auditors; but she plucked

up her courage, and went on with her tale.  'He will break his

heart, and die.  I am sure, Mr Bold, it was not you who wrote

those cruel things in the newspaper--'



John Bold eagerly protested that it was not, but his heart

smote him as to his intimate alliance with Tom Towers.



'No, I am sure it was not; and papa has not for a moment

thought so; you would not be so cruel--but it has nearly

killed him.  Papa cannot bear to think that people should so

speak of him, and that everybody should hear him so spoken

of:--they have called him avaricious, and dishonest, and they

say he is robbing the old men, and taking the money of the

hospital for nothing.'



'I have never said so, Miss Harding.  I--'



'No,' continued Eleanor, interrupting him, for she was now

in the full flood-tide of her eloquence; 'no, I am sure you have

not; but others have said so; and if this goes on, if such things

are written again, it will kill papa.  Oh! Mr Bold, if you only

knew the state he is in!  Now papa does not care much about money.'



Both her auditors, brother and sister, assented to this, and

declared on their own knowledge that no man lived less

addicted to filthy lucre than the warden.



'Oh! it's so kind of you to say so, Mary, and of you too,

Mr Bold.  I couldn't bear that people should think unjustly

of papa.  Do you know he would give up the hospital altogether,

only he cannot.  The archdeacon says it would be cowardly,

and that he would be deserting his order, and injuring the

church.  Whatever may happen, papa will not do that: he would

leave the place tomorrow willingly, and give up his house, and

the income and all if the archdeacon--'



Eleanor was going to say 'would let him,' but she stopped herself

before she had compromised her father's dignity; and giving

a long sigh, she added--'Oh, I do so wish he would.'



'No one who knows Mr Harding personally accuses him for

a moment,' said Bold.

'It is he that has to bear the punishment; it is he that

suffers,' said Eleanor; 'and what for? what has he done

wrong? how has he deserved this persecution? he that never

had an unkind thought in his life, he that never said an unkind

word!' and here she broke down, and the violence of her sobs

stopped her utterance.



Bold, for the fifth or sixth time, declared that neither he nor

any of his friends imputed any blame personally to Mr Harding.



'Then why should he be persecuted?' ejaculated Eleanor

through her tears, forgetting in her eagerness that her intention

had been to humble herself as a suppliant before John Bold--

'why should he be singled out for scorn and disgrace? why

should he be made so wretched?  Oh! Mr Bold'--and she turned

towards him as though the kneeling scene were about to be

commenced--'oh! Mr Bold, why did you begin all this?  You, whom

we all so--so--valued!'



To speak the truth, the reformer's punishment was certainly

come upon him, for his present plight was not enviable; he

had nothing for it but to excuse himself by platitudes about

public duty, which it is by no means worth while to repeat, and

to reiterate his eulogy on Mr Harding's character.  His position

was certainly a cruel one: had any gentleman called upon

him on behalf of Mr Harding he could of course have declined

to enter upon the subject; but how could he do so with a

beautiful girl, with the daughter of the man whom he had

injured, with his own love?



In the meantime Eleanor recollected herself, and again

summoned up her energies.  'Mr Bold,' said she, 'I have

come here to implore you to abandon this proceeding.'  He

stood up from his seat, and looked beyond measure distressed.

'To implore you to abandon it, to implore you to spare my

father, to spare either his life or his reason, for one or the other

will pay the forfeit if this goes on.  I know how much I am

asking, and how little right I have to ask anything; but I think

you will listen to me as it is for my father.  Oh, Mr Bold, pray,

pray do this for us--pray do not drive to distraction a man who

has loved you so well.'



She did not absolutely kneel to him, but she followed him as

he moved from his chair, and laid her soft hands imploringly

upon his arm.  Ah! at any other time how exquisitely valuable

would have been that touch! but now he was distraught,

dumbfounded and unmanned.  What could he say to that

sweet suppliant; how explain to her that the matter now was

probably beyond his control; how tell her that he could not

quell the storm which he had raised?



'Surely, surely, John, you cannot refuse her,' said his sister.



'I would give her my soul,' said he, 'if it would serve her.'

'Oh, Mr Bold,' said Eleanor, 'do not speak so; I ask

nothing for myself; and what I ask for my father, it cannot

harm you to grant.'



'I would give her my soul, if it would serve her,' said Bold,

still addressing his sister; 'everything I have is hers, if she will

accept it; my house, my heart, my all; every hope of my

breast is centred in her; her smiles are sweeter to me than the

sun, and when I see her in sorrow as she now is, every nerve

in my body suffers.  No man can love better than I love her.'



'No, no, no,' ejaculated Eleanor; 'there can be no talk of

love between us.  Will you protect my father from the evil you

have brought upon him?'



'Oh, Eleanor, I will do anything; let me tell you how I

love you!'



'No, no, no!' she almost screamed.  'This is unmanly of

you, Mr Bold.  Will you, will you, will you leave my father to

die in peace in his quiet home?' and seizing him by his arm

and hand, she followed him across the room towards the door.

'I will not leave you till you promise me; I'll cling to you in

the street; I'll kneel to you before all the people.  You shall

promise me this, you shall promise me this, you shall--' And

she clung to him with fixed tenacity, and reiterated her resolve

with hysterical passion.



'Speak to her, John; answer her,' said Mary, bewildered

by the unexpected vehemence of Eleanor's manner; 'you

cannot have the cruelty to refuse her.'



'Promise me, promise me,' said Eleanor; 'say that my

father is safe--one word will do.  I know how true you are;

say one word, and I will let you go.'



She still held him, and looked eagerly into his face, with her

hair dishevelled and her eyes all bloodshot.  She had no

thought now of herself, no care now for her appearance; and

yet he thought he had never seen her half so lovely; he was

amazed at the intensity of her beauty, and could hardly believe

that it was she whom he had dared to love.  'Promise me,' 

said she; 'I will not leave you till you have promised me.'



'I will,' said he at length; 'I do--all I can do, I will do.'



'Then may God Almighty bless you for ever and ever!' said

Eleanor; and falling on her knees with her face in Mary's

lap, she wept and sobbed like a child: her strength had carried

her through her allotted task, but now it was well nigh exhausted.



In a while she was partly recovered, and got up to go, and

would have gone, had not Bold made her understand that it

was necessary for him to explain to her how far it was in his

power to put an end to the proceedings which had been taken

against Mr Harding.  Had he spoken on any other subject,

she would have vanished, but on that she was bound to hear

him; and now the danger of her position commenced.  While

she had an active part to play, while she clung to him as a

suppliant, it was easy enough for her to reject his proffered

love, and cast from her his caressing words; but now--now

that he had yielded, and was talking to her calmly and kindly

as to her father's welfare, it was hard enough for her to do so.

Then Mary Bold assisted her; but now she was quite on her

brother's side.  Mary said but little, but every word she did

say gave some direct and deadly blow.  The first thing she did

was to make room for her brother between herself and Eleanor

on the sofa: as the sofa was full large for three, Eleanor could

not resent this, nor could she show suspicion by taking another

seat; but she felt it to be a most unkind proceeding.  And then

Mary would talk as though they three were joined in some

close peculiar bond together; as though they were in future

always to wish together, contrive together, and act together;

and Eleanor could not gainsay this; she could not make

another speech, and say, 'Mr Bold and I are strangers, Mary,

and are always to remain so!'



He explained to her that, though undoubtedly the proceeding

against the hospital had commenced solely with himself,

many others were now interested in the matter, some of whom

were much more influential than himself; that it was to him

alone, however, that the lawyers looked for instruction as to

their doings, and, more important still, for the payment of

their bills; and he promised that he would at once give them

notice that it was his intention to abandon the cause.  He

thought, he said, that it was not probable that any active steps

would be taken after he had seceded from the matter, though

it was possible that some passing allusion might still be made

to the hospital in the daily Jupiter.  He promised, however,

that he would use his best influence to prevent any further

personal allusion being made to Mr Harding.  He then suggested

that he would on that afternoon ride over himself to Dr Grantly,

and inform him of his altered intentions on the subject, and with

this view, he postponed his immediate return to London.



This was all very pleasant, and Eleanor did enjoy a sort of

triumph in the feeling that she had attained the object for

which she had sought this interview; but still the part of

Iphigenia was to be played out.  The gods had heard her prayer,

granted her request, and were they not to have their promised

sacrifice?  Eleanor was not a girl to defraud them wilfully; so,

as soon as she decently could, she got up for her bonnet.



'Are you going so soon?' said Bold, who half an hour since

would have given a hundred pounds that he was in London,

and she still at Barchester.



'Oh yes!' said she.  'I am so much obliged to you; papa

will feel this to be so kind.'  She did not quite appreciate all

her father's feelings.  'Of course I must tell him, and I will

say that you will see the archdeacon.'



'But may I not say one word for myself?' said Bold.



'I'll fetch you your bonnet, Eleanor,' said Mary, in the act

of leaving the room.



'Mary, Mary,' said she, getting up and catching her by her

dress; 'don't go, I'll get my bonnet myself.'  But Mary, the

traitress, stood fast by the door, and permitted no such retreat.

Poor Iphigenia!



And with a volley of impassioned love, John Bold poured

forth the feelings of his heart, swearing, as men do, some truths

and many falsehoods; and Eleanor repeated with every shade

of vehemence the 'No, no, no,' which had had a short time

since so much effect; but now, alas! its strength was gone.

Let her be never so vehement, her vehemence was not respected;

all her 'No, no, no's' were met with counter-asseverations,

and at last were overpowered.  The ground was cut from under her on

every side.  She was pressed to say whether her father would

object; whether she herself had any aversion (aversion! God help

her, poor girl! the word nearly made her jump into his arms); any

other preference (this she loudly disclaimed); whether it was

impossible that she should love him (Eleanor could not say that it

was impossible): and so at last all her defences demolished, all

her maiden barriers swept away, she capitulated, or rather marched

out with the honours of war, vanquished evidently, palpably

vanquished, but still not reduced to the necessity of confessing it.



And so the altar on the shore of the modern Aulis reeked

with no sacrifice.







CHAPTER XII

Mr Bold's Visit to Plumstead





Whether or no the ill-natured prediction made by certain

ladies in the beginning of the last chapter was or was not

carried out to the letter, I am not in a position to state.

Eleanor, however, certainly did feel herself to have been

baffled as she returned home with all her news to her father.

Certainly she had been victorious, certainly she had achieved

her object, certainly she was not unhappy, and yet she did not

feel herself triumphant.  Everything would run smooth now.

Eleanor was not at all addicted to the Lydian school of

romance; she by no means objected to her lover because he

came in at the door under the name of Absolute, instead of

pulling her out of a window under the name of Beverley; and

yet she felt that she had been imposed upon, and could hardly

think of Mary Bold with sisterly charity.  'I did think I could

have trusted Mary,' she said to herself over and over again.

'Oh that she should have dared to keep me in the room when

I tried to get out!'  Eleanor, however, felt that the game was

up, and that she had now nothing further to do but to add to

the budget of news which was prepared for her father, that

John Bold was her accepted lover.



We will, however, now leave her on her way, and go with

John Bold to Plumstead Episcopi, merely premising that

Eleanor on reaching home will not find things so smooth as she

fondly expected; two messengers had come, one to her father

and the other to the archdeacon, and each of them much

opposed to her quiet mode of solving all their difficulties; the

one in the shape of a number of The Jupiter, and the other in

that of a further opinion from Sir Abraham Haphazard.



John Bold got on his horse and rode off to Plumstead Episcopi;

not briskly and with eager spur, as men do ride when self-

satisfied with their own intentions; but slowly, modestly,

thoughtfully, and somewhat in dread of the coming interview.

Now and again he would recur to the scene which was just

over, support himself by the remembrance of the silence that

gives consent, and exult as a happy lover.  But even this feeling

was not without a shade of remorse.  Had he not shown himself

childishly weak thus to yield up the resolve of many hours

of thought to the tears of a pretty girl?  How was he to meet

his lawyer?  How was he to back out of a matter in which his

name was already so publicly concerned?  What, oh what!

was he to say to Tom Towers?  While meditating these painful

things he reached the lodge leading up to the archdeacon's

glebe, and for the first time in his life found himself within the

sacred precincts.



All the doctor's children were together on the slope of the

lawn close to the road, as Bold rode up to the hall door.  They

were there holding high debate on matters evidently of deep

interest at Plumstead Episcopi, and the voices of the boys had

been heard before the lodge gate was closed.



Florinda and Grizzel, frightened at the sight of so well-

known an enemy to the family, fled on the first appearance of

the horseman, and ran in terror to their mother's arms; not

for them was it, tender branches, to resent injuries, or as

members of a church militant to put on armour against its

enemies.  But the boys stood their ground like heroes, and

boldly demanded the business of the intruder.



'Do you want to see anybody here, sir?' said Henry, with a

defiant eye and a hostile tone, which plainly said that at any

rate no one there wanted to see the person so addressed; and

as he spoke he brandished aloft his garden water-pot, holding

it by the spout, ready for the braining of anyone.



'Henry,' said Charles James slowly, and with a certain

dignity of diction, 'Mr Bold of course would not have come

without wanting to see someone; if Mr Bold has a proper

ground for wanting to see some person here, of course he has

a right to come.'



But Samuel stepped lightly up to the horse's head, and

offered his services.  'Oh, Mr Bold,' said he, 'papa, I'm sure,

will be glad to see you; I suppose you want to see papa.  Shall

I hold your horse for you?  Oh what a very pretty horse!' and

he turned his head and winked funnily at his brothers.  'Papa

has heard such good news about the old hospital today.  We

know you'll be glad to hear it, because you're such a friend of

grandpapa Harding, and so much in love with Aunt Nelly!'



'How d'ye do, lads?' said Bold, dismounting.  'I want to

see your father if he's at home.'



'Lads!' said Henry, turning on his heel and addressing himself

to his brother, but loud enough to be heard by Bold; 'lads,

indeed! if we're lads, what does he call himself?'



Charles James condescended to say nothing further, but

cocked his hat with much precision, and left the visitor to the

care of his youngest brother.



Samuel stayed till the servant came, chatting and patting

the horse; but as soon as Bold had disappeared through the

front door, he stuck a switch under the animal's tail to make

him kick if possible.



The church reformer soon found himself tete-a-tete with the

archdeacon in that same room, in that sanctum sanctorum of

the rectory, to which we have already been introduced.  As he

entered he heard the click of a certain patent lock, but it struck

him with no surprise; the worthy clergyman was no doubt

hiding from eyes profane his last much-studied sermon; for

the archdeacon, though he preached but seldom, was famous

for his sermons.  No room, Bold thought, could have been

more becoming for a dignitary of the church; each wall was

loaded with theology; over each separate bookcase was printed

in small gold letters the names of those great divines whose

works were ranged beneath: beginning from the early fathers

in due chronological order, there were to be found the precious

labours of the chosen servants of the church down to the last

pamphlet written in opposition to the consecration of Dr

Hampden; and raised above this were to be seen the busts of

the greatest among the great: Chrysostom, St Augustine,

Thomas a Becket, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Laud, and

Dr Philpotts.



Every appliance that could make study pleasant and give

ease to the overtoiled brain was there; chairs made to relieve

each limb and muscle; reading-desks and writing-desks to

suit every attitude; lamps and candles mechanically contrived

to throw their light on any favoured spot, as the student might

desire; a shoal of newspapers to amuse the few leisure

moments which might be stolen from the labours of the day;

and then from the window a view right through a bosky vista

along which ran a broad green path from the rectory to the

church--at the end of which the tawny-tinted fine old tower

was seen with all its variegated pinnacles and parapets.  Few

parish churches in England are in better repair, or better

worth keeping so, than that at Plumstead Episcopi; and yet

it is built in a faulty style: the body of the church is low--so

low, that the nearly flat leaden roof would be visible from the

churchyard, were it not for the carved parapet with which it

is surrounded.  It is cruciform, though the transepts are

irregular, one being larger than the other; and the tower is

much too high in proportion to the church.  But the colour of

the building is perfect; it is that rich yellow gray which one

finds nowhere but in the south and west of England, and

which is so strong a characteristic of most of our old houses of

Tudor architecture.  The stone work also is beautiful; the

mullions of the windows and the thick tracery of the Gothic

workmanship is as rich as fancy can desire; and though in

gazing on such a structure one knows by rule that the old

priests who built it, built it wrong, one cannot bring oneself to

wish that they should have made it other than it is.



When Bold was ushered into the book-room, he found its

owner standing with his back to the empty fire-place ready to

receive him, and he could not but perceive that that expansive

brow was elated with triumph, and that those full heavy lips bore

more prominently than usual an appearance of arrogant success.



'Well, Mr Bold,' said he--'well, what can I do for you?

Very happy, I can assure you, to do anything for such a friend

of my father-in-law.'



'I hope you'll excuse my calling, Dr Grantly.'



'Certainly, certainly,' said the archdeacon; 'I can assure

you, no apology is necessary from Mr Bold; only let me know

what I can do for him.'



Dr Grantly was standing himself, and he did not ask Bold

to sit, and therefore he had to tell his tale standing, leaning on

the table, with his hat in his hand.  He did, however, manage

to tell it; and as the archdeacon never once interrupted him,

or even encouraged him by a single word, he was not long in

coming to the end of it.



'And so, Mr Bold, I'm to understand, I believe, that you are

desirous of abandoning this attack upon Mr Harding.'



'Oh, Dr Grantly, there has been no attack, I can assure you--'



'Well, well, we won't quarrel about words; I should call it

an attack--most men would so call an endeavour to take away

from a man every shilling of income that he has to live upon;

but it sha'n't be an attack, if you don't like it; you wish to

abandon this--this little game of backgammon you've begun to play.'



'I intend to put an end to the legal proceedings which I have

commenced.'



'I understand,' said the archdeacon.  'You've already had

enough of it; well, I can't say that I am surprised; carrying

on a losing lawsuit where one has nothing to gain, but everything

to pay, is not pleasant.'



Bold turned very red in the face.  'You misinterpret my

motives,' said he; 'but, however, that is of little consequence.

I did not come to trouble you with my motives, but to tell you

a matter of fact.  Good-morning, Dr Grantly.'



'One moment--one moment,' said the other.  'I don't

exactly appreciate the taste which induced you to make any

personal communication to me on the subject; but I dare say

I'm wrong, I dare say your judgment is the better of the two;

but as you have done me the honour--as you have, as it were,

forced me into a certain amount of conversation on a subject

which had better, perhaps, have been left to our lawyers, you will

excuse me if I ask you to hear my reply to your communication.'



'I am in no hurry, Dr Grantly.'



'Well, I am, Mr Bold; my time is not exactly leisure time, and,

therefore, if you please, we'll go to the point at once--you're

going to abandon this lawsuit?'--and he paused for a reply.



'Yes, Dr Grantly, I am.'



'Having exposed a gentleman who was one of your father's

warmest friends to all the ignominy and insolence which the

press could heap upon his name, having somewhat ostentatiously

declared that it was your duty as a man of high public

virtue to protect those poor old fools whom you have humbugged

there at the hospital, you now find that the game costs

more than it's worth, and so you make up your mind to have

done with it.  A prudent resolution, Mr Bold; but it is a pity

you should have been so long coming to it.  Has it struck you

that we may not now choose to give over? that we may find it

necessary to punish the injury you have done to us?  Are you

aware, sir, that we have gone to enormous expense to resist

this iniquitous attempt of yours?'



Bold's face was now furiously red, and he nearly crushed his

hat between his hands; but he said nothing.



'We have found it necessary to employ the best advice that

money could procure.  Are you aware, sir, what may be the

probable cost of securing the services of the attorney-general?'



'Not in the least, Dr Grantly.'



'I dare say not, sir.  When you recklessly put this affair into

the hands of your friend Mr Finney, whose six-and-eightpences

and thirteen-and-fourpences may, probably, not amount to a

large sum, you were indifferent as to the cost and suffering

which such a proceeding might entail on others; but are you

aware, sir, that these crushing costs must now come out of your

own pocket?'



'Any demand of such a nature which Mr Harding's lawyer

may have to make will doubtless be made to my lawyer.'



'"Mr Harding's lawyer and my lawyer!" Did you come

here merely to refer me to the lawyers?  Upon my word I

think the honour of your visit might have been spared!  And

now, sir, I'll tell you what my opinion is--my opinion is, that

we shall not allow you to withdraw this matter from the courts.'



'You can do as you please, Dr Grantly; good-morning.'



'Hear me out, sir,' said the archdeacon; 'I have here in my

hands the last opinion given in this matter by Sir Abraham

Haphazard.  I dare say you have already heard of this--I

dare say it has had something to do with your visit here today.'



'I know nothing whatever of Sir Abraham Haphazard or

his opinion.'



'Be that as it may, here it is; he declares most explicitly that

under no phasis of the affair whatever have you a leg to stand

upon; that Mr Harding is as safe in his hospital as I am here

in my rectory; that a more futile attempt to destroy a man

was never made, than this which you have made to ruin Mr

Harding.  Here,' and he slapped the paper on the table, 'I

have this opinion from the very first lawyer in the land; and

under these circumstances you expect me to make you a low

bow for your kind offer to release Mr Harding from the toils

of your net!  Sir, your net is not strong enough to hold him;

sir, your net has fallen to pieces, and you knew that well

enough before I told you--and now, sir, I'll wish you good-

morning, for I'm busy.'



Bold was now choking with passion.  He had let the archdeacon

run on because he knew not with what words to

interrupt him; but now that he had been so defied and insulted,

he could not leave the room without some reply.



'Dr Grantly,' he commenced.



'I have nothing further to say or to hear,' said the archdeacon.

'I'll do myself the honour to order your horse.'  And he rang

the bell.



'I came here, Dr Grantly, with the warmest, kindest feelings--'



'Oh, of course you did; nobody doubts it.'



'With the kindest feelings--and they have been most grossly

outraged by your treatment.'



'Of course they have--I have not chosen to see my father-in-law

ruined; what an outrage that has been to your feelings!'



'The time will come, Dr Grantly, when you will understand

why I called upon you today.'



'No doubt, no doubt.  Is Mr Bold's horse there?  That's

right; open the front door.  Good-morning, Mr Bold'; and

the doctor stalked into his own drawing-room, closing the door

behind him, and making it quite impossible that John Bold

should speak another word.



As he got on his horse, which he was fain to do feeling like a dog

turned out of a kitchen, he was again greeted by little Sammy.



'Good-bye, Mr Bold; I hope we may have the pleasure of

seeing you again before long; I am sure papa will always be

glad to see you.'



That was certainly the bitterest moment in John Bold's life.

Not even the remembrance of his successful love could comfort

him; nay, when he thought of Eleanor he felt that it was that

very love which had brought him to such a pass.  That he

should have been so insulted, and be unable to reply!  That he

should have given up so much to the request of a girl, and then

have had his motives so misunderstood!  That he should have

made so gross a mistake as this visit of his to the archdeacon's!

He bit the top of his whip, till he penetrated the horn of which

it was made: he struck the poor animal in his anger, and then

was doubly angry with himself at his futile passion.  He had

been so completely checkmated, so palpably overcome! and

what was he to do?  He could not continue his action after

pledging himself to abandon it; nor was there any revenge in

that--it was the very step to which his enemy had endeavoured

to goad him!



He threw the reins to the servant who came to take his horse,

and rushed upstairs into his drawing-room, where his sister

Mary was sitting.



'If there be a devil,' said he, 'a real devil here on earth, it is

Dr Grantly.'  He vouchsafed her no further intelligence, but

again seizing his hat, he rushed out, and took his departure for

London without another word to anyone.

CHAPTER XIII

The Warden's Decision





The meeting between Eleanor and her father was not so

stormy as that described in the last chapter, but it was

hardly more successful.  On her return from Bold's house she

found her father in a strange state.  He was not sorrowful and

silent as he had been on that memorable day when his son-in-law

lectured him as to all that he owed to his order; nor was

he in his usual quiet mood.  When Eleanor reached the hospital,

he was walking to and fro upon the lawn, and she soon saw

that he was much excited.



'I am going to London, my dear,' he said as soon as he

saw her.



'London,papa!'



'Yes, my dear, to London; I will have this matter settled

some way; there are some things, Eleanor, which I cannot bear.'



'Oh, papa, what is it?' said she, leading him by the arm

into the house.  'I had such good news for you, and now you

make me fear I am too late.  And then, before he could let

her know what had caused this sudden resolve, or could point

to the fatal paper which lay on the table, she told him that the

lawsuit was over, that Bold had commissioned her to assure

her father in his name that it would be abandoned,--that there

was no further cause for misery, that the whole matter might

be looked on as though it had never been discussed.  She did

not tell him with what determined vehemence she had obtained

this concession in his favour, nor did she mention the price

she was to pay for it.



The warden did not express himself peculiarly gratified at

this intelligence, and Eleanor, though she had not worked for

thanks, and was by no means disposed to magnify her own good

offices, felt hurt at the manner in which her news was received.

'Mr Bold can act as he thinks proper, my love,' said he; 'if

Mr Bold thinks he has been wrong, of course he will discontinue

what he is doing; but that cannot change my purpose.'



'Oh, papa!' she exclaimed, all but crying with vexation;

'I thought you would have been so happy--I thought all

would have been right now.'



'Mr Bold,' continued he, 'has set great people to work--so

great that I doubt they are now beyond his control.  Read

that, my dear.'  The warden, doubling up a number of The

Jupiter, pointed to the peculiar article which she was to read.

It was to the last of the three leaders, which are generally

furnished daily for the support of the nation, that Mr Harding

directed her attention.  It dealt some heavy blows on various

clerical delinquents; on families who received their tens of

thousands yearly for doing nothing; on men who, as the

article stated, rolled in wealth which they had neither earned

nor inherited, and which was in fact stolen from the poorer

clergy.  It named some sons of bishops, and grandsons of

archbishops; men great in their way, who had redeemed their

disgrace in the eyes of many by the enormity of their plunder;

and then, having disposed of these leviathans, it descended to

Mr Harding.



'We alluded some weeks since to an instance of similar

injustice, though in a more humble scale, in which the warden

of an almshouse at Barchester has become possessed of the

income of the greater part of the whole institution.  Why an

almshouse should have a warden we cannot pretend to explain,

nor can we say what special need twelve old men can have for

the services of a separate clergyman, seeing that they have

twelve reserved seats for themselves in Barchester Cathedral.

But be this as it may, let the gentleman call himself warden

or precentor, or what he will, let him be never so scrupulous

in exacting religious duties from his twelve dependents, or

never so negligent as regards the services of the cathedral, it

appears palpably clear that he can be entitled to no portion of

the revenue of the hospital, excepting that which the founder

set apart for him; and it is equally clear that the founder did

not intend that three-fifths of his charity should be so consumed.



'The case is certainly a paltry one after the tens of thousands

with which we have been dealing, for the warden's income is

after all but a poor eight hundred a year: eight hundred a

year is not magnificent preferment of itself, and the warden

may, for anything we know, be worth much more to the

church; but if so, let the church pay him out of funds justly

at its own disposal.



'We allude to the question of the Barchester almshouse at

the present moment, because we understand that a plea has

been set up which will be peculiarly revolting to the minds

of English churchmen.  An action has been taken against Mr

Warden Harding, on behalf of the almsmen, by a gentleman

acting solely on public grounds, and it is to be argued that Mr

Harding takes nothing but what he received as a servant of the

hospital, and that he is not himself responsible for the amount

of stipend given to him for his work.  Such a plea would

doubtless be fair, if anyone questioned the daily wages of a

bricklayer employed on the building, or the fee of the charwoman

who cleans it; but we cannot envy the feeling of a clergyman

of the Church of England who could allow such an argument to be

put in his mouth.



'If this plea be put forward we trust Mr Harding will be

forced as a witness to state the nature of his employment; the

amount of work that he does; the income which he receives;

and the source from whence he obtained his appointment.

We do not think he will receive much public sympathy to

atone for the annoyance of such an examination.'



As Eleanor read the article her face flushed with indignation,

and when she had finished it, she almost feared to look

up at her father.



'Well, my dear,' said he, 'what do you think of that--is it

worth while to be a warden at that price?'



'Oh, papa;--dear papa!'



'Mr Bold can't un-write that, my dear--Mr Bold can't say

that that sha'n't be read by every clergyman at Oxford; nay,

by every gentleman in the land': and then he walked up and

down the room, while Eleanor in mute despair followed him

with her eyes.  'And I'll tell you what, my dear,' he continued,

speaking now very calmly, and in a forced manner very unlike

himself; 'Mr Bold can't dispute the truth of every word in

that article you have just read--nor can I.'  Eleanor stared

at him, as though she scarcely understood the words he was

speaking.  'Nor can I, Eleanor: that's the worst of all, or

would be so if there were no remedy.  I have thought much of

all this since we were together last night'; and he came and

sat beside her, and put his arm round her waist as he had done

then.  'I have thought much of what the archdeacon has said,

and of what this paper says; and I do believe I have no right

to be here.'



'No right to be warden of the hospital, papa?'



'No right to be warden with eight hundred a year; no

right to be warden with such a house as this; no right to spend

in luxury money that was intended for charity.  Mr Bold may

do as he pleases about his suit, but I hope he will not abandon

it for my sake.'



Poor Eleanor! this was hard upon her.  Was it for this she

had made her great resolve!  For this that she had laid aside

her quiet demeanour, and taken upon her the rants of a

tragedy heroine!  One may work and not for thanks, but yet

feel hurt at not receiving them; and so it was with Eleanor:

one may be disinterested in one's good actions, and yet feel

discontented that they are not recognised.  Charity may be

given with the left hand so privily that the right hand does not

know it, and yet the left hand may regret to feel that it has no

immediate reward.  Eleanor had had no wish to burden her

father with a weight of obligation, and yet she had looked

forward to much delight from the knowledge that she had

freed him from his sorrows: now such hopes were entirely over:

all that she had done was of no avail; she had humbled herself

to Bold in vain; the evil was utterly beyond her power to cure!



She had thought also how gently she would whisper to her

father all that her lover had said to her about herself, and how

impossible she had found it to reject him: and then she had

anticipated her father's kindly kiss and close embrace as he

gave his sanction to her love.  Alas! she could say nothing of

this now.  In speaking of Mr Bold, her father put him aside as

one whose thoughts and sayings and acts could be of no

moment.  Gentle reader, did you ever feel yourself snubbed?

Did you ever, when thinking much of your own importance,

find yourself suddenly reduced to a nonentity?  Such was

Eleanor's feeling now.



'They shall not put forward this plea on my behalf,' continued

the warden.  'Whatever may be the truth of the matter, that

at any rate is not true; and the man who wrote that article

is right in saying that such a plea is revolting to an honest

mind.  I will go up to London, my dear, and see these lawyers

myself, and if no better excuse can be made for me than that,

I and the hospital will part.'



'But the archdeacon, papa?'



'I can't help it, my dear; there are some things which a

man cannot bear--I cannot bear that'; and he put his hand

upon the newspaper.



'But will the archdeacon go with you?'



To tell the truth, Mr Harding had made up his mind to

steal a march upon the archdeacon.  He was aware that he

could take no steps without informing his dread son-in-law,

but he had resolved that he would send out a note to Plumstead

Episcopi detailing his plans, but that the messenger should

not leave Barchester till he himself had started for London;

so that he might be a day before the doctor, who, he had

no doubt, would follow him.  In that day, if he had luck, he

might arrange it all; he might explain to Sir Abraham that

he, as warden, would have nothing further to do with the

defence about to be set up; he might send in his official

resignation to his friend the bishop, and so make public the whole

transaction, that even the doctor would not be able to undo

what he had done.  He knew too well the doctor's strength and

his own weakness to suppose he could do this, if they both

reached London together; indeed, he would never be able to

get to London, if the doctor knew of his intended journey in

time to prevent it.



'No, I think not,' said he.  'I think I shall start before the

archdeacon could be ready--I shall go early tomorrow morning.'



'That will be best, papa,' said Eleanor, showing that her

father's ruse was appreciated.



'Why yes, my love.  The fact is, I wish to do all this before

the archdeacon can--can interfere.  There is a great deal of

truth in all he says--he argues very well, and I can't always

answer him; but there is an old saying, Nelly: " Everyone

knows where his own shoe pinches!" He'll say that I want

moral courage, and strength of character, and power of endurance,

and it's all true; but I'm sure I ought not to remain here, if I

have nothing better to put forward than a quibble: so, Nelly, we

shall have to leave this pretty place.'



Eleanor's face brightened up, as she assured her father how

cordially she agreed with him.



'True, my love,' said he, now again quite happy and at ease

in his manner.  'What good to us is this place or all the money,

if we are to be ill-spoken of?'



'Oh, papa, I am so glad!'



'My darling child!  It did cost me a pang at first, Nelly, to

think that you should lose your pretty drawing-room, and your

ponies, and your garden: the garden will be the worst of all--

but there is a garden at Crabtree, a very pretty garden.'



Crabtree Parva was the name of the small living which Mr

Harding had held as a minor canon, and which still belonged

to him.  It was only worth some eighty pounds a year, and a

small house and glebe, all of which were now handed over to

Mr Harding's curate; but it was to Crabtree glebe that Mr

Harding thought of retiring.  This parish must not be mistaken

for that other living, Crabtree Canonicorum, as it is

called.  Crabtree Canonicorum is a very nice thing; there are

only two hundred parishioners; there are four hundred acres

of glebe; and the great and small tithes, which both go to the

rector, are worth four hundred pounds a year more.  Crabtree

Canonicorum is in the gift of the dean and chapter, and is at

this time possessed by the Honourable and Reverend Dr Vesey

Stanhope, who also fills the prebendal stall of Goosegorge in

Barchester Chapter, and holds the united rectory of Eiderdown

and Stogpingum, or Stoke Pinquium, as it should be

written.  This is the same Dr Vesey Stanhope whose hospitable

villa on the Lake of Como is so well known to the elite of

English travellers, and whose collection of Lombard butterflies

is supposed to be unique.



'Yes,' said the warden, musing, 'there is a very pretty garden

at Crabtree; but I shall be sorry to disturb poor Smith.'

Smith was the curate of Crabtree, a gentleman who was maintaining

a wife and half a dozen children on the income arising

from his profession.



Eleanor assured her father that, as far as she was concerned,

she could leave her house and her ponies without a single

regret.  She was only so happy that he was going--going

where he would escape all this dreadful turmoil.



'But we will take the music, my dear.'



And so they went on planning their future happiness, and

plotting how they would arrange it all without the interposition

of the archdeacon, and at last they again became confidential,

and then the warden did thank her for what she had done,

and Eleanor, lying on her father's shoulder, did find an

opportunity to tell her secret: and the father gave his blessing

to his child, and said that the man whom she loved was honest,

good, and kind-hearted, and right-thinking in the main--one

who wanted only a good wife to put him quite upright--'a

man, my love,' he ended by saying, 'to whom I firmly believe

that I can trust my treasure with safety.'



'But what will Dr Grantly say?'



'Well, my dear, it can't be helped--we shall be out at

Crabtree then.'



And Eleanor ran upstairs to prepare her father's clothes for

his journey; and the warden returned to his garden to make

his last adieux to every tree, and shrub, and shady nook that

he knew so well.







CHAPTER XIV

Mount Olympus





Wretched in spirit, groaning under the feeling of insult,

self-condemning, and ill-satisfied in every way, Bold returned

to his London lodgings.  Ill as he had fared in his inter-view

with the archdeacon, he was not the less under the necessity of

carrying out his pledge to Eleanor; and he went about his

ungracious task with a heavy heart.



The attorneys whom he had employed in London received

his instructions with surprise and evident misgiving; however,

they could only obey, and mutter something of their sorrow

that such heavy costs should only fall upon their own employer

--especially as nothing was wanting but perseverance to

throw them on the opposite party.  Bold left the office which

he had latterly so much frequented, shaking the dust from off

his feet; and before he was down the stairs, an edict had

already gone forth for the preparation of the bill.



He next thought of the newspapers.  The case had been

taken up by more than one; and he was well aware that the

keynote had been sounded by The Jupiter.  He had been very

intimate with Tom Towers, and had often discussed with him

the affairs of the hospital.  Bold could not say that the articles

in that paper had been written at his own instigation.  He did

not even know, as a fact, that they had been written by his

friend.  Tom Towers had never said that such a view of the

case, or such a side in the dispute, would be taken by the paper

with which he was connected.  Very discreet in such matters

was Tom Towers, and altogether indisposed to talk loosely of

the concerns of that mighty engine of which it was his high

privilege to move in secret some portion.  Nevertheless Bold

believed that to him were owing those dreadful words which

had caused such panic at Barchester--and he conceived himself

bound to prevent their repetition.  With this view he betook

himself from the attorneys' to that laboratory where, with

amazing chemistry, Tom Towers compounded thunderbolts for the

destruction of all that is evil, and for the furtherance of all

that is good, in this and other hemispheres.



Who has not heard of Mount Olympus--that high abode

of all the powers of type, that favoured seat of the great goddess

Pica, that wondrous habitation of gods and devils, from

whence, with ceaseless hum of steam and never-ending flow

of Castalian ink, issue forth fifty thousand nightly edicts for

the governance of a subject nation?



Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and

jewels a sceptre.  It is a throne because the most exalted one

sits there--and a sceptre because the most mighty one wields

it.  So it is with Mount Olympus.  Should a stranger make

his way thither at dull noonday, or during the sleepy hours of

the silent afternoon, he would find no acknowledged temple

of power and beauty, no fitting fane for the great Thunderer,

no proud facades and pillared roofs to support the dignity of

this greatest of earthly potentates.  To the outward and

uninitiated eye, Mount Olympus is a somewhat humble spot,

undistinguished, unadorned--nay, almost mean.  It stands

alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the densest throng

of men, but partaking neither of the noise nor the crowd; a

small secluded, dreary spot, tenanted, one would say, by quite

unambitious people at the easiest rents.  'Is this Mount

Olympus?' asks the unbelieving stranger.  'Is it from these

small, dark, dingy buildings that those infallible laws proceed

which cabinets are called upon to obey; by which bishops are

to be guided, lords and commons controlled, judges instructed

in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval tactics, and

orange-women in the management of their barrows?'  'Yes,

my friend--from these walls.  From here issue the only known

infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies.

This little court is the Vatican of England.  Here reigns a

pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated--ay, and much stranger

too--self-believing!--a pope whom, if you cannot obey him,

I would advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope

hitherto afraid of no Luther; a pope who manages his own

inquisition, who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful

inquisitor of Spain ever dreamt of doing--one who can

excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the

pale of men's charity; make you odious to your dearest friends,

and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger!'

Oh heavens! and this is Mount Olympus!



It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that The Jupiter is

never wrong.  With what endless care, with what unsparing

labour, do we not strive to get together for our great national

council the men most fitting to compose it.  And how we fail!

Parliament is always wrong: look at The Jupiter, and see how

futile are their meetings, how vain their council, how needless

all their trouble!  With what pride do we regard our chief

ministers, the great servants of state, the oligarchs of the nation

on whose wisdom we lean, to whom we look for guidance in

our difficulties!  But what are they to the writers of The Jupiter?

They hold council together and with anxious thought painfully

elaborate their country's good; but when all is done, The

Jupiter declares that all is naught.  Why should we look to

Lord John Russell--why should we regard Palmerston and

Gladstone, when Tom Towers without a struggle can put us

right?  Look at our generals, what faults they make; at our

admirals, how inactive they are.  What money, honesty, and

science can do, is done; and yet how badly are our troops

brought together, fed, conveyed, clothed, armed, and managed.

The most excellent of our good men do their best to

man our ships, with the assistance of all possible external

appliances; but in vain.  All, all is wrong--alas! alas!  Tom

Towers, and he alone, knows all about it.  Why, oh why, ye

earthly ministers, why have ye not followed more closely this

heaven-sent messenger that is among us?



Were it not well for us in our ignorance that we confided

all things to The Jupiter?  Would it not be wise in us to abandon

useless talking, idle thinking, and profitless labour?  Away

with majorities in the House of Commons, with verdicts from

judicial bench given after much delay, with doubtful laws, and

the fallible attempts of humanity!  Does not The Jupiter, coming

forth daily with fifty thousand impressions full of unerring

decision on every mortal subject, set all matters sufficiently

at rest?  Is not Tom Towers here, able to guide us and willing?



Yes indeed, able and willing to guide all men in all things,

so long as he is obeyed as autocrat should be obeyed--with

undoubting submission: only let not ungrateful ministers seek

other colleagues than those whom Tom Towers may approve;

let church and state, law and physic, commerce and agriculture,

the arts of war, and the arts of peace, all listen and obey,

and all will be made perfect.  Has not Tom Towers an all-seeing

eye?  From the diggings of Australia to those of California,

right round the habitable globe, does he not know, watch,

and chronicle the doings of everyone?  From a bishopric in

New Zealand to an unfortunate director of a North-west

passage, is he not the only fit judge of capability?

From the sewers of London to the Central Railway of India--

from the palaces of St Petersburg to the cabins of Connaught,

nothing can escape him.  Britons have but to read, to obey,

and be blessed.  None but the fools doubt the wisdom of The

Jupiter; none but the mad dispute its facts.



No established religion has ever been without its unbelievers,

even in the country where it is the most firmly fixed; no creed

has been without scoffers; no church has so prospered as to

free itself entirely from dissent.  There are those who doubt

The Jupiter!  They live and breathe the upper air, walking

here unscathed, though scorned--men, born of British mothers

and nursed on English milk, who scruple not to say that Mount

Olympus has its price, that Tom Towers can be bought for gold!



Such is Mount Olympus, the mouthpiece of all the wisdom

of this great country.  It may probably be said that no place

in this 19th century is more worthy of notice.  No treasury

mandate armed with the signatures of all the government has

half the power of one of those broad sheets, which fly forth

from hence so abundantly, armed with no signature at all.



Some great man, some mighty peer--we'll say a noble duke

--retires to rest feared and honoured by all his countrymen--

fearless himself; if not a good man, at any rate a mighty man

--too mighty to care much what men may say about his want

of virtue.  He rises in the morning degraded, mean, and

miserable; an object of men's scorn, anxious only to retire as

quickly as may be to some German obscurity, some unseen

Italian privacy, or indeed, anywhere out of sight.  What has

made this awful change? what has so afflicted him?  An

article has appeared in The Jupiter; some fifty lines of a narrow

column have destroyed all his grace's equanimity, and banished

him for ever from the world.  No man knows who wrote

the bitter words; the clubs talk confusedly of the matter,

whispering to each other this and that name; while Tom

Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned

close against the east wind, as though he were a mortal

man, and not a god dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus.



It was not to Mount Olympus that our friend Bold betook

himself.  He had before now wandered round that lonely spot,

thinking how grand a thing it was to write articles for The

Jupiter; considering within himself whether by any stretch of

the powers within him he could ever come to such distinction;

wondering how Tom Towers would take any little humble

offering of his talents; calculating that Tom Towers himself

must have once had a beginning, have once doubted as to his

own success.  Towers could not have been born a writer in The

Jupiter.  With such ideas, half ambitious and half awe-struck,

had Bold regarded the silent-looking workshop of the gods;

but he had never yet by word or sign attempted to influence

the slightest word of his unerring friend.  On such a course

was he now intent; and not without much inward palpitation

did he betake himself to the quiet abode of wisdom, where

Tom Towers was to be found o' mornings inhaling ambrosia

and sipping nectar in the shape of toast and tea.



Not far removed from Mount Olympus, but somewhat

nearer to the blessed regions of the West, is the most favoured

abode of Themis.  Washed by the rich tide which now passes

from the towers of Caesar to Barry's halls of eloquence; and

again back, with new offerings of a city's tribute, from the

palaces of peers to the mart of merchants, stand those quiet

walls which Law has delighted to honour by its presence.

What a world within a world is the Temple! how quiet are

its 'entangled walks,' as someone lately has called them, and

yet how close to the densest concourse of humanity! how

gravely respectable its sober alleys, though removed but by a

single step from the profanity of the Strand and the low

iniquity of Fleet Street!  Old St Dunstan, with its bell-smiting

bludgeoners, has been removed; the ancient shops with their

faces full of pleasant history are passing away one by one;

the bar itself is to go--its doom has been pronounced

by The Jupiter; rumour tells us of some huge building

that is to appear in these latitudes dedicated to law,

subversive of the courts of Westminster, and antagonistic to

the Rolls and Lincoln's Inn; but nothing yet threatens

the silent beauty of the Temple: it is the mediaeval court

of the metropolis.



Here, on the choicest spot of this choice ground, stands a

lofty row of chambers, looking obliquely upon the sullied

Thames; before the windows, the lawn of the Temple Gardens

stretches with that dim yet delicious verdure so refreshing

to the eyes of Londoners.  If doomed to live within the thickest

of London smoke you would surely say that that would be your

chosen spot.  Yes, you, you whom I now address, my dear,

middle-aged bachelor friend, can nowhere be so well domiciled

as here.  No one here will ask whether you are out or at home;

alone or with friends; here no Sabbatarian will investigate

your Sundays, no censorious landlady will scrutinise your

empty bottle, no valetudinarian neighbour will complain of

late hours.  If you love books, to what place are books so

suitable?  The whole spot is redolent of typography.  Would

you worship the Paphian goddess, the groves of Cyprus are

not more taciturn than those of the Temple.  Wit and wine

are always here, and always together; the revels of the Temple

are as those of polished Greece, where the wildest worshipper

of Bacchus never forgot the dignity of the god whom he adored.

Where can retirement be so complete as here? where can you

be so sure of all the pleasures of society?



It was here that Tom Towers lived, and cultivated with

eminent success the tenth Muse who now governs the periodical

press.  But let it not be supposed that his chambers were

such, or so comfortless, as are frequently the gaunt abodes of

legal aspirants.  Four chairs, a half-filled deal book-case with

hangings of dingy green baize, an old office table covered with

dusty papers, which are not moved once in six months, and an

older Pembroke brother with rickety legs, for all daily uses; a

despatcher for the preparation of lobsters and coffee, and an

apparatus for the cooking of toast and mutton chops; such

utensils and luxuries as these did not suffice for the well-being

of Tom Towers.  He indulged in four rooms on the first floor,

each of which was furnished, if not with the splendour, with

probably more than the comfort of Stafford House.  Every

addition that science and art have lately made to the luxuries

of modern life was to be found there.  The room in which he

usually sat was surrounded by book-shelves carefully filled;

nor was there a volume there which was not entitled to its

place in such a collection, both by its intrinsic worth and

exterior splendour: a pretty portable set of steps in one corner

of the room showed that those even on the higher shelves were

intended for use.  The chamber contained but two works of

art--the one, an admirable bust of Sir Robert Peel, by Power,

declared the individual politics of our friend; and the other,

a singularly long figure of a female devotee, by Millais, told

equally plainly the school of art to which he was addicted.

This picture was not hung, as pictures usually are, against the

wall; there was no inch of wall vacant for such a purpose:

it had a stand or desk erected for its own accommodation;

and there on her pedestal, framed and glazed, stood the devotional

lady looking intently at a lily as no lady ever looked before.



Our modern artists, whom we style Pre-Raphaelites, have

delighted to go back, not only to the finish and peculiar

manner, but also to the subjects of the early painters.  It is

impossible to give them too much praise for the elaborate

perseverance with which they have equalled the minute perfections

of the masters from whom they take their inspiration: nothing

probably can exceed the painting of some of these latter-day

pictures.  It is, however, singular into what faults they fall

as regards their subjects: they are not quite content to

take the old stock groups--a Sebastian with his arrows, a

Lucia with her eyes in a dish, a Lorenzo with a gridiron, or

the Virgin with two children.  But they are anything but

happy in their change.  As a rule, no figure should be drawn

in a position which it is impossible to suppose any figure should

maintain.  The patient endurance of St Sebastian, the wild

ecstasy of St John in the Wilderness, the maternal love of the

Virgin, are feelings naturally portrayed by a fixed posture;

but the lady with the stiff back and bent neck, who looks at

her flower, and is still looking from hour to hour, gives us

an idea of pain without grace, and abstraction without a cause.



It was easy, from his rooms, to see that Tom Towers was a

Sybarite, though by no means an idle one.  He was lingering

over his last cup of tea, surrounded by an ocean of newspapers,

through which he had been swimming, when John Bold's card

was brought in by his tiger.  This tiger never knew that his

master was at home, though he often knew that he was not,

and thus Tom Towers was never invaded but by his own

consent.  On this occasion, after twisting the card twice in his

fingers, he signified to his attendant imp that he was visible;

and the inner door was unbolted, and our friend announced.

I have before said that he of The Jupiter and John Bold were

intimate.  There was no very great difference in their ages,

for Towers was still considerably under forty; and when Bold

had been attending the London hospitals, Towers, who was

not then the great man that he had since become, had been

much with him.  Then they had often discussed together the

objects of their ambition and future prospects; then Tom

Towers was struggling hard to maintain himself, as a briefless

barrister, by shorthand reporting for any of the papers that

would engage him; then he had not dared to dream of writing

leaders for The Jupiter, or canvassing the conduct of Cabinet

ministers.  Things had altered since that time: the briefless

barrister was still briefless, but he now despised briefs: could

he have been sure of a judge's seat, he would hardly have left

his present career.  It is true he wore no ermine, bore no outward

marks of a world's respect; but with what a load of inward

importance was he charged!  It is true his name appeared in

no large capitals; on no wall was chalked up 'Tom Towers

for ever'--'Freedom of the Press and Tom Towers';

but what member of Parliament had half his power?  It is

true that in far-off provinces men did not talk daily of Tom

Towers but they read The Jupiter, and acknowledged that

without The Jupiter life was not worth having.  This kind of

hidden but still conscious glory suited the nature of the man.

He loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the

loud chattering of politicians, and to think how they all were

in his power--how he could smite the loudest of them, were it

worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose.  He loved

to watch the great men of whom he daily wrote, and flatter

himself that he was greater than any of them.  Each of them

was responsible to his country, each of them must answer if

inquired into, each of them must endure abuse with good

humour, and insolence without anger.  But to whom was he,

Tom Towers, responsible?  No one could insult him; no one

could inquire into him.  He could speak out withering words,

and no one could answer him: ministers courted him, though

perhaps they knew not his name; bishops feared him; judges

doubted their own verdicts unless he confirmed them; and

generals, in their councils of war, did not consider more deeply

what the enemy would do, than what The Jupiter would say.

Tom Towers never boasted of The Jupiter; he scarcely ever

named the paper even to the most intimate of his friends; he

did not even wish to be spoken of as connected with it; but

he did not the less value his privileges, or think the less of his

own importance.  It is probable that Tom Towers considered

himself the most powerful man in Europe; and so he walked

on from day to day, studiously striving to look a man, but

knowing within his breast that he was a god.







CHAPTER XV

Tom Towers, Dr Anticant, and Mr Sentiment



'Ah, Bold! how are you?  You haven't breakfasted?'



'Oh yes, hours ago.  And how are you?'



When one Esquimau meets another, do the two, as an

invariable rule, ask after each other's health? is it inherent in all

human nature to make this obliging inquiry?  Did any reader

of this tale ever meet any friend or acquaintance without asking

some such question, and did anyone ever listen to the reply?

Sometimes a studiously courteous questioner will show so much

thought in the matter as to answer it himself, by declaring that

had he looked at you he needn't have asked; meaning thereby to

signify that you are an absolute personification of health: but

such persons are only those who premeditate small effects.



'I suppose you're busy?' inquired Bold.



'Why, yes, rather; or I should say rather not.  I have a

leisure hour in the day, this is it.'



'I want to ask you if you can oblige me in a certain matter.'



Towers understood in a moment, from the tone of his

friend's voice, that the certain matter referred to the newspaper.

He smiled, and nodded his head, but made no promise.



'You know this lawsuit that I've been engaged in,' said Bold.



Tom Towers intimated that he was aware of the action

which was pending about the hospital.



'Well, I've abandoned it.'



Tom Towers merely raised his eyebrows, thrust his hands

into his trowsers pockets, and waited for his friend to proceed.



'Yes, I've given it up.  I needn't trouble you with all the

history; but the fact is that the conduct of Mr Harding--

Mr Harding is the--'



'Oh yes, the master of the place; the man who takes all

the money and does nothing,' said Tom Towers, interrupting him.



'Well, I don't know about that; but his conduct in the

matter has been so excellent, so little selfish, so open, that I

cannot proceed in the matter to his detriment.'  Bold's heart

misgave him as to Eleanor as he said this; and yet he felt that

what he said was not untrue.  'I think nothing should now be

done till the wardenship be vacant.'



'And be again filled,' said Towers, 'as it certainly would,

before anyone heard of the vacancy; and the same objection

would again exist.  It's an old story that of the vested rights of

the incumbent; but suppose the incumbent has only a vested

wrong, and that the poor of the town have a vested right, if they

only knew how to get at it: is not that something the case here?'



Bold couldn't deny it, but thought it was one of those cases

which required a good deal of management before any real

good could be done.  It was a pity that he had not considered

this before he crept into the lion's mouth, in the shape of an

attorney's office.



'It will cost you a good deal, I fear,' said Towers.



'A few hundreds,' said Bold--'perhaps three hundred; I

can't help that, and am prepared for it.'



'That's philosophical.  It's quite refreshing to hear a man

talking of his hundreds in so purely indifferent a manner.

But I'm sorry you are giving the matter up.  It injures a man

to commence a thing of this kind, and not carry it through.

Have you seen that?' and he threw a small pamphlet across

the table, which was all but damp from the press.



Bold had not seen it nor heard of it; but he was well

acquainted with the author of it--a gentleman whose pamphlets,

condemnatory of all things in these modern days, had been a

good deal talked about of late.



Dr Pessimist Anticant was a Scotchman, who had passed a

great portion of his early days in Germany; he had studied

there with much effect, and had learnt to look with German

subtilty into the root of things, and to examine for himself

their intrinsic worth and worthlessness.  No man ever resolved

more bravely than he to accept as good nothing that was

evil; to banish from him as evil nothing that was good.

'Tis a pity that he should not have recognised the fact, that in

this world no good is unalloyed, and that there is but little evil

that has not in it some seed of what is goodly.



Returning from Germany, he had astonished the reading

public by the vigour of his thoughts, put forth in the quaintest

language.  He cannot write English, said the critics.  No

matter, said the public; we can read what he does write, and

that without yawning.  And so Dr Pessimist Anticant became

Popular.  Popularity spoilt him for all further real use, as it

has done many another.  While, with some diffidence, he

confined his objurgations to the occasional follies or

shortcomings of mankind; while he ridiculed the energy of the

squire devoted to the slaughter of partridges, or the mistake

of some noble patron who turned a poet into a gauger of beer-

barrels, it was all well; we were glad to be told our faults and

to look forward to the coming millennium, when all men,

having sufficiently studied the works of Dr Anticant, would

become truthful and energetic.  But the doctor mistook the

signs of the times and the minds of men, instituted himself

censor of things in general, and began the great task of

reprobating everything and everybody, without further promise of

any millennium at all.  This was not so well; and, to tell the

truth, our author did not succeed in his undertaking.  His

theories were all beautiful, and the code of morals that he

taught us certainly an improvement on the practices of the

age.  We all of us could, and many of us did, learn much from

the doctor while he chose to remain vague, mysterious, and

cloudy: but when he became practical, the charm was gone.



His allusion to the poet and the partridges was received

very well.  'Oh, my poor brother,' said he, 'slaughtered

partridges a score of brace to each gun, and poets gauging ale-

barrels, with sixty pounds a year, at Dumfries, are not the

signs of a great era!--perhaps of the smallest possible era yet

written of.  Whatever economies we pursue, political or other,

let us see at once that this is the maddest of the uneconomic:

partridges killed by our land magnates at, shall we say, a

guinea a head, to be retailed in Leadenhall at one shilling and

ninepence, with one poacher in limbo for every fifty birds!

our poet, maker, creator, gauging ale, and that badly, with no

leisure for making or creating, only a little leisure for drinking,

and such like beer-barrel avocations!  Truly, a cutting of

blocks with fine razors while we scrape our chins so uncomfortably

with rusty knives!  Oh, my political economist,

master of supply and demand, division of labour and high

pressure--oh, my loud-speaking friend, tell me, if so much be

in you, what is the demand for poets in these kingdoms of

Queen Victoria, and what the vouchsafed supply?'



This was all very well: this gave us some hope.  We might

do better with our next poet, when we got one; and though

the partridges might not be abandoned, something could perhaps

be done as to the poachers.  We were unwilling, however,

to take lessons in politics from so misty a professor; and

when he came to tell us that the heroes of Westminster were

naught, we began to think that he had written enough.  His

attack upon despatch boxes was not thought to have much in

it; but as it is short, the doctor shall again be allowed to speak

his sentiments.



'Could utmost ingenuity in the management of red tape

avail anything to men lying gasping--we may say, all but

dead; could despatch boxes with never-so-much velvet lining

and Chubb's patent be of comfort to a people in extremes, I

also, with so many others, would, with parched tongue, call

on the name of Lord John Russell; or, my brother, at your

advice, on Lord Aberdeen; or, my cousin, on Lord Derby, at

yours; being, with my parched tongue, indifferent to such

matters.  'Tis all one.  Oh, Derby!  Oh, Gladstone!  Oh,

Palmerston!  Oh, Lord John!  Each comes running with

serene face and despatch box.  Vain physicians! though there

were hosts of such, no despatch box will cure this disorder!

What! are there other doctors' new names, disciples who have

not burdened their souls with tape?  Well, let us call again.

Oh, Disraeli, great oppositionist, man of the bitter brow! or,

Oh, Molesworth, great reformer, thou who promisest Utopia.

They come; each with that serene face, and each--alas, me!

alas, my country!--each with a despatch box!



'Oh, the serenity of Downing Street!



'My brothers, when hope was over on the battle-field, when

no dimmest chance of victory remained, the ancient Roman

could hide his face within his toga, and die gracefully.  Can

you and I do so now?  If so, 'twere best for us; if not, oh my

brothers, we must die disgracefully, for hope of life and victory

I see none left to us in this world below.  I for one cannot trust

much to serene face and despatch box!'



There might be truth in this, there might be depth of reasoning;

but Englishmen did not see enough in the argument to

induce them to withdraw their confidence from the present

arrangements of the government, and Dr Anticant's monthly

pamphlet on the decay of the world did not receive so much

attention as his earlier works.  He did not confine himself to

politics in these publications, but roamed at large over all

matters of public interest, and found everything bad.  According

to him nobody was true, and not only nobody, but nothing;

a man could not take off his hat to a lady without telling

a lie--the lady would lie again in smiling.  The ruffles of the

gentleman's shirt would be fraught with deceit, and the lady's

flounces full of falsehood.  Was ever anything more severe than

that attack of his on chip bonnets, or the anathemas with which

he endeavoured to dust the powder out of the bishops' wigs?



The pamphlet which Tom Towers now pushed across the

table was entitled Modern Charity, and was written with the

view of proving how much in the way of charity was done by

our predecessors--how little by the present age; and it ended

by a comparison between ancient and modern times, very

little to the credit of the latter.



'Look at this,' said Towers, getting up and turning over the

pages of the pamphlet, and pointing to a passage near the end.

'Your friend the warden, who is so little selfish, won't like that,

I fear.'  Bold read as follows--



'Heavens, what a sight!  Let us with eyes wide open see the

godly man of four centuries since, the man of the dark ages;

let us see how he does his godlike work, and, again, how the

godly man of these latter days does his.



'Shall we say that the former is one walking painfully

through the world, regarding, as a prudent man, his worldly

work, prospering in it as a diligent man will prosper, but

always with an eye to that better treasure to which thieves do

not creep in?  Is there not much nobility in that old man, as,

leaning on his oaken staff, he walks down the High Street of his

native town, and receives from all courteous salutation and

acknowledgment of his worth?  A noble old man, my august

inhabitants of Belgrave Square and such like vicinity--a very

noble old man, though employed no better than in the wholesale

carding of wool.



'This carding of wool, however, did in those days bring with

it much profit, so that our ancient friend, when dying, was

declared, in whatever slang then prevailed, to cut up exceeding

well.  For sons and daughters there was ample sustenance with

assistance of due industry; for friends and relatives some relief

for grief at this great loss; for aged dependents comfort in

declining years.  This was much for one old man to get done

in that dark fifteenth century.  But this was not all: coming

generations of poor wool-carders should bless the name of this

rich one; and a hospital should be founded and endowed with

his wealth for the feeding of such of the trade as could not, by

diligent carding, any longer duly feed themselves.



''Twas thus that an old man in the fifteenth century did his

godlike work to the best of his power, and not ignobly, as

appears to me.



'We will now take our godly man of latter days.  He shall

no longer be a wool-carder, for such are not now men of mark.

We will suppose him to be one of the best of the good, one who

has lacked no opportunities.  Our old friend was, after all, but

illiterate; our modern friend shall be a man educated in all

seemly knowledge; he shall, in short, be that blessed being--

a clergyman of the Church of England!



'And now, in what perfectest manner does he in this

lower world get his godlike work done and put out of hand?

Heavens! in the strangest of manners.  Oh, my brother! in

a manner not at all to be believed, but by the most minute

testimony of eyesight.  He does it by the magnitude of his

appetite--by the power of his gorge; his only occupation is

to swallow the bread prepared with so much anxious care for

these impoverished carders of wool--that, and to sing

indifferently through his nose once in the week some psalm more

or less long--the shorter the better, we should be inclined to say.



'Oh, my civilised friends!--great Britons that never will be

slaves, men advanced to infinite state of freedom and knowledge

of good and evil--tell me, will you, what becoming

monument you will erect to an highly-educated clergyman of

the Church of England?'



Bold certainly thought that his friend would not like that:

he could not conceive anything that he would like less than

this.  To what a world of toil and trouble had he, Bold, given

rise by his indiscreet attack upon the hospital!



'You see,' said Towers, 'that this affair has been much

talked of, and the public are with you.  I am sorry you should

give the matter up.  Have you seen the first number of The

Almshouse?'



No; Bold had not seen The Almshouse.  He had seen advertisements

of Mr Popular Sentiment's new novel of that name, but had

in no way connected it with Barchester Hospital, and had never

thought a moment on the subject.



'It's a direct attack on the whole system,' said Towers.

'It'll go a long way to put down Rochester, and Barchester,

and Dulwich, and St Cross, and all such hotbeds of peculation.

It's very clear that Sentiment has been down to Barchester,

and got up the whole story there; indeed, I thought he must

have had it all from you, it's very well done, as you'll see: his

first numbers always are.'



Bold declared that Mr Sentiment had got nothing from

him, and that he was deeply grieved to find that the case had

become so notorious.



'The fire has gone too far to be quenched,' said Towers;

'the building must go now; and as the timbers are all rotten,

why, I should be inclined to say, the sooner the better.  I

expected to see you get some eclat in the matter.'



This was all wormwood to Bold.  He had done enough to

make his friend the warden miserable for life, and had then

backed out just when the success of his project was sufficient

to make the question one of real interest.  How weakly he had

managed his business! he had already done the harm, and

then stayed his hand when the good which he had in view was

to be commenced.  How delightful would it have been to have

employed all his energy in such a cause--to have been backed

by The Jupiter, and written up to by two of the most popular

authors of the day!  The idea opened a view into the very

world in which he wished to live.  To what might it not have

given rise? what delightful intimacies--what public praise--

to what Athenian banquets and rich flavour of Attic salt?



This, however, was now past hope.  He had pledged himself

to abandon the cause; and could he have forgotten the pledge

he had gone too far to retreat.  He was now, this moment,

sitting in Tom Towers' room with the object of deprecating

any further articles in The Jupiter, and, greatly as he disliked

the job, his petition to that effect must be made.



'I couldn't continue it,' said he, 'because I found I was in

the wrong.'



Tom Towers shrugged his shoulders.  How could a successful

man be in the wrong!  'In that case,' said he, 'of course

you must abandon it.'



'And I called this morning to ask you also to abandon it,' 

said Bold.



'To ask me,' said Tom Towers, with the most placid of

smiles, and a consummate look of gentle surprise, as though

Tom Towers was well aware that he of all men was the last

to meddle in such matters.



'Yes,' said Bold, almost trembling with hesitation.  'The

Jupiter, you know, has taken the matter up very strongly.

Mr Harding has felt what it has said deeply; and I thought

that if I could explain to you that he personally has not been

to blame, these articles might be discontinued.'



How calmly impassive was Tom Towers' face, as this

innocent little proposition was made!  Had Bold addressed

himself to the doorposts in Mount Olympus, they would have

shown as much outward sign of assent or dissent.  His quiescence

was quite admirable; his discretion certainly more than human.



'My dear fellow,' said he, when Bold had quite done

speaking, 'I really cannot answer for The Jupiter.'



'But if you saw that these articles were unjust, I think that

You Would endeavour to put a stop to them.  Of course nobody

doubts that you could, if you chose.'



'Nobody and everybody are always very kind, but unfortunately

are generally very wrong.'



'Come, come, Towers,' said Bold, plucking up his courage,

and remembering that for Eleanor's sake he was bound to

make his best exertion; 'I have no doubt in my own mind but

that you wrote the articles yourself, and very well written they

were: it will be a great favour if you will in future abstain

from any personal allusion to poor Harding.'



'My dear Bold,' said Tom Towers, 'I have a sincere regard

for you.  I have known you for many years, and value your

friendship; I hope you will let me explain to you, without

offence, that none who are connected with the public press

can with propriety listen to interference.'



'Interference!' said Bold, 'I don't want to interfere.'



'Ah, but, my dear fellow, you do; what else is it?  You

think that I am able to keep certain remarks out of a newspaper.

Your information is probably incorrect, as most public gossip

on such subjects is; but, at any rate, you think I have such

power, and you ask me to use it: now that is interference.'



'Well, if you choose to call it so.'



'And now suppose for a moment that I had this power, and

used it as you wish: isn't it clear that it would be a great

abuse?  Certain men are employed in writing for the public

press; and if they are induced either to write or to abstain

from writing by private motives, surely the public press would

soon be of little value.  Look at the recognised worth of different

newspapers, and see if it does not mainly depend on the

assurance which the public feel that such a paper is, or is not,

independent.  You alluded to The Jupiter: surely you cannot

but see that the weight of The Jupiter is too great to be moved

by any private request, even though it should be made to a

much more influential person than myself: you've only to

think of this, and you'll see that I am right.'



The discretion of Tom Towers was boundless: there was no

contradicting what he said, no arguing against such propositions.

He took such high ground that there was no getting on

it.  'The public is defrauded,' said he, 'whenever private

considerations are allowed to have weight.'  Quite true, thou

greatest oracle of the middle of the nineteenth century, thou

sententious proclaimer of the purity of the press--the public

is defrauded when it is purposely misled.  Poor public! how

often is it misled! against what a world of fraud has it to

contend!



Bold took his leave, and got out of the room as quickly as he

could, inwardly denouncing his friend Tom Towers as a prig

and a humbug.  'I know he wrote those articles,' said Bold to

himself.  'I know he got his information from me.  He was

ready enough to take my word for gospel when it suited his

own views, and to set Mr Harding up before the public as an

impostor on no other testimony than my chance conversation;

but when I offer him real evidence opposed to his own views,

he tells me that private motives are detrimental to public

justice!  Confound his arrogance!  What is any public question

but a conglomeration of private interests?  What is any

newspaper article but an expression of the views taken by one

side?  Truth! it takes an age to ascertain the truth of any

question!  The idea of Tom Towers talking of public motives and

purity of purpose!  Why, it wouldn't give him a moment's uneasiness

to change his politics tomorrow, if the paper required it.'



Such were John Bold's inward exclamations as he made his

way out of the quiet labyrinth of the Temple; and yet there

was no position of worldly power so coveted in Bold's ambition

as that held by the man of whom he was thinking.  It was the

impregnability of the place which made Bold so angry with

the possessor of it, and it was the same quality which made it

appear so desirable.



Passing into the Strand, he saw in a bookseller's window an

announcement of the first number of The Almshouse; so he

purchased a copy, and hurrying back to his lodgings, proceeded

to ascertain what Mr Popular Sentiment had to say to the

public on the subject which had lately occupied so much

of his own attention.



In former times great objects were attained by great work.

When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their

heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument.  An

age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical

researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to

write, and an eternity to read.  We get on now with a lighter

step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing

than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true

sorrows, and monthly novels convince, when learned quartos

fail to do so.  If the world is to be set right, the work will be

done by shilling numbers.



Of all such reformers Mr Sentiment is the most powerful.

It is incredible the number of evil practices he has put down:

it is to be feared he will soon lack subjects, and that when he

has made the working classes comfortable, and got bitter beer

put into proper-sized pint bottles, there will be nothing further

for him left to do.  Mr Sentiment is certainly a very powerful

man, and perhaps not the less so that his good poor people are

so very good; his hard rich people so very hard; and the

genuinely honest so very honest.  Namby-pamby in these days

is not thrown away if it be introduced in the proper quarters.

Divine peeresses are no longer interesting, though possessed of

every virtue; but a pattern peasant or an immaculate manufacturing

hero may talk as much twaddle as one of Mrs Ratcliffe's

heroines, and still be listened to.  Perhaps, however, Mr

Sentiment's great attraction is in his second-rate characters.

If his heroes and heroines walk upon stilts, as heroes

and heroines, I fear, ever must, their attendant satellites are

as natural as though one met them in the street: they walk

and talk like men and women, and live among our friends a

rattling, lively life; yes, live, and will live till the names of

their calling shall be forgotten in their own, and Buckett and

Mrs Gamp will be the only words left to us to signify a detective

police officer or a monthly nurse.



The Almshouse opened with a scene in a clergyman's house.

Every luxury to be purchased by wealth was described as being

there: all the appearances of household indulgence generally

found amongst the most self-indulgent of the rich were crowded

into this abode.  Here the reader was introduced to the demon

of the book, the Mephistopheles of the drama.  What story

was ever written without a demon?  What novel, what history,

what work of any sort, what world, would be perfect without

existing principles both of good and evil?  The demon of The

Almshouse was the clerical owner of this comfortable abode.

He was a man well stricken in years, but still strong to do evil:

he was one who looked cruelly out of a hot, passionate, bloodshot

eye; who had a huge red nose with a carbuncle, thick lips,

and a great double, flabby chin, which swelled out into

solid substance, like a turkey-cock's comb, when sudden anger

inspired him: he had a hot, furrowed, low brow, from which

a few grizzled hairs were not yet rubbed off by the friction of

his handkerchief: he wore a loose unstarched white handkerchief,

black loose ill-made clothes, and huge loose shoes,

adapted to many corns and various bunions: his husky voice

told tales of much daily port wine, and his language was not

so decorous as became a clergyman.  Such was the master of

Mr Sentiment's Almshouse.  He was a widower, but at present

accompanied by two daughters, and a thin and somewhat

insipid curate.  One of the young ladies was devoted to her

father and the fashionable world, and she of course was the

favourite; the other was equally addicted to Puseyism and

the curate.



The second chapter of course introduced the reader to the

more especial inmates of the hospital.  Here were discovered

eight old men; and it was given to be understood that four

vacancies remained unfilled, through the perverse ill-nature

of the clerical gentleman with the double chin.  The state of

these eight paupers was touchingly dreadful: sixpence-farthing

a day had been sufficient for their diet when the almshouse was

founded; and on sixpence-farthing a day were they still

doomed to starve, though food was four times as dear, and

money four times as plentiful.  It was shocking to find how the

conversation of these eight starved old men in their dormitory

shamed that of the clergyman's family in his rich drawing-

room.  The absolute words they uttered were not perhaps

spoken in the purest English, and it might be difficult to

distinguish from their dialect to what part of the country they

belonged; the beauty of the sentiment, however, amply

atoned for the imperfection of the language; and it was really

a pity that these eight old men could not be sent through the

country as moral missionaries, instead of being immured and

starved in that wretched almshouse.



Bold finished the number; and as he threw it aside, he

thought that that at least had no direct appliance to Mr Harding,

and that the absurdly strong colouring of the picture would

disenable the work from doing either good or harm.  He was

wrong.  The artist who paints for the million must use glaring

colours, as no one knew better than Mr Sentiment when he

described the inhabitants of his almshouse; and the radical

reform which has now swept over such establishments has

owed more to the twenty numbers of Mr Sentiment's novel,

than to all the true complaints which have escaped from the

public for the last half century.







CHAPTER XVI

A Long Day in London





The warden had to make use of all his very moderate

powers of intrigue to give his son-in-law the slip, and get

out of Barchester without being stopped on his road.  No

schoolboy ever ran away from school with more precaution

and more dread of detection; no convict, slipping down from

a prison wall, ever feared to see the gaoler more entirely than

Mr Harding did to see his son-in-law as he drove up in the

pony carriage to the railway station, on the morning of his

escape to London.



The evening before he went he wrote a note to the archdeacon,

explaining that he should start on the morrow on his

journey; that it was his intention to see the attorney-general

if possible, and to decide on his future plans in accordance with

what he heard from that gentleman; he excused himself for

giving Dr Grantly no earlier notice, by stating that his resolve

was very sudden; and having entrusted this note to Eleanor,

with the perfect, though not expressed, understanding that it

was to be sent over to Plumstead Episcopi without haste, he

took his departure.



He also prepared and carried with him a note for Sir

Abraham Haphazard, in which he stated his name, explaining

that he was the defendant in the case of 'The Queen on

behalf of the Wool-carders of Barchester v.  Trustees under the

will of the late John Hiram,' for so was the suit denominated,

and begged the illustrious and learned gentleman to vouchsafe

to him ten minutes' audience at any hour on the next day.

Mr Harding calculated that for that one day he was safe; his

son-in-law, he had no doubt, would arrive in town by an early

train, but not early enough to reach the truant till he should

have escaped from his hotel after breakfast; and could he thus

manage to see the lawyer on that very day, the deed might be

done before the archdeacon could interfere.



On his arrival in town the warden drove, as was his wont.

to the Chapter Hotel and Coffee House, near St Paul's.  His

visits to London of late had not been frequent; but in those

happy days when Harding's Church Music was going through

the press, he had been often there; and as the publisher's

house was in Paternoster Row, and the printer's press in Fleet

Street, the Chapter Hotel and Coffee House had been convenient.

It was a quiet, sombre, clerical house, beseeming such

a man as the warden, and thus he afterwards frequented

it.  Had he dared, he would on this occasion have gone elsewhere

to throw the archdeacon further off the scent; but he did not

know what violent steps his son-in-law might take for his

recovery if he were not found at his usual haunt, and he

deemed it not prudent to make himself the object of a hunt

through London.



Arrived at his inn, he ordered dinner, and went forth to

the attorney-general's chambers.  There he learnt that Sir

Abraham was in Court, and would not probably return that

day.  He would go direct from Court to the House; all

appointments were, as a rule, made at the chambers; the

clerk could by no means promise an interview for the next

day; was able, on the other hand, to say that such interview

was, he thought, impossible; but that Sir Abraham would

certainly be at the House in the course of the night, where an

answer from himself might possibly be elicited.



To the House Mr Harding went, and left his note, not finding

Sir Abraham there.  He added a most piteous entreaty that

he might be favoured with an answer that evening, for

which he would return.  He then journeyed back sadly to the

Chapter Coffee House, digesting his great thoughts, as best he

might, in a clattering omnibus, wedged in between a wet old

lady and a journeyman glazier returning from his work with

his tools in his lap.  In melancholy solitude he discussed his

mutton chop and pint of port.  What is there in this world

more melancholy than such a dinner?  A dinner, though eaten

alone, in a country hotel may be worthy of some energy; the

waiter, if you are known, will make much of you; the landlord

will make you a bow and perhaps put the fish on the table;

if you ring you are attended to, and there is some life about it.

A dinner at a London eating-house is also lively enough, if it

have no other attraction.  There is plenty of noise and stir

about it, and the rapid whirl of voices and rattle of dishes

disperses sadness.  But a solitary dinner in an old, respectable,

sombre, solid London inn, where nothing makes any noise but

the old waiter's creaking shoes; where one plate slowly goes

and another slowly comes without a sound; where the two or

three guests would as soon think of knocking each other down

as of speaking; where the servants whisper, and the whole

household is disturbed if an order be given above the voice--

what can be more melancholy than a mutton chop and a pint

of port in such a place?



Having gone through this Mr Harding got into another

omnibus, and again returned to the House.  Yes, Sir Abraham

was there, and was that moment on his legs, fighting eagerly

for the hundred and seventh clause of the Convent Custody

Bill.  Mr Harding's note had been delivered to him; and if

Mr Harding would wait some two or three hours, Sir Abraham

could be asked whether there was any answer.  The House

was not full, and perhaps Mr Harding might get admittance

into the Strangers' Gallery, which admission, with the help of

five shillings, Mr Harding was able to effect.



This bill of Sir Abraham's had been read a second time and

passed into committee.  A hundred and six clauses had already

been discussed and had occupied only four mornings and five

evening sittings; nine of the hundred and six clauses were

passed, fifty-five were withdrawn by consent, fourteen had

been altered so as to mean the reverse of the original proposition,

eleven had been postponed for further consideration, and

seventeen had been directly negatived.  The hundred and

seventh ordered the bodily searching of nuns for jesuitical

symbols by aged clergymen, and was considered to be the real

mainstay of the whole bill.  No intention had ever existed to

pass such a law as that proposed, but the government did not

intend to abandon it till their object was fully attained by the

discussion of this clause.  It was known that it would be

insisted on with terrible vehemence by Protestant Irish members,

and as vehemently denounced by the Roman Catholic; and

it was justly considered that no further union between the

parties would be possible after such a battle.  The innocent

Irish fell into the trap as they always do, and whiskey and

poplins became a drug in the market.



A florid-faced gentleman with a nice head of hair, from the

south of Ireland, had succeeded in catching the speaker's eye

by the time that Mr Harding had got into the gallery, and was

denouncing the proposed sacrilege, his whole face glowing

with a fine theatrical frenzy.



'And this is a Christian country?' said he.  (Loud cheers;

counter cheers from the ministerial benches.  'Some doubt as

to that,' from a voice below the gangway.) 'No, it can be no

Christian country, in which the head of the bar, the lagal

adviser (loud laughter and cheers) -yes, I say the lagal adviser

of the crown (great cheers and laughter)--can stand up in his

seat in this house (prolonged cheers and laughter), and

attempt to lagalise indacent assaults on the bodies of religious

ladies.'  (Deafening cheers and laughter, which were prolonged

till the honourable member resumed his seat.)



When Mr Harding had listened to this and much more of

the same kind for about three hours, he returned to the door of

the House, and received back from the messenger his own note,

with the following words scrawled in pencil on the back of it:

'To-morrow, 10 P.M.--my chambers.--A.  H.'



He was so far successful--but 10 P.M.: what an hour Sir

Abraham had named for a legal interview!  Mr Harding felt

perfectly sure that long before that Dr Grantly would be in

London.  Dr Grantly could not, however, know that this interview

had been arranged, nor could he learn it unless he managed

to get hold of Sir Abraham before that hour; and as this

was very improbable, Mr Harding determined to start from

his hotel early, merely leaving word that he should dine out,

and unless luck were much against him, he might still escape the

archdeacon till his return from the attorney-general's chambers.



He was at breakfast at nine, and for the twentieth time

consulted his Bradshaw, to see at what earliest hour Dr Grantly

could arrive from Barchester.  As he examined the columns,

he was nearly petrified by the reflection that perhaps the

archdeacon might come up by the night-mail train!  His heart

sank within him at the horrid idea, and for a moment he felt

himself dragged back to Barchester without accomplishing any

portion of his object.  Then he remembered that had Dr

Grantly done so, he would have been in the hotel, looking

for him long since.



'Waiter,' said he, timidly.



The waiter approached, creaking in his shoes, but voiceless.



'Did any gentleman--a clergyman, arrive here by the night-

mail train ?'



'No, sir, not one,' whispered the waiter, putting his mouth

nearly close to the warden's ear.



Mr Harding was reassured.



'Waiter,' said he again, and the waiter again creaked up.

'If anyone calls for me, I am going to dine out, and shall

return about eleven o'clock.'



The waiter nodded, but did not this time vouchsafe any

reply; and Mr Harding, taking up his hat, proceeded out to

pass a long day in the best way he could, somewhere out of

sight of the archdeacon.



Bradshaw had told him twenty times that Dr Grantly could

not be at Paddington station till 2 P.M., and our poor friend

might therefore have trusted to the shelter of the hotel for some

hours longer with perfect safety; but he was nervous.  There

was no knowing what steps the archdeacon might take for his

apprehension: a message by electric telegraph might desire

the landlord of the hotel to set a watch upon him; some letter

might come which he might find himself unable to disobey;

at any rate, he could not feel himself secure in any place at

which the archdeacon could expect to find him; and at

10 A.M. he started forth to spend twelve hours in London.



Mr Harding had friends in town had he chosen to seek

them; but he felt that he was in no humour for ordinary calls,

and he did not now wish to consult with anyone as to the great

step which he had determined to take.  As he had said to his

daughter, no one knows where the shoe pinches but the wearer.

There are some points on which no man can be contented to

follow the advice of another--some subjects on which a man

can consult his own conscience only.  Our warden had made

up his mind that it was good for him at any cost to get rid of

this grievance; his daughter was the only person whose

concurrence appeared necessary to him, and she did concur with

him most heartily.  Under such circumstances he would not,

if he could help it, consult anyone further, till advice would be

useless.  Should the archdeacon catch him, indeed, there

would be much advice, and much consultation of a kind not

to be avoided; but he hoped better things; and as he felt that

he could not now converse on indifferent subjects, he resolved

to see no one till after his interview with the attorney-general.



He determined to take sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, so

he again went thither in an omnibus, and finding that the

doors were not open for morning service, he paid his twopence,

and went in as a sightseer.  It occurred to him that he had no

definite place of rest for the day, and that he should be

absolutely worn out before his interview if he attempted to walk

about from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M., so he sat himself down on a

stone step, and gazed up at the figure of William Pitt, who

looks as though he had just entered the church for the first

time in his life and was anything but pleased at finding

himself there.



He had been sitting unmolested about twenty minutes when

the verger asked him whether he wouldn't like to walk round.

Mr Harding didn't want to walk anywhere, and declined,

merely observing that he was waiting for the morning service.

The verger, seeing that he was a clergyman, told him that the

doors of the choir were now open, and showed him into a seat.

This was a great point gained; the archdeacon would certainly

not come to morning service at Westminster Abbey, even

though he were in London; and here the warden could rest

quietly, and, when the time came, duly say his prayers.



He longed to get up from his seat, and examine the music-

books of the choristers, and the copy of the litany from which

the service was chanted, to see how far the little details at

Westminster corresponded with those at Barchester, and

whether he thought his own voice would fill the church well

from the Westminster precentor's seat.  There would, however,

be impropriety in such meddling, and he sat perfectly

still, looking up at the noble roof, and guarding against the

coming fatigues of the day.



By degrees two or three people entered; the very same

damp old woman who had nearly obliterated him in the

omnibus, or some other just like her; a couple of young ladies

with their veils down, and gilt crosses conspicuous on their

prayer-books; an old man on crutches; a party who were

seeing the abbey, and thought they might as well hear the

service for their twopence, as opportunity served; and a young

woman with her prayer-book done up in her handkerchief,

who rushed in late, and, in her hurried entry, tumbled over

one of the forms, and made such a noise that everyone, even

the officiating minor canon, was startled, and she herself was

so frightened by the echo of her own catastrophe that she was

nearly thrown into fits by the panic.



Mr Harding was not much edified by the manner of the

service.  The minor canon in question hurried in, somewhat

late, in a surplice not in the neatest order, and was followed by

a dozen choristers, who were also not as trim as they might

have been: they all jostled into their places with a quick

hurried step, and the service was soon commenced.  Soon

commenced and soon over--for there was no music, and time

was not unnecessarily lost in the chanting.  On the whole

Mr Harding was of opinion that things were managed better

at Barchester, though even there he knew that there was room

for improvement.



It appears to us a question whether any clergyman can go

through our church service with decorum, morning after morning,

in an immense building, surrounded by not more than a

dozen listeners.  The best actors cannot act well before empty

benches, and though there is, of course, a higher motive in one

case than the other, still even the best of clergymen cannot but

be influenced by their audience; and to expect that a duty

should be well done under such circumstances, would be to

require from human nature more than human power.



When the two ladies with the gilt crosses, the old man with

his crutch, and the still palpitating housemaid were going,

Mr Harding found himself obliged to go too.  The verger

stood in his way, and looked at him and looked at the door,

and so he went.  But he returned again in a few minutes, and

re-entered with another twopence.  There was no other

sanctuary so good for him.



As he walked slowly down the nave, and then up one aisle,

and then again down the nave and up the other aisle, he tried

to think gravely of the step he was about to take.  He was

going to give up eight hundred a year voluntarily; and doom

himself to live for the rest of his life on about a hundred and

fifty.  He knew that he had hitherto failed to realise this fact

as he ought to do.  Could he maintain his own independence

and support his daughter on a hundred and fifty pounds a

year without being a burden on anyone?  His son-in-law was

rich, but nothing could induce him to lean on his son-in-law

after acting, as he intended to do, in direct opposition to his

son-in-law's counsel.  The bishop was rich, but he was about

to throw away the bishop's best gift, and that in a manner to

injure materially the patronage of the giver: he could neither

expect nor accept anything further from the bishop.  There

would be not only no merit, but positive disgrace, in giving up

his wardenship, if he were not prepared to meet the world

without it.  Yes, he must from this time forward bound all his

human wishes for himself and his daughter to the poor extent

of so limited an income.  He knew he had not thought sufficiently

of this, that he had been carried away by enthusiasm,

and had hitherto not brought home to himself the full reality

of his position.



He thought most about his daughter, naturally.  It was true

that she was engaged, and he knew enough of his proposed

son-in-law to be sure that his own altered circumstances would

make no obstacle to such a marriage; nay, he was sure that

the very fact of his poverty would induce Bold more anxiously

to press the matter; but he disliked counting on Bold in this

emergency, brought on, as it had been, by his doing.  He did

not like saying to himself, Bold has turned me out of my house

and income, and, therefore, he must relieve me of my daughter;

he preferred reckoning on Eleanor as the companion of his

poverty and exile--as the sharer of his small income.



Some modest provision for his daughter had been long since

made.  His life was insured for three thousand pounds, and

this sum was to go to Eleanor.  The archdeacon, for some

years past, had paid the premium, and had secured himself by

the immediate possession of a small property which was to have

gone to Mrs Grantly after her father's death.  This matter,

therefore, had been taken out of the warden's hands long since,

as, indeed, had all the business transactions of his family, and

his anxiety was, therefore, confined to his own life income.



Yes.  A hundred and fifty per annum was very small, but

still it might suffice; but how was he to chant the litany at the

cathedral on Sunday mornings, and get the service done at

Crabtree Parva?  True, Crabtree Church was not quite a mile

and a half from the cathedral; but he could not be in two

places at once.  Crabtree was a small village, and afternoon

service might suffice, but still this went against his conscience;

it was not right that his parishioners should be robbed of any

of their privileges on account of his poverty.  He might, to be

sure, make some arrangements for doing week-day service at

the cathedral; but he had chanted the litany at Barchester so

long, and had a conscious feeling that he did it so well, that he

was unwilling to give up the duty.



Thinking of such things, turning over in his own mind

together small desires and grave duties, but never hesitating

for a moment as to the necessity of leaving the hospital, Mr

Harding walked up and down the abbey, or sat still meditating

on the same stone step, hour after hour.  One verger went

and another came, but they did not disturb him; every now

and then they crept up and looked at him, but they did

so with a reverential stare, and, on the whole, Mr Harding

found his retreat well chosen.  About four o'clock his comfort

was disturbed by an enemy in the shape of hunger.  It was

necessary that he should dine, and it was clear that he could

not dine in the abbey: so he left his sanctuary not willingly,

and betook himself to the neighbourhood of the Strand to

look for food.



His eyes had become so accustomed to the gloom of the

church, that they were dazed when he got out into the full light

of day, and he felt confused and ashamed of himself, as though

people were staring at him.  He hurried along, still in dread

of the archdeacon, till he came to Charing Cross, and then

remembered that in one of his passages through the Strand he

had seen the words 'Chops and Steaks' on a placard in a shop

window.  He remembered the shop distinctly; it was next

door to a trunk-seller's, and there was a cigar shop on the

other side.  He couldn't go to his hotel for dinner, which to

him hitherto was the only known mode of dining in London at

his own expense; and, therefore, he would get a steak at the

shop in the Strand.  Archdeacon Grantly would certainly not

come to such a place for his dinner.



He found the house easily--just as he had observed it, between

the trunks and the cigars.  He was rather daunted by the

huge quantity of fish which he saw in the window.  There

were barrels of oysters, hecatombs of lobsters, a few tremendous-

looking crabs, and a tub full of pickled salmon; not, however,

being aware of any connection between shell-fish and

iniquity, he entered, and modestly asked a slatternly woman,

who was picking oysters out of a great watery reservoir,

whether he could have a mutton chop and a potato.



The woman looked somewhat surprised, but answered in

the affirmative, and a slipshod girl ushered him into a long

back room, filled with boxes for the accommodation of parties,

in one of which he took his seat.  In a more miserably forlorn

place he could not have found himself: the room smelt of fish,

and sawdust, and stale tobacco smoke, with a slight taint of

escaped gas; everything was rough and dirty, and disreputable;

the cloth which they put before him was abominable;

the knives and forks were bruised, and hacked, and filthy; and

everything was impregnated with fish.  He had one comfort,

however: he was quite alone; there was no one there to look

on his dismay; nor was it probable that anyone would come

to do so.  It was a London supper-house.  About one o'clock

at night the place would be lively enough, but at the present

time his seclusion was as deep as it had been in the abbey.



In about half an hour the untidy girl, not yet dressed for her

evening labours, brought him his chop and potatoes, and Mr

Harding begged for a pint of sherry.  He was impressed with

an idea, which was generally prevalent a few years since, and

is not yet wholly removed from the minds of men, that to order

a dinner at any kind of inn, without also ordering a pint of

wine for the benefit of the landlord, was a kind of fraud--not

punishable, indeed, by law, but not the less abominable on

that account.  Mr Harding remembered his coming poverty,

and would willingly have saved his half-crown, but he thought

he had no alternative; and he was soon put in possession of some

horrid mixture procured from the neighbouring public-house.



His chop and potatoes, however, were eatable, and having

got over as best he might the disgust created by the knives and

forks, he contrived to swallow his dinner.  He was not much

disturbed: one young man, with pale face and watery fishlike

eyes, wearing his hat ominously on one side, did come in and

stare at him, and ask the girl, audibly enough, 'Who that old

cock was'; but the annoyance went no further, and the

warden was left seated on his wooden bench in peace,

endeavouring to distinguish the different scents arising from

lobsters, oysters, and salmon.

Unknowing as Mr Harding was in the ways of London, he

felt that he had somehow selected an ineligible dining-house,

and that he had better leave it.  It was hardly five o'clock--

how was he to pass the time till ten?  Five miserable hours!

He was already tired, and it was impossible that he should

continue walking so long.  He thought of getting into an

omnibus, and going out to Fulham for the sake of coming back

in another: this, however, would be weary work, and as he

paid his bill to the woman in the shop, he asked her if there

were any place near where he could get a cup of coffee.

Though she did keep a shellfish supper-house, she was very

civil, and directed him to the cigar divan on the other side of

the street.



Mr Harding had not a much correcter notion of a cigar

divan than he had of a London dinner-house, but he was

desperately in want of rest, and went as he was directed.  He

thought he must have made some mistake when he found himself

in a cigar shop, but the man behind the counter saw immediately

that he was a stranger, and understood what he wanted.

'One shilling, sir--thank ye, sir--cigar, sir?--ticket

for coffee, sir--you'll only have to call the waiter.  Up those

stairs, if you please, sir.  Better take the cigar, sir--you can

always give it to a friend, you know.  Well, sir, thank ye, sir--as

you are so good, I'll smoke it myself.'  And so Mr Harding ascended

to the divan, with his ticket for coffee, but minus the cigar.



The place seemed much more suitable to his requirements

than the room in which he had dined: there was, to be sure,

a strong smell of tobacco, to which he was not accustomed;

but after the shell-fish, the tobacco did not seem disagreeable.

There were quantities of books, and long rows of sofas.  What

on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a

cup of coffee?  An old waiter came up to him, with a couple

of magazines and an evening paper.  Was ever anything so

civil?  Would he have a cup of coffee, or would he prefer

sherbet?  Sherbet!  Was he absolutely in an Eastern divan,

with the slight addition of all the London periodicals?  He

had, however, an idea that sherbet should be drunk sitting

cross-legged, and as he was not quite up to this, he ordered

the coffee.



The coffee came, and was unexceptionable.  Why, this

divan was a paradise!  The civil old waiter suggested to him

a game of chess: though a chess player he was not equal to

this, so he declined, and, putting up his weary legs on the

sofa, leisurely sipped his coffee, and turned over the pages of

his Blackwood.  He might have been so engaged for about an

hour, for the old waiter enticed him to a second cup of coffee,

when a musical clock began to play.  Mr Harding then closed

his magazine, keeping his place with his finger, and lay,

listening with closed eyes to the clock.  Soon the clock seemed

to turn into a violoncello, with piano accompaniments, and

Mr Harding began to fancy the old waiter was the Bishop of

Barchester; he was inexpressibly shocked that the bishop

should have brought him his coffee with his own hands; then

Dr Grantly came in, with a basket full of lobsters, which he

would not be induced to leave downstairs in the kitchen; and

then the warden couldn't quite understand why so many

people would smoke in the bishop's drawing-room; and so

he fell fast asleep, and his dreams wandered away to his

accustomed stall in Barchester Cathedral, and the twelve old men

he was so soon about to leave for ever.



He was fatigued, and slept soundly for some time.  Some

sudden stop in the musical clock woke him at length, and he

jumped up with a start, surprised to find the room quite full:

it had been nearly empty when his nap began.  With nervous

anxiety he pulled out his watch, and found that it was half-

past nine.  He seized his hat, and, hurrying downstairs,

started at a rapid pace for Lincoln's Inn.



It still wanted twenty minutes to ten when the warden

found himself at the bottom of Sir Abraham's stairs, so he

walked leisurely up and down the quiet inn to cool himself.

It was a beautiful evening at the end of August.  He had

recovered from his fatigue; his sleep and the coffee had

refreshed him, and he was surprised to find that he was absolutely

enjoying himself, when the inn clock struck ten.  The sound

was hardly over before he knocked at Sir Abraham's door, and

was informed by the clerk who received him that the great

man would be with him immediately.







CHAPTER XVII

Sir Abraham Haphazard





Mr Harding was shown into a comfortable inner

sitting-room, looking more like a gentleman's book-room

than a lawyer's chambers, and there waited for Sir Abraham.

Nor was he kept waiting long: in ten or fifteen minutes he

heard a clatter of voices speaking quickly in the passage, and

then the attorney-general entered.



'Very sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Warden,' said Sir

Abraham, shaking hands with him; 'and sorry, too, to name

so disagreeable an hour; but your notice was short, and as

you said today, I named the very earliest hour that was not

disposed of.'



Mr Harding assured him that he was aware that it was he

that should apologise.



Sir Abraham was a tall thin man, with hair prematurely

gray, but bearing no other sign of age; he had a slight stoop,

in his neck rather than his back, acquired by his constant habit

of leaning forward as he addressed his various audiences.  He

might be fifty years old, and would have looked young for his

age, had not constant work hardened his features, and given

him the appearance of a machine with a mind.  His face was

full of intellect, but devoid of natural expression.  You would

say he was a man to use, and then have done with; a man to

be sought for on great emergencies, but ill-adapted for ordinary

services; a man whom you would ask to defend your property,

but to whom you would be sorry to confide your love.  He was

bright as a diamond, and as cutting, and also as unimpressionable.

He knew everyone whom to know was an honour, but he was without

a friend; he wanted none, however, and knew not the meaning

of the word in other than its parliamentary sense.  A friend!  Had

he not always been sufficient to himself, and now, at fifty, was

it likely that he should trust another?  He was married, indeed,

and had children, but what time had he for the soft idleness of

conjugal felicity?  His working days or term times were occupied

from his time of rising to the late hour at which he went to rest,

and even his vacations were more full of labour than the busiest

days of other men.  He never quarrelled with his wife, but he

never talked to her--he never had time to talk, he was so

taken up with speaking.  She, poor lady, was not unhappy;

she had all that money could give her, she would probably

live to be a peeress, and she really thought Sir Abraham the

best of husbands.



Sir Abraham was a man of wit, and sparkled among the

brightest at the dinner-tables of political grandees: indeed, he

always sparkled; whether in society, in the House of Commons,

or the courts of law, coruscations flew from him; glittering

sparkles, as from hot steel, but no heat; no cold heart

was ever cheered by warmth from him, no unhappy soul ever

dropped a portion of its burden at his door.



With him success alone was praiseworthy, and he knew none

so successful as himself.  No one had thrust him forward; no

powerful friends had pushed him along on his road to power.

No; he was attorney-general, and would, in all human probability,

be lord chancellor by sheer dint of his own industry and his own

talent.  Who else in all the world rose so high with so little help?

A premier, indeed!  Who had ever been premier without mighty

friends?  An archbishop!  Yes, the son or

grandson of a great noble, or else, probably, his tutor.  But

he, Sir Abraham, had had no mighty lord at his back; his

father had been a country apothecary, his mother a farmer's

daughter.  Why should he respect any but himself?  And so

he glitters along through the world, the brightest among the

bright; and when his glitter is gone, and he is gathered to his

fathers, no eye will be dim with a tear, no heart will mourn

for its lost friend.



'And so, Mr Warden,' said Sir Abraham, 'all our trouble

about this lawsuit is at an end.'



Mr Harding said he hoped so, but he didn't at all understand

what Sir Abraham meant.  Sir Abraham, with all his sharpness,

could not have looked into his heart and read his intentions.



'All over.  You need trouble yourself no further about it;

of course they must pay the costs, and the absolute expense to

you and Dr Grantly will be trifling--that is, compared with

what it might have been if it had been continued.'



'I fear I don't quite understand you, Sir Abraham.'



'Don't you know that their attorneys have noticed us that

they have withdrawn the suit?'



Mr Harding explained to the lawyer that he knew nothing

of this, although he had heard in a roundabout way that such

an intention had been talked of; and he also at length

succeeded in making Sir Abraham understand that even this did

not satisfy him.  The attorney-general stood up, put his hands

into his breeches' pockets, and raised his eyebrows, as Mr

Harding proceeded to detail the grievance from which he now

wished to rid himself.



'I know I have no right to trouble you personally with this

matter, but as it is of most vital importance to me, as all my

happiness is concerned in it, I thought I might venture to seek

your advice.'



Sir Abraham bowed, and declared his clients were entitled

to the best advice he could give them; particularly a client so

respectable in every way as the Warden of Barchester Hospital.



'A spoken word, Sir Abraham, is often of more value than

volumes of written advice.  The truth is, I am ill-satisfied with

this matter as it stands at present.  I do see--I cannot help

seeing, that the affairs of the hospital are not arranged

according to the will of the founder.'



'None of such institutions are, Mr Harding, nor can they be;

the altered circumstances in which we live do not admit of it.'



'Quite true--that is quite true; but I can't see that those

altered circumstances give me a right to eight hundred a year.

I don't know whether I ever read John Hiram's will, but were

I to read it now I could not understand it.  What I want you,

Sir Abraham, to tell me, is this--am I, as warden, legally and

distinctly entitled to the proceeds of the property, after the due

maintenance of the twelve bedesmen?'



Sir Abraham declared that he couldn't exactly say in so

many words that Mr Harding was legally entitled to, &c., &c.,

&c., and ended in expressing a strong opinion that it would

be madness to raise any further question on the matter, as the

suit was to be--nay, was, abandoned.

Mr Harding, seated in his chair, began to play a slow tune

on an imaginary violoncello.



'Nay, my dear sir,' continued the attorney-general, 'there

is no further ground for any question; I don't see that you

have the power of raising it.'



'I can resign,' said Mr Harding, slowly playing away with

his right hand, as though the bow were beneath the chair in

which he was sitting.



'What! throw it up altogether?' said the attorney-general,

gazing with utter astonishment at his client.



'Did you see those articles in The Jupiter?' said Mr Harding,

piteously, appealing to the sympathy of the lawyer.



Sir Abraham said he had seen them.  This poor little clergyman,

cowed into such an act of extreme weakness by a newspaper

article, was to Sir Abraham so contemptible an object, that

he hardly knew how to talk to him as to a rational being.



'Hadn't you better wait,' said he, 'till Dr Grantly is in

town with you?  Wouldn't it be better to postpone any serious

step till you can consult with him?'



Mr Harding declared vehemently that he could not wait,

and Sir Abraham began seriously to doubt his sanity.



'Of course,' said the latter, 'if you have private means

sufficient for your wants, and if this--'



'I haven't a sixpence, Sir Abraham,' said the warden.



'God bless me!  Why, Mr Harding, how do you mean to live?'



Mr Harding proceeded to explain to the man of law that

he meant to keep his precentorship--that was eighty pounds

a year; and, also, that he meant to fall back upon his own

little living of Crabtree, which was another eighty pounds.

That, to be sure, the duties of the two were hardly compatible;

but perhaps he might effect an exchange.  And then, recollecting

that the attorney-general would hardly care to hear how

the service of a cathedral church is divided among the

minor canons, stopped short in his explanations.



Sir Abraham listened in pitying wonder.  'I really think,

Mr Harding, you had better wait for the archdeacon.  This is

a most serious step--one for which, in my opinion, there is not

the slightest necessity; and, as you have done me the honour

of asking my advice, I must implore you to do nothing without

the approval of your friends.  A man is never the best

judge of his own position.'



'A man is the best judge of what he feels himself.  I'd

sooner beg my bread till my death than read such another

article as those two that have appeared, and feel, as I do, that

the writer has truth on his side.'



'Have you not a daughter, Mr Harding--an unmarried daughter?'



'I have,' said he, now standing also, but still playing away

on his fiddle with his hand behind his back.  'I have, Sir

Abraham; and she and I are completely agreed on this subject.'



'Pray excuse me, Mr Harding, if what I say seems impertinent;

but surely it is you that should be prudent on her

behalf.  She is young, and does not know the meaning of

living on an income of a hundred and sixty pounds a year.  On her

account give up this idea.  Believe me, it is sheer Quixotism.'



The warden walked away to the window, and then back to

his chair; and then, irresolute what to say, took another turn

to the window.  The attorney-general was really extremely

patient, but he was beginning to think that the interview had

been long enough.



'But if this income be not justly mine, what if she and I

have both to beg?' said the warden at last, sharply, and in a

voice so different from that he had hitherto used, that Sir

Abraham was startled.  'If so, it would be better to beg.'



'My dear sir, nobody now questions its justness.'



'Yes, Sir Abraham, one does question it--the most important

of all witnesses against me--I question it myself.  My God

knows whether or no I love my daughter; but I would sooner that

she and I should both beg, than that she should live in

comfort on money which is truly the property of the poor.

It may seem strange to you, Sir Abraham, it is strange to

myself, that I should have been ten years in that happy

home, and not have thought of these things till they were so

roughly dinned into my ears.  I cannot boast of my conscience,

when it required the violence of a public newspaper to awaken

it; but, now that it is awake, I must obey it.  When I came

here, I did not know that the suit was withdrawn by Mr Bold,

and my object was to beg you to abandon my defence.  As

there is no action, there can be no defence; but it is, at any

rate, as well that you should know that from tomorrow I shall

cease to be the warden of the hospital.  My friends and I differ

on this subject, Sir Abraham, and that adds much to my

sorrow; but it cannot be helped.'  And, as he finished what

he had to say, he played up such a tune as never before had

graced the chambers of any attorney-general.  He was standing

up, gallantly fronting Sir Abraham, and his right arm

passed with bold and rapid sweeps before him, as though he

were embracing some huge instrument, which allowed him

to stand thus erect; and with the fingers of his left hand he

stopped, with preternatural velocity, a multitude of strings,

which ranged from the top of his collar to the bottom of the

lappet of his coat.  Sir Abraham listened and looked in wonder.

As he had never before seen Mr Harding, the meaning of

these wild gesticulations was lost upon him; but he perceived

that the gentleman who had a few minutes since been so

subdued as to be unable to speak without hesitation, was now

impassioned--nay, almost violent.



'You'll sleep on this, Mr Harding, and tomorrow--'



'I have done more than sleep upon it,' said the warden;

'I have lain awake upon it, and that night after night.  I

found I could not sleep upon it: now I hope to do so.'



The attorney-general had no answer to make to this; so he

expressed a quiet hope that whatever settlement was finally

made would be satisfactory; and Mr Harding withdrew,

thanking the great man for his kind attention.



Mr Harding was sufficiently satisfied with the interview to

feel a glow of comfort as he descended into the small old square

of Lincoln's Inn.  It was a calm, bright, beautiful night, and

by the light of the moon, even the chapel of Lincoln's Inn, and

the sombre row of chambers, which surround the quadrangle,

looked well.  He stood still a moment to collect his thoughts,

and reflect on what he had done, and was about to do.  He

knew that the attorney-general regarded him as little better

than a fool, but that he did not mind; he and the attorney-

general had not much in common between them; he knew

also that others, whom he did care about, would think so too;

but Eleanor, he was sure, would exult in what he had done,

and the bishop, he trusted, would sympathise with him.



In the meantime he had to meet the archdeacon, and so he

walked slowly down Chancery Lane and along Fleet Street,

feeling sure that his work for the night was not yet over.

When he reached the hotel he rang the bell quietly, and with

a palpitating heart; he almost longed to escape round the

corner, and delay the coming storm by a further walk round

St Paul's Churchyard, but he heard the slow creaking shoes

of the old waiter approaching, and he stood his ground manfully.







CHAPTER XVIII

The Warden is Very Obstinate





'Dr Grantly is here, sir,' greeted his ears before the

door was well open, 'and Mrs Grantly.  They have a

sitting-room above, and are waiting up for you.'



There was something in the tone of the man's voice which

seemed to indicate that even he looked upon the warden as a

runaway schoolboy, just recaptured by his guardian, and that

he pitied the culprit, though he could not but be horrified at

the crime.



The warden endeavoured to appear unconcerned, as he

said, 'Oh, indeed!  I'll go upstairs at once'; but he failed

signally.  There was, perhaps, a ray of comfort in the presence

of his married daughter; that is to say, of comparative comfort,

seeing that his son-in-law was there; but how much

would he have preferred that they should both have been safe

at Plumstead Episcopi!  However, upstairs he went, the

waiter slowly preceding him; and on the door being opened

the archdeacon was discovered standing in the middle of the

room, erect, indeed, as usual, but oh! how sorrowful! and

on the dingy sofa behind him reclined his patient wife.



'Papa, I thought you were never coming back,' said the

lady; 'it's twelve o'clock.'



'Yes, my dear,' said the warden.  'The attorney-general

named ten for my meeting; to be sure ten is late, but what

could I do, you know?  Great men will have their own way.'



And he gave his daughter a kiss, and shook hands with the

doctor, and again tried to look unconcerned.



'And you have absolutely been with the attorney-general?'

asked the archdeacon.



Mr Harding signified that he had.



'Good heavens, how unfortunate!'  And the archdeacon

raised his huge hands in the manner in which his friends are

so accustomed to see him express disapprobation and astonishment.

'What will Sir Abraham think of it?  Did you not know that

it is not customary for clients to go direct to their counsel?'



'Isn't it?' asked the warden, innocently.  'Well, at any rate, I've

done it now.  Sir Abraham didn't seem to think it so very strange.'



The archdeacon gave a sigh that would have moved a man-of-war.



'But, papa, what did you say to Sir Abraham?' asked the lady.



'I asked him, my dear, to explain John Hiram's will to me.

He couldn't explain it in the only way which would have

satisfied me, and so I resigned the wardenship.'



'Resigned it!' said the archdeacon, in a solemn voice, sad

and low, but yet sufficiently audible--a sort of whisper that

Macready would have envied, and the galleries have applauded

with a couple of rounds.  'Resigned it!  Good heavens!'

And the dignitary of the church sank back horrified into a

horsehair arm-chair.



'At least I told Sir Abraham that I would resign; and of

course I must now do so.'



'Not at all,' said the archdeacon, catching a ray of hope.

'Nothing that you say in such a way to your own counsel can

be in any way binding on you; of course you were there to

ask his advice.  I'm sure Sir Abraham did not advise any such step.'



Mr Harding could not say that he had.



'I am sure he disadvised you from it,' continued the

reverend cross-examiner.



Mr Harding could not deny this.



'I'm sure Sir Abraham must have advised you to consult

your friends.'



To this proposition also Mr Harding was obliged to assent.



'Then your threat of resignation amounts to nothing, and

we are just where we were before.'



Mr Harding was now standing on the rug, moving uneasily

from one foot to the other.  He made no distinct answer to

the archdeacon's last proposition, for his mind was chiefly

engaged on thinking how he could escape to bed.  That his

resignation was a thing finally fixed on, a fact all but completed,

was not in his mind a matter of any doubt; he knew his own

weakness; he knew how prone he was to be led; but he was not

weak enough to give way now, to go back from the position to

which his conscience had driven him, after having purposely come

to London to declare his determination: he did not in the least

doubt his resolution, but he greatly doubted his power of

defending it against his son-in-law.



'You must be very tired, Susan,' said he: 'wouldn't you

like to go to bed?'



But Susan didn't want to go till her husband went.--She

had an idea that her papa might be bullied if she were away:

she wasn't tired at all, or at least she said so.



The archdeacon was pacing the room, expressing, by certain noddles

of his head, his opinion of the utter fatuity of his father-in-law.



'Why,' at last he said--and angels might have blushed at

the rebuke expressed in his tone and emphasis--'Why did you go off

from Barchester so suddenly?  Why did you take such a step without

giving us notice, after what had passed at the palace?'



The warden hung his head, and made no reply: he could

not condescend to say that he had not intended to give his

son-in-law the slip; and as he had not the courage to avow it,

he said nothing.



'Papa has been too much for you,' said the lady.



The archdeacon took another turn, and again ejaculated,

'Good heavens!' this time in a very low whisper, but still audible.



'I think I'll go to bed,' said the warden, taking up a side candle.



'At any rate, you'll promise me to take no further step

without consultation,' said the archdeacon.  Mr Harding

made no answer, but slowly proceeded to light his candle.



'Of course,' continued the other, 'such a declaration as that

you made to Sir Abraham means nothing.  Come, warden,

promise me this.  The whole affair, you see, is already settled,

and that with very little trouble or expense.  Bold has been

compelled to abandon his action, and all you have to do is to

remain quiet at the hospital.'  Mr Harding still made no reply,

but looked meekly into his son-in-law's face.  The archdeacon

thought he knew his father-in-law, but he was mistaken; he

thought that he had already talked over a vacillating man to

resign his promise.  'Come,' said he, 'promise Susan to give

up this idea of resigning the wardenship.'



The warden looked at his daughter, thinking probably at

the moment that if Eleanor were contented with him, he need

not so much regard his other child, and said, 'I am sure Susan will

not ask me to break my word, or to do what I know to be wrong.'



'Papa,' said she, 'it would be madness in you to throw up

your preferment.  What are you to live on?'



'God, that feeds the young ravens, will take care of me

also,' said Mr Harding, with a smile, as though afraid of giving

offence by making his reference to scripture too solemn.



'Pish!' said the archdeacon, turning away rapidly.  'If the

ravens persisted in refusing the food prepared for them, they

wouldn't be fed.'  A clergyman generally dislikes to be met in

argument by any scriptural quotation; he feels as affronted

as a doctor does, when recommended by an old woman to take

some favourite dose, or as a lawyer when an unprofessional

man attempts to put him down by a quibble.



'I shall have the living of Crabtree,' modestly suggested

the warden.

'Eighty pounds a year!' sneered the archdeacon.



'And the precentorship,' said the father-in-law.



'It goes with the wardenship,' said the son-in-law.  Mr

Harding was prepared to argue this point, and began to do so,

but Dr Grantly stopped him.  'My dear warden,' said he,

'this is all nonsense.  Eighty pounds or a hundred and sixty

makes very little difference.  You can't live on it--you can't

ruin Eleanor's prospects for ever.  In point of fact, you can't

resign; the bishop wouldn't accept it; the whole thing is

settled.  What I now want to do is to prevent any inconvenient

tittle-tattle--any more newspaper articles.'



'That's what I want, too,' said the warden.



'And to prevent that,' continued the other, 'we mustn't let

any talk of resignation get abroad.'



'But I shall resign,' said the warden, very, very meekly.



'Good heavens!  Susan, my dear, what can I say to him?'



'But, papa,' said Mrs Grantly, getting up, and putting her

arm through that of her father, 'what is Eleanor to do if you

throw away your income?'



A hot tear stood in each of the warden's eyes as he looked

round upon his married daughter.  Why should one sister who

was so rich predict poverty for another?  Some such idea as

this was on his mind, but he gave no utterance to it.  Then he

thought of the pelican feeding its young with blood from its

own breast, but he gave no utterance to that either; and then

of Eleanor waiting for him at home, waiting to congratulate

him on the end of all his trouble.



'Think of Eleanor, papa,' said Mrs Grantly.



'I do think of her,' said her father.



'And you will not do this rash thing?'  The lady was really

moved beyond her usual calm composure.



'It can never be rash to do right,' said he.  'I shall certainly

resign this wardenship.'



'Then, Mr Harding, there is nothing before you but ruin,' 

said the archdeacon, now moved beyond all endurance.  'Ruin

both for you and Eleanor.  How do you mean to pay the

monstrous expenses of this action?'



Mrs Grantly suggested that, as the action was abandoned,

the costs would not be heavy.



'Indeed they will, my dear,' continued he.  'One cannot

have the attorney-general up at twelve o'clock at night for

nothing--but of course your father has not thought of this.'



'I will sell my furniture,' said the warden.

'Furniture!' ejaculated the other, with a most powerful sneer.



Come, archdeacon,' said the lady, 'we needn't mind that

at present.  You know you never expected papa to pay the costs.'



'Such absurdity is enough to provoke job,' said the archdeacon,

marching quickly up and down the room.  'Your

father is like a child.  Eight hundred pounds a year!--eight

hundred and eighty with the house--with nothing to do.  The

very place for him.  And to throw that up because some

scoundrel writes an article in a newspaper!  Well--I have

done my duty.  If he chooses to ruin his child I cannot help

it'; and he stood still at the fire-place, and looked at himself

in a dingy mirror which stood on the chimney-piece.



There was a pause for about a minute, and then the warden,

finding that nothing else was coming, lighted his candle, and

quietly said, 'Good-night.'



'Good-night, papa,' said the lady.



And so the warden retired; but, as he closed the door

behind him, he heard the well-known ejaculation--slower,

lower, more solemn, more ponderous than ever--'Good heavens!'







CHAPTER XIX

The Warden Resigns





The party met the next morning at breakfast; and a very sombre

affair it was--very unlike the breakfasts at Plumstead Episcopi.



There were three thin, small, dry bits of bacon, each an inch

long, served up under a huge old plated cover; there were

four three-cornered bits of dry toast, and four square bits of

buttered toast; there was a loaf of bread, and some oily-

looking butter; and on the sideboard there were the remains

of a cold shoulder of mutton.  The archdeacon, however, had

not come up from his rectory to St Paul's Churchyard to

enjoy himself and therefore nothing was said of the scanty fare.



The guests were as sorry as the viands--hardly anything

was said over the breakfast-table.  The archdeacon munched

his toast in ominous silence, turning over bitter thoughts in his

deep mind.  The warden tried to talk to his daughter, and she

tried to answer him; but they both failed.  There were no

feelings at present in common between them.  The warden

was thinking only of getting back to Barchester, and calculating

whether the archdeacon would expect him to wait for him;

and Mrs Grantly was preparing herself for a grand attack

which she was to make on her father, as agreed upon between

herself and her husband during their curtain confabulation of

that morning.



When the waiter had creaked out of the room with the last

of the teacups, the archdeacon got up and went to the window

as though to admire the view.  The room looked out on a

narrow passage which runs from St Paul's Churchyard to

Paternoster Row; and Dr Grantly patiently perused the

names of the three shopkeepers whose doors were in view.

The warden still kept his seat at the table, and examined the

pattern of the tablecloth; and Mrs Grantly, seating herself

on the sofa, began to knit.



After a while the warden pulled his Bradshaw out of his

pocket, and began laboriously to consult it.  There was a train

for Barchester at 10 A.M.  That was out of the question, for it

was nearly ten already.  Another at 3 P.M.; another, the

night-mail train, at 9 P.M.  The three o'clock train would take

him home to tea, and would suit very well.



'My dear,' said he, 'I think I shall go back home at three

o'clock today.  I shall get home at half-past eight.  I don't

think there's anything to keep me in London.'



'The archdeacon and I return by the early train tomorrow,

papa; won't you wait and go back with us?'



'Why, Eleanor will expect me tonight; and I've so much

to do; and--'



'Much to do!' said the archdeacon sotto voce; but the

warden heard him.



'You'd better wait for us, papa.'



'Thank ye, my dear!  I think I'll go this afternoon.'  The

tamest animal will turn when driven too hard, and even

Mr Harding was beginning to fight for his own way.



I suppose you won't be back before three?' said the lady,

addressing her husband.



'I must leave this at two,' said the warden.



'Quite out of the question,' said the archdeacon, answering

his wife, and still reading the shopkeepers' names; 'I don't

suppose I shall be back till five.'



There was another long pause, during which Mr Harding

continued to study his Bradshaw.



'I must go to Cox and Cummins,' said the archdeacon at last.



'Oh, to Cox and Cummins,' said the warden.  It was quite

a matter of indifference to him where his son-in-law went.

The names of Cox and Cummins had now no interest in his

ears.  What had he to do with Cox and Cummins further,

having already had his suit finally adjudicated upon in a

court of conscience, a judgment without power of appeal fully

registered, and the matter settled so that all the lawyers in

London could not disturb it.  The archdeacon could go to

Cox and Cummins, could remain there all day in anxious

discussion; but what might be said there was no longer matter

of interest to him, who was so soon to lay aside the name of

warden of Barchester Hospital.



The archdeacon took up his shining new clerical hat, and

put on his black new clerical gloves, and looked heavy,

respectable, decorous, and opulent, a decided clergyman of the

Church of England, every inch of him.  'I suppose I shall see

you at Barchester the day after tomorrow,' said he.



The warden supposed he would.



'I must once more beseech you to take no further steps till

you see my father; if you owe me nothing,' and the archdeacon

looked as though he thought a great deal were due to him,

'at least you owe so much to my father'; and, without

waiting for a reply, Dr Grantly wended his way to Cox and

Cummins.



Mrs Grantly waited till the last fall of her husband's foot

was heard, as he turned out of the court into St Paul's Churchyard,

and then commenced her task of talking her father over.



'Papa,' she began, 'this is a most serious business.'



'Indeed it is,' said the warden, ringing the bell.



'I greatly feel the distress of mind you must have endured.'



'I am sure you do, my dear'; and he ordered the waiter to

bring him pen, ink, and paper.



'Are you going to write, papa?'



'Yes, my dear--I am going to write my resignation to the bishop.'



'Pray, pray, papa, put it off till our return--pray put it off

till you have seen the bishop--dear papa! for my sake, for

Eleanor's!--'



'It is for your sake and Eleanor's that I do this.  I hope, at least,

that my children may never have to be ashamed of their father.'



'How can you talk about shame, papa?' and she stopped

while the waiter creaked in with the paper, and then slowly

creaked out again; 'how can you talk about shame? you

know what all your friends think about this question.'

The warden spread his paper on the table, placing it on the

meagre blotting-book which the hotel afforded, and sat himself

down to write.



'You won't refuse me one request, papa?' continued his

daughter; 'you won't refuse to delay your letter for two short

days?  Two days can make no possible difference.'



'My dear,' said he naively, 'if I waited till I got to

Barchester, I might, perhaps, be prevented.'



'But surely you would not wish to offend the bishop?'

said she.



'God forbid!  The bishop is not apt to take offence, and

knows me too well to take in bad part anything that I may be

called on to do.'



'But, papa--'



'Susan,' said he, 'my mind on this subject is made up; it is

not without much repugnance that I act in opposition to the

advice of such men as Sir Abraham Haphazard and the archdeacon;

but in this matter I can take no advice, I cannot alter

the resolution to which I have come.'



'But two days, papa--'



'No--nor can I delay it.  You may add to my present unhappiness

by pressing me, but you cannot change my purpose; it will be a

comfort to me if you will let the matter rest': and,

dipping his pen into the inkstand, he fixed his eyes intently

on the paper.



There was something in his manner which taught his

daughter to perceive that he was in earnest; she had at one

time ruled supreme in her father's house, but she knew that

there were moments when, mild and meek as he was, he would

have his way, and the present was an occasion of the sort.

She returned, therefore, to her knitting, and very shortly after

left the room.



The warden was now at liberty to compose his letter, and,

as it was characteristic of the man, it shall be given at full

length.  The official letter, which, when written, seemed to

him to be too formally cold to be sent alone to so dear a friend,

was accompanied by a private note; and both are here inserted.



The letter of resignation ran as follows:





                    'CHAPTER HOTEL, ST.  PAUL'S, LONDON,

                                        'August, 18--



'My LORD BISHOP,





'It is with the greatest pain that I feel myself constrained to

resign into your Lordship's hands the wardenship of the hospital

at Barchester, which you so kindly conferred upon me, now

nearly twelve years since.



'I need not explain the circumstances which have made this

step appear necessary to me.  You are aware that a question

has arisen as to the right of the warden to the income which has

been allotted to the wardenship; it has seemed to me that this

right is not well made out, and I hesitate to incur the risk of

taking an income to which my legal claim appears doubtful.



'The office of precentor of the cathedral is, as your Lordship

is aware, joined to that of the warden; that is to say, the

precentor has for many years been the warden of the hospital;

there is, however, nothing to make the junction of the two

offices necessary, and, unless you or the dean and chapter

object to such an arrangement, I would wish to keep the

precentorship.  The income of this office will now be necessary to

me; indeed, I do not know why I should be ashamed to say

that I should have difficulty in supporting myself without it.



'Your Lordship, and such others as you may please to

consult on the matter, will at once see that my resignation of the

wardenship need offer not the slightest bar to its occupation

by another person.  I am thought in the wrong by all those

whom I have consulted in the matter; I have very little but

an inward and an unguided conviction of my own to bring me

to this step, and I shall, indeed, be hurt to find that any slur

is thrown on the preferment which your kindness bestowed

on me, by my resignation of it.  I, at any rate for one, shall

look on any successor whom you may appoint as enjoying a

clerical situation of the highest respectability, and one to

which your Lordship's nomination gives an indefeasible right.



'I cannot finish this official letter without again thanking

your Lordship for all your great kindness, and I beg to

subscribe myself- -Your Lordship's most obedient servant

                                   'SEPTIMUS HARDING,



                                   'Warden of Barchester Hospital,

                                   and Precentor of the Cathedral.'





He then wrote the following private note:





'My DEAR BISHOP,



'I cannot send you the accompanying official letter without

a warmer expression of thanks for all your kindness than would

befit a document which may to a certain degree be made

public.  You, I know, will understand the feeling, and, perhaps,

pity the weakness which makes me resign the hospital.  I am not

made of calibre strong enough to withstand public attack.  Were

I convinced that I stood on ground perfectly firm, that I was

certainly justified in taking eight hundred a year under Hiram's

will, I should feel bound by duty to retain the position, however

unendurable might be the nature of the assault; but, as I do

not feel this conviction, I cannot believe that you will think me

wrong in what I am doing.



'I had at one time an idea of keeping only some moderate

portion of the income; perhaps three hundred a year, and of

remitting the remainder to the trustees; but it occurred to

me, and I think with reason, that by so doing I should place

my successors in an invidious position, and greatly damage

your patronage.



'My dear friend, let me have a line from you to say that you

do not blame me for what I am doing, and that the officiating

vicar of Crabtree Parva will be the same to you as the warden

of the hospital.



'I am very anxious about the precentorship: the archdeacon

thinks it must go with the wardenship; I think not, and, that,

having it, I cannot be ousted.  I will, however, be guided

by you and the dean.  No other duty will suit me so well,

or come so much within my power of adequate performance.



'I thank you from my heart for the preferment which I am

now giving up, and for all your kindness, and am, dear bishop,

now as always-- Yours most sincerely,



                                   'SEPTIMUS HARDING

                                   'LONDON, - AUGUST, 18--'





Having written these letters and made a copy of the former

one for the benefit of the archdeacon, Mr Harding, whom we

must now cease to call the warden, he having designated himself

so for the last time, found that it was nearly two o'clock,

and that he must prepare for his journey.  Yes, from this time

he never again admitted the name by which he had been so

familiarly known, and in which, to tell the truth, he had

rejoiced.  The love of titles is common to all men, and a vicar

or fellow is as pleased at becoming Mr Archdeacon or Mr

Provost, as a lieutenant at getting his captaincy, or a city

tallow-chandler in becoming Sir John on the occasion of a

Queen's visit to a new bridge.  But warden he was no longer,

and the name of precentor, though the office was to him so

dear, confers in itself no sufficient distinction; our friend,

therefore, again became Mr Harding.



Mrs Grantly had gone out; he had, therefore, no one to

delay him by further entreaties to postpone his journey; he

had soon arranged his bag, and paid his bill, and, leaving a

note for his daughter, in which he put the copy of his official

letter, he got into a cab and drove away to the station with

something of triumph in his heart.



Had he not cause for triumph?  Had he not been supremely

successful?  Had he not for the first time in his life held his

own purpose against that of his son-in-law, and manfully combated

against great odds--against the archdeacon's wife as well

as the archdeacon?  Had he not gained a great victory, and

was it not fit that he should step into his cab with triumph?



He had not told Eleanor when he would return, but she was

on the look-out for him by every train by which he could

arrive, and the pony-carriage was at the Barchester station

when the train drew up at the platform.



'My dear,' said he, sitting beside her, as she steered her

little vessel to one side of the road to make room for the

clattering omnibus as they passed from the station into the town,

'I hope you'll be able to feel a proper degree of respect for the

vicar of Crabtree.'



'Dear papa,' said she, 'I am so glad.'



There was great comfort in returning home to that pleasant

house, though he was to leave it so soon, and in discussing with

his daughter all that he had done, and all that he had to do.

It must take some time to get out of one house into another;

the curate at Crabtree could not be abolished under six

months, that is, unless other provision could be made for him;

and then the furniture--the most of that must be sold to pay

Sir Abraham Haphazard for sitting up till twelve at night.

Mr Harding was strangely ignorant as to lawyers' bills; he

had no idea, from twenty pounds to two thousand, as to the

sum in which he was indebted for legal assistance.  True, he

had called in no lawyer himself; true, he had been no consenting

party to the employment of either Cox and Cummins,

or Sir Abraham; he had never been consulted on such

matters;--the archdeacon had managed all this himself, never

for a moment suspecting that Mr Harding would take upon

him to end the matter in a way of his own.  Had the lawyers'

bills been ten thousand pounds, Mr Harding could not have

helped it; but he was not on that account disposed to dispute

his own liability.  The question never occurred to him; but it

did occur to him that he had very little money at his banker's,

that he could receive nothing further from the hospital, and

that the sale of the furniture was his only resource.



'Not all, papa,' said Eleanor pleadingly.



'Not quite all, my dear,' said he; 'that is, if we can help it.

We must have a little at Crabtree--but it can only be a little;

we must put a bold front on it, Nelly; it isn't easy to come

down from affluence to poverty.'



And so they planned their future mode of life; the father

taking comfort from the reflection that his daughter would

soon be freed from it, and she resolving that her father would

soon have in her own house a ready means of escape from the

solitude of the Crabtree vicarage.



When the archdeacon left his wife and father-in-law at the

Chapter Coffee House to go to Messrs Cox and Cummins, he

had no very defined idea of what he had to do when he got

there.  Gentlemen when at law, or in any way engaged in

matters requiring legal assistance, are very apt to go to their

lawyers without much absolute necessity;--gentlemen when

doing so, are apt to describe such attendance as quite

compulsory, and very disagreeable.  The lawyers, on the other

hand, do not at all see the necessity, though they quite agree as

to the disagreeable nature of the visit;--gentlemen when so

engaged are usually somewhat gravelled at finding nothing to

say to their learned friends; they generally talk a little politics,

a little weather, ask some few foolish questions about their suit,

and then withdraw, having passed half an hour in a small

dingy waiting-room, in company with some junior assistant-

clerk, and ten minutes with the members of the firm; the

business is then over for which the gentleman has come up to

London, probably a distance of a hundred and fifty miles.

To be sure he goes to the play, and dines at his friend's club,

and has a bachelor's liberty and bachelor's recreation for three

or four days; and he could not probably plead the desire of such

gratifications as a reason to his wife for a trip to London.



Married ladies, when your husbands find they are positively

obliged to attend their legal advisers, the nature of the duty

to be performed is generally of this description.



The archdeacon would not have dreamt of leaving London

without going to Cox and Cummins; and yet he had nothing

to say to them.  The game was up; he plainly saw that Mr

Harding in this matter was not to be moved; his only remaining

business on this head was to pay the bill and have done

with it; and I think it may be taken for granted, that whatever

the cause may be that takes a gentleman to a lawyer's chambers,

he never goes there to pay his bill.



Dr Grantly, however, in the eyes of Messrs Cox and Cummins,

represented the spiritualities of the diocese of Barchester,

as Mr Chadwick did the temporalities, and was, therefore, too

great a man to undergo the half-hour in the clerk's room.  It

will not be necessary that we should listen to the notes of

sorrow in which the archdeacon bewailed to Mr Cox the weakness

of his father-in-law, and the end of all their hopes of

triumph; nor need we repeat the various exclamations of

surprise with which the mournful intelligence was received.

No tragedy occurred, though Mr Cox, a short and somewhat

bull-necked man, was very near a fit of apoplexy when he first

attempted to ejaculate that fatal word--resign!



Over and over again did Mr Cox attempt to enforce on the

archdeacon the propriety of urging on Mr Warden the madness

of the deed he was about to do.



'Eight hundred a year!' said Mr Cox.



'And nothing whatever to do!' said Mr Cummins, who had

joined the conference.



'No private fortune, I believe,' said Mr Cox.



'Not a shilling,' said Mr Cummins, in a very low voice,

shaking his head.



'I never heard of such a case in all my experience,' said

Mr Cox.



'Eight hundred a year, and as nice a house as any gentleman

could wish to hang up his hat in,' said Mr Cummins.



'And an unmarried daughter, I believe,' said Mr Cox, with

much moral seriousness in his tone.  The archdeacon only

sighed as each separate wail was uttered, and shook his head,

signifying that the fatuity of some people was past belief.



'I'll tell you what he might do,' said Mr Cummins, brightening

up.  'I'll tell you how you might save it--let him exchange.'



'Exchange where?' said the archdeacon.



'Exchange for a living.  There's Quiverful, of Puddingdale

--he has twelve children, and would be delighted to get the

hospital.  To be sure Puddingdale is only four hundred, but

that would be saving something out of the fire: Mr Harding

would have a curate, and still keep three hundred or three

hundred and fifty.'



The archdeacon opened his ears and listened; he really

thought the scheme might do.



'The newspapers,' continued Mr Cummins, 'might hammer

away at Quiverful every day for the next six months without

his minding them.'



The archdeacon took up his hat, and returned to his hotel,

thinking the matter over deeply.  At any rate he would sound

Quiverful.  A man with twelve children would do much to

double his income.





CHAPTER XX

Farewell





On the morning after Mr Harding's return home he received

a note from the bishop full of affection, condolence,

and praise.  'Pray come to me at once,' wrote the bishop,

'that we may see what had better be done; as to the hospital,

I will not say a word to dissuade you; but I don't like your

going to Crabtree: at any rate, come to me at once.'



Mr Harding did go to him at once; and long and confidential

was the consultation between the two old friends.  There

they sat together the whole long day, plotting to get the better

of the archdeacon, and to carry out little schemes of their own,

which they knew would be opposed by the whole weight of

his authority.



The bishop's first idea was, that Mr Harding, if left to himself,

would certainly starve--not in the figurative sense in which

so many of our ladies and gentlemen do starve on incomes from

one to five hundred a year; not that he would be starved as

regarded dress coats, port wine, and pocket-money; but that he

would positively perish of inanition for want of bread.



'How is a man to live, when he gives up all his income?'

said the bishop to himself.  And then the good-natured little

man began to consider how his friend might be best rescued

from a death so horrid and painful.



His first proposition to Mr Harding was, that they should

live together at the palace.  He, the bishop, positively assured

Mr Harding that he wanted another resident chaplain--not

a young working chaplain, but a steady, middle-aged chaplain;

one who would dine and drink a glass of wine with him,

talk about the archdeacon, and poke the fire.  The bishop did

not positively name all these duties, but he gave Mr Harding to

understand that such would be the nature of the service required.



It was not without much difficulty that Mr Harding made

his friend see that this would not suit him; that he could not

throw up the bishop's preferment, and then come and hang

on at the bishop's table; that he could not allow people to

say of him that it was an easy matter to abandon his own

income, as he was able to sponge on that of another person.

He succeeded, however, in explaining that the plan would not

do, and then the bishop brought forward another which he

had in his sleeve.  He, the bishop, had in his will left certain

moneys to Mr Harding's two daughters, imagining that Mr

Harding would himself want no such assistance during his own

lifetime.  This legacy amounted to three thousand pounds

each, duty free; and he now pressed it as a gift on his friend.



'The girls, you know,' said he, 'will have it just the same

when you're gone--and they won't want it sooner--and as for

the interest during my lifetime, it isn't worth talking about.

I have more than enough.'



With much difficulty and heartfelt sorrow, Mr Harding

refused also this offer.  No; his wish was to support himself,

however poorly--not to be supported on the charity of anyone.

It was hard to make the bishop understand this; it was

hard to make him comprehend that the only real favour he

could confer was the continuation of his independent friendship;

but at last even this was done.  At any rate, thought the

bishop, he will come and dine with me from time to time, and

if he be absolutely starving I shall see it.



Touching the precentorship, the bishop was clearly of

opinion that it could be held without the other situation--an

opinion from which no one differed; and it was therefore soon

settled among all the parties concerned, that Mr Harding

should still be the precentor of the cathedral.



On the day following Mr Harding's return, the archdeacon

reached Plumstead full of Mr Cummins's scheme regarding

Puddingdale and Mr Quiverful.  On the very next morning

he drove over to Puddingdale, and obtained the full consent of

the wretched clerical Priam, who was endeavouring to feed his

poor Hecuba and a dozen of Hectors on the small proceeds of his

ecclesiastical kingdom.  Mr Quiverful had no doubts as to the

legal rights of the warden; his conscience would be quite clear

as to accepting the income; and as to The Jupiter, he begged

to assure the archdeacon that he was quite indifferent to any

emanations from the profane portion of the periodical press.



Having so far succeeded, he next sounded the bishop; but

here he was astonished by most unexpected resistance.  The

bishop did not think it would do.  'Not do, why not?' and

seeing that his father was not shaken, he repeated the question

in a severer form: 'Why not do, my lord?'



His lordship looked very unhappy, and shuffled about in

his chair, but still didn't give way; he thought Puddingdale

wouldn't do for Mr Harding; it was too far from Barchester.



'Oh! of course he'll have a curate.'



The bishop also thought that Mr Quiverful wouldn't do for

the hospital; such an exchange wouldn't look well at such a

time; and, when pressed harder, he declared he didn't think

Mr Harding would accept of Puddingdale under any circumstances.



'How is he to live?' demanded the archdeacon.



The bishop, with tears in his eyes, declared that he had not

the slightest conception how life was to be sustained within

him at all.

The archdeacon then left his father, and went down to the

hospital; but Mr Harding wouldn't listen at all to the Puddingdale

scheme.  To his eyes it had no attraction; it savoured of simony,

and was likely to bring down upon him harder and more deserved

strictures than any he had yet received: he positively declined to

become vicar of Puddingdale under any circumstances.



The archdeacon waxed wroth, talked big, and looked

bigger; he said something about dependence and beggary,

spoke of the duty every man was under to earn his bread,

made passing allusions to the follies of youth and waywardness

of age, as though Mr Harding were afflicted by both, and

ended by declaring that he had done.  He felt that he had left

no stone unturned to arrange matters on the best and easiest

footing; that he had, in fact, so arranged them, that he had so

managed that there was no further need of any anxiety in the

matter.  And how had he been paid?  His advice had been

systematically rejected; he had been not only slighted, but

distrusted and avoided; he and his measures had been utterly

thrown over, as had been Sir Abraham, who, he had reason to

know, was much pained at what had occurred.  He now found

it was useless to interfere any further, and he should retire.  If

any further assistance were required from him, he would probably

be called on, and should be again happy to come forward.

And so he left the hospital, and has not since entered it from

that day to this.



And here we must take leave of Archdeacon Grantly.  We

fear that he is represented in these pages as being worse than

he is; but we have had to do with his foibles, and not with his

virtues.  We have seen only the weak side of the man, and

have lacked the opportunity of bringing him forward on his

strong ground.  That he is a man somewhat too fond of his

own way, and not sufficiently scrupulous in his manner of

achieving it, his best friends cannot deny.  That he is bigoted

in favour, not so much of his doctrines as of his cloth, is also

true: and it is true that the possession of a large income is a

desire that sits near his heart.  Nevertheless, the archdeacon is

a gentleman and a man of conscience; he spends his money

liberally, and does the work he has to do with the best of his

ability; he improves the tone of society of those among whom

he lives.  His aspirations are of a healthy, if not of the highest,

kind.  Though never an austere man, he upholds propriety

of conduct both by example and precept.  He is generous to

the poor, and hospitable to the rich; in matters of religion he

is sincere, and yet no Pharisee; he is in earnest, and yet no

fanatic.  On the whole, the Archdeacon of Barchester is a man

doing more good than harm--a man to be furthered and

supported, though perhaps also to be controlled; and it is

matter of regret to us that the course of our narrative has

required that we should see more of his weakness than his strength.



Mr Harding allowed himself no rest till everything was

prepared for his departure from the hospital.  It may be as

well to mention that he was not driven to the stern necessity of

selling all his furniture: he had been quite in earnest in his

intention to do so, but it was soon made known to him that

the claims of Messrs Cox and Cummins made no such step

obligatory.  The archdeacon had thought it wise to make use

of the threat of the lawyer's bill, to frighten his father-in-law

into compliance; but he had no intention to saddle Mr Harding

with costs, which had been incurred by no means exclusively

for his benefit.  The amount of the bill was added to the

diocesan account, and was, in fact, paid out of the bishop's

pocket, without any consciousness on the part of his lordship.

A great part of his furniture he did resolve to sell, having no

other means to dispose of it; and the ponies and carriage were

transferred, by private contract, to the use of an old maiden

lady in the city.



For his present use Mr Harding took a lodging in Barchester,

and thither were conveyed such articles as he wanted for daily

use--his music, books, and instruments, his own arm-chair,

and Eleanor's pet sofa; her teapoy and his cellaret, and also

the slender but still sufficient contents of his wine-cellar.  Mrs

Grantly had much wished that her sister would reside at

Plumstead, till her father's house at Crabtree should be ready

for her; but Eleanor herself strongly resisted this proposal.  It

was in vain urged upon her, that a lady in lodgings cost more than

a gentleman; and that, under her father's present circumstances,

such an expense should be avoided.  Eleanor had not pressed

her father to give up the hospital in order that she might

live at Plumstead Rectory and he alone in his Barchester

lodgings; nor did Eleanor think that she would be treating a

certain gentleman very fairly, if she betook herself to the house

which he would be the least desirous of entering of any in the

county.  So she got a little bedroom for herself behind the

sitting-room, and just over the little back parlour of the

chemist, with whom they were to lodge.  There was somewhat

of a savour of senna softened by peppermint about the place;

but, on the whole, the lodgings were clean and comfortable.



The day had been fixed for the migration of the ex-warden,

and all Barchester were in a state of excitement on the subject.

Opinion was much divided as to the propriety of Mr Harding's

conduct.  The mercantile part of the community, the mayor

and corporation, and council, also most of the ladies, were

loud in his praise.  Nothing could be more noble, nothing more

generous, nothing more upright.  But the gentry were of a

different way of thinking--especially the lawyers and the

clergymen.  They said such conduct was very weak and undignified;

that Mr Harding evinced a lamentable want of esprit de corps,

as well as courage; and that such an abdication must do much

harm, and could do but little good.



On the evening before he left, he summoned all the bedesmen

into his parlour to wish them good-bye.  With Bunce he had

been in frequent communication since his return from London,

and had been at much pains to explain to the old man the

cause of his resignation, without in any way prejudicing

the position of his successor.  The others, also, he had seen

more or less frequently; and had heard from most of them

separately some expression of regret at his departure; but he

had postponed his farewell till the last evening.



He now bade the maid put wine and glasses on the table;

and had the chairs arranged around the room; and sent Bunce to

each of the men to request they would come and say farewell to

their late warden.  Soon the noise of aged scuffling feet was

heard upon the gravel and in the little hall, and the eleven men

who were enabled to leave their rooms were assembled.



'Come in, my friends, come in,' said the warden--he was

still warden then.  'Come in, and sit down'; and he took the

hand of Abel Handy, who was the nearest to him, and led the

limping grumbler to a chair.  The others followed slowly and

bashfully; the infirm, the lame, and the blind: poor wretches!

who had been so happy, had they but known it!  Now their

aged faces were covered with shame, and every kind word

from their master was a coal of fire burning on their heads.



When first the news had reached them that Mr Harding

was going to leave the hospital, it had been received with a

kind of triumph--his departure was, as it were, a prelude to

success.  He had admitted his want of right to the money

about which they were disputing; and as it did not belong to

him, of course, it did to them.  The one hundred a year to

each of them was actually becoming a reality; and Abel

Handy was a hero, and Bunce a faint-hearted sycophant,

worthy neither honour nor fellowship.  But other tidings soon

made their way into the old men's rooms.  It was first notified

to them that the income abandoned by Mr Harding would not

come to them; and these accounts were confirmed by attorney

Finney.  They were then informed that Mr Harding's place

would be at once filled by another.  That the new warden

could not be a kinder man they all knew; that he would be a

less friendly one most suspected; and then came the bitter

information that, from the moment of Mr Harding's departure,

the twopence a day, his own peculiar gift, must of necessity

be withdrawn.



And this was to be the end of all their mighty struggle--of

their fight for their rights--of their petition, and their debates,

and their hopes!  They were to change the best of masters

for a possible bad one, and to lose twopence a day each man!

No; unfortunate as this was, it was not the worst, or nearly

the worst, as will just now be seen.



'Sit down, sit down, my friends,' said the warden; 'I want

to say a word to you and to drink your healths, before I leave

you.  Come up here, Moody, here is a chair for you; come,

Jonathan Crumple'--and by degrees he got the men to be

seated.  It was not surprising that they should hang back with

faint hearts, having returned so much kindness with such deep

ingratitude.  Last of all of them came Bunce, and with sorrowful mien

and slow step got into his accustomed seat near the fire-place.



When they were all in their places, Mr Harding rose to

address them; and then finding himself not quite at home on

his legs, he sat down again.  'My dear old friends,' said he,

'you all know that I am going to leave you.'



There was a sort of murmur ran round the room, intended,

perhaps, to express regret at his departure; but it was but a

murmur, and might have meant that or anything else.



'There has been lately some misunderstanding between us.

You have thought, I believe, that you did not get all that you

were entitled to, and that the funds of the hospital have not

been properly disposed of.  As for me, I cannot say what

should be the disposition of these moneys, or how they should

be managed, and I have therefore thought it best to go.'



'We never wanted to drive your reverence out of it,' said Handy.



'No, indeed, your reverence,' said Skulpit.  'We never

thought it would come to this.  When I signed the petition--

that is I didn't sign it, because--'



'Let his reverence speak, can't you?' said Moody.



'No,' continued Mr Harding; 'I am sure you did not wish

to turn me out; but I thought it best to leave you.  I am not

a very good hand at a lawsuit, as you may all guess; and when

it seemed necessary that our ordinary quiet mode of living

should be disturbed, I thought it better to go.  I am neither

angry nor offended with any man in the hospital.'



Here Bunce uttered a kind of groan, very clearly expressive

of disagreement.



'I am neither angry nor displeased with any man in the

hospital,' repeated Mr Harding, emphatically.  'If any man

has been wrong--and I don't say any man has--he has erred

through wrong advice.  In this country all are entitled to look

for their own rights, and you have done no more.  As long as

your interests and my interests were at variance, I could give

you no counsel on this subject; but the connection between

us has ceased; my income can no longer depend on your

doings, and therefore, as I leave you, I venture to offer to you

my advice.'



The men all declared that they would from henceforth be

entirely guided by Mr Harding's opinion in their affairs.



'Some gentleman will probably take my place here very

soon, and I strongly advise you to be prepared to receive him in

a kindly spirit and to raise no further question among yourselves

as to the amount of his income.  Were you to succeed

in lessening what he has to receive, you would not increase

your own allowance.  The surplus would not go to you; your

wants are adequately provided for, and your position could

hardly be improved.'



'God bless your reverence, we knows it,' said Spriggs.



'It's all true, your reverence,' said Skulpit.  'We sees it all now.'



'Yes, Mr Harding,' said Bunce, opening his mouth for the

first time; 'I believe they do understand it now, now that

they've driven from under the same roof with them such a

master as not one of them will ever know again--now that

they're like to be in sore want of a friend.'



'Come, come, Bunce,' said Mr Harding, blowing his nose

and manoeuvring to wipe his eyes at the same time.



'Oh, as to that,' said Handy, 'we none of us never wanted

to do Mr Harding no harm; if he's going now, it's not along

of us; and I don't see for what Mr Bunce speaks up agen us

that way.'



'You've ruined yourselves, and you've ruined me too, and

that's why,' said Bunce.



'Nonsense, Bunce,' said Mr Harding; 'there's nobody

ruined at all.  I hope you'll let me leave you all friends, I hope

you'll all drink a glass of wine in friendly feeling with me and

with one another.  You'll have a good friend, I don't doubt,

in your new warden; and if ever you want any other, why

after all I'm not going so far off but that I shall sometimes see

you'; and then, having finished his speech, Mr Harding filled

all the glasses, and himself handed each a glass to the men

round him, and raising his own said:



'God bless you all! you have my heartfelt wishes for your

welfare.  I hope you may live contented, and die trusting in

the Lord jesus Christ, and thankful to Almighty God For the

good things he has given you.  God bless you, my friends!'

and Mr Harding drank his wine.



Another murmur, somewhat more articulate than the first,

passed round the circle, and this time it was intended to imply

a blessing on Mr Harding.  It had, however, but little cordiality

in it.  Poor old men! how could they be cordial with their

sore consciences and shamed faces? how could they bid God

bless him with hearty voices and a true benison, knowing, as

they did, that their vile cabal had driven him from his happy

home, and sent him in his old age to seek shelter under a

strange roof-tree?  They did their best, however; they drank

their wine, and withdrew.



As they left the hall-door, Mr Harding shook hands with

each of the men, and spoke a kind word to them about their

individual cases and ailments; and so they departed, answering

his questions in the fewest words, and retreated to their

dens, a sorrowful repentant crew.



All but Bunce, who still remained to make his own farewell.

'There's poor old Bell,' said Mr Harding; 'I mustn't go

without saying a word to him; come through with me, Bunce,

and bring the wine with you'; and so they went through to

the men's cottages, and found the old man propped up as usual

in his bed.



'I've come to say good-bye to you, Bell,' said Mr Harding,

speaking loud, for the old man was deaf.



'And are you going away, then, really?' asked Bell.



'Indeed I am, and I've brought you a glass of wine; so that

we may part friends, as we lived, you know.'



The old man took the proffered glass in his shaking hands,

and drank it eagerly.  'God bless you, Bell!' said Mr

Harding; 'good-bye, my old friend.'



'And so you're really going?' the man again asked.



'Indeed I am, Bell.'



The poor old bed-ridden creature still kept Mr Harding's

hand in his own, and the warden thought that he had met

with something like warmth of feeling in the one of all his

subjects from whom it was the least likely to be expected; for

poor old Bell had nearly outlived all human feelings.  'And

your reverence,' said he, and then he paused, while his old

palsied head shook horribly, and his shrivelled cheeks sank

lower within his jaws, and his glazy eye gleamed with a

momentary light; 'and your reverence, shall we get the

hundred a year, then?'



How gently did Mr Harding try to extinguish the false hope

of money which had been so wretchedly raised to disturb the

quiet of the dying man!  One other week and his mortal coil

would be shuffled off; in one short week would God resume

his soul, and set it apart for its irrevocable doom; seven more

tedious days and nights of senseless inactivity, and all would

be over for poor Bell in this world; and yet, with his last

audible words, he was demanding his moneyed rights, and

asserting himself to be the proper heir of John Hiram's bounty!

Not on him, poor sinner as he was, be the load of such sin!



Mr Harding returned to his parlour, meditating with a sick

heart on what he had seen, and Bunce with him.  We will not

describe the parting of these two good men, for good men they

were.  It was in vain that the late warden endeavoured to

comfort the heart of the old bedesman; poor old Bunce felt

that his days of comfort were gone.  The hospital had to him

been a happy home, but it could be so no longer.  He had

had honour there, and friendship; he had recognised his

master, and been recognised; all his wants, both of soul and

body, had been supplied, and he had been a happy man.  He

wept grievously as he parted from his friend, and the tears of

an old man are bitter.  'It is all over for me in this world,' 

said he, as he gave the last squeeze to Mr Harding's hand;

'I have now to forgive those who have injured me--and to die.'



And so the old man went out, and then Mr Harding gave

way to his grief and he too wept aloud.







CHAPTER XXI

Conclusion



Our tale is now done, and it only remains to us to collect

the scattered threads of our little story, and to tie them

into a seemly knot.  This will not be a work of labour, either

to the author or to his readers; we have not to deal with many

personages, or with stirring events, and were it not for the custom

of the thing, we might leave it to the imagination of all concerned

to conceive how affairs at Barchester arranged themselves.



On the morning after the day last alluded to, Mr Harding,

at an early hour, walked out of the hospital, with his daughter

under his arm, and sat down quietly to breakfast at his lodgings

over the chemist's shop.  There was no parade about his

departure; no one, not even Bunce, was there to witness it;

had he walked to the apothecary's thus early to get a piece of

court plaster, or a box of lozenges, he could not have done it

with less appearance of an important movement.  There was

a tear in Eleanor's eye as she passed through the big gateway

and over the bridge; but Mr Harding walked with an elastic

step, and entered his new abode with a pleasant face.



'Now, my dear,' said he, 'you have everything ready, and

you can make tea here just as nicely as in the parlour at the

hospital.'  So Eleanor took off her bonnet and made the tea.

After this manner did the late Warden of Barchester Hospital

accomplish his flitting, and change his residence.



It was not long before the archdeacon brought his father

to discuss the subject of a new warden.  Of course he looked

upon the nomination as his own, and he had in his eye three

or four fitting candidates, seeing that Mr Cummins's plan as

to the living of Puddingdale could not be brought to bear.

How can I describe the astonishment which confounded him,

when his father declared that he would appoint no successor

to Mr Harding?  'If we can get the matter set to rights, Mr

Harding will return,' said the bishop; 'and if we cannot, it will

be wrong to put any other gentleman into so cruel a position.'



It was in vain that the archdeacon argued and lectured,

and even threatened; in vain he my-lorded his poor father in

his sternest manner; in vain his 'good heavens!' were ejaculated

in a tone that might have moved a whole synod, let alone

one weak and aged bishop.  Nothing could induce his father

to fill up the vacancy caused by Mr Harding's retirement.



Even John Bold would have pitied the feelings with which

the archdeacon returned to Plumstead: the church was

falling, nay, already in ruins; its dignitaries were yielding

without a struggle before the blows of its antagonists; and

one of its most respected bishops, his own father--the man

considered by all the world as being in such matters under

his, Dr Grantly's, control--had positively resolved to capitulate,

and own himself vanquished!



And how fared the hospital under this resolve of its visitor?

Badly indeed.  It is now some years since Mr Harding left it,

and the warden's house is still tenantless.  Old Bell has died,

and Billy Gazy; the one-eyed Spriggs has drunk himself to

death, and three others of the twelve have been gathered into

the churchyard mould.  Six have gone, and the six vacancies

remain unfilled!  Yes, six have died, with no kind friend to

solace their last moments, with no wealthy neighbour to

administer comforts and ease the stings of death.  Mr Harding,

indeed, did not desert them; from him they had such consolation

as a dying man may receive from his Christian pastor; but

it was the occasional kindness of a stranger which ministered

to them, and not the constant presence of a master, a

neighbour, and a friend.



Nor were those who remained better off than those who

died.  Dissensions rose among them, and contests for pre-

eminence; and then they began to understand that soon one

among them would be the last--some one wretched being

would be alone there in that now comfortless hospital--the

miserable relic of what had once been so good and so comfortable.



The building of the hospital itself has not been allowed to

go to ruins.  Mr Chadwick, who still holds his stewardship,

and pays the accruing rents into an account opened at a bank

for the purpose, sees to that; but the whole place has become

disordered and ugly.  The warden's garden is a wretched

wilderness, the drive and paths are covered with weeds, the

flower-beds are bare, and the unshorn lawn is now a mass of

long damp grass and unwholesome moss.  The beauty of the

place is gone; its attractions have withered.  Alas! a very

few years since it was the prettiest spot in Barchester, and now

it is a disgrace to the city.

Mr Harding did not go out to Crabtree Parva.  An

arrangement was made which respected the homestead of Mr

Smith and his happy family, and put Mr Harding into possession

of a small living within the walls of the city.  It is the smallest

possible parish, containing a part of the Cathedral Close

and a few old houses adjoining.  The church is a singular

little Gothic building, perched over a gateway, through which

the Close is entered, and is approached by a flight of stone steps

which leads down under the archway of the gate.  It is no bigger

than an ordinary room--perhaps twenty-seven feet long by eighteen

wide--but still it is a perfect church.  It contains an old carved

pulpit and reading-desk, a tiny altar under a window filled with

dark old-coloured glass, a font, some half-dozen pews, and

perhaps a dozen seats for the poor; and also a vestry.

The roof is high pitched, and of black old oak, and the three

large beams which support it run down to the side walls, and

terminate in grotesquely carved faces--two devils and an angel on

one side, two angels and a devil on the other.  Such is the church

of St Cuthbert at Barchester, of which Mr Harding became rector,

with a clear income of seventy-five pounds a year.



Here he performs afternoon service every Sunday, and administers

the Sacrament once in every three months.  His audience is not

large; and, had they been so, he could not have accommodated them:

but enough come to fill his six pews, and on the front seat of

those devoted to the poor is always to be seen our old friend Mr

Bunce, decently arrayed in his bedesman's gown.



Mr Harding is still precentor of Barchester; and it is very

rarely the case that those who attend the Sunday morning

service miss the gratification of hearing him chant the Litany,

as no other man in England can do it.  He is neither a discontented

nor an unhappy man; he still inhabits the lodgings to which he

went on leaving the hospital, but he now has them to himself.

Three months after that time Eleanor became Mrs Bold, and of

course removed to her husband's house.



There were some difficulties to be got over on the occasion

of the marriage.  The archdeacon, who could not so soon

overcome his grief, would not be persuaded to grace the ceremony

with his presence, but he allowed his wife and children to

be there.  The marriage took place in the cathedral, and

the bishop himself officiated.  It was the last occasion on

which he ever did so; and, though he still lives, it is not

probable that he will ever do so again.



Not long after the marriage, perhaps six months, when

Eleanor's bridal-honours were fading, and persons were beginning

to call her Mrs Bold without twittering, the archdeacon

consented to meet John Bold at a dinner-party, and since that

time they have become almost friends.  The archdeacon

firmly believes that his brother-in-law was, as a bachelor, an

infidel, an unbeliever in the great truths of our religion; but

that matrimony has opened his eyes, as it has those of others.

And Bold is equally inclined to think that time has softened

the asperities of the archdeacon's character.  Friends though

they are, they do not often revert to the feud of the hospital.



Mr Harding, we say, is not an unhappy man: he keeps his

lodgings, but they are of little use to him, except as being the

one spot on earth which he calls his own.  His time is spent

chiefly at his daughter's or at the palace; he is never left alone,

even should he wish to be so; and within a twelvemonth of

Eleanor's marriage his determination to live at his own lodging

had been so far broken through and abandoned, that he

consented to have his violoncello permanently removed to his

daughter's house.



Every other day a message is brought to him from the bishop.

'The bishop's compliments, and his lordship is not very well

to-day, and he hopes Mr Harding will dine with him.'  This

bulletin as to the old man's health is a myth; for though he

is over eighty he is never ill, and will probably die some day,

as a spark goes out, gradually and without a struggle.  Mr

Harding does dine with him very often, which means going to

the palace at three and remaining till ten; and whenever he

does not the bishop whines, and says that the port wine is

corked, and complains that nobody attends to him, and frets

himself off to bed an hour before his time.



It was long before the people of Barchester forgot to call

Mr Harding by his long well-known name of Warden.  It had

become so customary to say Mr Warden, that it was not easily

dropped.  'No, no,' he always says when so addressed, 'not

warden now, only precentor.'







End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Warden, by Anthony Trollope



