It was a cold morning, but the rain of the preceding evening had given way to frost, and the air, though sharp, was dry. The ground under the feet was crisp, having felt the wind and frost, and was no longer clogged with mud. In his present state of mind the walk was good for our poor pastor, and exhilarated him; but still, as he went, he thought always of his injuries. His own wife believed that he was about to commit suicide, and for so believing he was very angry with her; and yet, as he well knew, the idea of making away with himself had flitted through his own mind a dozen times. Not from his own wife could he get real sympathy. He would see what he could do with a certain brickmaker of his acquaintance.
“Are you here, Dan?” he said, knocking at the door of a cottage which stood alone, close to the towing-path of the canal, and close also to a forlorn corner of the muddy, watery, ugly, disordered brick-field. It was now just past six o’clock, and the men would be rising, as in midwinter they commenced their work at seven. The cottage was an unalluring, straight brick-built tenement, seeming as though intended to be one of a row which had never progressed beyond Number One. A voice answered from the interior, inquiring who was the visitor, to which Mr. Crawley replied by giving his name. Then the key was turned in the lock, and Dan Morris, the brickmaker, appeared with a candle in his hand. He had been engaged in lighting the fire, with a view to his own breakfast. “Where is your wife, Dan?” asked Mr. Crawley. The man answered by pointing with a short poker, which he held in his hand, to the bed, which was half screened from the room by a ragged curtain, which hung from the ceiling half-way down to the floor. “And are the Darvels here?” asked Mr. Crawley. Then Morris, again using the poker, pointed upwards, showing that the Darvels were still in their allotted abode upstairs.
“You’re early out, Muster Crawley,” said Morris, and then he went on with his fire. “Drat the sticks, if they bean’t as wet as the old ‘un hisself. Get up, old woman, and do you do it, for I can’t. They wun’t kindle for me, nohow.” But the old woman, having well noted the presence of Mr. Crawley, thought it better to remain where she was.
Mr. Crawley sat himself down by the obstinate fire, and began to arrange the sticks. “Dan, Dan,” said a voice from the bed, “sure you wouldn’t let his reverence trouble himself with the fire.”
“How be I to keep him from it, if he chooses? I didn’t ax him.” Then Morris stood by and watched, and after a while Mr. Crawley succeeded in his attempt.
“How could it burn when you had not given the small spark a current of air to help it?” said Mr. Crawley.
“In course not,” said the woman, “but he be such a stupid.”
The husband said no word in acknowledgement of this compliment, nor did he thank Mr. Crawley for what he had done, nor appear as though he intended to take any notice of him. He was going on with his work when Mr. Crawley again interrupted him.
“How did you get back from Silverbridge yesterday, Dan?”
“Footed it—all the blessed way.”
“It’s only eight miles.”
“And I footed it there, and that’s sixteen. And I paid one-and-sixpence for beer and grub—s’help me I did.”
“Dan!” said a voice from the bed, rebuking him for the impropriety of his language.
“Well; I beg pardon, but I did. And they guv’ me two bob—just two plain shillings, by ——”
“Dan!”
“And I’d ‘ve arned three-and-six here at brickmaking easy; that’s what I wuld. How’s a poor man to live that way? They’ll not cotch me at Barchester ‘Sizes at that price; they may be sure of that. Look there—that’s what I’ve got for my day.” And he put his hand into his breeches-pocket and fetched out a sixpence. “How’s a man to fill his belly out of that. Damnation!”
“Dan!”
“Well, what did I say? Hold your jaw, will you, and not be halloaing at me that way? I know what I’m a saying of, and what I’m a doing of.”
“I wish they’d given you something more with all my heart,” said Crawley.
“We knows that,” cried the woman from the bed. “We is sure of that, your reverence.”
“Sixpence!” said the man, scornfully. “If they’d have guv’ me nothing at all but the run of my teeth at the public-house, I’d ‘ve taken it better. But sixpence!”
Then there was a pause. “And what have they given to me?” said Mr. Crawley, when the man’s ill-humour about his sixpence had so far subsided as to allow of his busying himself again about the premises.
“Yes, indeed—yes, indeed,” said the woman. “Yes, yes, we feel that; we do indeed, Mr. Crawley.”
“I tell you what, sir; for another sixpence I’d ‘ve sworn you’d never guv’ me the paper at all; and so I will now, if it bean’t too late—sixpence or no sixpence. What do I care? d—— them.”
“Dan!”
“And why shouldn’t I? They hain’t got brains enough among them to winny the truth from the lies—not among the lot of ‘em. I’ll swear afore the judge that you didn’t give it me at all, if that’ll do any good.”
“Man, do you think I would have you perjure yourself, even if that would do me a service? And do you think that any man was ever served by a lie?”
“Faix, among them chaps it don’t do to tell them too much of the truth. Look at that!” And he brought out the sixpence again from his breeches-pocket. “And look at your reverence. Only that they’ve let you out for a while, they’ve been nigh as hard on you as though you were one of us.”
“If they think that I stole it, they have been right,” said Mr. Crawley.
“It’s been along of that chap, Soames,” said the woman. “The lord would ‘ve paid the money out of his own pocket and never said not a word.”
“If they think that I’ve been a thief, they’ve done right,” repeated Mr. Crawley. “But how can they think so? How can they think so? Have I lived like a thief among them?”
“For the matter o’ that, if a man ain’t paid for his work by them as is his employers, he must pay hisself. Them’s my notions. Look at that!” Whereupon he again pulled out the sixpence, and held it forth in the palm of his hand.
“You believe, then,” said Mr. Crawley, speaking very slowly, “that I did steal the money. Speak out, Dan; I shall not be angry. As you go you are honest men, and I want to know what such as you think about it.”
“He don’t think nothing of the kind,” said the woman, almost getting out of bed in her energy. “If he’d athought the like o’ that in his head, I’d read ‘un such a lesson he’d never think again the longest day he had to live.”
“Speak out, Dan,” said the clergyman, not attending to the woman. “You can understand that no good can come of a lie.” Dan Morris scratched his head. “Speak out, man, when I tell you,” said Crawley.
“Drat it all,” said Dan, “where’s the use of so much jaw about it?”
“Say you know his reverence is as innocent as the babe as isn’t born,” said the woman.
“No; I won’t—say anything of the kind,” said Dan.
“Speak out the truth,” said Crawley.
“They do say, among ‘em,” said Dan, “that you picked it up, and then got woolgathering in your head till you didn’t rightly know where it come from.” Then he paused. “And after a bit you guv’ it me to get the money. Didn’t you, now?”
“I did.”
“And they do say if a poor man had done it, it’d been stealing, for sartin.”
“And I’m a poor man—the poorest in all Hogglestock; and, therefore, of course, it is stealing. Of course I am a thief. Yes; of course I am a thief. When did not the world believe the worst of the poor?” Having so spoken, Mr. Crawley rose from his chair and hurried out of the cottage, waiting no further reply from Dan Morris or his wife. And as he made his way slowly home, not going there by the direct road, but by a long circuit, he told himself there could be no sympathy for him anywhere. Even Dan Morris, the brickmaker, thought that he was a thief.
“An
d am I a thief?” he said to himself, standing in the middle of the road, with his hands up to his forehead.
CHAPTER XIII
The Bishop’s Angel
It was nearly nine before Mr. Crawley got back to his house, and found his wife and daughter waiting breakfast for him. “I should not wonder if Grace were over here to-day,” said Mrs. Crawley. “She’d better remain where she is,” said he. After this the meal passed almost without a word. When it was over, Jane, at a sign from her mother, went up to her father and asked him whether she should read with him. “Not now,” he said, “not just now. I must rest my brain before it will be fit for any work.” Then he got into the chair over the fire, and his wife began to fear that he would remain there all the day.
But the morning was not far advanced, when there came a visitor who disturbed him, and by disturbing him did him real service. Just at ten there arrived at the little gate before the house a man on a pony, whom Jane espied, standing there by the pony’s head and looking about for some one to relieve him from the charge of his steed. This was Mr. Thumble, who had ridden over to Hogglestock on a poor spavined brute belonging to the bishop’s stable, and which had once been the bishop’s cob. Now it was the vehicle by which Mrs. Proudie’s episcopal messages were sent backwards and forwards through a twelve-miles ride round Barchester; and so many were the lady’s requirements, that the poor animal by no means ate the hay of idleness. Mr. Thumble had suggested to Mrs. Proudie, after their interview with the bishop and the giving up of the letter to the clerical messenger’s charge, that before hiring a gig from the Dragon of Wantly, he should be glad to know—looking as he always did to “Mary Anne and the children”—whence the price of the gig was to be returned to him. Mrs. Proudie had frowned at him—not with all the austerity of frowning which she could use when really angered, but simply with a frown which gave her some little time for thought, and would enable her to continue to rebuke if, after thinking, she should find that rebuke was needed. But mature consideration showed her that Mr. Thumble’s caution was not without reason. Were the bishop energetic, or even the bishop’s managing chaplain as energetic as he should be, Mr. Crawley might, as Mrs. Proudie felt assured, be made in some way to pay for a conveyance for Mr. Thumble. But the energy was lacking, and the price of the gig, if the gig were ordered, would certainly fall ultimately on the bishop’s shoulders. This was very sad. Mrs. Proudie had often grieved over the necessary expenditure of episcopal surveillance, and had been heard to declare her opinion that a liberal allowance for secret service should be made in every diocese. What better could the Ecclesiastical Commissioners do with all those rich revenues which they had stolen from the bishops? But there was no such liberal allowance at present, and, therefore, Mrs. Proudie, after having frowned at Mr. Thumble for some seconds, desired him to take the grey cob. Now, Mr. Thumble had ridden the grey cob before, and would much have preferred a gig. But even the grey cob was better than a gig at his own cost.
“Mamma, there’s a man at the gate wanting to come in,” said Jane. “I think he’s a clergyman.”
Mr. Crawley immediately raised his head, though he did not at once leave his chair. Mrs. Crawley went to the window, and recognised the reverend visitor. “My dear, it is that Mr. Thumble, who is so much with the bishop.”
“What does Mr. Thumble want with me.”
“Nay, my dear; he will tell you that himself.” But Mrs. Crawley, though she answered him with a voice intended to be cheerful, greatly feared the coming of this messenger from the palace. She perceived at once that the bishop was about to interfere with her husband in consequence of that which the magistrates had done yesterday.
“Mamma, he doesn’t know what to do with his pony,” said Jane.
“Tell him to tie it to the rail,” said Mr. Crawley. “If he has expected to find menials here, as he has them at the palace, he will be wrong. If he wants to come in here, let him tie the beast to the rail.” So Jane went out and sent a message to Mr. Thumble by the girl, and Mr. Thumble did tie the pony to the rail, and followed the girl into the house. Jane in the meantime had retired out by the back door to the school, but Mrs. Crawley kept her ground. She kept her ground although she believed almost that her husband would prefer to have the field to himself. As Mr. Thumble did not at once enter the room, Mr. Crawley stalked to the door, and stood with it open in his hand. Though he knew Mr. Thumble’s person, he was not acquainted with him, and therefore he simply bowed to the visitor, bowing more than once or twice with a cold courtesy, which did not put Mr. Thumble altogether at his ease. “My name is Mr. Thumble,” said the visitor—”the Reverend Caleb Thumble,” and he held the bishop’s letter in his hand. Mr. Crawley seemed to take no notice of the letter, but motioned Mr. Thumble with his hand into the room.
“I suppose you have come from Barchester this morning?” said Mrs. Crawley.
“Yes, madam—from the palace.” Mr. Thumble, though a humble man in positions in which he felt that humility would become him—a humble man to his betters, as he himself would have expressed it—had still about him something of that pride which naturally belonged to those clergymen who were closely attached to the palace at Barchester. Had he been sent on a message to Plumstead—could any such message from Barchester palace have been possible—he would have been properly humble in his demeanour to the archdeacon, or to Mrs. Grantly had he been admitted to the august presence of that lady; but he was aware that humility would not become him on his present mission; he had been expressly ordered to be firm by Mrs. Proudie, and firm he meant to be; and therefore, in communicating to Mrs. Crawley the fact that he had come from the palace, he did load the tone of his voice with something of the dignity which Mr. Crawley might perhaps be excused for regarding as arrogance.
“And what does the ‘palace’ want with me?” said Mr. Crawley. Mrs. Crawley knew at once that there was to be a battle. Nay, the battle had begun. Nor was she altogether sorry; for though she could not trust her husband to sit alone all day in his arm-chair over the fire, she could trust him to carry on a disputation with any other clergyman on any subject whatever. “What does the palace want with me?” And as Mr. Crawley asked the question he stood erect, and looked Mr. Thumble full in the face. Mr. Thumble called to mind the fact, that Mr. Crawley was a very poor man indeed—so poor that he owed money all round the country to butchers and bakers, and the other fact, that he, Mr. Thumble himself, did not owe any money to anyone, his wife luckily having a little income of her own; and, strengthened by these remembrances, he endeavoured to bear Mr. Crawley’s attack with gallantry.
“Of course, Mr. Crawley, you are aware that this unfortunate affair at Silverbridge—”
“I am not prepared, sir, to discuss the unfortunate affair at Silverbridge with a stranger. If you are the bearer of any message to me from the Bishop of Barchester, perhaps you will deliver it.”
“I have brought a letter,” said Mr. Thumble. Then Mr. Crawley stretched out his hand without a word, and taking the letter with him to the window, read it very slowly. When he had made himself master of its contents, he refolded the letter, placed it again in the envelope, and returned to the spot where Mr. Thumble was standing. “I will answer the bishop’s letter,” he said; “I will answer it of course, as it is fitting that I should do so. Shall I ask you to wait for my reply, or shall I send it by course of post?”
“I think, Mr. Crawley, as the bishop wishes me to undertake the duty—”
“You will not undertake the duty, Mr. Thumble. You need not trouble yourself, for I shall not surrender my pulpit to you.”
“But the bishop—”
“I care nothing for the bishop in this matter.” So much he spoke in anger, and then he corrected himself. “I crave the bishop’s pardon, and yours as his messenger, if in the heat occasioned by my strong feelings I have said aught which may savour of irreverence towards his lordship’s office. I respect his lordship’s high position as bishop of this diocese, and I bow to his commands in all th
ings lawful. But I must not bow to him in things unlawful, nor must I abandon my duty before God at his bidding, unless his bidding be given in accordance with the canons of the Church and the laws of the land. It will be my duty, on the coming Sunday, to lead the prayers of my people in the church of my parish, and to preach to them from my pulpit; and that duty, with God’s assistance, I will perform. Nor will I allow any clergyman to interfere with me in the performance of those sacred offices—no, not though the bishop himself should be present with the object of enforcing his illegal command.” Mr. Crawley spoke these words without hesitation, even with eloquence, standing upright, and with something of a noble anger gleaming over his poor wan face; and, I think, that while speaking them, he was happier than he had been for many a long day.
Mr. Thumble listened to him patiently, standing with one foot a little in advance of the other, with one hand folded over the other, with his head rather on one side, and with his eyes fixed on the corner where the wall and ceiling joined each other. He had been told to be firm, and he was considering how he might best display firmness. He thought that he remembered some story of two parsons fighting for one pulpit, and he thought also that he should not himself like to incur the scandal of such a proceeding in the diocese. As to the law in the matter he knew nothing himself; but he presumed that a bishop would probably know the law better than a perpetual curate. That Mrs. Proudie was intemperate and imperious, he was aware. Had the message come from her alone, he might have felt that even for her sake he had better give way. But as the despotic arrogance of the lady had been in this case backed by the timid presence and hesitating words of her lord, Mr. Thumble thought that he must have the law on his side. “I think you will find, Mr. Crawley,” said he, “that the bishop’s inhibition is strictly legal.” He had picked up the powerful word from Mrs. Proudie and flattered himself that it might be of use to him in carrying his purpose.
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