MR. CRAWLEY OF HOGGLESTOCK.
And then there was that other trouble in Lady Lufton’s mind, the sins,
namely, of her selected parson. She had selected him, and she was by no
means inclined to give him up, even though his sins against parsondom
were grievous. Indeed she was a woman not prone to give up anything, and
of all things not prone to give up a _protégé_. The very fact that she
herself had selected him was the strongest argument in his favour.
But his sins against parsondom were becoming very grievous in her eyes,
and she was at a loss to know what steps to take. She hardly, dared to
take him to task, him himself. Were she to do so, and should he then tell
her to mind her own business—as he probably might do, though not in those
words—there would be a schism in the parish; and almost anything would
be better than that. The whole work of her life would be upset, all the
outlets of her energy would be impeded if not absolutely closed, if a
state of things were to come to pass in which she and the parson of her
parish should not be on good terms.
But what was to be done? Early in the winter he had gone to Chaldicotes
and to Gatherum Castle, consorting with gamblers, whigs, atheists, men of
loose pleasure, and Proudieites. That she had condoned; and now he was
turning out a hunting parson on her hands. It was all very well for Fanny
to say that he merely looked at the hounds as he rode about his parish.
Fanny might be deceived. Being his wife, it might be her duty not to see
her husband’s iniquities. But Lady Lufton could not be deceived. She knew
very well in what part of the county Cobbold’s Ashes lay. It was not in
Framley parish, nor in the next parish to it. It was half-way across to
Chaldicotes—in the western division; and she had heard of that run in
which two horses had been killed, and in which parson Robarts had won
such immortal glory among West Barsetshire sportsmen. It was not easy to
keep Lady Lufton in the dark as to matters occurring in her own county.
All these things she knew, but as yet had not noticed, grieving over
them in her own heart the more on that account. Spoken grief relieves
itself; and when one can give counsel, one always hopes at least that
that counsel will be effective. To her son she had said, more than once,
that it was a pity that Mr. Robarts should follow the hounds.—“The world
has agreed that it is unbecoming in a clergyman,” she would urge, in her
deprecatory tone. But her son would by no means give her any comfort.
“He doesn’t hunt, you know—not as I do,” he would say. “And if he did,
I really don’t see the harm of it. A man must have some amusement, even
if he be an archbishop.” “He has amusement at home,” Lady Lufton would
answer. “What does his wife do—and his sister?” This allusion to Lucy,
however, was very soon dropped.
Lord Lufton would in no wise help her. He would not even passively
discourage the vicar, or refrain from offering to give him a seat in
going to the meets. Mark and Lord Lufton had been boys together, and
his lordship knew that Mark in his heart would enjoy a brush across the
country quite as well as he himself; and then what was the harm of it?
Lady Lufton’s best aid had been in Mark’s own conscience. He had taken
himself to task more than once, and had promised himself that he would
not become a sporting parson. Indeed, where would be his hopes of
ulterior promotion, if he allowed himself to degenerate so far as that?
It had been his intention, in reviewing what he considered to be the
necessary proprieties of clerical life, in laying out his own future
mode of living, to assume no peculiar sacerdotal strictness; he would
not be known as a denouncer of dancing or of card-tables, of theatres
or of novel-reading; he would take the world around him as he found
it, endeavouring by precept and practice to lend a hand to the gradual
amelioration which Christianity is producing; but he would attempt no
sudden or majestic reforms. Cake and ale would still be popular, and
ginger be hot in the mouth, let him preach ever so—let him be never so
solemn a hermit; but a bright face, a true trusting heart, a strong arm,
and an humble mind, might do much in teaching those around him that men
may be gay and yet not profligate, that women may be devout and yet not
dead to the world.
Such had been his ideas as to his own future life; and though many will
think that as a clergyman he should have gone about his work with more
serious devotion of thought, nevertheless there was some wisdom in
them;—some folly also, undoubtedly, as appeared by the troubles into
which they led him.
“I will not affect to think that to be bad,” said he to himself, “which
in my heart of hearts does not seem to be bad.” And thus he resolved that
he might live without contamination among hunting squires. And then,
being a man only too prone by nature to do as others did around him,
he found by degrees that that could hardly be wrong for him which he
admitted to be right for others.
But still his conscience upbraided him, and he declared to himself more
than once that after this year he would hunt no more. And then his own
Fanny would look at him on his return home on those days in a manner that
cut him to the heart. She would say nothing to him. She never inquired in
a sneering tone, and with angry eyes, whether he had enjoyed his day’s
sport; but when he spoke of it, she could not answer him with enthusiasm;
and in other matters which concerned him she was always enthusiastic.
After a while, too, he made matters worse, for about the end of March he
did another very foolish thing. He almost consented to buy an expensive
horse from Sowerby—an animal which he by no means wanted, and which,
if once possessed, would certainly lead him into further trouble. A
gentleman, when he has a good horse in his stable, does not like to leave
him there eating his head off. If he be a gig-horse, the owner of him
will be keen to drive a gig; if a hunter, the happy possessor will wish
to be with a pack of hounds.
“Mark,” said Sowerby to him one day, when they were out together, “this
brute of mine is so fresh, I can hardly ride him; you are young and
strong; change with me for an hour or so.” And then they did change,
and the horse on which Robarts found himself mounted went away with him
beautifully.
“He’s a splendid animal,” said Mark, when they again met.
“Yes, for a man of your weight. He’s thrown away upon me;—too much of a
horse for my purposes. I don’t get along now quite as well as I used to
do. He is a nice sort of hunter; just rising six, you know.”
How it came to pass that the price of the splendid animal was mentioned
between them, I need not describe with exactness. But it did come to pass
that Mr. Sowerby told the parson that the horse should be his for 130_l._
“And I really wish you’d take him,” said Sowerby. “It would be the means
of partially relieving my mind of a great weight.”
Mark looked up into his friend’s face with an air of surprise, for he did
not at the moment understand how this should be the case.
“I am afraid, you know, that you will have to put your hand into your
pocket sooner or later about that accursed bill—” Mark shrank as the
profane word struck his ears—“and I should be glad to think that you had
got something in hand in the way of value.”
“Do you mean that I shall have to pay the whole sum of 500_l._?”
“Oh! dear, no; nothing of the kind. But something I dare say you will
have to pay: if you like to take Dandy for a hundred and thirty, you can
be prepared for that amount when Tozer comes to you. The horse is dog
cheap, and you will have a long day for your money.”
Mark at first declared, in a quiet, determined tone, that he did not want
the horse; but it afterwards appeared to him that if it were so fated
that he must pay a portion of Mr. Sowerby’s debts, he might as well repay
himself to any extent within his power. It would be as well perhaps that
he should take the horse and sell him. It did not occur to him that by so
doing he would put it in Mr. Sowerby’s power to say that some valuable
consideration had passed between them with reference to this bill, and
that he would be aiding that gentleman in preparing an inextricable
confusion of money-matters between them. Mr. Sowerby well knew the value
of this. It would enable him to make a plausible story, as he had done in
that other case of Lord Lufton.
“Are you going to have Dandy?” Sowerby said to him again.
“I can’t say that I will just at present,” said the parson. “What should
I want of him now the season’s over?”
“Exactly, my dear fellow; and what do I want of him now the season’s
over? If it were the beginning of October instead of the end of March,
Dandy would be up at two hundred and thirty instead of one: in six
months’ time that horse will be worth anything you like to ask for him.
Look at his bone.”
The vicar did look at his bones, examining the brute in a very knowing
and unclerical manner. He lifted the animal’s four feet, one after
another, handling the frogs, and measuring with his eye the proportion of
the parts; he passed his hand up and down the legs, spanning the bones
of the lower joint; he peered into his eyes, took into consideration the
width of his chest, the dip of his back, the form of his ribs, the curve
of his haunches, and his capabilities for breathing when pressed by work.
And then he stood away a little, eyeing him from the side, and taking in
a general idea of the form and make of the whole. “He seems to stand over
a little,” I think, said the parson.
“It’s the lie of the ground. Move him about, Bob. There now, let him
stand there.”
“He’s not perfect,” said Mark. “I don’t quite like his heels; but no
doubt he’s a nicish cut of a horse.”
“I rather think he is. If he were perfect, as you say, he would not be
going into your stables for a hundred and thirty. Do you ever remember to
have seen a perfect horse?”
“Your mare Mrs. Gamp was as nearly perfect as possible.”
“Even Mrs. Gamp had her faults. In the first place she was a bad feeder.
But one certainly doesn’t often come across anything much better than
Mrs. Gamp.” And thus the matter was talked over between them with much
stable conversation, all of which tended to make Sowerby more and more
oblivious of his friend’s sacred profession, and perhaps to make the
vicar himself too frequently oblivious of it also. But no: he was not
oblivious of it. He was even mindful of it; but mindful of it in such a
manner that his thoughts on the subject were nowadays always painful.
There is a parish called Hogglestock lying away quite in the northern
extremity of the eastern division of the county—lying also on the borders
of the western division. I almost fear that it will become necessary,
before this history be completed, to provide a map of Barsetshire for
the due explanation of all these localities. Framley is also in the
northern portion of the county, but just to the south of the grand
trunk line of railway from which the branch to Barchester strikes off
at a point some thirty miles nearer to London. The station for Framley
Court is Silverbridge, which is, however, in the western division of the
county. Hogglestock is to the north of the railway, the line of which,
however, runs through a portion of the parish, and it adjoins Framley,
though the churches are as much as seven miles apart. Barsetshire taken
altogether is a pleasant green tree-becrowded county, with large bosky
hedges, pretty damp deep lanes, and roads with broad grass margins
running along them. Such is the general nature of the county; but just
up in its northern extremity this nature alters. There it is bleak and
ugly, with low artificial hedges and without wood; not uncultivated, as
it is all portioned out into new-looking large fields, bearing turnips
and wheat and mangel, all in due course of agricultural rotation; but it
has none of the special beauties of English cultivation. There is not
a gentleman’s house in the parish of Hogglestock besides that of the
clergyman; and this, though it is certainly the house of a gentleman,
can hardly be said to be fit to be so. It is ugly, and straight, and
small. There is a garden attached to the house, half in front of it and
half behind; but this garden, like the rest of the parish, is by no
means ornamental, though sufficiently useful. It produces cabbages, but
no trees: potatoes of, I believe, an excellent description, but hardly
any flowers, and nothing worthy of the name of a shrub. Indeed the whole
parish of Hogglestock should have been in the adjoining county, which is
by no means so attractive as Barsetshire;—a fact well known to those few
of my readers who are well acquainted with their own country.
Mr. Crawley, whose name has been mentioned in these pages, was the
incumbent of Hogglestock. On what principle the remuneration of our
parish clergymen was settled when the original settlement was made,
no deepest, keenest lover of middle-aged ecclesiastical black-letter
learning can, I take it, now say. That the priests were to be paid
from tithes of the parish produce, out of which tithes certain other
good things were to be bought and paid for, such as church repairs and
education, of so much the most of us have an inkling. That a rector,
being a big sort of parson, owned the tithes of his parish in full,—or at
any rate that part of them intended for the clergyman,—and that a vicar
was somebody’s deputy, and therefore entitled only to little tithes,
as being a little body: of so much we that are simple in such matters
have a general idea. But one cannot conceive that even in this way any
approximation could have been made, even in those old mediæval days,
towards a fair proportioning of the pay to the work. At any rate, it is
clear enough that there is no such approximation now.
And what a screech would there not be among the clergy of the Church,
even in these reforming days, if any over-bold reformer were to suggest
that such an approximation should be attempted? Let those who know
clergymen, and like them, and have lived with them, only fancy it!
Clergymen to be paid, not according to the temporalities of any living
which they may have acquired either by merit or favour, but in accordance
with the work to be done! O Doddington! and O Stanhope, think of this, if
an idea so sacrilegious can find entrance into your warm ecclesiastical
bosoms! Ecclesiastical work to be bought and paid for according to its
quantity and quality!
But, nevertheless, one may prophesy that we Englishmen must come to
this, disagreeable as the idea undoubtedly is. Most pleasant-minded
churchmen feel, I think, on this subject pretty much in the same way.
Our present arrangement of parochial incomes is beloved as being
time-honoured, gentlemanlike, English, and picturesque. We would fain
adhere to it closely as long as we can, but we know that we do so
by the force of our prejudices, and not by that of our judgment. A
time-honoured, gentlemanlike, English, picturesque arrangement is so far
very delightful. But are there not other attributes very desirable—nay,
absolutely necessary—in respect to which this time-honoured, picturesque
arrangement is so very deficient?
How pleasant it was, too, that one bishop should be getting fifteen
thousand a year and another with an equal cure of parsons only four! That
a certain prelate could get twenty thousand one year and his successor in
the same diocese only five the next! There was something in it pleasant,
and picturesque; it was an arrangement endowed with feudal charms,
and the change which they have made was distasteful to many of us. A
bishop with a regular salary, and no appanage of land and land-bailiffs,
is only half a bishop. Let any man prove to me the contrary ever so
thoroughly—let me prove it to my own self ever so often, my heart in
this matter is not thereby a whit altered. One liked to know that there
was a dean or two who got his three thousand a year, and that old Dr.
Purple held four stalls, one of which was golden, and the other three
silver-gilt! Such knowledge was always pleasant to me! A golden stall!
How sweet is the sound thereof to church-loving ears!
But bishops have been shorn of their beauty, and deans are in their
decadence. A utilitarian age requires the fatness of the ecclesiastical
land, in order that it may be divided out into small portions of
provender, on which necessary working clergymen may live,—into portions
so infinitesimally small that working clergymen can hardly live.
And the full-blown rectors and vicars, with full-blown tithes—with
tithes when too full-blown for strict utilitarian principles—will
necessarily follow. Stanhope and Doddington must bow their heads,
with such compensation for temporal rights as may be extracted,—but
probably without such compensation as may be desired. In other trades,
professions, and lines of life, men are paid according to their work.
Let it be so in the Church. Such will sooner or later be the edict of a
utilitarian, reforming, matter-of-fact House of Parliament.
I have a scheme of my own on the subject, which I will not introduce
here, seeing that neither men nor women would read it. And with reference
to this matter, I will only here further explain that all these words
have been brought about by the fact, necessary to be here stated,
that Mr. Crawley only received one hundred and thirty pounds a year
for performing the whole parochial duty of the parish of Hogglestock.
And Hogglestock is a large parish. It includes two populous villages,
abounding in brickmakers, a race of men very troublesome to a zealous
parson who won’t let men go rollicking to the devil without interference.
Hogglestock has full work for two men; and yet all the funds therein
applicable to parson’s work is this miserable stipend of one hundred
and thirty pounds a year. It is a stipend neither picturesque, nor
time-honoured, nor feudal, for Hogglestock takes rank only as a perpetual
curacy.
Mr. Crawley has been mentioned before as a clergyman of whom Mr. Robarts
said, that he almost thought it wrong to take a walk out of his own
parish. In so saying Mark Robarts of course burlesqued his brother
parson; but there can be no doubt that Mr. Crawley was a strict man,—a
strict, stern, unpleasant man, and one who feared God and his own
conscience. We must say a word or two of Mr. Crawley and his concerns.
He was now some forty years of age, but of these he had not been in
possession even of his present benefice for more than four or five. The
first ten years of his life as a clergyman had been passed in performing
the duties and struggling through the life of a curate in a bleak, ugly,
cold parish on the northern coast of Cornwall. It had been a weary life
and a fearful struggle, made up of duties ill requited and not always
satisfactorily performed, of love and poverty, of increasing cares, of
sickness, debt, and death. For Mr. Crawley had married almost as soon
as he was ordained, and children had been born to him in that chill,
comfortless Cornish cottage. He had married a lady well educated and
softly nurtured, but not dowered with worldly wealth. They two had gone
forth determined to fight bravely together; to disregard the world
and the world’s ways, looking only to God and to each other for their
comfort. They would give up ideas of gentle living, of soft raiment, and
delicate feeding. Others,—those that work with their hands, even the
bettermost of such workers—could live in decency and health upon even
such provision as he could earn as a clergyman. In such manner would they
live, so poorly and so decently, working out their work, not with their
hands but with their hearts.
And so they had established themselves, beginning the world with one
bare-footed little girl of fourteen to aid them in their small household
matters; and for a while they had both kept heart, loving each other
dearly, and prospering somewhat in their work. But a man who has once
walked the world as a gentleman knows not what it is to change his
position, and place himself lower down in the social rank. Much less can
he know what it is so to put down the woman whom he loves. There are a
thousand things, mean and trifling in themselves, which a man despises
when he thinks of them in his philosophy, but to dispense with which puts
his philosophy to so stern a proof. Let any plainest man who reads this
think of his usual mode of getting himself into his matutinal garments,
and confess how much such a struggle would cost him.
And then children had come. The wife of the labouring man does rear her
children, and often rears them in health, without even so many appliances
of comfort as found their way into Mrs. Crawley’s cottage; but the task
to her was almost more than she could accomplish. Not that she ever
fainted or gave way: she was made of the sterner metal of the two, and
could last on while he was prostrate.
And sometimes he was prostrate—prostrate in soul and spirit. Then would
he complain with bitter voice, crying out that the world was too hard
for him, that his back was broken with his burden, that his God had
deserted him. For days and days, in such moods, he would stay within his
cottage, never darkening the door or seeing other face than those of
his own inmates. Those days were terrible both to him and her. He would
sit there unwashed, with his unshorn face resting on his hand, with an
old dressing-gown hanging loose about him, hardly tasting food, seldom
speaking, striving to pray, but striving so frequently in vain. And then
he would rise from his chair, and, with a burst of frenzy, call upon his
Creator to remove him from this misery.
In these moments she never deserted him. At one period they had had four
children, and though the whole weight of this young brood rested on her
arms, on her muscles, on her strength of mind and body, she never ceased
in her efforts to comfort him. Then at length, falling utterly upon the
ground, he would pour forth piteous prayers for mercy, and, after a night
of sleep, would once more go forth to his work.
But she never yielded to despair: the struggle was never beyond her
powers of endurance. She had possessed her share of woman’s loveliness,
but that was now all gone. Her colour quickly faded, and the fresh, soft
tints soon deserted her face and forehead. She became thin, and rough,
and almost haggard: thin, till her cheek-bones were nearly pressing
through her skin, till her elbows were sharp, and her finger-bones as
those of a skeleton. Her eye did not lose its lustre, but it became
unnaturally bright, prominent, and too large for her wan face. The soft
brown locks which she had once loved to brush back, scorning, as she
would boast to herself, to care that they should be seen, were now sparse
enough and all untidy and unclean. It was matter of little thought now
whether they were seen or no. Whether he could be made fit to go into
his pulpit—whether they might be fed—those four innocents—and their backs
kept from the cold wind—that was now the matter of her thought.
And then two of them died, and she went forth herself to see them laid
under the frost-bound sod, lest he should faint in his work over their
graves. For he would ask aid from no man—such at least was his boast
through all.
Two of them died, but their illness had been long; and then debts came
upon them. Debt, indeed, had been creeping on them with slow but sure
feet during the last five years. Who can see his children hungry, and not
take bread if it be offered? Who can see his wife lying in sharpest want,
and not seek a remedy if there be a remedy within reach? So debt had come
upon them, and rude men pressed for small sums of money—for sums small to
the world, but impossibly large to them. And he would hide himself within
there, in that cranny of an inner chamber—hide himself with deep shame
from the world, with shame, and a sinking heart, and a broken spirit.
But had such a man no friend? it will be said. Such men, I take it, do
not make many friends. But this man was not utterly friendless. Almost
every year one visit was paid to him in his Cornish curacy by a brother
clergyman, an old college friend, who, as far as might in him lie, did
give aid to the curate and his wife. This gentleman would take up his
abode for a week at a farmer’s in the neighbourhood, and though he found
Mr. Crawley in despair, he would leave him with some drops of comfort
in his soul. Nor were the benefits in this respect all on one side.
Mr. Crawley, though at some periods weak enough for himself, could be
strong for others; and, more than once, was strong to the great advantage
of this man whom he loved. And then, too, pecuniary assistance was
forthcoming—in those earlier years not in great amount, for this friend
was not then among the rich ones of the earth—but in amount sufficient
for that moderate hearth, if only its acceptance could have been managed.
But in that matter there were difficulties without end. Of absolute money
tenders Mr. Crawley would accept none. But a bill here and there was
paid, the wife assisting; and shoes came for Kate—till Kate was placed
beyond the need of shoes; and cloth for Harry and Frank found its way
surreptitiously in beneath the cover of that wife’s solitary trunk—cloth
with which those lean fingers worked garments for the two boys, to be
worn—such was God’s will—only by the one.
Such were Mr. and Mrs. Crawley in their Cornish curacy, and during their
severest struggles. To one who thinks that a fair day’s work is worth a
fair day’s wages, it seems hard enough that a man should work so hard and
receive so little. There will be those who think that the fault was all
his own in marrying so young. But still there remains that question, Is
not a fair day’s work worth a fair day’s wages? This man did work hard—at
a task perhaps the hardest of any that a man may do; and for ten years he
earned some seventy pounds a year. Will any one say that he received fair
wages for his fair work, let him be married or single? And yet there are
so many who would fain pay their clergy, if they only knew how to apply
their money! But that is a long subject, as Mr. Robarts had told Miss
Dunstable.
Such was Mr. Crawley in his Cornish curacy.