MR. CRAWLEY'S LAST APPEARANCE IN HIS OWN PULPIT.
No word or message from Mr. Crawley reached Barchester throughout
the week, and on the Sunday morning Mr. Thumble was under a positive
engagement to go out to Hogglestock, and perform the services of the
church. Dr. Tempest had been quite right in saying that Mr. Thumble
would be awed by the death of his patroness. Such was altogether
the case, and he was very anxious to escape from the task he had
undertaken at her instance, if it were possible. In the first place,
he had never been a favourite with the bishop himself, and had now,
therefore, nothing to expect in the diocese. The crusts from bits of
loaves and the morsels of broken fishes which had come in his way
had all come from the bounty of Mrs. Proudie. And then, as regarded
this special Hogglestock job, how was he to get paid for it? Whence,
indeed, was he to seek repayment for the actual money which he would
be out of pocket in finding his way to Hogglestock and back again?
But he could not get to speak to the bishop, nor could he induce any
one who had access to his lordship to touch upon the subject. Mr.
Snapper avoided him as much as possible; and Mr. Snapper, when he
was caught and interrogated, declared that he regarded the matter as
settled. Nothing could be in worse taste, Mr. Snapper thought, than
to undo, immediately after the poor lady's death, work in the diocese
which had been arranged and done by her. Mr. Snapper expressed his
opinion that Mr. Thumble was bound to go out to Hogglestock; and,
when Mr. Thumble declared petulantly that he would not stir a step
out of Barchester, Mr. Snapper protested that Mr. Thumble would have
to answer for it in this world and in the next if there were no
services at Hogglestock on that Sunday. On the Saturday evening Mr.
Thumble made a desperate attempt to see the bishop, but was told by
Mrs. Draper that the bishop had positively declined to see him. The
bishop himself probably felt unwilling to interfere with his wife's
doings so soon after her death! So Mr. Thumble, with a heavy heart,
went across to "The Dragon of Wantly," and ordered a gig, resolving
that the bill should be sent in to the palace. He was not going to
trust himself again upon the bishop's cob!
Up to Saturday evening Mr. Crawley did the work of his parish, and
on the Saturday evening he made an address to his parishioners from
his pulpit. He had given notice among the brickmakers and labourers
that he wished to say a few words to them in the school-room; but the
farmers also heard of this and came with their wives and daughters,
and all the brickmakers came, and most of the labourers were
there, so that there was no room for them in the school-house. The
congregation was much larger than was customary even in the church.
"They will come," he said to his wife, "to hear a ruined man declare
his own ruin, but they will not come to hear the word of God."
When it was found that the persons assembled were too many for the
school-room, the meeting was adjourned to the church, and Mr. Crawley
was forced to get into his pulpit. He said a short prayer, and then
he began his story.
[Illustration: "They will come to hear a ruined man
declare his own ruin."]
His story as he told it then shall not be repeated now, as the same
story has been told too often already in these pages. Surely it was a
singular story for a parish clergyman to tell of himself in so solemn
a manner. That he had applied the cheque to his own purposes, and was
unable to account for the possession of it, was certain. He did not
know when or how he had got it. Speaking to them then in God's house
he told them that. He was to be tried by a jury, and all he could
do was to tell the jury the same. He would not expect the jury to
believe him. The jury would, of course, believe only that which was
proved to them. But he did expect his old friends at Hogglestock,
who had known him so long, to take his word as true. That there was
no sufficient excuse for his conduct, even in his own sight, this,
his voluntary resignation of his parish, was, he said, sufficient
evidence. Then he explained to them, as clearly as he was able, what
the bishop had done, what the commission had done, and what he had
done himself. That he spoke no word of Mrs. Proudie to that audience
need hardly be mentioned here. "And now, dearest friends, I leave
you," he said, with that weighty solemnity which was so peculiar to
the man, and which he was able to make singularly impressive even on
such a congregation as that of Hogglestock, "and I trust that the
heavy but pleasing burden of the charge which I have had over you may
fall into hands better fitted than mine have been for such work. I
have always known my own unfitness, by reason of the worldly cares
with which I have been laden. Poverty makes the spirit poor, and the
hands weak, and the heart sore,--and too often makes the conscience
dull. May the latter never be the case with any of you." Then he
uttered another short prayer, and, stepping down from the pulpit,
walked out of the church, with his weeping wife hanging on his arm,
and his daughter following them, almost dissolved in tears. He never
again entered that church as the pastor of the congregation.
There was an old lame man from Hoggle End leaning on his stick near
the door as Mr. Crawley went out, and with him was his old lame wife.
"He'll pull through yet," said the old man to his wife; "you'll see
else. He'll pull through because he's so dogged. It's dogged as does
it."
On that night the position of the members of Mr. Crawley's household
seemed to have been changed. There was something almost of elation
in his mode of speaking, and he said soft loving words, striving
to comfort his wife. She, on the other hand, could say nothing to
comfort him. She had been averse to the step he was taking, but
had been unable to press her objection in opposition to his great
argument as to duty. Since he had spoken to her in that strain which
he had used with Robarts, she also had felt that she must be silent.
But she could not even feign to feel the pride which comes from the
performance of a duty. "What will he do when he comes out?" she said
to her daughter. The coming out spoken of by her was the coming out
of prison. It was natural enough that she should feel no elation.
The breakfast on Sunday morning was to her, perhaps, the saddest
scene of her life. They sat down, the three together, at the usual
hour,--nine o'clock,--but the morning had not been passed as was
customary on Sundays. It had been Mr. Crawley's practice to go into
the school from eight to nine; but on this Sunday he felt, as he
told his wife, that his presence would be an intrusion there. But
he requested Jane to go and perform her usual task. "If Mr. Thumble
should come," he said to her, "be submissive to him in all things."
Then he stood at his door, watching to see at what hour Mr. Thumble
would reach the school. But Mr. Thumble did not attend the school on
that morning. "And yet he was very express to me in his desire that
I would not myself meddle with the duties," said Mr. Crawley to his
wife as he stood at the door,--"unnecessarily urgent, as I must say
I thought at the time." If Mrs. Crawley could have spoken out her
thoughts about Mr. Thumble at that moment, her words would, I think,
have surprised her husband.
At breakfast there was hardly a word spoken. Mr. Crawley took his
crust and eat it mournfully,--almost ostentatiously. Jane tried and
failed, and tried to hide her failure, failing in that also. Mrs.
Crawley made no attempt. She sat behind her old teapot, with her
hands clasped and her eyes fixed. It was as though some last day had
come upon her,--this, the first Sunday of her husband's degradation.
"Mary," he said to her, "why do you not eat?"
"I cannot," she replied, speaking not in a whisper, but in words
which would hardly get themselves articulated. "I cannot. Do not ask
me."
"For the honour of the Lord you will want the strength which bread
alone can give you," he said, intimating to her that he wished her to
attend the service.
"Do not ask me to be there, Josiah. I cannot. It is too much for me."
"Nay; I will not press it," he said. "I can go alone." He uttered no
word expressive of a wish that his daughter should attend the church;
but when the moment came, Jane accompanied him. "What shall I do,
mamma," she said, "if I find I cannot bear it?" "Try to bear it," the
mother said. "Try, for his sake. You are stronger now than I am."
The tinkle of the church bell was heard at the usual time, and Mr.
Crawley, hat in hand, stood ready to go forth. He had heard nothing
of Mr. Thumble, but had made up his mind that Mr. Thumble would not
trouble him. He had taken the precaution to request his churchwarden
to be early at the church, so that Mr. Thumble might encounter no
difficulty. The church was very near to the house, and any vehicle
arriving might have been seen had Mr. Crawley watched closely. But no
one had cared to watch Mr. Thumble's arrival at the church. He did
not doubt that Mr. Thumble would be at the church. With reference to
the school, he had had some doubt.
But just as he was about to start he heard the clatter of a gig. Up
came Mr. Thumble to the door of the parsonage, and having come down
from his gig was about to enter the house as though it were his own.
Mr. Crawley greeted him in the pathway, raising his hat from his
head, and expressing a wish that Mr. Thumble might not feel himself
fatigued with his drive. "I will not ask you into my poor house," he
said, standing in the middle of the pathway; "for that my wife is
ill."
"Nothing catching, I hope?" said Mr. Thumble.
"Her malady is of the spirit rather than of the flesh," said Mr.
Crawley. "Shall we go on to the church?"
"Certainly,--by all means. How about the surplice?"
"You will find, I trust, that the churchwarden has everything in
readiness. I have notified to him expressly your coming, with the
purport that it may be so."
"You'll take a part in the service, I suppose?" said Mr. Thumble.
"No part,--no part whatever," said Mr. Crawley, standing still for a
moment as he spoke, and showing plainly by the tone of his voice how
dismayed he was, how indignant he had been made, by so indecent a
proposition. Was he giving up his pulpit to a stranger for any reason
less cogent than one which made it absolutely imperative on him to be
silent in that church which had so long been his own?
"Just as you please," said Mr. Thumble. "Only it's rather hard lines
to have to do it all myself after coming all the way from Barchester
this morning." To this Mr. Crawley condescended to make no reply
whatever.
In the porch of the church, which was the only entrance, Mr. Crawley
introduced Mr. Thumble to the churchwarden, simply by a wave of the
hand, and then passed on with his daughter to a seat which opened
upon the aisle. Jane was going on to that which she had hitherto
always occupied with her mother in the little chancel; but Mr.
Crawley would not allow this. Neither to him nor to any of his family
was there attached any longer the privilege of using the chancel of
the church of Hogglestock.
Mr. Thumble scrambled into the reading-desk some ten minutes after
the proper time, and went through the morning service under, what
must be admitted to be, serious difficulties. There were the eyes
of Mr. Crawley fixed upon him throughout the work, and a feeling
pervaded him that everybody there regarded him as an intruder. At
first this was so strong upon him that Mr. Crawley pitied him, and
would have encouraged him had it been possible. But as the work
progressed, and as custom and the sound of his own voice emboldened
him, there came to the man some touches of the arrogance which so
generally accompanies cowardice, and Mr. Crawley's acute ear detected
the moment when it was so. An observer might have seen that the
motion of his hands was altered as they were lifted in prayer. Though
he was praying, even in prayer he could not forget the man who was
occupying his desk.
Then came the sermon, preached very often before, lasting exactly
half-an-hour, and then Mr. Thumble's work was done. Itinerant
clergymen, who preach now here and now there, as it had been the lot
of Mr. Thumble to do, have at any rate this relief,--that they can
preach their sermons often. From the communion-table Mr. Thumble had
stated that, in the present peculiar circumstances of the parish,
there would be no second service at Hogglestock for the present; and
this was all he said or did peculiar to the occasion. The moment
the service was over he got into his gig, and was driven back to
Barchester.
"Mamma," said Jane, as they sat at their dinner, "such a sermon I am
sure was never heard in Hogglestock before. Indeed, you can hardly
call it a sermon. It was downright nonsense."
"My dear," said Mr. Crawley, energetically, "keep your criticisms for
matters that are profane; then, though they be childish and silly,
they may at least be innocent. Be critical on Euripides, if you must
be critical." But when Jane kissed her father after dinner, she,
knowing his humour well, felt assured that her remarks had not been
taken altogether in ill part.
Mr. Thumble was neither seen nor heard of again in the parish during
the entire week.