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
well nigh 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 to-day. 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 _protégée_ 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.