a small rectory-house with three old silent servants. He established
himself there with his books, and began in a very heavy-hearted way to
discharge the duties of the position; he spent his mornings in quiet
reading or strolling—the place lay at the top of high cliffs and included
many wild and magnificent prospects. The afternoon he spent in trudging
over the parish, making himself acquainted with the farmers and other
inhabitants of the region. In the evening he read and wrote again. He
had not been there a week before he became conscious that the life had a
charm. He had written in the first few days of his depression to several
old friends imploring them to have mercy on his loneliness. Circumstances
delayed their arrival, and at last when he had been there some six weeks,
a letter announcing the arrival of an old friend and his wife for a
week’s visit gave him, he confessed, far more annoyance than pleasure.
He entertained them, however, but felt distinctly relieved when they
departed. At the end of the six months I saw him, and he told me that
solitude was a dangerous Circe, seductive, delicious, but one that should
be resolutely and deliberately shunned, an opiate of which one could not
estimate the fascination. And I am not speaking of a torpid or indolent
man, but a man of force, intellect, and cultivation, of a restless mind
and vivid interests.
[_The passages that follow were either extracted by the author
himself from his own diaries, or are taken from a notebook
containing fragments of an autobiographical character. When the
date is ascertainable it is given at the head of the piece._—J. T.]
18
Now I will draw, carefully, faithfully, and lovingly, the portraits
of some of my friends; they are not ever likely to set eyes on the
delineation: and if by some chance they do, they will forgive me, I think.
I have chosen three or four of the most typical of my not very numerous
neighbours, though there are many similar portraits scattered up and down
my diaries.
It happened this morning that a small piece of parish business turned up
which necessitated my communicating with Sir James, our chief landowner.
Staunton is his name, and his rank is baronet. He comes from a typically
English stock. As early as the fourteenth century the Stauntons seem to
have held land in the parish; they were yeomen, no doubt, owning a few
hundred acres of freehold. In the sixteenth century one of them drifted
to London, made a fortune, and, dying childless, left his money to the
head of the house, who bought more land, built a larger house, became
esquire, and eventually knight; his brass is in the church. They were
unimaginative folk, and whenever the country was divided, they generally
contrived to find themselves upon the prosaic and successful side.
[Sidenote: THE BISHOP]
Early in the eighteenth century there were two brothers: the younger, a
clergyman, by some happy accident became connected with the Court, made
a fortunate marriage, and held a deanery first, and then a bishopric.
Here he amassed a considerable fortune. His portrait, which hangs at
the Park, represents a man with a face of the shape and colour of a
ripe plum, with hardly more distinction of feature, shrouded in a full
wig. Behind him, under a velvet curtain, stands his cathedral, in a
stormy sky. The bishop’s monument is one of the chief disfigurements,
or the chief ornaments of our church, according as your taste is
severe or catholic. It represents the deceased prelate in a reclining
attitude, with a somewhat rueful expression, as of a man fallen from a
considerable height. Over him bends a solicitous angel in the attitude
of one inquiring what is amiss. One of the prelate’s delicate hands is
outstretched from a gigantic lawn sleeve, like a haggis, which requires
an iron support to sustain it; the other elbow is propped upon some
marble volumes of controversial divinity. In an alcove behind is a tumid
mitre, quite putting into the shade a meagre celestial crown with marble
rays, which is pushed unceremoniously into the top of the recess.
[Sidenote: THE BARONETS]
The bishop succeeded his elder brother in the estate, and added largely
to the property. The bishop’s only son sat for a neighbouring borough,
and was created a baronet for his services, which were of the most
straightforward kind. At this point, by one of the strange freaks
of which even county families are sometimes guilty, a curious gleam
of romance flashed across the dull record. The baronet’s eldest son
developed dim literary tastes, drifted to London, became a hanger-on of
the Johnsonian circle—his name occurs in footnotes to literary memoirs
of the period; married a lady of questionable reputation, and published
two volumes of “Letters to a Young Lady of Quality,” which combine, to a
quite singular degree, magnificence of diction with tenuity of thought.
This Jack Staunton was a spendthrift, and would have made strange havoc
of the estate, but his father fortunately outlived him; and by the offer
of a small pension to Mrs. Jack, who was left hopelessly destitute,
contrived to get the little grandson and heir into his own hands. The
little boy developed into the kind of person that no one would desire as
a descendant, but that all would envy as an ancestor. He was a miser pure
and simple. In his day the tenants were ground down, rents were raised,
plantations were made, land was acquired in all directions; but the house
became ruinous, and the miserable owner, in a suit of coarse cloth like a
second-rate farmer, sneaked about his lands with a shy and secret smile,
avoiding speech with tenants and neighbours alike, and eating small and
penurious meals in the dusty dining-room in company with an aged and
drunken bailiff, the discovery of whose constant attempts to defraud his
master of a few shillings were the delight and triumph of the baronet’s
life. He died a bachelor; at his death a cousin, a grandson of the first
baronet, succeeded, and found that whatever else he had done, the miser
had left immense accumulations of money behind him. This gentleman was in
the army, and fought at Waterloo, after which he imitated the example
of his class, and became an unflinching Tory politician. The fourth
baronet was a singularly inconspicuous person whom I can just remember,
whose principal diversion was his kennel. I have often seen him when,
as a child, I used to lunch there with my mother, stand throughout the
meal in absolute silence, sipping a glass of sherry on the hearthrug, and
slowly munching a large biscuit, and, before we withdrew, producing from
his pocket the envelopes which had contained the correspondence of the
morning, and filling them with bones, pieces of fat, fag-ends of joints,
to bestow upon the dogs in the course of the afternoon. This habit I
considered, as a child, to be distinctly agreeable, and I should have
been deeply disappointed if Sir John had ever failed to do it.
[Sidenote: SIR JAMES]
The present Sir James is now a man of forty. He was at Eton and Trinity,
and for a short time in the Guards. He married the daughter of a
neighbouring baronet, and at the age of thirty, when his father died,
settled down to the congenial occupation of a country gentleman. He is,
in spite of the fact that he had a large landed estate, a very wealthy
man. I imagine he has at least £20,000 a year. He has a London house,
to which Lady Staunton goes for the season, but Sir James, who makes a
point of accompanying her, soon finds that business necessitates his at
once returning to the country; and I am not sure that the summer months,
which he spends absolutely alone, are not the most agreeable part of the
year for him. He has three stolid and healthy children—two boys and a
girl. He takes no interest whatever in politics, religion, literature, or
art. He takes in the _Standard_ and the _Field_. He hunts a little, and
shoots a little, but does not care about either. He spends his morning
and afternoon in pottering about the estate. In the evening he writes a
few letters, dines well, reads the paper and goes to bed. He does not
care about dining out; indeed the prospect of a dinner-party or a dance
clouds the pleasure of the day. He goes to church once on Sunday; he is
an active magistrate; he has, at long intervals, two or three friends of
like tastes to stay with him, who accompany him, much to his dislike,
in his perambulations, and stand about whistling, or staring at stacks
and cattle, while he talks to the bailiff. But he is a kindly, cheery,
generous man, with a good head for business, and an idea of his position.
He is absolutely honourable and straightforward, and faces an unpleasant
duty, when he has made up his mind to it, with entire tranquillity. No
mental speculation has ever come in his way; at school he was a sound,
healthy boy, good at games, who did his work punctually, and was of
blameless character. He made no particular friends; sat through school
after school, under various sorts of masters, never inattentive, and
never interested. He had a preference for dull and sober teachers, men
with whom, as he said, “you knew where you were;” a stimulating teacher
bewildered him,—“always talking about poetry and rot.” At Cambridge it
was the same. He rowed in his College boat; he passed the prescribed
examinations; he led a clean healthy decorous life; and no idea, small
or great, no sense of beauty, no wonder at the scheme of things, ever
entered his head. If by chance he ever found himself in the company of an
enthusiastic undergraduate, whose mind and heart were full of burning,
incomplete, fantastic thoughts, James listened politely to what he had
to say, hazarded no statements, and said, in quiet after-comment,
“Gad, how that chap does jaw!” No one ever thought him stupid; he knew
what was going on; he was sociable, kind, not the least egotistical,
and far too much of a gentleman to exhibit the least complacency in his
position or wealth—only he knew exactly what he liked, and had none
of the pathetic admiration for talent that is sometimes found in the
unintellectual. When he went into the Guards it was just the same. He was
popular and respected, friendly with his men, perfectly punctual, capable
and respectable. He had no taste for wine or gambling, or disreputable
courses. He admired nobody and nothing, and no one ever obtained the
slightest influence over him. At home he was perfectly happy, kind to his
sisters, ready to do anything he was asked, and to join in anything that
was going on. When he succeeded to the estate, he went quietly to work to
find a wife, and married a pretty, contented girl, with the same notions
as himself. He never said an unkind thing to her, or to any of his
family, and expressed no extravagant affection for any one. He is trustee
for all his relations, and always finds time to look after their affairs.
He is always ready to subscribe to any good object, and had contrived
never to squabble with an angular ritualistic clergyman, who thinks him a
devoted son of the Church. He has declined several invitations to stand
for Parliament, and has no desire to be elevated to the Peerage. He will
probably live to a green old age, and leave an immense fortune. I do not
fancy that he is much given to meditate about his latter end; but if he
ever lets his mind range over the life beyond the grave, he probably
anticipates vaguely that, under somewhat airy conditions, he will
continue to enjoy the consideration of his fellow-beings, and deserve
their respect.
19
For nearly ten years after we came to Golden End, the parish was
administered by an elderly clergyman, who had already been over twenty
years in the place. He was little known outside the district at all; I
doubt if, between the occasion of his appointment to the living and his
death, his name ever appeared in the papers. The Bishop of the diocese
knew nothing of him; if the name was mentioned in clerical society, it
was dismissed again with some such comment as “Ah, poor Woodward! an able
man, I believe, but utterly unpractical;” and yet I have always held this
man to be on the whole one of the most remarkable people I have ever
known.
[Sidenote: MR. WOODWARD]
He was a tall thin man, with a slight stoop. He could not be called
handsome, but his face had a strange dignity and power; he had a pallid
complexion, at times indeed like parchment from its bloodlessness, and
dark hair which remained dark up to the very end. His eyebrows were
habitually drawn up, giving to his face a look of patient endurance;
his eyelids drooped over his eyes, which gave his expression a certain
appearance of cynicism, but when he opened them full, and turned them
upon you, they were dark, passionate, and with a peculiar brightness. His
lips were full and large, with beautiful curves, but slightly compressed
as a rule, which gave a sense of severity. He was clean shaven, and
always very carefully dressed, but in somewhat secular style, with high
collars, a frock-coat and waistcoat, a full white cambric tie, and—I
shudder to relate it in these days—he was seldom to be seen in black
trousers, but wore a shade of dark grey. If you had substituted a black
tie for a white one you would have had an ordinary English layman dressed
as though for town—for he always wore a tall hat. He often rode about the
parish, when he wore a dark grey riding-suit with gaiters. I do not think
he ever gave his clothes a thought, but he had the instincts of a fine
gentleman, and loved neatness and cleanliness. He had never married, but
his house was administered by an elderly sister—rather a grim, majestic
personage, with a sharp ironical tongue, and no great indulgence for
weakness. Miss Woodward considered herself an invalid, and only appeared
in fine weather, driving in a smart little open carriage. They were
people of considerable wealth, and the rectory, which was an important
house standing in a large glebe, had two gardeners and good stables,
and was furnished within, in a dignified way, with old solid furniture.
Mr. Woodward had a large library, and at the little dinner-parties that
he gave, where the food was of the simplest, the plate was ancient and
abundant—old silver candlesticks and salvers in profusion—and a row of
family pictures beamed on you from the walls. Mr. Woodward used to say,
if any one admired any particular piece of plate, “Yes, I believe it is
good; it was all collected by an old uncle of mine, who left it to me
with his blessing for my lifetime. Of course I don’t quite approve of
using it—I believe I ought not even to have two coats—but I can’t sell
it, and meantime it looks very nice and does no harm.” The living was
a wealthy one, but it was soon discovered that Mr. Woodward spent all
that he received on that head in the parish. He did not pauperise idle
parishioners, but he was always ready with a timely gift to tide an
honest man over a difficulty. He liked to start the boys in life, and
would give a girl a little marriage portion. He paid for a parish nurse,
but at the same time he insisted on almsgiving as a duty. “I don’t do
these things to save you the trouble of giving,” he would say, “but to
give you a lead; and if I find that the offertories go down, then my
subscriptions will go down too;” but he would sometimes say that he
feared he was making things difficult for his successor. “I can’t help
that; if he is a good man the people will understand.”
[Sidenote: THE CHURCH]
Mr. Woodward was a great politician and used to say that it was a
perpetual temptation to him to sit over the papers in the morning instead
of doing his work. But the result was that he always had something to
talk about, and his visits were enjoyed by the least spiritual of his
parishioners. He was of course eclectic in his politics, and combined a
good deal of radicalism with an intense love and veneration for the past.
He restored his church with infinite care and taste, and was for ever
beautifying it in small ways. He used to say that there were two kinds
of church-goers—the people who liked the social aspect of the service,
who preferred a blaze of light, hearty singing, and the presence of a
large number of people; but that were others who preferred it from the
quiet and devotional side, and who were only distracted from the main
object of the service by the presence of alert and critical persons.
Consequently he had a little transept divided from the body of the church
by a simple screen, and kept the lights low within it. The transept was
approached by a separate door, and he invited people who could not come
for the whole service to slip in for a little of it. At the same time
there was plenty of room in the church, and as the parish is not thickly
populated, so that you could be sure of finding a seat in any part of
the church that suited your mood. He never would have a surpliced choir;
and in the morning service, nothing was sung except the canticles and
hymns; but there was a fine organ built at his expense, and he offered a
sufficiently large salary to secure an organist of considerable taste and
skill. He greatly believed in music, and part of the organist’s duty was
to give a little recital once a week, which was generally well attended.
He himself was always present at the choir practices, and the result of
the whole was that the congregation sang well, with a tone and a feeling
that I have never heard in places where the indigenous materials for
choral music were so scanty.
Mr. Woodward talked a good deal on religious subjects, but with an ease
and a naturalness which saved his hearers from any feeling of awkwardness
or affectation. I have never heard any one who seemed to live so
naturally in the seen and the unseen together, and his transitions from
mundane to religious talk were made with such simplicity that his hearers
felt no embarrassment or pain. After all, the ethical side of life is
what we are all interested in—moreover, Mr. Woodward had a decidedly
magnetic gift—that gift which, if it had been accompanied with more fire
and volubility, would have made him an orator. As it was, the circle to
whom he talked felt insensibly interested in what he spoke of, and at
the same time there was such a transparent simplicity about the man that
no one could have called him affected. His talk it would be impossible
to recall; it depended upon all sorts of subtle and delicate effects
of personality. Indeed, I remember once after an evening spent in his
company, during which he had talked with an extraordinary pathos and
emotion, I wrote down what I could remember of it. I look at it now and
wonder what the spell was; it seems so ordinary, so simple, so, may I
say, platitudinal.
Yet I may mention two or three of his chance sayings. I found him one
day in his study deeply engrossed in a book which I saw was the Life of
Darwin. He leapt to his feet to greet me, and after the usual courtesies
said, “What a wonderful book this is—it is from end to end nothing but
a cry for the Nicene Creed! The man walks along, doing his duty so
splendidly and nobly, with such single-heartedness and simplicity, and
just misses the way all the time; the gospel he wanted is just the other
side of the wall. But he must know now, I think. Whenever I go to the
Abbey, I always go straight to his grave, and kneel down close beside it,
and pray that his eyes may be opened. Very foolish and wrong, I dare say,
but I can’t help it!”
Another day he found me working at a little pedigree of my father’s
simple ancestors. I had hunted their names up in an old register, and
there was quite a line of simple persons to record. He looked over my
shoulder at the sheet while I told him what it was. “Dear old folk!” he
said, “I hope you say a prayer now and then for some of them; they belong
to you and you to them, but I dare say they were sad Socinians, many of
them (laughing). Well, that’s all over now. I wonder what they do with
themselves over there?”
[Sidenote: THE PEACOCK]
Mr. Woodward was of course adored by the people of the village. In his
trim garden lived a couple of pea-fowl—gruff and selfish birds, but very
beautiful to look at. Mr. Woodward had a singular delight in watching
the old peacock trail his glories in the sun. They roosted in a tree
that overhung the road. There came to stay in the next village a sailor,
a ne’er-do-weel, who used to hang about with a gun. One evening Mr.
Woodward heard a shot fired in the lane, went out of his study, and found
that the sailor had shot the peacock, who was lying on his back in the
road, feebly poking out his claws, while the aggressor was pulling the
feathers from his tail. Mr. Woodward was extraordinarily moved. The man
caught in the act looked confused and bewildered. “Why did you shoot my
poor old bird?” said Mr. Woodward. The sailor in apology said he thought
it was a pheasant. Mr. Woodward, on the verge of tears, carried the
helpless fowl into the garden, but finding it was already dead, interred
it with his own hands, told his sister at dinner what had happened, and
said no more.
But the story spread, and four stalwart young parishioners of Mr.
Woodward’s vowed vengeance, caught the luckless sailor in a lane,
broke his gun, and put him in the village pond, from which he emerged
a lamentable sight, cursing and spluttering; the process was sternly
repeated, and not until he handed over all his available cash for the
purpose of replacing the bird did his judges desist. Another peacock was
bought and presented to Mr. Woodward, the offender being obliged to make
the presentation himself with an abject apology, being frankly told that
the slightest deviation from the programme would mean another lustral
washing.
The above story testifies to the sort of position which Mr. Woodward held
in his parish; and what is the most remarkable part of it, indicates
the esteem with which he was regarded by the most difficult members of
a congregation to conciliate—the young men. But then Mr. Woodward was
at ease with the young men. He had talked to them as boys, with a grave
politeness which many people hold to be unnecessary in the case of the
young. He had encouraged them to come to him in all sorts of little
troubles. The men who had resented the loss of Mr. Woodward’s peacock
knew him as an intimate and honoured family friend; he had tided one
over a small money difficulty, and smoothed the path of an ambition
for another. He had claimed no sacerdotal rights over the liberties of
his people, but such allegiance as he had won was the allegiance that
always waits upon sympathy and goodwill; and further, he was shrewd
and practical in small concerns, and had the great gift of foreseeing
contingencies. He never forgot the clerical character, but he made it
unobtrusive, kept it waiting round the corner, and it was always there
when it was wanted.
[Sidenote: THE PROFESSOR]