Scenes of Clerical Life Read online

adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census, are neither

  extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise;

  their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with

  suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or

  thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and

  their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a

  volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose

  conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these common-place

  people�many of them�bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do

  the painful right; they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys;

  their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have

  mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very

  insignificance,� in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the

  glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share?

  Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see

  some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the

  experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that

  speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. In that case, I should have no fear

  of your not caring to know what farther befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your

  thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath your attention. As it

  is, you can, if you please, decline to pursue my story farther; and you will

  easily find reading more to your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that

  many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling incidents, and

  eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last season.

  Meanwhile, readers who have begun to feel an interest in the Rev. Amos Barton

  and his wife, will be glad to learn that Mr Oldinport lent the twenty pounds.

  But twenty pounds are soon exhausted when twelve are due as back payment to the

  butcher, and when the possession of eight extra sovereigns in February weather

  is an irresistible temptation to order a new greatcoat. And though Mr Bridmain

  so far departed from the necessary economy entailed on him by the Countess's

  elegant toilette and expensive maid, as to choose a handsome black silk, stiff,

  as his experienced eye discerned, with the genuine strength of its own texture,

  and not with the factitious strength of gum, and present it to Mrs Barton, in

  retrieval of the accident that had occurred at his table, yet, dear me�as every

  husband has heard�what is the present of a gown, when you are deficiently

  furnished with the et-ceteras of apparel, and when, moreover, there are six

  children whose wear and tear of clothes is something incredible to the

  non-maternal mind?

  Indeed, the equation of income and expenditure was offering new and constantly

  accumulating difficulties to Mr and Mrs Barton; for shortly after the birth of

  little Walter, Milly's aunt, who had lived with her ever since her marriage, had

  withdrawn herself, her furniture, and her yearly income, to the household of

  another niece; prompted to that step, very probably, by a slight "tiff" with the

  Rev. Amos, which occurred while Milly was up-stairs, and proved one too many for

  the elderly lady's patience and magnanimity. Mr Barton's temper was a little

  warm, but, on the other hand, elderly maiden ladies are known to be susceptible;

  so we will not suppose that all the blame lay on his side�the less so, as he had

  every motive for humouring an inmate whose presence kept the wolf from the door.

  It was now nearly a year since Miss Jackson's departure, and, to a fine ear, the

  howl of the wolf was audibly approaching.

  It was a sad thing, too, that when the last snow had melted, when the purple and

  yellow crocuses were coming up in the garden, and the old church was already

  half pulled down, Milly had an illness which made her lips look pale, and

  rendered it absolutely necessary that she should not exert herself for some

  time. Mr Brand, the Shepperton doctor so obnoxious to Mr Pilgrim, ordered her to

  drink port-wine, and it was quite necessary to have a char-woman very often, to

  assist Nanny in all the extra work that fell upon her.

  Mrs Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to any one but her oldest and nearest

  neighbour, Mrs Patten, now took the unusual step of calling at the vicarage one

  morning; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes as she saw Milly seated

  pale and feeble in the parlour, unable to persevere in sewing the pinafore that

  lay on the table beside her. Little Dickey, a boisterous boy of five, with large

  pink cheeks and sturdy legs, was having his turn to sit with Mamma, and was

  squatting quiet as a mouse at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his

  little red, black-nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs Hackit, in a severe mood,

  had pronounced "stocky" (a word that etymologically, in all probability, conveys

  some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory); but seeing him

  thus subdued into goodness, she smiled at him with her kindest smile, and,

  stooping down, suggested a kiss�a favour which Dickey resolutely declined.

  "Now do you take nourishing things anuff?" was one of Mrs Hackit's first

  questions, and Milly endeavoured to make it appear that no woman was ever so

  much in danger of being over-fed and led into self-indulgent habits as herself.

  But Mrs Hackit gathered one fact from her replies, namely, that Mr Brand had

  ordered port-wine.

  While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively stroking

  and kissing the soft white hand; so that at last, when a pause came, his mother

  said, smilingly, "Why are you kissing my hand, Dickey?"

  "It id to yovely," answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly backward in

  his pronunciation.

  Mrs Hackit remembered this little scene in after days, and thought with peculiar

  tenderness and pity of the "stocky boy."

  The next day there came a hamper with Mrs Hackit's respects; and on being

  opened, it was found to contain half-a-dozen of port-wine and two couples of

  fowls. Mrs Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs Barton's rejecting all

  arrowroot but hers, which was genuine Indian, and carried away Sophy and Fred to

  stay with her a fortnight. These and other good-natured attentions made the

  trouble of Milly's illness more bearable; but they could not prevent it from

  swelling expenses, and Mr Barton began to have serious thoughts of representing

  his case to a certain charity for the relief of needy curates.

  Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more likely to

  have a strong sense that the clergyman needed their material aid, than that they

  needed his spiritual aid,�not the best state of things in this age and country,

  where faith in men solely on the ground of their spiritual gifts has

  considerably diminished, and especially unfavourable to the influence of the

  Rev. Amos, whose spiritual gifts would not have had a very commanding power even

  in an age of faith.

  But, you ask
, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any attention to her friends

  all this time? To be sure she did. She was indefatigable in visiting her "sweet

  Milly," and sitting with her for hours together; and it may seem remarkable to

  you that she neither thought of taking away any of the children, nor of

  providing for any of Milly's probable wants; but ladies of rank and of luxurious

  habits, you know, cannot be expected to surmise the details of poverty. She put

  a great deal of eau-de-Cologne on Mrs Barton's pocket-handkerchief, rearranged

  her pillow and footstool, kissed her cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm shawl

  from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life she had seen

  abroad. When Mr Barton joined them, she talked of Tractarianism, of her

  determination not to reenter the vortex of fashionable life, and of her anxiety

  to see him in a sphere large enough for his talents. Milly thought her

  sprightliness and affectionate warmth quite charming, and was very fond of her;

  while the Rev. Amos had a vague consciousness that he had risen into

  aristocratic life, and only associated with his middle-class parishioners in a

  pastoral and parenthetic manner.

  However, as the days brightened, Milly's cheeks and lips brightened too; and in

  a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful eyes might have

  seen that activity was not easy to her. Mrs Hackit's eyes were of that kind, and

  one day when Mr and Mrs Barton had been dining with her for the first time since

  Milly's illness, she observed to her husband�"That poor thing's dreadful weak

  an' dilicate; she won't stan' havin' many more children."

  Mr Barton, meanwhile, had been indefatigable in his vocation. He had preached

  two extemporary sermons every Sunday at the workhouse, where a room had been

  fitted up for divine service, pending the alterations in the church; and had

  walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other extremity of his parish to

  deliver another sermon, still more extemporary, in an atmosphere impregnated

  with spring-flowers and perspiration. After all these labours you will easily

  conceive that he was considerably exhausted by half-past nine o'clock in the

  evening, and that a supper at a friendly parishioner's, with a glass, or even

  two glasses, of brandy-and-water after it, was a welcome reinforcement. Mr

  Barton was not at all an ascetic: he thought the benefits of fasting were

  entirely confined to the Old Testament dispensation; he was fond of relaxing

  himself with a little gossip; indeed, Miss Bond, and other ladies of

  enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr Barton did not more

  uninterruptedly exhibit a superiority to the things of the flesh. Thin ladies,

  who take little exercise, and whose livers are not strong enough to bear

  stimulants, are so extremely critical about one's personal habits! And, after

  all, the Rev. Amos never came near the borders of a vice. His very faults were

  middling�he was not very ungrammatical. It was not in his nature to be

  superlative in anything; unless, indeed, he was superlatively middling, the

  quintessential extract of mediocrity. If there was any one point on which he

  showed an inclination to be excessive, it was confidence in his own shrewdness

  and ability in practical matters, so that he was very full of plans which were

  something like his moves in chess�admirably well calculated, supposing the state

  of the case were otherwise. For example, that notable plan of introducing

  anti-dissenting books into his Lending Library did not in the least appear to

  have bruised the head of Dissent, though it had certainly made Dissent strongly

  inclined to bite the Rev. Amos's heel. Again, he vexed the souls of his

  church-wardens and influential parishioners by his fertile suggestiveness as to

  what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs, and

  other ecclesiastical secularities.

  "I never see the like to parsons," Mr Hackit said one day in conversation with

  his brother churchwarden, Mr Bond; "they're al'ys for meddlin' wi' business, an'

  they know no moor about it than my black filly."

  "Ah," said Mr Bond, "they're too high learnt to have much common-sense."

  "Well," remarked Mr Hackit, in a modest and dubious tone, as if throwing out a

  hypothesis which might be considered bold, "I should say that's a bad sort o'

  eddication as makes folks onreasonable."

  So that, you perceive, Mr Barton's popularity was in that precarious condition,

  in that toppling and contingent state, in which a very slight push from a

  malignant destiny would utterly upset it. That push was not long in being given,

  as you shall hear.

  One fine May morning, when Amos was out on his parochial visits, and the

  sunlight was streaming through the bow-window of the sitting-room, where Milly

  was seated at her sewing, occasionally looking up to glance at the children

  playing in the garden, there came a loud rap at the door, which she at once

  recognised as the Countess's, and that well-dressed lady presently entered the

  sitting-room, with her veil drawn over her face. Milly was not at all surprised

  or sorry to see her; but when the Countess threw up her veil, and showed that

  her eyes were red and swollen, she was both surprised and sorry.

  "What can be the matter, dear Caroline?"

  Caroline threw down Jet, who gave a little yelp; then she threw her arms round

  Milly's neck, and began to sob; then she threw herself on the sofa, and begged

  for a glass of water; then she threw off her bonnet and shawl; and, by the time

  Milly's imagination had exhausted itself in conjuring up calamities, she said,�

  "Dear, how shall I tell you? I am the most wretched woman. To be deceived by a

  brother to whom I have been so devoted�to see him degrading himself�giving

  himself utterly to the dogs!"

  "What can it be?" said Milly, who began to picture to herself the sober Mr

  Bridmain taking to brandy and betting.

  "He is going to be married�to marry my own maid, that deceitful Alice, to whom I

  have been the most indulgent mistress. Did you ever hear of anything so

  disgraceful? so mortifying? so disreputable?"

  "And has he only just told you of it?" said Milly, who, having really heard of

  worse conduct, even in her innocent life, avoided a direct answer.

  "Told me of it! he had not even the grace to do that. I went into the

  dining-room suddenly and found him kissing her�disgusting at his time of life,

  is it not?�and when I reproved her for allowing such liberties, she turned round

  saucily, and said she was engaged to be married to my brother, and she saw no

  shame in allowing him to kiss her. Edmund is a miserable coward, you know, and

  looked frightened; but when she asked him to say whether it was not so, he tried

  to summon up courage and say yes. I left the room in disgust, and this morning I

  have been questioning Edmund, and find that he is bent on marrying this woman,

  and that he has been putting off telling me�because he was ashamed of himself, I

  suppose. I couldn't possibly stay in the house after this, with my own maid

  turned mistress. And now, Milly, I am come to throw myself on your charity for a


  week or two. Will you take me in?"

  "That we will," said Milly, "if you will only put up with our poor rooms and way

  of living. It will be delightful to have you!"

  "It will soothe me to be with you and Mr Barton a little while. I feel quite

  unable to go among my other friends just at present. What those two wretched

  people will do I don't know �leave the neighbourhood at once, I hope. I

  entreated my brother to do so, before he disgraced himself."

  When Amos came home, he joined his cordial welcome and sympathy to Milly's.

  By-and-by the Countess's formidable boxes, which she had carefully packed before

  her indignation drove her away from Camp Villa, arrived at the vicarage, and

  were deposited in the spare bedroom, and in two closets, not spare, which Milly

  emptied for their reception. A week afterwards, the excellent apartments at Camp

  Villa, comprising dining and drawing rooms, three bedrooms and a dressing-room,

  were again to let, and Mr Bridmain's sudden departure, together with the

  Countess Czerlaski's installation as a visitor at Shepperton Vicarage, became a

  topic of general conversation in the neighbourhood. The keen-sighted virtue of

  Milby and Shepperton saw in all this a confirmation of its worst suspicions, and

  pitied the Rev. Amos Barton's gullibility.

  But when week after week, and month after month, slipped by without witnessing

  the Countess's departure�when summer and harvest had fled, and still left her

  behind them occupying the spare bedroom and the closets, and also a large

  proportion of Mrs Barton's time and attention, new surmises of a very evil kind

  were added to the old rumours, and began to take the form of settled convictions

  in the minds even of Mr Barton's most friendly parishioners.

  And now, here is an opportunity for an accomplished writer to apostrophise

  calumny, to quote Virgil, and to show that he is acquainted with the most

  ingenious things which have been said on that subject in polite literature.

  But what is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which

  the waves of time wash away into nonentity. So, as my memory is ill-furnished,

  and my note-book still worse, I am unable to show myself either erudite or

  eloquent apropos of the calumny whereof the Rev. Amos Barton was the victim. I

  can only ask my reader, did you ever upset your ink-bottle, and watch, in

  helpless agony, the rapid spread of Stygian blackness over your fair manuscript

  or fairer table-cover? With a like inky swiftness did gossip now blacken the

  reputation of the Rev. Amos Barton, causing the unfriendly to scorn and even the

  friendly to stand aloof, at a time when difficulties of another kind were fast

  thickening around him.

  CHAPTER VI.

  One November morning, at least six months after the Countess Czerlaski had taken

  up her residence at the vicarage, Mrs Hackit heard that her neighbour Mrs Patten

  had an attack of her old complaint, vaguely called "the spasms." Accordingly,

  about eleven o'clock, she put on her velvet bonnet and cloth cloak, with a long

  boa and a muff large enough to stow a prize baby in; for Mrs Hackit regulated

  her costume by the calendar, and brought out her furs on the first of November,

  whatever might be the temperature. She was not a woman weakly to accommodate

  herself to shilly-shally proceedings. If the season didn't know what it ought to

  do, Mrs Hackit did. In her best days, it was always sharp weather at "Gunpowder

  Plot," and she didn't like new fashions.

  And this morning the weather was very rationally in accordance with her costume,

  for as she made her way through the fields to Cross Farm, the yellow leaves on

  the hedge-girt elms, which showed bright and golden against the low-hanging

  purple clouds, were being scattered across the grassy path by the coldest of

  November winds. "Ah," Mrs Hackit thought to herself, "I dare say we shall have a

  sharp pinch this winter, and if we do, I shouldn't wonder if it takes the old