Looking Backward

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Title: The Warden

Author: Anthony Trollope

Release date: August 1, 1996 [eBook #619]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/619

Credits: E-text prepared by Jo Churcher, Scarborough, Ontario, and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARDEN ***

E-text prepared by Jo Churcher, Scarborough, Ontario,
and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.

THE WARDEN

by

Anthony Trollope

CONTENTS

I. Hiram's Hospital
II. The Barchester Reformer
III. The Bishop of Barchester
IV. Hiram's Bedesmen
V. Dr Grantly Visits the Hospital
VI. The Warden's Tea Party
VII. _The Jupiter_
VIII. Plumstead Episcopi
IX. The Conference
X. Tribulation
XI. Iphigenia
XII. Mr Bold's Visit to Plumstead
XIII. The Warden's Decision
XIV. Mount Olympus
XV. Tom Towers, Dr Anticant, and Mr Sentiment
XVI. A Long Day in London
XVII. Sir Abraham Haphazard
XVIII. The Warden Is Very Obstinate
XIX. The Warden Resigns
XX. Farewell
XXI. Conclusion

Chapter I

HIRAM'S HOSPITAL

The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed
clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ----; let us call it
Barchester. Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or
Gloucester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended;
and as this tale will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the
town in question, we are anxious that no personality may be suspected.
Let us presume that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England,
more remarkable for the beauty of its cathedral and the antiquity of
its monuments than for any commercial prosperity; that the west end
of Barchester is the cathedral close, and that the aristocracy of
Barchester are the bishop, dean, and canons, with their respective
wives and daughters.

Early in life Mr Harding found himself located at Barchester. A fine
voice and a taste for sacred music had decided the position in which
he was to exercise his calling, and for many years he performed the
easy but not highly paid duties of a minor canon. At the age of forty
a small living in the close vicinity of the town increased both his
work and his income, and at the age of fifty he became precentor of
the cathedral.

Mr Harding had married early in life, and was the father of two
daughters. The eldest, Susan, was born soon after his marriage; the
other, Eleanor, not till ten years later.

At the time at which we introduce him to our readers he was living as
precentor at Barchester with his youngest daughter, then twenty-four
years of age; having been many years a widower, and having married his
eldest daughter to a son of the bishop a very short time before his
installation to the office of precentor.

Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the beauty of
his daughter, Mr Harding would have remained a minor canon; but here
probably Scandal lied, as she so often does; for even as a minor canon
no one had been more popular among his reverend brethren in the close
than Mr Harding; and Scandal, before she had reprobated Mr Harding for
being made precentor by his friend the bishop, had loudly blamed the
bishop for having so long omitted to do something for his friend Mr
Harding. Be this as it may, Susan Harding, some twelve years since,
had married the Rev. Dr Theophilus Grantly, son of the bishop,
archdeacon of Barchester, and rector of Plumstead Episcopi, and her
father became, a few months later, precentor of Barchester Cathedral,
that office being, as is not unusual, in the bishop's gift.

Now there are peculiar circumstances connected with the precentorship
which must be explained. In the year 1434 there died at Barchester
one John Hiram, who had made money in the town as a wool-stapler, and
in his will he left the house in which he died and certain meadows and
closes near the town, still called Hiram's Butts, and Hiram's Patch,
for the support of twelve superannuated wool-carders, all of whom
should have been born and bred and spent their days in Barchester; he
also appointed that an alms-house should be built for their abode,
with a fitting residence for a warden, which warden was also to
receive a certain sum annually out of the rents of the said butts and
patches. He, moreover, willed, having had a soul alive to harmony,
that the precentor of the cathedral should have the option of being
also warden of the almshouses, if the bishop in each case approved.

From that day to this the charity had gone on and prospered--at least,
the charity had gone on, and the estates had prospered. Wool-carding
in Barchester there was no longer any; so the bishop, dean, and
warden, who took it in turn to put in the old men, generally
appointed some hangers-on of their own; worn-out gardeners, decrepit
grave-diggers, or octogenarian sextons, who thankfully received a
comfortable lodging and one shilling and fourpence a day, such being
the stipend to which, under the will of John Hiram, they were declared
to be entitled. Formerly, indeed,--that is, till within some fifty
years of the present time,--they received but sixpence a day, and
their breakfast and dinner was found them at a common table by the
warden, such an arrangement being in stricter conformity with the
absolute wording of old Hiram's will: but this was thought to be
inconvenient, and to suit the tastes of neither warden nor bedesmen,
and the daily one shilling and fourpence was substituted with the
common consent of all parties, including the bishop and the
corporation of Barchester.

Such was the condition of Hiram's twelve old men when Mr Harding was
appointed warden; but if they may be considered as well-to-do in the
world according to their condition, the happy warden was much more so.
The patches and butts which, in John Hiram's time, produced hay or fed
cows, were now covered with rows of houses; the value of the property
had gradually increased from year to year and century to century, and
was now presumed by those who knew anything about it, to bring in
a very nice income; and by some who knew nothing about it, to have
increased to an almost fabulous extent.

The property was farmed by a gentleman in Barchester, who also acted
as the bishop's steward,--a man whose father and grandfather had been
stewards to the bishops of Barchester, and farmers of John Hiram's
estate. The Chadwicks had earned a good name in Barchester; they
had lived respected by bishops, deans, canons, and precentors; they
had been buried in the precincts of the cathedral; they had never
been known as griping, hard men, but had always lived comfortably,
maintained a good house, and held a high position in Barchester
society. The present Mr Chadwick was a worthy scion of a worthy
stock, and the tenants living on the butts and patches, as well as
those on the wide episcopal domains of the see, were well pleased to
have to do with so worthy and liberal a steward.

For many, many years,--records hardly tell how many, probably from
the time when Hiram's wishes had been first fully carried out,--the
proceeds of the estate had been paid by the steward or farmer to the
warden, and by him divided among the bedesmen; after which division
he paid himself such sums as became his due. Times had been when the
poor warden got nothing but his bare house, for the patches had been
subject to floods, and the land of Barchester butts was said to be
unproductive; and in these hard times the warden was hardly able to
make out the daily dole for his twelve dependents. But by degrees
things mended; the patches were drained, and cottages began to
rise upon the butts, and the wardens, with fairness enough, repaid
themselves for the evil days gone by. In bad times the poor men had
had their due, and therefore in good times they could expect no more.
In this manner the income of the warden had increased; the picturesque
house attached to the hospital had been enlarged and adorned, and
the office had become one of the most coveted of the snug clerical
sinecures attached to our church. It was now wholly in the bishop's
gift, and though the dean and chapter, in former days, made a stand
on the subject, they had thought it more conducive to their honour
to have a rich precentor appointed by the bishop, than a poor one
appointed by themselves. The stipend of the precentor of Barchester
was eighty pounds a year. The income arising from the wardenship of
the hospital was eight hundred, besides the value of the house.

Murmurs, very slight murmurs, had been heard in Barchester,--few
indeed, and far between,--that the proceeds of John Hiram's property
had not been fairly divided: but they can hardly be said to have been
of such a nature as to have caused uneasiness to anyone: still the
thing had been whispered, and Mr Harding had heard it. Such was his
character in Barchester, so universal was his popularity, that the
very fact of his appointment would have quieted louder whispers
than those which had been heard; but Mr Harding was an open-handed,
just-minded man, and feeling that there might be truth in what had
been said, he had, on his instalment, declared his intention of adding
twopence a day to each man's pittance, making a sum of sixty-two
pounds eleven shillings and fourpence, which he was to pay out of
his own pocket. In doing so, however, he distinctly and repeatedly
observed to the men, that though he promised for himself, he could not
promise for his successors, and that the extra twopence could only
be looked on as a gift from himself, and not from the trust. The
bedesmen, however, were most of them older than Mr Harding, and were
quite satisfied with the security on which their extra income was
based.

This munificence on the part of Mr Harding had not been unopposed.
Mr Chadwick had mildly but seriously dissuaded him from it; and his
strong-minded son-in-law, the archdeacon, the man of whom alone Mr
Harding stood in awe, had urgently, nay, vehemently, opposed so
impolitic a concession: but the warden had made known his intention
to the hospital before the archdeacon had been able to interfere,
and the deed was done.

Hiram's Hospital, as the retreat is called, is a picturesque building
enough, and shows the correct taste with which the ecclesiastical
architects of those days were imbued. It stands on the banks of the
little river, which flows nearly round the cathedral close, being on
the side furthest from the town. The London road crosses the river
by a pretty one-arched bridge, and, looking from this bridge, the
stranger will see the windows of the old men's rooms, each pair of
windows separated by a small buttress. A broad gravel walk runs
between the building and the river, which is always trim and cared
for; and at the end of the walk, under the parapet of the approach to
the bridge, is a large and well-worn seat, on which, in mild weather,
three or four of Hiram's bedesmen are sure to be seen seated. Beyond
this row of buttresses, and further from the bridge, and also further
from the water which here suddenly bends, are the pretty oriel windows
of Mr Harding's house, and his well-mown lawn. The entrance to the
hospital is from the London road, and is made through a ponderous
gateway under a heavy stone arch, unnecessary, one would suppose, at
any time, for the protection of twelve old men, but greatly conducive
to the good appearance of Hiram's charity. On passing through this
portal, never closed to anyone from 6 A.M. till 10 P.M., and never
open afterwards, except on application to a huge, intricately hung
mediæval bell, the handle of which no uninitiated intruder can
possibly find, the six doors of the old men's abodes are seen, and
beyond them is a slight iron screen, through which the more happy
portion of the Barchester elite pass into the Elysium of Mr Harding's
dwelling.

Mr Harding is a small man, now verging on sixty years, but bearing few
of the signs of age; his hair is rather grizzled, though not gray;
his eye is very mild, but clear and bright, though the double glasses
which are held swinging from his hand, unless when fixed upon his
nose, show that time has told upon his sight; his hands are delicately
white, and both hands and feet are small; he always wears a black
frock coat, black knee-breeches, and black gaiters, and somewhat
scandalises some of his more hyperclerical brethren by a black
neck-handkerchief.

Mr Harding's warmest admirers cannot say that he was ever an
industrious man; the circumstances of his life have not called on
him to be so; and yet he can hardly be called an idler. Since his
appointment to his precentorship, he has published, with all possible
additions of vellum, typography, and gilding, a collection of our
ancient church music, with some correct dissertations on Purcell,
Crotch, and Nares. He has greatly improved the choir of Barchester,
which, under his dominion, now rivals that of any cathedral in
England. He has taken something more than his fair share in the
cathedral services, and has played the violoncello daily to such
audiences as he could collect, or, _faute de mieux_, to no audience
at all.

We must mention one other peculiarity of Mr Harding. As we have
before stated, he has an income of eight hundred a year, and has no
family but his one daughter; and yet he is never quite at ease in
money matters. The vellum and gilding of "Harding's Church Music"
cost more than any one knows, except the author, the publisher, and
the Rev. Theophilus Grantly, who allows none of his father-in-law's
extravagances to escape him. Then he is generous to his daughter, for
whose service he keeps a small carriage and pair of ponies. He is,
indeed, generous to all, but especially to the twelve old men who are
in a peculiar manner under his care. No doubt with such an income Mr
Harding should be above the world, as the saying is; but, at any rate,
he is not above Archdeacon Theophilus Grantly, for he is always more
or less in debt to his son-in-law, who has, to a certain extent,
assumed the arrangement of the precentor's pecuniary affairs.

Chapter II

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.

Chapter III

THE BISHOP OF BARCHESTER

Bold at once repaired to the hospital. The day was now far advanced,
but he knew that Mr Harding dined in the summer at four, that Eleanor
was accustomed to drive in the evening, and that he might therefore
probably find Mr Harding alone. It was between seven and eight when
he reached the slight iron gate leading into the precentor's garden,
and though, as Mr Chadwick observed, the day had been cold for June,
the evening was mild, and soft, and sweet. The little gate was open.
As he raised the latch he heard the notes of Mr Harding's violoncello
from the far end of the garden, and, advancing before the house
and across the lawn, he found him playing;--and not without an
audience. The musician was seated in a garden-chair just within the
summer-house, so as to allow the violoncello which he held between his
knees to rest upon the dry stone flooring; before him stood a rough
music desk, on which was open a page of that dear sacred book, that
much-laboured and much-loved volume of church music, which had cost so
many guineas; and around sat, and lay, and stood, and leaned, ten of
the twelve old men who dwelt with him beneath old John Hiram's roof.
The two reformers were not there. I will not say that in their hearts
they were conscious of any wrong done or to be done to their mild
warden, but latterly they had kept aloof from him, and his music was
no longer to their taste.

It was amusing to see the positions, and eager listening faces of
these well-to-do old men. I will not say that they all appreciated
the music which they heard, but they were intent on appearing to
do so; pleased at being where they were, they were determined, as
far as in them lay, to give pleasure in return; and they were not
unsuccessful. It gladdened the precentor's heart to think that the
old bedesmen whom he loved so well admired the strains which were to
him so full of almost ecstatic joy; and he used to boast that such was
the air of the hospital, as to make it a precinct specially fit for
the worship of St Cecilia.

Immediately before him, on the extreme corner of the bench which
ran round the summer-house, sat one old man, with his handkerchief
smoothly lain upon his knees, who did enjoy the moment, or acted
enjoyment well. He was one on whose large frame many years, for he
was over eighty, had made small havoc;--he was still an upright,
burly, handsome figure, with an open, ponderous brow, round which
clung a few, though very few, thin gray locks. The coarse black gown
of the hospital, the breeches, and buckled shoes became him well; and
as he sat with his hands folded on his staff, and his chin resting on
his hands, he was such a listener as most musicians would be glad to
welcome.

This man was certainly the pride of the hospital. It had always been
the custom that one should be selected as being to some extent in
authority over the others; and though Mr Bunce, for such was his name,
and so he was always designated by his inferior brethren, had no
greater emoluments than they, he had assumed, and well knew how to
maintain, the dignity of his elevation. The precentor delighted to
call him his sub-warden, and was not ashamed, occasionally, when no
other guest was there, to bid him sit down by the same parlour fire,
and drink the full glass of port which was placed near him. Bunce
never went without the second glass, but no entreaty ever made him
take a third.

"Well, well, Mr Harding; you're too good, much too good," he'd always
say, as the second glass was filled; but when that was drunk, and the
half hour over, Bunce stood erect, and with a benediction which his
patron valued, retired to his own abode. He knew the world too well
to risk the comfort of such halcyon moments, by prolonging them till
they were disagreeable.

Mr Bunce, as may be imagined, was most strongly opposed to innovation.
Not even Dr Grantly had a more holy horror of those who would
interfere in the affairs of the hospital; he was every inch a
churchman, and though he was not very fond of Dr Grantly personally,
that arose from there not being room in the hospital for two people
so much alike as the doctor and himself, rather than from any
dissimilarity in feeling. Mr Bunce was inclined to think that
the warden and himself could manage the hospital without further
assistance; and that, though the bishop was the constitutional
visitor, and as such entitled to special reverence from all connected
with John Hiram's will, John Hiram never intended that his affairs
should be interfered with by an archdeacon.

At the present moment, however, these cares were off his mind, and he
was looking at his warden, as though he thought the music heavenly,
and the musician hardly less so.

As Bold walked silently over the lawn, Mr Harding did not at first
perceive him, and continued to draw his bow slowly across the
plaintive wires; but he soon found from his audience that some
stranger was there, and looking up, began to welcome his young friend
with frank hospitality.

"Pray, Mr Harding--pray don't let me disturb you," said Bold; "you
know how fond I am of sacred music."

"Oh! it's nothing," said the precentor, shutting up the book and then
opening it again as he saw the delightfully imploring look of his old
friend Bunce. Oh, Bunce, Bunce, Bunce, I fear that after all thou art
but a flatterer. "Well, I'll just finish it then; it's a favourite
little bit of Bishop's; and then, Mr Bold, we'll have a stroll and
a chat till Eleanor comes in and gives us tea." And so Bold sat
down on the soft turf to listen, or rather to think how, after such
sweet harmony, he might best introduce a theme of so much discord, to
disturb the peace of him who was so ready to welcome him kindly.

Bold thought that the performance was soon over, for he felt that
he had a somewhat difficult task, and he almost regretted the final
leave-taking of the last of the old men, slow as they were in going
through their adieux.

Bold's heart was in his mouth, as the precentor made some ordinary but
kind remark as to the friendliness of the visit.

"One evening call," said he, "is worth ten in the morning. It's all
formality in the morning; real social talk never begins till after
dinner. That's why I dine early, so as to get as much as I can of
it."

"Quite true, Mr Harding," said the other; "but I fear I've reversed
the order of things, and I owe you much apology for troubling you on
business at such an hour; but it is on business that I have called
just now."

Mr Harding looked blank and annoyed; there was something in the
tone of the young man's voice which told him that the interview was
intended to be disagreeable, and he shrank back at finding his kindly
greeting so repulsed.

"I wish to speak to you about the hospital," continued Bold.

"Well, well, anything I can tell you I shall be most happy--"

"It's about the accounts."

"Then, my dear fellow, I can tell you nothing, for I'm as ignorant
as a child. All I know is, that they pay me £800 a year. Go to
Chadwick, he knows all about the accounts; and now tell me, will poor
Mary Jones ever get the use of her limb again?"

"Well, I think she will, if she's careful; but, Mr Harding, I hope
you won't object to discuss with me what I have to say about the
hospital."

Mr Harding gave a deep, long-drawn sigh. He did object, very strongly
object, to discuss any such subject with John Bold; but he had not the
business tact of Mr Chadwick, and did not know how to relieve himself
from the coming evil; he sighed sadly, but made no answer.

"I have the greatest regard for you, Mr Harding," continued Bold; "the
truest respect, the most sincere--"

"Thank ye, thank ye, Mr Bold," interjaculated the precentor somewhat
impatiently; "I'm much obliged, but never mind that; I'm as likely to
be in the wrong as another man,--quite as likely."

"But, Mr Harding, I must express what I feel, lest you should think
there is personal enmity in what I'm going to do."

"Personal enmity! Going to do! Why, you're not going to cut my
throat, nor put me into the Ecclesiastical Court!"

Bold tried to laugh, but he couldn't. He was quite in earnest, and
determined in his course, and couldn't make a joke of it. He walked
on awhile in silence before he recommenced his attack, during which
Mr Harding, who had still the bow in his hand, played rapidly on an
imaginary violoncello. "I fear there is reason to think that John
Hiram's will is not carried out to the letter, Mr Harding," said the
young man at last; "and I have been asked to see into it."

"Very well, I've no objection on earth; and now we need not say
another word about it."

"Only one word more, Mr Harding. Chadwick has referred me to Cox and
Cummins, and I think it my duty to apply to them for some statement
about the hospital. In what I do I may appear to be interfering with
you, and I hope you will forgive me for doing so."

"Mr Bold," said the other, stopping, and speaking with some solemnity,
"if you act justly, say nothing in this matter but the truth, and use
no unfair weapons in carrying out your purposes, I shall have nothing
to forgive. I presume you think I am not entitled to the income
I receive from the hospital, and that others are entitled to it.
Whatever some may do, I shall never attribute to you base motives
because you hold an opinion opposed to my own and adverse to my
interests: pray do what you consider to be your duty; I can give
you no assistance, neither will I offer you any obstacle. Let me,
however, suggest to you, that you can in no wise forward your views
nor I mine, by any discussion between us. Here comes Eleanor and the
ponies, and we'll go in to tea."

Bold, however, felt that he could not sit down at ease with Mr Harding
and his daughter after what had passed, and therefore excused himself
with much awkward apology; and merely raising his hat and bowing as he
passed Eleanor and the pony chair, left her in disappointed amazement
at his departure.

Mr Harding's demeanour certainly impressed Bold with a full conviction
that the warden felt that he stood on strong grounds, and almost made
him think that he was about to interfere without due warrant in the
private affairs of a just and honourable man; but Mr Harding himself
was anything but satisfied with his own view of the case.

In the first place, he wished for Eleanor's sake to think well of
Bold and to like him, and yet he could not but feel disgusted at the
arrogance of his conduct. What right had he to say that John Hiram's
will was not fairly carried out? But then the question would arise
within his heart,--Was that will fairly acted on? Did John Hiram mean
that the warden of his hospital should receive considerably more out
of the legacy than all the twelve old men together for whose behoof
the hospital was built? Could it be possible that John Bold was
right, and that the reverend warden of the hospital had been for the
last ten years and more the unjust recipient of an income legally and
equitably belonging to others? What if it should be proved before
the light of day that he, whose life had been so happy, so quiet,
so respected, had absorbed eight thousand pounds to which he had no
title, and which he could never repay? I do not say that he feared
that such was really the case; but the first shade of doubt now fell
across his mind, and from this evening, for many a long, long day,
our good, kind loving warden was neither happy nor at ease.

Thoughts of this kind, these first moments of much misery, oppressed
Mr Harding as he sat sipping his tea, absent and ill at ease. Poor
Eleanor felt that all was not right, but her ideas as to the cause of
the evening's discomfort did not go beyond her lover, and his sudden
and uncivil departure. She thought there must have been some quarrel
between Bold and her father, and she was half angry with both, though
she did not attempt to explain to herself why she was so.

Mr Harding thought long and deeply over these things, both before he
went to bed and after it, as he lay awake, questioning within himself
the validity of his claim to the income which he enjoyed. It seemed
clear at any rate that, however unfortunate he might be at having been
placed in such a position, no one could say that he ought either to
have refused the appointment first, or to have rejected the income
afterwards. All the world,--meaning the ecclesiastical world as
confined to the English church,--knew that the wardenship of the
Barchester Hospital was a snug sinecure, but no one had ever been
blamed for accepting it. To how much blame, however, would he have
been open had he rejected it! How mad would he have been thought had
he declared, when the situation was vacant and offered to him, that he
had scruples as to receiving £800 a year from John Hiram's property,
and that he had rather some stranger should possess it! How would Dr
Grantly have shaken his wise head, and have consulted with his friends
in the close as to some decent retreat for the coming insanity of the
poor minor canon! If he was right in accepting the place, it was
clear to him also that he would be wrong in rejecting any part of the
income attached to it. The patronage was a valuable appanage of the
bishopric; and surely it would not be his duty to lessen the value
of that preferment which had been bestowed on himself; surely he was
bound to stand by his order.

But somehow these arguments, though they seemed logical, were not
satisfactory. Was John Hiram's will fairly carried out? that was the
true question: and if not, was it not his especial duty to see that
this was done,--his especial duty, whatever injury it might do to
his order,--however ill such duty might be received by his patron and
his friends? At the idea of his friends, his mind turned unhappily
to his son-in-law. He knew well how strongly he would be supported
by Dr Grantly, if he could bring himself to put his case into the
archdeacon's hands and to allow him to fight the battle; but he knew
also that he would find no sympathy there for his doubts, no friendly
feeling, no inward comfort. Dr Grantly would be ready enough to take
up his cudgel against all comers on behalf of the church militant,
but he would do so on the distasteful ground of the church's
infallibility. Such a contest would give no comfort to Mr Harding's
doubts. He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so.

I have said before that Dr Grantly was the working man of the diocese,
and that his father the bishop was somewhat inclined to an idle life.
So it was; but the bishop, though he had never been an active man, was
one whose qualities had rendered him dear to all who knew him. He
was the very opposite to his son; he was a bland and a kind old man,
opposed by every feeling to authoritative demonstrations and episcopal
ostentation. It was perhaps well for him, in his situation, that his
son had early in life been able to do that which he could not well do
when he was younger, and which he could not have done at all now that
he was over seventy. The bishop knew how to entertain the clergy
of his diocese, to talk easy small-talk with the rectors' wives,
and put curates at their ease; but it required the strong hand of
the archdeacon to deal with such as were refractory either in their
doctrines or their lives.

The bishop and Mr Harding loved each other warmly. They had grown old
together, and had together spent many, many years in clerical pursuits
and clerical conversation. When one of them was a bishop and the
other only a minor canon they were even then much together; but since
their children had married, and Mr Harding had become warden and
precentor, they were all in all to each other. I will not say that
they managed the diocese between them, but they spent much time in
discussing the man who did, and in forming little plans to mitigate
his wrath against church delinquents, and soften his aspirations for
church dominion.

Mr Harding determined to open his mind and confess his doubts to
his old friend; and to him he went on the morning after John Bold's
uncourteous visit.

Up to this period no rumour of these cruel proceedings against the
hospital had reached the bishop's ears. He had doubtless heard that
men existed who questioned his right to present to a sinecure of £800
a year, as he had heard from time to time of some special immorality
or disgraceful disturbance in the usually decent and quiet city of
Barchester: but all he did, and all he was called on to do, on such
occasions, was to shake his head, and to beg his son, the great
dictator, to see that no harm happened to the church.

It was a long story that Mr Harding had to tell before he made the
bishop comprehend his own view of the case; but we need not follow
him through the tale. At first the bishop counselled but one step,
recommended but one remedy, had but one medicine in his whole
pharmacopoeia strong enough to touch so grave a disorder;--he
prescribed the archdeacon. "Refer him to the archdeacon," he
repeated, as Mr Harding spoke of Bold and his visit. "The archdeacon
will set you quite right about that," he kindly said, when his friend
spoke with hesitation of the justness of his cause. "No man has got
up all that so well as the archdeacon;" but the dose, though large,
failed to quiet the patient; indeed it almost produced nausea.

"But, bishop," said he, "did you ever read John Hiram's will?"

The bishop thought probably he had, thirty-five years ago, when
first instituted to his see, but could not state positively: however,
he very well knew that he had the absolute right to present to the
wardenship, and that the income of the warden had been regularly
settled.

"But, bishop, the question is, who has the power to settle it?
If, as this young man says, the will provides that the proceeds of
the property are to be divided into shares, who has the power to
alter these provisions?" The bishop had an indistinct idea that
they altered themselves by the lapse of years; that a kind of
ecclesiastical statute of limitation barred the rights of the twelve
bedesmen to any increase of income arising from the increased value of
property. He said something about tradition; more of the many learned
men who by their practice had confirmed the present arrangement;
then went at some length into the propriety of maintaining the due
difference in rank and income between a beneficed clergyman and
certain poor old men who were dependent on charity; and concluded his
argument by another reference to the archdeacon.

The precentor sat thoughtfully gazing at the fire, and listening to
the good-natured reasoning of his friend. What the bishop said had a
sort of comfort in it, but it was not a sustaining comfort. It made
Mr Harding feel that many others,--indeed, all others of his own
order,--would think him right; but it failed to prove to him that he
truly was so.

"Bishop," said he, at last, after both had sat silent for a while, "I
should deceive you and myself too, if I did not tell you that I am
very unhappy about this. Suppose that I cannot bring myself to agree
with Dr Grantly!--that I find, after inquiry, that the young man is
right, and that I am wrong,--what then?"

The two old men were sitting near each other,--so near that the bishop
was able to lay his hand upon the other's knee, and he did so with a
gentle pressure. Mr Harding well knew what that pressure meant. The
bishop had no further argument to adduce; he could not fight for the
cause as his son would do; he could not prove all the precentor's
doubts to be groundless; but he could sympathise with his friend, and
he did so; and Mr Harding felt that he had received that for which he
came. There was another period of silence, after which the bishop
asked, with a degree of irritable energy, very unusual with him,
whether this "pestilent intruder" (meaning John Bold) had any friends
in Barchester.

Mr Harding had fully made up his mind to tell the bishop everything;
to speak of his daughter's love, as well as his own troubles; to talk
of John Bold in his double capacity of future son-in-law and present
enemy; and though he felt it to be sufficiently disagreeable, now was
his time to do it.

"He is very intimate at my own house, bishop." The bishop stared. He
was not so far gone in orthodoxy and church militancy as his son, but
still he could not bring himself to understand how so declared an
enemy of the establishment could be admitted on terms of intimacy into
the house, not only of so firm a pillar as Mr Harding, but one so much
injured as the warden of the hospital.

"Indeed, I like Mr Bold much, personally," continued the disinterested
victim; "and to tell you the 'truth,'"--he hesitated as he brought out
the dreadful tidings,--"I have sometimes thought it not improbable
that he would be my second son-in-law." The bishop did not whistle:
we believe that they lose the power of doing so on being consecrated;
and that in these days one might as easily meet a corrupt judge as a
whistling bishop; but he looked as though he would have done so, but
for his apron.

What a brother-in-law for the archdeacon! what an alliance for
Barchester close! what a connection for even the episcopal palace!
The bishop, in his simple mind, felt no doubt that John Bold, had he
so much power, would shut up all cathedrals, and probably all parish
churches; distribute all tithes among Methodists, Baptists, and other
savage tribes; utterly annihilate the sacred bench, and make shovel
hats and lawn sleeves as illegal as cowls, sandals, and sackcloth!
Here was a nice man to be initiated into the comfortable arcana of
ecclesiastical snuggeries; one who doubted the integrity of parsons,
and probably disbelieved the Trinity!

Mr Harding saw what an effect his communication had made, and almost
repented the openness of his disclosure; he, however, did what he
could to moderate the grief of his friend and patron. "I do not say
that there is any engagement between them. Had there been, Eleanor
would have told me; I know her well enough to be assured that she
would have done so; but I see that they are fond of each other; and
as a man and a father, I have had no objection to urge against their
intimacy."

"But, Mr Harding," said the bishop, "how are you to oppose him, if he
is your son-in-law?"

"I don't mean to oppose him; it is he who opposes me; if anything is
to be done in defence, I suppose Chadwick will do it. I suppose--"

"Oh, the archdeacon will see to that: were the young man twice his
brother-in-law, the archdeacon will never be deterred from doing what
he feels to be right."

Mr Harding reminded the bishop that the archdeacon and the reformer
were not yet brothers, and very probably never would be; exacted from
him a promise that Eleanor's name should not be mentioned in any
discussion between the father bishop and son archdeacon respecting the
hospital; and then took his departure, leaving his poor old friend
bewildered, amazed, and confounded.

Chapter IV

HIRAM'S BEDESMEN

The parties most interested in the movement which is about to set
Barchester by the ears were not the foremost to discuss the merit
of the question, as is often the case; but when the bishop, the
archdeacon, the warden, the steward, and Messrs Cox and Cummins,
were all busy with the matter, each in his own way, it is not to be
supposed that Hiram's bedesmen themselves were altogether passive
spectators. Finney, the attorney, had been among them, asking sly
questions, and raising immoderate hopes, creating a party hostile
to the warden, and establishing a corps in the enemy's camp, as he
figuratively calls it to himself. Poor old men: whoever may be
righted or wronged by this inquiry, they at any rate will assuredly
be only injured: to them it can only be an unmixed evil. How can
their lot be improved? all their wants are supplied; every comfort is
administered; they have warm houses, good clothes, plentiful diet,
and rest after a life of labour; and above all, that treasure so
inestimable in declining years, a true and kind friend to listen to
their sorrows, watch over their sickness, and administer comfort as
regards this world, and the world to come!

John Bold sometimes thinks of this, when he is talking loudly of the
rights of the bedesmen, whom he has taken under his protection; but he
quiets the suggestion within his breast with the high-sounding name
of justice: "_Fiat justitia, ruat coelum_." These old men should,
by rights, have one hundred pounds a year instead of one shilling
and sixpence a day, and the warden should have two hundred or three
hundred pounds instead of eight hundred pounds. What is unjust must
be wrong; what is wrong should be righted; and if he declined the
task, who else would do it?

"Each one of you is clearly entitled to one hundred pounds a year by
common law": such had been the important whisper made by Finney into
the ears of Abel Handy, and by him retailed to his eleven brethren.

Too much must not be expected from the flesh and blood even of John
Hiram's bedesmen, and the positive promise of one hundred a year to
each of the twelve old men had its way with most of them. The great
Bunce was not to be wiled away, and was upheld in his orthodoxy by
two adherents. Abel Handy, who was the leader of the aspirants after
wealth, had, alas, a stronger following. No less than five of the
twelve soon believed that his views were just, making with their
leader a moiety of the hospital. The other three, volatile unstable
minds, vacillated between the two chieftains, now led away by the hope
of gold, now anxious to propitiate the powers that still existed.

It had been proposed to address a petition to the bishop as visitor,
praying his lordship to see justice done to the legal recipients of
John Hiram's Charity, and to send copies of this petition and of the
reply it would elicit to all the leading London papers, and thereby
to obtain notoriety for the subject. This it was thought would pave
the way for ulterior legal proceedings. It would have been a great
thing to have had the signatures and marks of all the twelve injured
legatees; but this was impossible: Bunce would have cut his hand off
sooner than have signed it. It was then suggested by Finney that
if even eleven could be induced to sanction the document, the one
obstinate recusant might have been represented as unfit to judge on
such a question,--in fact, as being _non compos mentis_,--and the
petition would have been taken as representing the feeling of the men.
But this could not be done: Bunce's friends were as firm as himself,
and as yet only six crosses adorned the document. It was the more
provoking, as Bunce himself could write his name legibly, and one of
those three doubting souls had for years boasted of like power, and
possessed, indeed, a Bible, in which he was proud to show his name
written by himself some thirty years ago--"Job Skulpit;" but it was
thought that Job Skulpit, having forgotten his scholarship, on that
account recoiled from the petition, and that the other doubters would
follow as he led them. A petition signed by half the hospital would
have but a poor effect.

It was in Skulpit's room that the petition was now lying, waiting such
additional signatures as Abel Handy, by his eloquence, could obtain
for it. The six marks it bore were duly attested, thus:

his his his
Abel X Handy, Gregy X Moody, Mathew X Spriggs,
mark mark mark

&c., and places were duly designated in pencil for those brethren who
were now expected to join: for Skulpit alone was left a spot on which
his genuine signature might be written in fair clerk-like style.
Handy had brought in the document, and spread it out on the small deal
table, and was now standing by it persuasive and eager. Moody had
followed with an inkhorn, carefully left behind by Finney; and Spriggs
bore aloft, as though it were a sword, a well-worn ink-black pen,
which from time to time he endeavoured to thrust into Skulpit's
unwilling hand.

With the learned man were his two abettors in indecision, William Gazy
and Jonathan Crumple. If ever the petition were to be forwarded, now
was the time,--so said Mr Finney; and great was the anxiety on the
part of those whose one hundred pounds a year, as they believed,
mainly depended on the document in question.

"To be kept out of all that money," as the avaricious Moody had
muttered to his friend Handy, "by an old fool saying that he can
write his own name like his betters!"

"Well, Job," said Handy, trying to impart to his own sour,
ill-omened visage a smile of approbation, in which he greatly
failed; "so you're ready now, Mr Finney says; here's the
place, d'ye see;"--and he put his huge brown finger down on
the dirty paper;--"name or mark, it's all one. Come along,
old boy; if so be we're to have the spending of this money,
why the sooner the better,--that's my maxim."

"To be sure," said Moody. "We a'n't none of us so young; we can't
stay waiting for old Catgut no longer."

It was thus these miscreants named our excellent friend. The nickname
he could easily have forgiven, but the allusion to the divine source
of all his melodious joy would have irritated even him. Let us hope
he never knew the insult.

"Only think, old Billy Gazy," said Spriggs, who rejoiced in greater
youth than his brethren, but having fallen into a fire when drunk, had
had one eye burnt out, one cheek burnt through, and one arm nearly
burnt off, and who, therefore, in regard to personal appearance, was
not the most prepossessing of men, "a hundred a year, and all to
spend; only think, old Billy Gazy;" and he gave a hideous grin that
showed off his misfortunes to their full extent.

Old Billy Gazy was not alive to much enthusiasm. Even these golden
prospects did not arouse him to do more than rub his poor old bleared
eyes with the cuff of his bedesman's gown, and gently mutter: "he
didn't know, not he; he didn't know."

"But you'd know, Jonathan," continued Spriggs, turning to the other
friend of Skulpit's, who was sitting on a stool by the table, gazing
vacantly at the petition. Jonathan Crumple was a meek, mild man, who
had known better days; his means had been wasted by bad children,
who had made his life wretched till he had been received into the
hospital, of which he had not long been a member. Since that day he
had known neither sorrow nor trouble, and this attempt to fill him
with new hopes was, indeed, a cruelty.

"A hundred a year's a nice thing, for sartain, neighbour Spriggs,"
said he. "I once had nigh to that myself, but it didn't do me no
good." And he gave a low sigh, as he thought of the children of his
own loins who had robbed him.

"And shall have again, Joe," said Handy; "and will have someone to
keep it right and tight for you this time."

Crumple sighed again;--he had learned the impotency of worldly wealth,
and would have been satisfied, if left untempted, to have remained
happy with one and sixpence a day.

"Come, Skulpit," repeated Handy, getting impatient, "you're not going
to go along with old Bunce in helping that parson to rob us all.
Take the pen, man, and right yourself. Well," he added, seeing that
Skulpit still doubted, "to see a man as is afraid to stand by hisself
is, to my thinking, the meanest thing as is."

"Sink them all for parsons, says I," growled Moody; "hungry beggars,
as never thinks their bellies full till they have robbed all and
everything!"

"Who's to harm you, man?" argued Spriggs. "Let them look never so
black at you, they can't get you put out when you're once in;--no,
not old Catgut, with Calves to help him!" I am sorry to say the
archdeacon himself was designated by this scurrilous allusion to his
nether person.

"A hundred a year to win, and nothing to lose," continued Handy. "My
eyes! Well, how a man's to doubt about sich a bit of cheese as that
passes me;--but some men is timorous;--some men is born with no pluck
in them;--some men is cowed at the very first sight of a gentleman's
coat and waistcoat."

Oh, Mr Harding, if you had but taken the archdeacon's advice in that
disputed case, when Joe Mutters was this ungrateful demagogue's rival
candidate!

"Afraid of a parson," growled Moody, with a look of ineffable scorn.
"I tell ye what I'd be afraid of--I'd be afraid of not getting nothing
from 'em but just what I could take by might and right;--that's the
most I'd be afraid on of any parson of 'em all."

"But," said Skulpit, apologetically, "Mr Harding's not so bad;--he did
give us twopence a day, didn't he now?"

"Twopence a day!" exclaimed Spriggs with scorn, opening awfully the
red cavern of his lost eye.

"Twopence a day!" muttered Moody with a curse; "sink his twopence!"

"Twopence a day!" exclaimed Handy; "and I'm to go, hat in hand, and
thank a chap for twopence a day, when he owes me a hundred pounds a
year; no, thank ye; that may do for you, but it won't for me. Come,
I say, Skulpit, are you a going to put your mark to this here paper,
or are you not?"

Skulpit looked round in wretched indecision to his two friends. "What
d'ye think, Bill Gazy?" said he.

But Bill Gazy couldn't think. He made a noise like the bleating of an
old sheep, which was intended to express the agony of his doubt, and
again muttered that "he didn't know."

"Take hold, you old cripple," said Handy, thrusting the pen into poor
Billy's hand: "there, so--ugh! you old fool, you've been and smeared
it all,--there,--that'll do for you;--that's as good as the best
name as ever was written": and a big blotch of ink was presumed to
represent Billy Gazy's acquiescence.

"Now, Jonathan," said Handy, turning to Crumple.

"A hundred a year's a nice thing, for sartain," again argued Crumple.
"Well, neighbour Skulpit, how's it to be?"

"Oh, please yourself," said Skulpit: "please yourself, and you'll
please me."

The pen was thrust into Crumple's hand, and a faint, wandering,
meaningless sign was made, betokening such sanction and authority as
Jonathan Crumple was able to convey.

"Come, Job," said Handy, softened by success, "don't let 'em have to
say that old Bunce has a man like you under his thumb,--a man that
always holds his head in the hospital as high as Bunce himself, though
you're never axed to drink wine, and sneak, and tell lies about your
betters as he does."

Skulpit held the pen, and made little flourishes with it in the air,
but still hesitated.

"And if you'll be said by me," continued Handy, "you'll not write your
name to it at all, but just put your mark like the others;"--the cloud
began to clear from Skulpit's brow;--"we all know you can do it if you
like, but maybe you wouldn't like to seem uppish, you know."

"Well, the mark would be best," said Skulpit. "One name and the rest
marks wouldn't look well, would it?"

"The worst in the world," said Handy; "there--there": and stooping
over the petition, the learned clerk made a huge cross on the place
left for his signature.

"That's the game," said Handy, triumphantly pocketing the petition;
"we're all in a boat now, that is, the nine of us; and as for old
Bunce, and his cronies, they may--" But as he was hobbling off to the
door, with a crutch on one side and a stick on the other, he was met
by Bunce himself.

"Well Handy, and what may old Bunce do?" said the gray-haired, upright
senior.

Handy muttered something, and was departing; but he was stopped in the
doorway by the huge frame of the newcomer.

"You've been doing no good here, Abel Handy," said he, "'tis plain to
see that; and 'tisn't much good, I'm thinking, you ever do."

"I mind my own business, Master Bunce," muttered the other, "and do
you do the same. It ain't nothing to you what I does;--and your
spying and poking here won't do no good nor yet no harm."

"I suppose then, Job," continued Bunce, not noticing his opponent, "if
the truth must out, you've stuck your name to that petition of theirs
at last."

Skulpit looked as though he were about to sink into the ground with
shame.

"What is it to you what he signs?" said Handy. "I suppose if we all
wants to ax for our own, we needn't ax leave of you first, Mr Bunce,
big a man as you are; and as to your sneaking in here, into Job's room
when he's busy, and where you're not wanted--"

"I've knowed Job Skulpit, man and boy, sixty years," said Bunce,
looking at the man of whom he spoke, "and that's ever since the day
he was born. I knowed the mother that bore him, when she and I were
little wee things, picking daisies together in the close yonder; and
I've lived under the same roof with him more nor ten years; and after
that I may come into his room without axing leave, and yet no sneaking
neither."

"So you can, Mr Bunce," said Skulpit; "so you can, any hour, day or
night."

"And I'm free also to tell him my mind," continued Bunce, looking at
the one man and addressing the other; "and I tell him now that he's
done a foolish and a wrong thing. He's turned his back upon one
who is his best friend; and is playing the game of others, who care
nothing for him, whether he be poor or rich, well or ill, alive or
dead. A hundred a year? Are the lot of you soft enough to think that
if a hundred a year be to be given, it's the likes of you that will
get it?"--and he pointed to Billy Gazy, Spriggs, and Crumple. "Did
any of us ever do anything worth half the money? Was it to make
gentlemen of us we were brought in here, when all the world turned
against us, and we couldn't longer earn our daily bread? A'n't you
all as rich in your ways as he in his?"--and the orator pointed to
the side on which the warden lived. "A'n't you getting all you hoped
for, ay, and more than you hoped for? Wouldn't each of you have given
the dearest limb of his body to secure that which now makes you so
unthankful?"

"We wants what John Hiram left us," said Handy. "We wants what's ourn
by law; it don't matter what we expected. What's ourn by law should
be ourn, and by goles we'll have it."

"Law!" said Bunce, with all the scorn he knew how to command--"law!
Did ye ever know a poor man yet was the better for law, or for a
lawyer? Will Mr Finney ever be as good to you, Job, as that man has
been? Will he see to you when you're sick, and comfort you when
you're wretched? Will he--"

"No, nor give you port wine, old boy, on cold winter nights! he won't
do that, will he?" asked Handy; and laughing at the severity of his
own wit, he and his colleagues retired, carrying with them, however,
the now powerful petition.

There is no help for spilt milk; and Mr Bunce could only retire to
his own room, disgusted at the frailty of human nature. Job Skulpit
scratched his head;--Jonathan Crumple again remarked, that, "for
sartain, sure a hundred a year was very nice;"--and Billy Gazy again
rubbed his eyes, and lowly muttered that "he didn't know."

Chapter V

DR GRANTLY VISITS THE HOSPITAL

Though doubt and hesitation disturbed the rest of our poor warden, no
such weakness perplexed the nobler breast of his son-in-law. As the
indomitable cock preparing for the combat sharpens his spurs, shakes
his feathers, and erects his comb, so did the archdeacon arrange his
weapons for the coming war, without misgiving and without fear. That
he was fully confident of the justice of his cause let no one doubt.
Many a man can fight his battle with good courage, but with a doubting
conscience. Such was not the case with Dr Grantly. He did not
believe in the Gospel with more assurance than he did in the sacred
justice of all ecclesiastical revenues. When he put his shoulder to
the wheel to defend the income of the present and future precentors
of Barchester, he was animated by as strong a sense of a holy cause,
as that which gives courage to a missionary in Africa, or enables a
sister of mercy to give up the pleasures of the world for the wards
of a hospital. He was about to defend the holy of holies from the
touch of the profane; to guard the citadel of his church from the
most rampant of its enemies; to put on his good armour in the best of
fights, and secure, if possible, the comforts of his creed for coming
generations of ecclesiastical dignitaries. Such a work required no
ordinary vigour; and the archdeacon was, therefore, extraordinarily
vigorous. It demanded a buoyant courage, and a heart happy in its
toil; and the archdeacon's heart was happy, and his courage was
buoyant.

He knew that he would not be able to animate his father-in-law
with feelings like his own, but this did not much disturb him. He
preferred to bear the brunt of the battle alone, and did not doubt
that the warden would resign himself into his hands with passive
submission.

"Well, Mr Chadwick," he said, walking into the steward's office a day
or two after the signing of the petition as commemorated in the last
chapter: "anything from Cox and Cummins this morning?" Mr Chadwick
handed him a letter; which he read, stroking the tight-gaitered calf
of his right leg as he did so. Messrs Cox and Cummins merely said
that they had as yet received no notice from their adversaries;
that they could recommend no preliminary steps; but that should any
proceeding really be taken by the bedesmen, it would be expedient to
consult that very eminent Queen's Counsel, Sir Abraham Haphazard.

"I quite agree with them," said Dr Grantly, refolding the letter.
"I perfectly agree with them. Haphazard is no doubt the best man; a
thorough churchman, a sound conservative, and in every respect the
best man we could get;--he's in the House, too, which is a great
thing."

Mr Chadwick quite agreed.

"You remember how completely he put down that scoundrel Horseman about
the Bishop of Beverley's income; how completely he set them all adrift
in the earl's case." Since the question of St Cross had been mooted
by the public, one noble lord had become "the earl," _par excellence_,
in the doctor's estimation. "How he silenced that fellow at
Rochester. Of course we must have Haphazard; and I'll tell you what,
Mr Chadwick, we must take care to be in time, or the other party will
forestall us."

With all his admiration for Sir Abraham, the doctor seemed to think
it not impossible that that great man might be induced to lend his
gigantic powers to the side of the church's enemies.

Having settled this point to his satisfaction, the doctor stepped down
to the hospital, to learn how matters were going on there; and as he
walked across the hallowed close, and looked up at the ravens who
cawed with a peculiar reverence as he wended his way, he thought with
increased acerbity of those whose impiety would venture to disturb the
goodly grace of cathedral institutions.

And who has not felt the same? We believe that Mr Horseman himself
would relent, and the spirit of Sir Benjamin Hall give way, were those
great reformers to allow themselves to stroll by moonlight round the
towers of some of our ancient churches. Who would not feel charity
for a prebendary when walking the quiet length of that long aisle at
Winchester, looking at those decent houses, that trim grass-plat, and
feeling, as one must, the solemn, orderly comfort of the spot! Who
could be hard upon a dean while wandering round the sweet close of
Hereford, and owning that in that precinct, tone and colour, design
and form, solemn tower and storied window, are all in unison, and all
perfect! Who could lie basking in the cloisters of Salisbury, and
gaze on Jewel's library and that unequalled spire, without feeling
that bishops should sometimes be rich!

The tone of our archdeacon's mind must not astonish us; it has been
the growth of centuries of church ascendancy; and though some fungi
now disfigure the tree, though there be much dead wood, for how much
good fruit have not we to be thankful? Who, without remorse, can
batter down the dead branches of an old oak, now useless, but, ah!
still so beautiful, or drag out the fragments of the ancient forest,
without feeling that they sheltered the younger plants, to which they
are now summoned to give way in a tone so peremptory and so harsh?

The archdeacon, with all his virtues, was not a man of delicate
feeling; and after having made his morning salutations in the warden's
drawing-room, he did not scruple to commence an attack on "pestilent"
John Bold in the presence of Miss Harding, though he rightly guessed
that that lady was not indifferent to the name of his enemy.

"Nelly, my dear, fetch me my spectacles from the back room," said her
father, anxious to save both her blushes and her feelings.

Eleanor brought the spectacles, while her father was trying, in
ambiguous phrases, to explain to her too-practical brother-in-law that
it might be as well not to say anything about Bold before her, and
then retreated. Nothing had been explained to her about Bold and the
hospital; but, with a woman's instinct she knew that things were going
wrong.

"We must soon be doing something," commenced the archdeacon, wiping
his brows with a large, bright-coloured handkerchief, for he had felt
busy, and had walked quick, and it was a broiling summer's day. "Of
course you have heard of the petition?"

Mr Harding owned, somewhat unwillingly, that he had heard of it.

"Well!"--the archdeacon looked for some expressions of opinion, but
none coming, he continued,--"We must be doing something, you know; we
mustn't allow these people to cut the ground from under us while we
sit looking on." The archdeacon, who was a practical man, allowed
himself the use of everyday expressive modes of speech when among his
closest intimates, though no one could soar into a more intricate
labyrinth of refined phraseology when the church was the subject, and
his lower brethren were his auditors.

The warden still looked mutely in his face, making the slightest
possible passes with an imaginary fiddle bow, and stopping, as he
did so, sundry imaginary strings with the fingers of his other hand.
'Twas his constant consolation in conversational troubles. While
these vexed him sorely, the passes would be short and slow, and the
upper hand would not be seen to work; nay, the strings on which it
operated would sometimes lie concealed in the musician's pocket, and
the instrument on which he played would be beneath his chair;--but as
his spirit warmed to the subject,--as his trusting heart looking to
the bottom of that which vexed him, would see its clear way out,--he
would rise to a higher melody, sweep the unseen strings with a bolder
hand, and swiftly fingering the cords from his neck, down along his
waistcoat, and up again to his very ear, create an ecstatic strain of
perfect music, audible to himself and to St Cecilia, and not without
effect.

"I quite agree with Cox and Cummins," continued the archdeacon.
"They say we must secure Sir Abraham Haphazard. I shall not have
the slightest fear in leaving the case in Sir Abraham's hands."

The warden played the slowest and saddest of tunes. It was but a
dirge on one string.

"I think Sir Abraham will not be long in letting Master Bold know what
he's about. I fancy I hear Sir Abraham cross-questioning him at the
Common Pleas."

The warden thought of his income being thus discussed, his modest
life, his daily habits, and his easy work; and nothing issued from
that single cord, but a low wail of sorrow. "I suppose they've sent
this petition up to my father." The warden didn't know; he imagined
they would do so this very day.

"What I can't understand is, how you let them do it, with such a
command as you have in the place, or should have with such a man as
Bunce. I cannot understand why you let them do it."

"Do what?" asked the warden.

"Why, listen to this fellow Bold, and that other low pettifogger,
Finney;--and get up this petition too. Why didn't you tell Bunce to
destroy the petition?"

"That would have been hardly wise," said the warden.

"Wise;--yes, it would have been very wise if they'd done it among
themselves. I must go up to the palace and answer it now, I suppose.
It's a very short answer they'll get, I can tell you."

"But why shouldn't they petition, doctor?"

"Why shouldn't they!" responded the archdeacon, in a loud brazen
voice, as though all the men in the hospital were expected to hear him
through the walls; "why shouldn't they? I'll let them know why they
shouldn't; by the bye, warden, I'd like to say a few words to them all
together."

The warden's mind misgave him, and even for a moment he forgot to
play. He by no means wished to delegate to his son-in-law his place
and authority of warden; he had expressly determined not to interfere
in any step which the men might wish to take in the matter under
dispute; he was most anxious neither to accuse them nor to defend
himself. All these things he was aware the archdeacon would do in his
behalf, and that not in the mildest manner; and yet he knew not how to
refuse the permission requested.

"I'd so much sooner remain quiet in the matter," said he, in an
apologetic voice.

"Quiet!" said the archdeacon, still speaking with his brazen trumpet;
"do you wish to be ruined in quiet?"

"Why, if I am to be ruined, certainly."

"Nonsense, warden; I tell you something must be done;--we must act;
just let me ring the bell, and send the men word that I'll speak to
them in the quad."

Mr Harding knew not how to resist, and the disagreeable order was
given. The quad, as it was familiarly called, was a small quadrangle,
open on one side to the river, and surrounded on the others by the
high wall of Mr Harding's garden, by one gable end of Mr Harding's
house, and by the end of the row of buildings which formed the
residences of the bedesmen. It was flagged all round, and the centre
was stoned; small stone gutters ran from the four corners of the
square to a grating in the centre; and attached to the end of Mr
Harding's house was a conduit with four cocks covered over from the
weather, at which the old men got their water, and very generally
performed their morning toilet. It was a quiet, sombre place, shaded
over by the trees of the warden's garden. On the side towards the
river, there stood a row of stone seats, on which the old men would
sit and gaze at the little fish, as they flitted by in the running
stream. On the other side of the river was a rich, green meadow,
running up to and joining the deanery, and as little open to the
public as the garden of the dean itself. Nothing, therefore, could be
more private than the quad of the hospital; and it was there that the
archdeacon determined to convey to them his sense of their refractory
proceedings.

The servant soon brought in word that the men were assembled in the
quad, and the archdeacon, big with his purpose, rose to address them.

"Well, warden, of course you're coming," said he, seeing that Mr
Harding did not prepare to follow him.

"I wish you'd excuse me," said Mr Harding.

"For heaven's sake, don't let us have division in the camp," replied
the archdeacon: "let us have a long pull and a strong pull, but above
all a pull all together; come, warden, come; don't be afraid of your
duty."

Mr Harding was afraid; he was afraid that he was being led to do that
which was not his duty; he was not, however, strong enough to resist,
so he got up and followed his son-in-law.

The old men were assembled in groups in the quadrangle--eleven of them
at least, for poor old Johnny Bell was bed-ridden, and couldn't come;
he had, however, put his mark to the petition, as one of Handy's
earliest followers. 'Tis true he could not move from the bed where
he lay; 'tis true he had no friend on earth, but those whom the
hospital contained; and of those the warden and his daughter were
the most constant and most appreciated; 'tis true that everything was
administered to him which his failing body could require, or which his
faint appetite could enjoy; but still his dull eye had glistened for a
moment at the idea of possessing a hundred pounds a year "to his own
cheek," as Abel Handy had eloquently expressed it; and poor old Johnny
Bell had greedily put his mark to the petition.

When the two clergymen appeared, they all uncovered their heads.
Handy was slow to do it, and hesitated; but the black coat and
waistcoat of which he had spoken so irreverently in Skulpit's room,
had its effect even on him, and he too doffed his hat. Bunce,
advancing before the others, bowed lowly to the archdeacon, and with
affectionate reverence expressed his wish, that the warden and Miss
Eleanor were quite well; "and the doctor's lady," he added, turning
to the archdeacon, "and the children at Plumstead, and my lord;" and
having made his speech, he also retired among the others, and took
his place with the rest upon the stone benches.

As the archdeacon stood up to make his speech, erect in the middle of
that little square, he looked like an ecclesiastical statue placed
there, as a fitting impersonation of the church militant here on
earth; his shovel hat, large, new, and well-pronounced, a churchman's
hat in every inch, declared the profession as plainly as does the
Quaker's broad brim; his heavy eyebrows, large open eyes, and full
mouth and chin expressed the solidity of his order; the broad chest,
amply covered with fine cloth, told how well to do was its estate; one
hand ensconced within his pocket, evinced the practical hold which our
mother church keeps on her temporal possessions; and the other, loose
for action, was ready to fight if need be in her defence; and, below
these, the decorous breeches, and neat black gaiters showing so
admirably that well-turned leg, betokened the decency, the outward
beauty and grace of our church establishment.

"Now, my men," he began, when he had settled himself well in his
position, "I want to say a few words to you. Your good friend, the
warden here, and myself, and my lord the bishop, on whose behalf I
wish to speak to you, would all be very sorry, very sorry indeed,
that you should have any just ground of complaint. Any just ground
of complaint on your part would be removed at once by the warden, or
by his lordship, or by me on his behalf, without the necessity of
any petition on your part." Here the orator stopped for a moment,
expecting that some little murmurs of applause would show that
the weakest of the men were beginning to give way; but no such
murmurs came. Bunce, himself, even sat with closed lips, mute and
unsatisfactory. "Without the necessity of any petition at all," he
repeated. "I'm told you have addressed a petition to my lord." He
paused for a reply from the men, and after a while, Handy plucked up
courage and said, "Yes, we has."

"You have addressed a petition to my lord, in which, as I am informed,
you express an opinion that you do not receive from Hiram's estate all
that is your due." Here most of the men expressed their assent. "Now
what is it you ask for? What is it you want that you hav'n't got
here? What is it--"

"A hundred a year," muttered old Moody, with a voice as if it came out
of the ground.

"A hundred a year!" ejaculated the archdeacon militant, defying the
impudence of these claimants with one hand stretched out and closed,
while with the other he tightly grasped, and secured within his
breeches pocket, that symbol of the church's wealth which his own
loose half-crowns not unaptly represented. "A hundred a year!
Why, my men, you must be mad; and you talk about John Hiram's will!
When John Hiram built a hospital for worn-out old men, worn-out old
labouring men, infirm old men past their work, cripples, blind,
bed-ridden, and such like, do you think he meant to make gentlemen of
them? Do you think John Hiram intended to give a hundred a year to
old single men, who earned perhaps two shillings or half-a-crown a day
for themselves and families in the best of their time? No, my men,
I'll tell you what John Hiram meant: he meant that twelve poor old
worn-out labourers, men who could no longer support themselves, who
had no friends to support them, who must starve and perish miserably
if not protected by the hand of charity;--he meant that twelve such
men as these should come in here in their poverty and wretchedness,
and find within these walls shelter and food before their death, and a
little leisure to make their peace with God. That was what John Hiram
meant: you have not read John Hiram's will, and I doubt whether those
wicked men who are advising you have done so. I have; I know what his
will was; and I tell you that that was his will, and that that was his
intention."

Not a sound came from the eleven bedesmen, as they sat listening to
what, according to the archdeacon, was their intended estate. They
grimly stared upon his burly figure, but did not then express, by word
or sign, the anger and disgust to which such language was sure to give
rise.

"Now let me ask you," he continued: "do you think you are worse off
than John Hiram intended to make you? Have you not shelter, and food,
and leisure? Have you not much more? Have you not every indulgence
which you are capable of enjoying? Have you not twice better food,
twice a better bed, ten times more money in your pocket than you were
ever able to earn for yourselves before you were lucky enough to get
into this place? And now you send a petition to the bishop, asking
for a hundred pounds a year! I tell you what, my friends; you are
deluded, and made fools of by wicked men who are acting for their
own ends. You will never get a hundred pence a year more than what
you have now: it is very possible that you may get less; it is very
possible that my lord the bishop, and your warden, may make changes--"

"No, no, no," interrupted Mr Harding, who had been listening with
indescribable misery to the tirade of his son-in-law; "no, my friends.
I want no changes,--at least no changes that shall make you worse off
than you now are, as long as you and I live together."

"God bless you, Mr Harding," said Bunce; and "God bless you, Mr
Harding, God bless you, sir: we know you was always our friend," was
exclaimed by enough of the men to make it appear that the sentiment
was general.

The archdeacon had been interrupted in his speech before he had quite
finished it; but he felt that he could not recommence with dignity
after this little ebullition, and he led the way back into the garden,
followed by his father-in-law.

"Well," said he, as soon as he found himself within the cool retreat
of the warden's garden; "I think I spoke to them plainly." And he
wiped the perspiration from his brow; for making a speech under a
broiling mid-day sun in summer, in a full suit of thick black cloth,
is warm work.

"Yes, you were plain enough," replied the warden, in a tone which did
not express approbation.

"And that's everything," said the other, who was clearly well
satisfied with himself; "that's everything: with those sort of people
one must be plain, or one will not be understood. Now, I think they
did understand me;--I think they knew what I meant."

The warden agreed. He certainly thought they had understood to the
full what had been said to them.

"They know pretty well what they have to expect from us; they know how
we shall meet any refractory spirit on their part; they know that we
are not afraid of them. And now I'll just step into Chadwick's, and
tell him what I've done; and then I'll go up to the palace, and answer
this petition of theirs."

The warden's mind was very full,--full nearly to overcharging itself;
and had it done so,--had he allowed himself to speak the thoughts
which were working within him, he would indeed have astonished the
archdeacon by the reprobation he would have expressed as to the
proceeding of which he had been so unwilling a witness. But different
feelings kept him silent; he was as yet afraid of differing from his
son-in-law;--he was anxious beyond measure to avoid even a semblance
of rupture with any of his order, and was painfully fearful of having
to come to an open quarrel with any person on any subject. His life
had hitherto been so quiet, so free from strife; his little early
troubles had required nothing but passive fortitude; his subsequent
prosperity had never forced upon him any active cares,--had never
brought him into disagreeable contact with anyone. He felt that
he would give almost anything,--much more than he knew he ought to
do,--to relieve himself from the storm which he feared was coming.
It was so hard that the pleasant waters of his little stream should be
disturbed and muddied by rough hands; that his quiet paths should be
made a battlefield; that the unobtrusive corner of the world which had
been allotted to him, as though by Providence, should be invaded and
desecrated, and all within it made miserable and unsound.

Money he had none to give; the knack of putting guineas together
had never belonged to him; but how willingly, with what a foolish
easiness, with what happy alacrity, would he have abandoned the half
of his income for all time to come, could he by so doing have quietly
dispelled the clouds that were gathering over him,--could he have thus
compromised the matter between the reformer and the conservative,
between his possible son-in-law, Bold, and his positive son-in-law,
the archdeacon.

And this compromise would not have been made from any prudential
motive of saving what would yet remain, for Mr Harding still felt
little doubt but he should be left for life in quiet possession of the
good things he had, if he chose to retain them. No; he would have
done so from the sheer love of quiet, and from a horror of being made
the subject of public talk. He had very often been moved to pity.--to
that inward weeping of the heart for others' woes; but none had he
ever pitied more than that old lord, whose almost fabulous wealth,
drawn from his church preferments, had become the subject of so much
opprobrium, of such public scorn; that wretched clerical octogenarian
Croesus, whom men would not allow to die in peace,--whom all the world
united to decry and to abhor.

Was he to suffer such a fate? Was his humble name to be bandied in
men's mouths, as the gormandiser of the resources of the poor, as
of one who had filched from the charity of other ages wealth which
had been intended to relieve the old and the infirm? Was he to be
gibbeted in the press, to become a byword for oppression, to be named
as an example of the greed of the English church? Should it ever
be said that he had robbed those old men, whom he so truly and so
tenderly loved in his heart of hearts? As he slowly paced, hour after
hour, under those noble lime-trees, turning these sad thoughts within
him, he became all but fixed in his resolve that some great step must
be taken to relieve him from the risk of so terrible a fate.

In the meanwhile, the archdeacon, with contented mind and unruffled
spirit, went about his business. He said a word or two to Mr
Chadwick, and then finding, as he expected, the petition lying in his
father's library, he wrote a short answer to the men, in which he told
them that they had no evils to redress, but rather great mercies for
which to be thankful; and having seen the bishop sign it, he got into
his brougham and returned home to Mrs Grantly, and Plumstead Episcopi.

Chapter VI

THE WARDEN'S TEA PARTY

After much painful doubting, on one thing only could Mr Harding
resolve. He determined that at any rate he would take no offence, and
that he would make this question no cause of quarrel either with Bold
or with the bedesmen. In furtherance of this resolution, he himself
wrote a note to Mr Bold, the same afternoon, inviting him to meet a
few friends and hear some music on an evening named in the next week.
Had not this little party been promised to Eleanor, in his present
state of mind he would probably have avoided such gaiety; but the
promise had been given, the invitations were to be written, and when
Eleanor consulted her father on the subject, she was not ill pleased
to hear him say, "Oh, I was thinking of Bold, so I took it into my
head to write to him myself, but you must write to his sister."

Mary Bold was older than her brother, and, at the time of our story,
was just over thirty. She was not an unattractive young woman, though
by no means beautiful. Her great merit was the kindliness of her
disposition. She was not very clever, nor very animated, nor had she
apparently the energy of her brother; but she was guided by a high
principle of right and wrong; her temper was sweet, and her faults
were fewer in number than her virtues. Those who casually met Mary
Bold thought little of her; but those who knew her well loved her
well, and the longer they knew her the more they loved her. Among
those who were fondest of her was Eleanor Harding; and though Eleanor
had never openly talked to her of her brother, each understood the
other's feelings about him. The brother and sister were sitting
together when the two notes were brought in.

"How odd," said Mary, "that they should send two notes. Well, if Mr
Harding becomes fashionable, the world is going to change."

Her brother understood immediately the nature and intention of the
peace-offering; but it was not so easy for him to behave well in the
matter, as it was for Mr Harding. It is much less difficult for the
sufferer to be generous than for the oppressor. John Bold felt that
he could not go to the warden's party: he never loved Eleanor better
than he did now; he had never so strongly felt how anxious he was
to make her his wife as now, when so many obstacles to his doing
so appeared in view. Yet here was her father himself, as it were,
clearing away those very obstacles, and still he felt that he could
not go to the house any more as an open friend.

As he sat thinking of these things with the note in his hand, his
sister was waiting for his decision.

"Well," said she, "I suppose we must write separate answers, and both
say we shall be very happy."

"You'll go, of course, Mary," said he; to which she readily assented.
"I cannot," he continued, looking serious and gloomy. "I wish I
could, with all my heart."

"And why not, John?" said she. She had as yet heard nothing of the
new-found abuse which her brother was about to reform;--at least
nothing which connected it with her brother's name.

He sat thinking for a while till he determined that it would be best
to tell her at once what it was that he was about: it must be done
sooner or later.

"I fear I cannot go to Mr Harding's house any more as a friend, just
at present."

"Oh, John! Why not? Ah, you've quarrelled with Eleanor!"

"No, indeed," said he; "I've no quarrel with her as yet."

"What is it, John?" said she, looking at him with an anxious, loving
face, for she knew well how much of his heart was there in that house
which he said he could no longer enter.

"Why," said he at last, "I've taken up the case of these twelve
old men of Hiram's Hospital, and of course that brings me into
contact with Mr Harding. I may have to oppose him, interfere with
him,--perhaps injure him."

Mary looked at him steadily for some time before she committed
herself to reply, and then merely asked him what he meant to do
for the old men.

"Why, it's a long story, and I don't know that I can make you
understand it. John Hiram made a will, and left his property in
charity for certain poor old men, and the proceeds, instead of going
to the benefit of these men, go chiefly into the pocket of the warden
and the bishop's steward."

"And you mean to take away from Mr Harding his share of it?"

"I don't know what I mean yet. I mean to inquire about it. I mean to
see who is entitled to this property. I mean to see, if I can, that
justice be done to the poor of the city of Barchester generally, who
are, in fact, the legatees under the will. I mean, in short, to put
the matter right, if I can."

"And why are you to do this, John?"

"You might ask the same question of anybody else," said he; "and
according to that the duty of righting these poor men would belong to
nobody. If we are to act on that principle, the weak are never to be
protected, injustice is never to be opposed, and no one is to struggle
for the poor!" And Bold began to comfort himself in the warmth of his
own virtue.

"But is there no one to do this but you, who have known Mr Harding so
long? Surely, John, as a friend, as a young friend, so much younger
than Mr Harding--"

"That's woman's logic, all over, Mary. What has age to do with it?
Another man might plead that he was too old; and as to his friendship,
if the thing itself be right, private motives should never be allowed
to interfere. Because I esteem Mr Harding, is that a reason that I
should neglect a duty which I owe to these old men? or should I give
up a work which my conscience tells me is a good one, because I regret
the loss of his society?"

"And Eleanor, John?" said the sister, looking timidly into her
brother's face.

"Eleanor, that is, Miss Harding, if she thinks fit,--that is, if
her father--or, rather, if she--or, indeed, he,--if they find it
necessary--but there is no necessity now to talk about Eleanor
Harding; but this I will say, that if she has the kind of spirit for
which I give her credit, she will not condemn me for doing what I
think to be a duty." And Bold consoled himself with the consolation
of a Roman.

Mary sat silent for a while, till at last her brother reminded her
that the notes must be answered, and she got up, and placed her desk
before her, took out her pen and paper, wrote on it slowly:

PAKENHAM VILLAS
Tuesday morning
MY DEAR ELEANOR,

I--

and then stopped, and looked at her brother.

"Well, Mary, why don't you write it?"

"Oh, John," said she, "dear John, pray think better of this."

"Think better of what?" said he.

"Of this about the hospital,--of all this about Mr Harding,--of what
you say about those old men. Nothing can call upon you,--no duty can
require you to set yourself against your oldest, your best friend.
Oh, John, think of Eleanor. You'll break her heart, and your own."

"Nonsense, Mary; Miss Harding's heart is as safe as yours."

"Pray, pray, for my sake, John, give it up. You know how dearly you
love her." And she came and knelt before him on the rug. "Pray
give it up. You are going to make yourself, and her, and her father
miserable: you are going to make us all miserable. And for what? For
a dream of justice. You will never make those twelve men happier than
they now are."

"You don't understand it, my dear girl," said he, smoothing her hair
with his hand.

"I do understand it, John. I understand that this is a chimera,--a
dream that you have got. I know well that no duty can require you to
do this mad--this suicidal thing. I know you love Eleanor Harding
with all your heart, and I tell you now that she loves you as well.
If there was a plain, a positive duty before you, I would be the last
to bid you neglect it for any woman's love; but this--; oh, think
again, before you do anything to make it necessary that you and Mr
Harding should be at variance." He did not answer, as she knelt
there, leaning on his knees, but by his face she thought that he was
inclined to yield. "At any rate let me say that you will go to this
party. At any rate do not break with them while your mind is in
doubt." And she got up, hoping to conclude her note in the way she
desired.

"My mind is not in doubt," at last he said, rising. "I could never
respect myself again were I to give way now, because Eleanor Harding
is beautiful. I do love her: I would give a hand to hear her tell
me what you have said, speaking on her behalf; but I cannot for her
sake go back from the task which I have commenced. I hope she may
hereafter acknowledge and respect my motives, but I cannot now go as
a guest to her father's house." And the Barchester Brutus went out
to fortify his own resolution by meditations on his own virtue.

Poor Mary Bold sat down, and sadly finished her note, saying that she
would herself attend the party, but that her brother was unavoidably
prevented from doing so. I fear that she did not admire as she should
have done the self-devotion of his singular virtue.

The party went off as such parties do. There were fat old ladies, in
fine silk dresses, and slim young ladies, in gauzy muslin frocks; old
gentlemen stood up with their backs to the empty fire-place, looking
by no means so comfortable as they would have done in their own
arm-chairs at home; and young gentlemen, rather stiff about the neck,
clustered near the door, not as yet sufficiently in courage to attack
the muslin frocks, who awaited the battle, drawn up in a semicircular
array. The warden endeavoured to induce a charge, but failed
signally, not having the tact of a general; his daughter did what she
could to comfort the forces under her command, who took in refreshing
rations of cake and tea, and patiently looked for the coming
engagement: but she herself, Eleanor, had no spirit for the work; the
only enemy whose lance she cared to encounter was not there, and she
and others were somewhat dull.

Loud above all voices was heard the clear sonorous tones of the
archdeacon as he dilated to brother parsons of the danger of the
church, of the fearful rumours of mad reforms even at Oxford, and of
the damnable heresies of Dr Whiston.

Soon, however, sweeter sounds began timidly to make themselves
audible. Little movements were made in a quarter notable for round
stools and music stands. Wax candles were arranged in sconces, big
books were brought from hidden recesses, and the work of the evening
commenced.

How often were those pegs twisted and re-twisted before our friend
found that he had twisted them enough; how many discordant scrapes
gave promise of the coming harmony. How much the muslin fluttered
and crumpled before Eleanor and another nymph were duly seated at the
piano; how closely did that tall Apollo pack himself against the wall,
with his flute, long as himself, extending high over the heads of his
pretty neighbours; into how small a corner crept that round and florid
little minor canon, and there with skill amazing found room to tune
his accustomed fiddle!

And now the crash begins: away they go in full flow of harmony
together,--up hill and down dale,--now louder and louder, then
lower and lower; now loud, as though stirring the battle; then low,
as though mourning the slain. In all, through all, and above all,
is heard the violoncello. Ah, not for nothing were those pegs so
twisted and re-twisted;--listen, listen! Now alone that saddest
of instruments tells its touching tale. Silent, and in awe, stand
fiddle, flute, and piano, to hear the sorrows of their wailing
brother. 'Tis but for a moment: before the melancholy of those low
notes has been fully realised, again comes the full force of all the
band;--down go the pedals, away rush twenty fingers scouring over the
bass notes with all the impetus of passion. Apollo blows till his
stiff neckcloth is no better than a rope, and the minor canon works
with both arms till he falls in a syncope of exhaustion against the
wall.

How comes it that now, when all should be silent, when courtesy, if
not taste, should make men listen,--how is it at this moment the
black-coated corps leave their retreat and begin skirmishing? One by
one they creep forth, and fire off little guns timidly, and without
precision. Ah, my men, efforts such as these will take no cities,
even though the enemy should be never so open to assault. At length a
more deadly artillery is brought to bear; slowly, but with effect, the
advance is made; the muslin ranks are broken, and fall into confusion;
the formidable array of chairs gives way; the battle is no longer
between opposing regiments, but hand to hand, and foot to foot with
single combatants, as in the glorious days of old, when fighting was
really noble. In corners, and under the shadow of curtains, behind
sofas and half hidden by doors, in retiring windows, and sheltered
by hanging tapestry, are blows given and returned, fatal, incurable,
dealing death.

Apart from this another combat arises, more sober and more serious.
The archdeacon is engaged against two prebendaries, a pursy full-blown
rector assisting him, in all the perils and all the enjoyments of
short whist. With solemn energy do they watch the shuffled pack, and,
all-expectant, eye the coming trump. With what anxious nicety do they
arrange their cards, jealous of each other's eyes! Why is that lean
doctor so slow,--cadaverous man with hollow jaw and sunken eye, ill
beseeming the richness of his mother church! Ah, why so slow, thou
meagre doctor? See how the archdeacon, speechless in his agony,
deposits on the board his cards, and looks to heaven or to the ceiling
for support. Hark, how he sighs, as with thumbs in his waistcoat
pocket he seems to signify that the end of such torment is not yet
even nigh at hand! Vain is the hope, if hope there be, to disturb
that meagre doctor. With care precise he places every card,
weighs well the value of each mighty ace, each guarded king, and
comfort-giving queen; speculates on knave and ten, counts all his
suits, and sets his price upon the whole. At length a card is led,
and quick three others fall upon the board. The little doctor leads
again, while with lustrous eye his partner absorbs the trick. Now
thrice has this been done,--thrice has constant fortune favoured
the brace of prebendaries, ere the archdeacon rouses himself to the
battle; but at the fourth assault he pins to the earth a prostrate
king, laying low his crown and sceptre, bushy beard, and lowering
brow, with a poor deuce.

"As David did Goliath," says the archdeacon, pushing over the four
cards to his partner. And then a trump is led, then another trump;
then a king,--and then an ace,--and then a long ten, which brings
down from the meagre doctor his only remaining tower of strength--his
cherished queen of trumps.

"What, no second club?" says the archdeacon to his partner.

"Only one club," mutters from his inmost stomach the pursy rector, who
sits there red-faced, silent, impervious, careful, a safe but not a
brilliant ally.

But the archdeacon cares not for many clubs, or for none. He dashes
out his remaining cards with a speed most annoying to his antagonists,
pushes over to them some four cards as their allotted portion, shoves
the remainder across the table to the red-faced rector; calls out "two
by cards and two by honours, and the odd trick last time," marks a
treble under the candle-stick, and has dealt round the second pack
before the meagre doctor has calculated his losses.

And so went off the warden's party, and men and women arranging shawls
and shoes declared how pleasant it had been; and Mrs Goodenough, the
red-faced rector's wife, pressing the warden's hand, declared she had
never enjoyed herself better; which showed how little pleasure she
allowed herself in this world, as she had sat the whole evening
through in the same chair without occupation, not speaking, and
unspoken to. And Matilda Johnson, when she allowed young Dickson of
the bank to fasten her cloak round her neck, thought that two hundred
pounds a year and a little cottage would really do for happiness;
besides, he was sure to be manager some day. And Apollo, folding his
flute into his pocket, felt that he had acquitted himself with honour;
and the archdeacon pleasantly jingled his gains; but the meagre doctor
went off without much audible speech, muttering ever and anon as he
went, "three and thirty points!" "three and thirty points!"

And so they all were gone, and Mr Harding was left alone with his
daughter.

What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold need not
be told. It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that neither the
historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by their heroes
or heroines, or how would three volumes or twenty suffice! In the
present case so little of this sort have I overheard, that I live
in hopes of finishing my work within 300 pages, and of completing
that pleasant task--a novel in one volume; but something had passed
between them, and as the warden blew out the wax candles, and put his
instrument into its case, his daughter stood sad and thoughtful by the
empty fire-place, determined to speak to her father, but irresolute as
to what she would say.

"Well, Eleanor," said he, "are you for bed?"

"Yes," said she, moving, "I suppose so; but papa--Mr Bold was not here
tonight; do you know why not?"

"He was asked; I wrote to him myself," said the warden.

"But do you know why he did not come, papa?"

"Well, Eleanor, I could guess; but it's no use guessing at such
things, my dear. What makes you look so earnest about it?"

"Oh, papa, do tell me," she exclaimed,