The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XI

THE BISH­OP SENDS HIS IN­HI­BI­TION

Tid­ings of Mr Craw­ley’s fate reached the palace at Barch­ester on the af­ter­noon of the day on which the mag­is­trates had com­mit­ted him. All such tid­ings trav­el very quick­ly, con­veyed by im­per­cep­ti­ble wires, and dis­tribut­ed by in­de­fati­ga­ble mes­sage boys whom Ru­mour seems to sup­ply for the pur­pose. Barch­ester is twen­ty miles from Sil­ver­bridge by road, and more than forty by rail­way. I doubt whether any­one was com­mis­sioned to send the news along the ac­tu­al tele­graph, and yet Mrs Proudie knew it be­fore four o’clock. But she did not know it quite ac­cu­rate­ly. ‘Bish­op,’ she said, stand­ing at her hus­band’s study door. ‘They have com­mit­ted that man to gaol. There was no help for them un­less they had foresworn them­selves.’

‘Not foresworn them­selves, my dear,’ said the bish­op, striv­ing, as was usu­al with him, by some meek and in­ef­fec­tu­al word to teach his wife that she was oc­ca­sion­al­ly led by her en­er­gy in­to er­ror. He nev­er per­sist­ed in the lessons when he found, as was usu­al, that they were tak­en amiss.

‘I say foresworn them­selves!’ said Mrs Proudie; ‘and now what do you mean to do? This is Thurs­day, and of course the man must not be al­lowed to des­ecrate the church of Hog­gle­stock by per­form­ing the Sun­day ser­vices.’

‘If he has been com­mit­ted, my dear, and is in prison–’

‘I said noth­ing about prison, bish­op.’

‘Gaol, my dear.’

‘I said they com­mit­ted him to gaol. So my in­for­mant tells me. But of course all Plum­stead and Fram­ley set will move heav­en and earth to get him out, so that he may be there as a dis­grace to the dio­cese. I won­der how the dean will feel when he hears of it! I do in­deed. For the dean, though he is an idle, use­less man, with no church prin­ci­ples, and no re­al piety, still he has a con­science. I think he has a con­science.’

‘I’m sure he has, my dear.’

‘Well;–let us hope so. And if he has a con­science, what must be his feel­ings when he hears that this crea­ture whom he has brought in­to the dio­cese has been com­mit­ted to gaol along with com­mon felons.’

‘Not with felons, my dear; at least, I should think not.’

‘I say with com­mon felons! A down­right rob­bery of twen­ty pounds, just as though he had bro­ken in­to the bank! And so he did, with sly ar­ti­fice, which is worse in such hands than a crow­bar. And now what are we to do? Here is Thurs­day, and some­thing must be done be­fore Sun­day for the souls of those poor be­night­ed crea­tures at Hog­gle­stock.’ Mrs Proudie was ready for the bat­tle, and was even now sniff­ing the blood far off. ‘I be­lieve it’s a hun­dred and thir­ty pounds a year,’ she said, be­fore the bish­op had col­lect­ed his thought suf­fi­cient­ly for a re­ply.

‘I think we must find out, first of all, whether he is re­al­ly to be shut up in prison,’ said the bish­op.

‘And sup­pose he is not to be shut up. Sup­pose they have been weak, or un­true to their du­ty–and from what we know of the mag­is­trates of Barset­shire, there is too much rea­son to sup­pose they will have been so; sup­pose they have let him out, is he to go about like a roar­ing li­on–among the souls of the peo­ple?’

The bish­op shook in his shoes. When Mrs Proudie be­gan to talk of the souls of the peo­ple he al­ways shook in his shoes. She had an elo­quent way of rais­ing her voice over the word souls that was qual­ified to make any or­di­nary man shake in his shoes. The bish­op was a con­sci­en­tious man, and well knew that poor Mr Craw­ley, even, would not roar at Hog­gle­stock to the in­jury of any man’s soul. He was aware that this poor cler­gy­man had done his du­ty la­bo­ri­ous­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly, and he was al­so aware that though he might have been com­mit­ted by the mag­is­trates, and then let out up­on bail, he should not be re­gard­ed now, in these days be­fore tri­al, as a con­vict­ed thief. But to ex­plain all this to Mrs Proudie was be­yond his pow­er. He knew well that she would not hear a word in mit­iga­tion of Mr Craw­ley’s pre­sumed of­fence. Mr Craw­ley be­longed to the oth­er par­ty, and Mrs Proudie was a thor­ough-​go­ing par­ti­san. I know a man–an ex­cel­lent fel­low, who, be­ing him­self a strong politi­cian, con­stant­ly ex­pressed a be­lief that all politi­cians op­posed to him are thieves, child-​mur­der­ers, par­ri­cides, lovers of in­cest, demons up­on earth. He is a strong par­ti­san, but not, I think, so strong as Mrs Proudie. He says that he be­lieves all evil of his op­po­nents; but she re­al­ly be­lieved the evil. The archdea­con had called Mrs Proudie a she- Beelze­bub; but that was a sim­ple ebul­li­tion of mor­tal ha­tred. He be­lieved her to be sim­ply a vul­gar, in­ter­fer­ing, brazen-​faced vi­ra­go. Mrs Proudie in truth be­lieved that the archdea­con was an ac­tu­al em­ana­tion from Sa­tan, sent to these parts to de­vour souls–as she would call it–and that she her­self was an em­ana­tion of an­oth­er sort, sent from an­oth­er source ex­press­ly to Barch­ester, to pre­vent such de­vour­ing, as far as it might be pre­vent­ed by a mor­tal agen­cy. The bish­op knew it all–un­der­stood it all. He re­gard­ed the archdea­con as a cler­gy­man be­long­ing to a par­ty op­posed to his par­ty, and he dis­liked the man. He knew that from his first com­ing in­to the dio­cese he had been en­coun­tered with en­mi­ty by the archdea­con and the archdea­con’s friends. If left to him­self he could feel and to a cer­tain ex­tent could re­sent such en­mi­ty. But he had no faith in his wife’s doc­trine of em­ana­tions. He had not faith in many things which she be­lieved re­li­gious­ly;–and yet what could he do? If he at­tempt­ed to ex­plain, she would stop him be­fore he had got through the first half of his first sen­tence.

‘If he is out on bail–’ com­menced the bish­op.

‘Of course he will be out on bail.’

‘Then I think he should feel–’

‘Feel! Such men nev­er feel! What feel­ing can one ex­pect from a con­vict­ed thief?’

‘Not con­vict­ed yet, my dear,’ said the bish­op.

‘A con­vict­ed thief,’ re­peat­ed Mrs Proudie; and she vo­cif­er­at­ed the words in such a tone that the bish­op re­solved that he would for the fu­ture let the word con­vict­ed pass with­out no­tice. Af­ter all she was on­ly us­ing the phrase in a pe­cu­liar sense giv­en to it by her­self.

‘It won’t be prop­er, cer­tain­ly, that he should do the ser­vices,’ sug­gest­ed the bish­op.

‘Prop­er! It would be a scan­dal to the whole dio­cese. How could he raise his head as he pro­nounced the eighth com­mand­ment? That must be at least pre­vent­ed.’

The bish­op, who was seat­ed, fret­ted him­self in his chair, mov­ing about with lit­tle move­ments. He knew that there was a mis­ery com­ing up­on him; and, as far as he could see, it might be­come a great mis­ery–a huge blis­ter­ing sore up­on him. When mis­eries came to him, as they did not un­fre­quent­ly, he would un­con­scious­ly en­deav­our to fath­om them and weigh them, and then, with some gal­lantry, re­solve to bear them, if he could find that their depth and weight were not too great for his pow­ers of en­durance. He would let the cold wind whis­tle by him, putting up the col­lar of his coat, and would be pa­tient un­der the win­ter weath­er with­out com­plaint. And he would be pa­tient un­der the sun, know­ing well that tran­quil­li­ty is best for those who have to bear trop­ical heat. But when the storm threat­ened to knock him off his legs, when the earth be­neath him be­came too hot for his poor ten­der feet–what could he do then? There had been with him such pe­ri­ods of mis­ery, dur­ing which he had wailed in­ward­ly and had con­fessed to him­self that the wife of his bo­som was too much for him. Now the storm seemed to be com­ing very rough­ly. It would be de­mand­ed of him that he should ex­er­cise cer­tain epis­co­pal au­thor­ity which he knew did not be­long to him. Now, epis­co­pal au­thor­ity ad­mits of be­ing stretched or con­tract­ed ac­cord­ing to the char­ac­ter of the bish­op who us­es it. It is not al­ways easy for a bish­op him­self to know what he may do, and what he may not do. He may cer­tain­ly give ad­vice to any cler­gy­man in his dio­cese, and he may give it in such form that it will have in it some­thing of au­thor­ity. Such ad­vice com­ing from a dom­inant bish­op to a cler­gy­man with a sub­mis­sive mind, has in it very much of au­thor­ity. But Bish­op Proudie knew that Mr Craw­ley was not a cler­gy­man with a sub­mis­sive mind, and he feared that he him­self, as re­gard­ed from Mr Craw­ley’s point of view, was not a dom­inant bish­op. And yet he could on­ly act by ad­vice. ‘I will write to him,’ said the bish­op ‘and will ex­plain to him that as he is cir­cum­stanced he should not ap­pear in the read­ing-​desk.’

‘Of course he must not ap­pear in the read­ing-​desk. That scan­dal must at any rate be in­hib­it­ed.’ Now the bish­op did not at all like the use of the word in­hib­it­ed, un­der­stand­ing well that Mrs Proudie in­tend­ed it to be un­der­stood as im­ply­ing some epis­co­pal com­mand against which there should be no ap­peal;–but he let it pass.

‘I will write to him, dear, tonight.’

‘And Mr Thum­ble can go over with the let­ter first thing in the morn­ing.’

‘Will not the post be bet­ter?’

‘No, bish­op; cer­tain­ly not.’

‘He would get it soon­er, if I write tonight, dear.’

‘In ei­ther case he will get it to­mor­row morn­ing. An hour or two will not sig­ni­fy, and if Mr Thum­ble takes it him­self we shall know how it is re­ceived. It will be well that Thum­ble should be there in per­son as he will want to look for lodg­ings in the parish.’

‘But, my dear–’

‘Well, bish­op?’

‘About lodg­ings? I hard­ly think Mr Thum­ble, if we de­cide that Mr Thum­ble should un­der­take the du­ty–’

‘We have de­cid­ed that Mr Thum­ble should un­der­take the du­ty. That is de­cid­ed.’

‘But I do not think he should trou­ble him­self to look for lodg­ings at Hog­gle­stock. He can go over on the Sun­days.’

‘And who is to do the parish work? Would you have that man, a con­vict­ed thief, to look af­ter the schools, and vis­it the sick, and per­haps at­tend the dy­ing?’

‘There will be a great dif­fi­cul­ty; there will in­deed,’ said the bish­op, be­com­ing very un­hap­py, and feel­ing that he was driv­en by cir­cum­stances ei­ther as­sert his own knowl­edge or teach his wife some­thing of the law with ref­er­ence to his po­si­tion as a bish­op. ‘Who is to pay Mr Thum­ble?’

‘The in­come of the parish must be se­ques­trat­ed, and he must be paid out of that. Of course he must have the in­come while he does the work.’

‘But, my dear, I can­not se­ques­trate the man’s in­come.’

‘I don’t be­lieve it, bish­op. If the bish­op can­not se­ques­trate, who can? But you are al­ways timid in ex­er­cis­ing the au­thor­ity put in­to your hands for wise pur­pos­es. Not se­ques­trate the in­come of a man who has been proved to be a thief! You leave that to us, and we will man­age it.’ The ‘us’ named com­prised Mrs Proudie and the bish­op’s man­ag­ing chap­lain.

Then the bish­op was left alone for an hour to write the let­ter which Mr Thum­ble was to car­ry over to Mr Craw­ley–and af­ter a while he did write it. Be­fore he com­menced the task, how­ev­er, he sat for some mo­ments in his arm-​chair close by the fire-​side, ask­ing him­self whether it might not be pos­si­ble for him to over­come his en­emy in this mat­ter. How would it go with him sup­pose he were to leave the let­ter un­writ­ten, and send in a mes­sage by his chap­lain to Mrs Proudie, say­ing that as Mr Craw­ley was out on bail, the parish might be left for the present with­out epis­co­pal in­ter­fer­ence? She could not make him in­ter­fere. She could not force him to write the let­ter. So, at least, he said to him­self. But as he said it, he al­most thought that she could do these things. In the last thir­ty years, or more, she had ev­er con­trived by some pow­er la­tent in her to have her will ef­fect­ed. But what would hap­pen if now, even now, he were to rebel? That he would per­son­al­ly be­come very un­com­fort­able, he was well aware, but he thought he could bear that. The food would be­come bad–mere ash­es, be­tween his teeth, the dai­ly mod­icum of wine would lose its flavour, the chim­neys would all smoke, the wind would come from the east, and the ser­vants would not an­swer the bell. Lit­tle mis­eries of that kind would crowd up­on him. He had ar­rived at a time in life in which such mis­eries make such men very mis­er­able; but yet he thought that he could en­dure them. And what oth­er wretched­ness would come to him? She would scold him–fright­ful­ly, loud­ly, scorn­ful­ly, and worse than all, con­tin­ual­ly. But of this he had so much ha­bit­ual­ly, that any­thing added might be borne al­so;–if on­ly he could be sure that the scold­ings should go on in pri­vate, that the world of the palace should not be al­lowed to hear the re­vil­ings to which he would be sub­ject­ed. But to be scold­ed pub­licly was the great evil which he dread­ed be­yond all evils. He was well aware that the palace would know his mis­for­tune, that it was known, and freely dis­cussed by all, from the ex­am­in­ing chap­lain down to the palace boot-​boy;–nay, that it was known to all the dio­cese; but yet he could smile up­on those around him, and look as though he held his own like oth­er men–un­less when open vi­olence was dis­played. But when that voice was heard aloud along the cor­ri­dors of the palace, and when he was sum­moned im­pe­ri­ous­ly by the wom­an, call­ing for the bish­op, so that all Barch­ester heard it, and when he was com­pelled to creep forth from his study, at the sound of that sum­mons, with dis­tressed face, and shak­ing hands, and short hur­ry­ing steps–a be­ing to be pitied even by a dea­con–not ven­tur­ing to as­sume an air of mas­ter­dom should he chance to meet a house­maid on the stairs–then, at such mo­ments as that, he would feel that any sub­mis­sion was bet­ter than the mis­ery which he suf­fered. And he well knew that should he now rebel, the whole house would be in a tur­moil. He would be bish­oped here, bish­oped there, be­fore the eyes of all pala­tial men and wom­en, till life would be a bur­den to him. So he got up from his seat over the fire, and went to his desk and wrote the let­ter. The let­ter was as fol­lows:–

THE PALACE, BARCH­ESTER,–De­cem­ber, 186-’

‘REV­EREND SIR,–

(he left out the dear, be­cause he knew that if he in­sert­ed it he would be com­pelled to write the let­ter over again).

‘I have heard to­day with the great­est trou­ble of spir­it, that you have been tak­en be­fore a bench of mag­is­trates as­sem­bled at Sil­ver­bridge, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been ar­rest­ed by the po­lice in your par­son­age house at Hog­gle­stock, and that the mag­is­trates of Sil­ver­bridge have com­mit­ted you to take your tri­al at the next as­sizes at Barch­ester, on a charge of theft.

‘Far be it from me to pre­judge the case. You will un­der­stand, rev­erend sir, that I ex­press no opin­ion what­ev­er as to your guilt or in­no­cence in this mat­ter. If you have been guilty, may the Lord give you grace to re­pent of your great sin and to make such amends as may come from im­me­di­ate ac­knowl­edge­ment and con­fes­sion, if you are in­no­cent, may He pro­tect you, and make your in­no­cence shine be­fore all men. In ei­ther case may the Lord be with you and keep your feet from fur­ther stum­bling.

‘But I write to you now as your bish­op, to ex­plain to you that, cir­cum­stanced as you are, you can­not with de­cen­cy per­form the church ser­vices of your parish. I have that con­fi­dence in you that I doubt not that you will agree with me in this, and will be grate­ful to me for re­liev­ing you from the im­me­di­ate per­plex­ities of your po­si­tion. I have, there­fore, ap­point­ed Rev Caleb Thum­ble to per­form the du­ties of in­cum­bent of Hog­gle­stock till such time as a ju­ry shall have de­cid­ed up­on your case at Barch­ester; and in or­der that you may at once be­come ac­quaint­ed with Mr Thum­ble, as will be most con­ve­nient that you should do, I will com­mis­sion him to de­liv­er this let­ter in­to your hand per­son­al­ly to­mor­row, trust­ing that you will re­ceive him with that broth­er­ly spir­it in which he is sent on this painful mis­sion.

‘Touch­ing the re­mu­ner­ation to which Mr Thum­ble will be­come en­ti­tled for his tem­po­rary min­is­tra­tion in the parish of Hog­gle­stock, I do not at present lay down any strict in­junc­tion. He must, at any rate, be paid at a rate not less than that or­di­nar­ily af­ford­ed for a cu­rate.

‘I will once again ex­press my fer­vent hope that the Lord may bring you to see the true state of your own soul, and that He may fill you with the grace of re­pen­tance, so that the bit­ter waves of the present hour may not pass over your head and de­stroy you.

‘I have the hon­our to be, Rev­erend Sir, ‘Your faith­ful ser­vant in Christ, ‘T. BAR­NUM’

(Baron­um Cas­trum hav­ing been the old Ro­man name from which the mod­ern Barch­ester is de­rived, the bish­ops of the dio­cese have al­ways signed them­selves Bar­num.)

The bish­op had hard­ly fin­ished his let­ter when Mrs Proudie re­turned to the study, fol­lowed by the Rev Caleb Thum­ble. Mr Thum­ble was a lit­tle man, about forty years of age, who had a wife and chil­dren liv­ing in Barch­ester, and who ex­ist­ed on such chance cler­ical crumbs as might fall from the ta­ble of the bish­op’s pa­tron­age. Peo­ple in Barch­ester said that Mrs Thum­ble was a cousin of Mrs Proudie’s; but as Mrs Proudie stout­ly de­nied the con­nex­ion, it may be sup­posed that the peo­ple of Barch­ester were wrong. And, had Mr Thum­ble’s wife in truth been a cousin, Mrs Proudie would sure­ly have pro­vid­ed for him dur­ing the many years in which the dio­cese had been in her hands. No such pro­vi­sion had been made, and Mr Thum­ble, who had not been liv­ing in the dio­cese for three years, had re­ceived noth­ing else from the bish­op than such chance em­ploy­ment as this which he was about to un­der­take at Hog­gle­stock. He was a hum­ble, mild-​voiced man, when with­in the palace precincts, and had so far suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing his way among his brethren in the cathe­dral city as to be em­ployed not un­fre­quent­ly for ab­sent mi­nor canons in chant­ing the week-​day ser­vices, be­ing re­mu­ner­at­ed for his work at the rate of about two shillings and six­pence a ser­vice.

The bish­op hand­ed the let­ter to his wife, ob­serv­ing in an off-​hand kind of way that she might as well see what he said. ‘Of course I shall read it,’ said Mrs Proudie. And the bish­op winced, vis­ibly, be­cause Mr Thum­ble was present. ‘Quite right,’ said Mrs Proudie, ‘quite right to let him know that you knew he had been ar­rest­ed–ac­tu­al­ly ar­rest­ed by the po­lice.’

‘I thought it prop­er to men­tion that, be­cause of the scan­dal,’ said the bish­op.

‘Oh, it has been ter­ri­ble in the city,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘Nev­er mind, Mr Thum­ble,’ said Mrs Proudie. ‘Nev­er mind that at present.’ Then she con­tin­ued to read the let­ter. ‘What’s this? Con­fes­sion! That must come out, bish­op. It will nev­er do that you should rec­om­mend con­fes­sion to any­body, un­der any cir­cum­stances.’

‘But, my dea–’

‘It must come out, bish­op.’

‘My lord has not meant au­ric­ular con­fes­sion,’ sug­gest­ed Mr Thum­ble. Then Mrs Proudie turned around and looked at Mr Thum­ble, and Mr Thum­ble near­ly sank amidst the ta­bles and chairs. ‘I beg your par­don, Mrs Proudie,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to in­trude.’

‘The word must come out, bish­op,’ re­peat­ed Mrs Proudie. ‘There should be no stum­bling blocks pre­pared for feet that are on­ly too ready to fall.’ And the word did come out.

‘Now, Mr Thum­ble,’ said the la­dy, as she gave the let­ter to her satel­lite, ‘the bish­op and I wish you to be at Hog­gle­stock ear­ly to­mor­row. You should be there not lat­er than ten, cer­tain­ly.’ Then she paused un­til Mr Thum­ble had giv­en the re­quired promise. ‘And we re­quest that you will be very firm in the mis­sion which is con­fid­ed to you, a mis­sion which, as of course, you see, is of a very del­icate and im­por­tant na­ture. You must be firm.’

‘I will en­deav­our,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘The bish­op and I both feel that this most un­for­tu­nate man must not un­der any cir­cum­stances be al­lowed to per­form the ser­vices of the Church while this charge is hang­ing over him–a charge as to the truth of which no sane man can en­ter­tain a doubt.’

‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Proudie,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘The bish­op and I there­fore are most anx­ious that you should make Mr Craw­ley un­der­stand at once–at once,’ and the la­dy, as she spoke, lift­ed up her hand with an elo­quent vi­olence which had its ef­fect on Mr Thum­ble, ‘that he is in­hib­it­ed,’–the bish­op shook in his shoes–’in­hib­it­ed from the per­for­mance of any of his sa­cred du­ties.’ There­upon, Mr Thum­ble promised obe­di­ence and went his way.