The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXIX

MR CRAW­LEY’S LAST AP­PEAR­ANCE IN HIS OWN PUL­PIT

No word or mes­sage from Mr Craw­ley reached Barch­ester through­out the week, and on the Sun­day morn­ing Mr Thum­ble was un­der a pos­itive en­gage­ment to go out to Hog­gle­stock, and to per­form the ser­vices of the church. Dr Tem­pest had been quite right in say­ing that Mr Thum­ble would be awed by the death of his pa­troness. Such was al­to­geth­er the case, and he was very anx­ious to es­cape from the task he had un­der­tak­en at her in­stance, if it were pos­si­ble. In the first place, he had nev­er been a favourite with the bish­op him­self, and had now, there­fore, noth­ing to ex­pect in the dio­cese. The crusts and bits of loaves and the morsels of bro­ken fish­es which had come his way had all come from the boun­ty of Mrs Proudie. And then, as re­gard­ed this spe­cial Hog­gle­stock job, how was he to get paid for it? Whence, in­deed, was he to seek re­pay­ment for the ac­tu­al mon­ey which he would be out of pock­et in find­ing his way to Hog­gle­stock and back again? But he could not get to speak to the bish­op, nor could he in­duce any­one who had ac­cess to his lord­ship to touch up­on the sub­ject. Mr Snap­per avoid­ed him as much as pos­si­ble; and Mr Snap­per, when he was caught and in­ter­ro­gat­ed, de­clared that he re­gard­ed the mat­ter as set­tled. Noth­ing could be in worse taste, Mr Snap­per thought, than to un­do, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the poor la­dy’s death, work in the dio­cese which had been ar­ranged and done by her. Mr Snap­per ex­pressed his opin­ion that Mr Thum­ble was bound to go to Hog­gle­stock; and, when Mr Thum­ble de­clared petu­lant­ly the he would not stir a step out of Barch­ester, Mr Snap­per protest­ed that Mr Thum­ble would have to an­swer for it in this world and in the next if there was no ser­vices at Hog­gle­stock on that Sun­day. On the Sat­ur­day evening Mr Thum­ble made a des­per­ate at­tempt to see the bish­op, but was told by Mrs Drap­er that the bish­op had pos­itive­ly de­clined to see him. The bish­op him­self prob­ably felt un­will­ing to in­ter­fere with his wife’s do­ings so soon af­ter her death! So Mr Thum­ble, with a heavy heart, went across to the ‘Drag­on of Want­ly’, and or­dered a gig, re­solv­ing that the bill should be sent to the palace. He was not go­ing to trust him­self again on the bish­op’s cob!

Up to Sat­ur­day evening Mr Craw­ley did the work of the parish, and on the Sat­ur­day evening he made an ad­dress to his parish­ioners from his pul­pit. He had giv­en no­tice among the brick­mak­ers and labour­ers that he wished to say a few words to them in the school­room; but the farm­ers al­so heard of this and came with their wives and daugh­ters, and all the brick­mak­ers came and most of the labour­ers were there, so that there was no room for them in the school­house. The con­gre­ga­tion was much larg­er than was cus­tom­ary even in the church. ‘They will come,’ he said to his wife, ‘to hear a ru­ined man de­clare his own ru­in, but they will not come to hear the word of God.’ When it was found that the per­sons as­sem­bled were too many for the school-​room, the meet­ing was ad­journed to the church, and Mr Craw­ley was forced to get in­to his pul­pit. He said a short prayer, and then he be­gan his sto­ry.

His sto­ry as he told it then shall not be re­peat­ed now, as the same sto­ry has been told too of­ten al­ready in these pages. Sure­ly it was a sin­gu­lar sto­ry for a parish cler­gy­man to tell him­self in so solemn a man­ner. That he had ap­plied the cheque to his own pur­pos­es, and was un­able to ac­count for its pos­ses­sion of it, was cer­tain. He did not know when or how he had got it. Speak­ing to them then in God’s house he told them that. He was to be tried by a ju­ry, and all he could do was to tell the ju­ry the same. He would not ex­pect the ju­ry to be­lieve him. The ju­ry would, of course, be­lieve on­ly that which was proved to them. But he did ex­pect his old friends at Hog­gle­stock, who had known him so long, to take his word as true. That there was no suf­fi­cient ex­cuse for his con­duct, even in his own sight, this, his vol­un­tary res­ig­na­tion of his parish, was, he said, suf­fi­cient ev­idence. Then he ex­plained to them, as clear­ly as he was able, what the bish­op had done, what the com­mis­sion had done, and what he had done him­self. That he spoke no word of Mrs Proudie to that au­di­ence need hard­ly be men­tioned here. ‘And now, dear­est friends, I leave you,’ he said, with that weighty solem­ni­ty which was so pe­cu­liar to the man, and which he was able to make sin­gu­lar­ly im­pres­sive even on such a con­gre­ga­tion as that of Hog­gle­stock, ‘and I trust that the heavy bur­den but pleas­ing bur­den of the charge which I have had over you may fall in­to hands bet­ter fit­ted than mine have been for such work. I have al­ways known my own un­fit­ness, by rea­son of the world­ly cares with which I have been laden. Pover­ty makes the spir­it poor, and the hands weak, and the heart sore–and too of­ten makes the con­science dull. May the lat­ter nev­er be the case with any of you.’ Then he ut­tered an­oth­er short prayer, and, step­ping down from the pul­pit, walked out of the church, with his weep­ing wife hang­ing on his arm, and his daugh­ter fol­low­ing them, al­most dis­solved in tears. He nev­er again en­tered that church as the pas­tor of the con­gre­ga­tion.

There was an old lame man from Hog­gle End lean­ing on his stick near the door as Mr Craw­ley went out, and with him was his old lame wife. ‘He’ll pull through yet,’ said the old man to his wife; ‘you’ll see else. He’ll pull through be­cause he’s so dogged. It’s dogged as does it.’

On that night the po­si­tion of the mem­bers of Mr Craw­ley’s house­hold seemed to have changed. There was some­thing al­most of ela­tion in his mode of speak­ing, and he said soft lov­ing words, striv­ing to com­fort his wife. She, on the oth­er hand, could say noth­ing to com­fort him. She had been averse to the step he was tak­ing, but had been un­able to press her ob­jec­tion in op­po­si­tion to his great ar­gu­ment as to du­ty. Since he had spo­ken to her in that strain which he had used with Ro­barts, she al­so had felt that she must be silent. But she could not even feign to feel the pride which comes from the per­for­mance of a du­ty. ‘What will he do when he comes out?’ she said to her daugh­ter. The com­ing out spo­ken of her was the com­ing out of prison. It was nat­ural enough that she should feel no ela­tion.

The break­fast on Sun­day morn­ing was to her, per­haps, the sad­dest scene of her life. They sat down, the three to­geth­er, at the usu­al hour–nine o’clock–but the morn­ing had not been passed as was cus­tom­ary on Sun­days. It had been Mr Craw­ley’s prac­tice to go in­to the school from eight to nine; but on this Sun­day he felt, as he told his wife, that his pres­ence would be an in­tru­sion there. But he re­quest­ed Jane to go and per­form her usu­al task. ‘If Mr Thum­ble should come,’ he said to her, ‘be sub­mis­sive to him in all things.’ Then he stood at his door, watch­ing to see at what hour Mr Thum­ble would reach the school. But Mr Thum­ble did not at­tend the school on that morn­ing. ‘And yet he was very ex­press to me in his de­sire that I would not med­dle with the du­ties,’ said Mr Craw­ley to his wife as he stood at the door–’un­nec­es­sar­ily ur­gent, as I may say I thought at the time.’ If Mrs Craw­ley could have spo­ken out her thoughts about Mr Thum­ble at that mo­ment, her words would, I think have sur­prised her hus­band.

At break­fast there was hard­ly a word spo­ken. Mr Craw­ley took his crust and ate it mourn­ful­ly–al­most os­ten­ta­tious­ly. Jane tried and failed, and tried to hide her fail­ure, fail­ing in that al­so. Mrs Craw­ley made no at­tempt. She sat be­hind her teapot, with her hands clasped and her eyes fixed. It was as though some last day had come up­on her–this, the first Sun­day of her hus­band’s degra­da­tion.

‘Mary,’ he said to her, ‘why do you not eat?’

‘I can­not,’ she replied, speak­ing not in a whis­per, but in words which would hard­ly get them­selves ar­tic­ulat­ed. ‘I can­not. Do not ask me.’

‘For the hon­our of the lord, you will want the strength which bread can give you,’ he said, in­ti­mat­ing to her that he wished her to at­tend the ser­vice.

‘Do not ask me to be there, Josi­ah. I can­not. It is too much for me.’

‘Nay, I will not press it,’ he said. ‘I can go alone.’ He ut­tered no word ex­pres­sive of a wish that his daugh­ter should at­tend the church; but when the mo­ment came, Jane ac­com­pa­nied him. ‘What shall I do, mam­ma?’ she said, ‘if I find that I can­not bear it?’ ‘Try to bear it,’ the moth­er said. ‘Try for his sake. You are stronger than I am.’

The tin­kle of the church bell was heard at the usu­al time, and Mr Craw­ley, hat in hand, stood ready to go forth. He had heard noth­ing of Mr Thum­ble, but had made up his mind that Mr Thum­ble would not trou­ble him. He had tak­en the pre­cau­tion to re­quest his church­war­den to be ear­ly at the church, so that Mr Thum­ble might en­counter no dif­fi­cul­ty. The church was very near to the house, and any ve­hi­cle ar­riv­ing might have been heard had Mr Craw­ley watched close­ly. But no one had cared to watch Mr Thum­ble’s ar­rival at the church. He did not doubt that Mr Thum­ble would be at the church. With ref­er­ence to the school, he had had some doubt.

But just as he was about to start he heard the clat­ter of a gig. Up came Mr Thum­ble to the door of the par­son­age, and hav­ing come down from his gig was about to en­ter the house as though it were his own. Mr Craw­ley greet­ed him in the path­way, rais­ing his hat from his head, and ex­press­ing a wish that Mr Thum­ble might not feel him­self fa­tigued with his drive. ‘I will not ask you in­to my poor house,’ he said, stand­ing in the mid­dle of the path­way; ‘for that my wife is ill.’

‘Noth­ing catch­ing, I hope?’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘Her mal­ady is of the spir­it rather than of the flesh,’ said Mr Craw­ley. ‘Shall we go to the church?’

‘Cer­tain­ly–by all means. How about the sur­plice?’

‘You will find, I trust, that the church­war­den has ev­ery­thing in readi­ness. I have no­ti­fied him ex­press­ly your com­ing, with the pur­port that it may be so.’

‘You’ll take part in the ser­vice, I sup­pose?’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘No part–no part what­ev­er,’ said Mr Craw­ley, stand­ing still for a mo­ment as he spoke, and show­ing plain­ly by the tone of his voice how dis­mayed he was, how in­dig­nant he had been made, by so in­de­cent a propo­si­tion. Was he giv­ing up his pul­pit to a stranger for any rea­son less co­gent than one which made it ab­so­lute­ly im­per­ative of him to be silent in that church which had so long been his own?

‘Just as you please,’ said Mr Thum­ble. ‘On­ly it’s rather hard lines to have to do it all my­self af­ter com­ing all the way from Barch­ester this morn­ing.’ To this Mr Craw­ley con­de­scend­ed to make no re­ply what­ev­er.

In the porch of the church, which was the on­ly en­trance, Mr Craw­ley in­tro­duced Mr Thum­ble to the church­war­den, sim­ply by a wave of the hand, and then passed on with his daugh­ter to a seat which opened up­on the aisle. Jane was go­ing on to that which she had hith­er­to al­ways oc­cu­pied with her moth­er in the lit­tle chan­cel; but Mr Craw­ley would not al­low this. Nei­ther to him nor to any of his fam­ily was there at­tached any longer the priv­ilege of us­ing the chan­cel of the church of Hog­gle­stock.

Mr Thum­ble scram­bled in­to the read­ing-​desk some ten min­utes af­ter the prop­er time, and went through the morn­ing ser­vice un­der, what must be ad­mit­ted to be, se­ri­ous dif­fi­cul­ties. There were the eyes of Mr Craw­ley fixed up­on him through­out the work, and a feel­ing per­vad­ed him that ev­ery­body there re­gard­ed him as an in­trud­er. At first this was so strong up­on him that Mr Craw­ley pitied him, and would have en­cour­aged him had it been pos­si­ble. But as the work pro­gressed, and as cus­tom and the sound of his own voice em­bold­ened him, there came to the man some touch­es of the ar­ro­gance which so gen­er­al­ly ac­com­pa­nies cow­ardice, and Mr Craw­ley’s acute ear de­tect­ed the mo­ment when it was so. An ob­serv­er might have seen that the mo­tion of his hands was al­tered as they were lift­ed in prayer. Though he was pray­ing, even in prayer he could not for­get the man who was oc­cu­py­ing the desk.

Then came the ser­mon, preached very of­ten be­fore, last­ing ex­act­ly half-​an-​hour, and then Mr Thum­ble’s work was done. Itin­er­ant cler­gy­men, who preach now here and now there, as it had been the lot of Mr Thum­ble to do, have at any rate this re­lief–that they can preach their ser­mons of­ten. From the com­mu­nion-​ta­ble Mr Thum­ble had stat­ed that, in the present pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances of the parish, there would be no sec­ond ser­vice at Hog­gle­stock for the present; and this was all he said or did pe­cu­liar to the oc­ca­sion. The mo­ment of the ser­vice was over and he got in­to his gig, and was driv­en back to Barch­ester.

‘Mam­ma,’ said Jane, as they sat at din­ner, ’such a ser­mon I am sure was nev­er heard in Hog­gle­stock be­fore. In­deed, you can hard­ly call it a ser­mon. It was down­right non­sense.’

‘My dear,’ said Mr Craw­ley en­er­get­ical­ly, ‘keep your crit­icisms for mat­ters that are pro­fane; then, though they be child­ish and sil­ly, they may at least be in­no­cent. Be crit­ical of Eu­rypi­des, if you must be crit­ical.’ But when Jane kissed her fa­ther af­ter din­ner, she, know­ing his hu­mour well, felt as­sured that her re­marks had not been tak­en al­to­geth­er in ill part.

Mr Thum­ble was nei­ther seen nor heard of again in the parish dur­ing the en­tire week.