The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXXXIII

MR CRAW­LEY IS CON­QUERED

It was more than a week be­fore the archdea­con re­ceived a re­ply from Mr Craw­ley, dur­ing which time the dean had been over to Hog­gle­stock more than once, as had al­so Mrs Ara­bin and La­dy Lufton the younger–and there had been let­ters writ­ten with­out end, and the archdea­con had been near­ly be­side him­self. ‘A man who pre­tends to con­sci­en­tious scru­ples of that kind is not fit to have a parish,’ he had said to his wife. His wife un­der­stood what he meant, and I trust that the read­er may al­so un­der­stand it. In the or­di­nary cut­ting of blocks a very fine ra­zor is not an ap­pro­pri­ate in­stru­ment. The archdea­con, more­over, loved the tem­po­ral­ities of the Church as tem­po­ral­ities. The Church was beau­ti­ful to him be­cause one man by in­ter­est might have a thou­sand a year, while an­oth­er man equal­ly good, but with­out in­ter­est, could on­ly have a hun­dred. And he liked the men who had the in­ter­est a great deal bet­ter than the men who had it not. He had been will­ing to ad­mit the poor per­pet­ual cu­rate, who had so long been kept out in the cold, with­in the pleas­ant cir­cle which was warm with ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal good things, and the man hes­itat­ed–be­cause of scru­ples, as the dean told him! ‘I al­ways but­ton up my pock­et when I hear of scru­ples,’ the archdea­con said.

But at last Mr Craw­ley con­de­scend­ed to ac­cept St Ewold’s.

‘Rev­erend and dear sir,’ he said in his let­ter: ‘For the per­son­al benev­olence of the of­fer made to me in your let­ter of the — in­stant, I beg to ten­der you my most grate­ful thanks; as al­so for you gen­er­ous kind­ness to me, in telling me of the high praise be­stowed up­on me by a gen­tle­man who is now no more–whose char­ac­ter I have es­teemed and whose good opin­ion I val­ue. There is, me­thinks, some­thing in­ex­press­ibly dear to me in the record­ed praise of the dead. For the fur­ther in­stance of the friend­ship of the Dean of Barch­ester, I am al­so thank­ful.

‘Since the re­ceipt of your let­ter I have doubt­ed much as to my fit­ness for the work you have pro­posed to en­trust to me–not from any feel­ing that the parish of St Ewold’s may be be­yond my in­tel­lec­tu­al pow­er, but be­cause the lat­ter cir­cum­stances of my life have been of a na­ture so strange and per­plex­ing that they have left me some­what in doubt as to my own ap­ti­tude for go­ing about among men with­out giv­ing of­fence and be­com­ing a stum­bling block.

‘Nev­er­the­less, rev­erend and dear sir, if af­ter this con­fes­sion on my part of a cer­tain faulty de­meanour with which I know well that I am af­flict­ed, you are still will­ing to put the parish in­to my hands, I will ac­cept the charge–in­sti­gat­ed to do so by the ad­vice of all whom I have con­sult­ed on the sub­ject; and, in thus ac­cept­ing it, I here­by pledge my­self to va­cate it at a month’s warn­ing, should I be called up­on by you to do so at any pe­ri­od with­in the next two years. Should I be so far suc­cess­ful dur­ing those twen­ty-​four months as to have sat­is­fied both your­self and my­self, I may then per­haps ven­ture to re­gard the prefer­ment as my own in per­pe­tu­ity for life;–I have the hon­our to be, rev­erend and dear sir, you most hum­ble and faith­ful ser­vant, ‘JOSI­AH CRAW­LEY’

‘Psha!’ said the archdea­con, who pro­fessed that he did not at all like the let­ter. ‘I won­der what he would say if I sent him a month’s no­tice at next Michael­mas?’

‘I’m sure he would go,’ said Mrs Grant­ly.

‘The more fool he,’ said the archdea­con.

At this time Grace was at the par­son­age in a sev­enth heav­en of hap­pi­ness. The archdea­con was nev­er rough to her, nor did he make any of his harsh re­marks about her fa­ther in her pres­ence. Be­fore her St Ewold’s was spo­ken of as the home that was to be­long to the Craw­leys for the next twen­ty years. Mrs Grant­ly was very lov­ing with her, lav­ish­ing up­on her pret­ty presents, and words that were pret­ti­er than presents. Grace’s life had hith­er­to been so des­ti­tute of those pret­ti­ness­es and soft­ness­es which can hard­ly be had with­out mon­ey though mon­ey alone will not pur­chase them, that it seemed to her now that the heav­ens rained gra­cious­ness up­on her. It was not that the archdea­con’s watch or her lover’s chain, or Mrs Grant­ly’s lock­et, or the lit­tle toy from Italy which Mrs Ara­bin brought to her from the trea­sures of the dean­ery, filled her heart with un­due ex­al­ta­tion. It was not that she rev­elled in her new de­lights of sil­ver and gold and shin­ing gems; but that the sil­ver and gold and shin­ing gems were con­stant in­di­ca­tions to her that things had changed, not on­ly for her, but for her fa­ther and moth­er, and broth­er and sis­ter. She felt now more sure than ev­er that she could not have en­joyed her love had she ac­cept­ed her lover while the dis­grace of the ac­cu­sa­tion against her fa­ther re­mained. But now–hav­ing wait­ed till that had passed away, ev­ery­thing was a new hap­pi­ness to her.

At last it was set­tled that Mr and Mrs Craw­ley were to come to Plum­stead–and they came. it would be too long to tell now how grad­ual­ly had come about that changed state of things which made such a vis­it pos­si­ble. Mr Craw­ley had at first de­clared that such a thing was out of the ques­tion. If St Ewold’s was to de­pend up­on it St Ewold’s must be giv­en up. And I think that it would have been im­pos­si­ble for him to go di­rect from Hog­gle­stock to Plum­stead. But it fell out af­ter this wise.

Mr Hard­ing’s cu­rate at St Ewold’s was nom­inat­ed to Hog­gle­stock, and the dean urged up­on his friend Craw­ley the ex­pe­di­en­cy of giv­ing up the house as quick­ly as he could do so. Grad­ual­ly at this time Mr Craw­ley had been forced in­to a cer­tain amount of in­ti­ma­cy with the haunts of men. He had been twice or thrice at Barch­ester, and had lunched with the dean. He had been at Fram­ley for an hour or two, and had been forced in­to some com­mu­ni­ca­tion with old Mr Thorne, the squire of his new parish. The end of this had been that he had at last con­sent­ed to trans­fer him­self and wife and daugh­ter to the dean­ery for a fort­night. He had preached one farewell ser­mon at Hog­gle­stock–not, as he told his au­di­ence, as their pas­tor, which he had ceased to be now for some two or three months–but as their old and lov­ing friend, to whom the use of his for­mer pul­pit had been lent, that he might ex­press him­self thus among them for the last time. His ser­mon was very short, and was preached with­out book or notes–but he nev­er once paused for a word or halt­ed in the string or rhythm of his dis­course. The dean was there and de­clared af­ter­wards that he had not giv­en him cred­it for such pow­ers of ut­ter­ance. ‘Any man can ut­ter out of a full heart,’ Craw­ley had an­swered. ‘In this trumpery af­fair about my­self, my heart is full! If we could on­ly have our hearts full in oth­er mat­ters, our ut­ter­ances there­anent would re­ceive more at­ten­tion.’ To all of this the dean made no re­ply.

On the day af­ter this the Craw­leys took their fi­nal de­par­ture from Hog­gle­stock, all the brick­mak­ers from Hog­gle End hav­ing as­sem­bled on the oc­ca­sion, with a purse con­tain­ing sev­en­teen pounds sev­en shillings and six­pence, which they in­sist­ed on pre­sent­ing to Mr Craw­ley, and as to which there was a lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty. And at the dean­ery they re­mained for a fort­night. How Mrs Craw­ley, un­der the guid­ance of Mrs Ara­bin, had there so far trenched up­on the rev­enues of St Ewold’s as to pro­vide for her hus­band and her­self rai­ment fit­ting for the world­ly splen­dour of Plum­stead, need not here be told in de­tail. Suf­fice to say, the rai­ment was forth­com­ing, and Mr Craw­ley found him­self to be the per­plexed pos­ses­sor of a black dress coat, in ad­di­tion to the long frock, com­ing near­ly to his feet, which was pro­vid­ed for his dai­ly wear. Touch­ing this gar­ment, there had been some dis­cus­sion be­tween the dean and the new vicar. The dean had de­sired that it should be cur­tailed in length. The vicar had re­mon­strat­ed–but still with some­thing of the weak­ness of com­pli­ance in his eye. Then the dean had per­sist­ed. ‘Sure­ly the price of the cloth want­ed to per­fect the come­li­ness of the gar­ment can­not be much,’ said the vicar, al­most woe­ful­ly. Af­ter that, the dean re­lent­ed, and the come­li­ness of the coat was made per­fect. The new black long frock, I think, Mr Craw­ley liked; but the dress coat, with the suit com­plete, per­plexed him sore­ly.

With his new coat, and some­thing al­so, of new man­ners, he and his wife went over to Plum­stead, leav­ing Jane at the dean­ery with Mrs Ara­bin. The dean al­so went to Plum­stead. They ar­rived there not much be­fore din­ner, and as Grace was there be­fore them the first mo­ments were not so bad. Be­fore Mr Craw­ley had had time to feel him­self lost in the draw­ing-​room, he was sum­moned away to pre­pare him­self for din­ner–for din­ner, and for the coat, which at the dean­ery he had been al­lowed to leave un­worn. ‘I would with all my heart that I might re­tire to rest,’ he said to his wife, when the cer­emo­ny had been per­fect­ed.

‘Do not say so. Go down and take your place with them, and speak your mind with them–as you so well know how. Who among them can do it so well?’

‘I have been told,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘that you shall take a cock which is lord of the farm­yard–the cock of all that walk–and when you have daubed his feath­ers with mud, he shall be thrashed by ev­ery dunghill cow­ard. I say not that I was ev­er the cock of the walk, but I know that they have daubed my feath­ers.’ Then he went down among the oth­er poul­try in the farm­yard.

At din­ner he was very silent, an­swer­ing, how­ev­er, with a sort of grace­ful state­li­ness any word that Mrs Grant­ly ad­dressed to him. Mr Thorne, of Ul­lathorne, was there al­so to meet his new vicar, as was al­so Mr Thorne’s very old sis­ter, Miss Mon­ica Thorne. And La­dy Anne Grant­ly was there–she hav­ing come with the ex­pressed in­ten­tion that the wives of the two broth­ers should know each oth­er–but with a warmer de­sire, I think, of see­ing Mr Craw­ley, of whom the cler­ical world had been talk­ing since some no­tice of the ac­cu­sa­tions against him had be­come gen­er­al. There were, there­fore, ten or twelve at the din­ner-​ta­ble, and Mr Craw­ley had not made one at such a board cer­tain­ly since his mar­riage. All went fair­ly smooth with him till the ladies left the room; for though La­dy Anne, who sat at his left hand, had per­plexed him some­what with cler­ical ques­tions, he had found that he was not called up­on for much more than mono­syl­lab­ic re­spons­es. But in his heart he feared the archdea­con and he felt that when the ladies were gone the archdea­con would not leave him alone in his si­lence.

As soon as the door was closed, the first sub­ject moot­ed was that of the Plum­stead fox, which had been so base­ly mur­dered on Mr Thorne’s ground. Mr Thorne had con­fessed the in­iq­ui­ty, had dis­missed the mur­der­ous game­keep­er, and all was serene. But the greater on that ac­count was the fea­si­bil­ity of dis­cussing the ques­tion, and the archdea­con had a good deal to say about it. Then Mr Thorne turned to the new vicar, and asked him whether fox­es abound­ed in Hog­gle­stock. Had he been asked as to the rats or moles, he would have known more about it.

‘In­deed, sir, I know not whether or no there be any fox­es in the parish of Hog­gle­stock. I do not re­mem­ber me that I ev­er saw one. It is an an­imal whose habits I have not watched.’

‘There is an earth at Hog­gle Bush­es,’ said the ma­jor; ‘and I nev­er knew it with­out a lit­ter.’

‘I think I know the do­mes­tic where­abouts of ev­ery fox in Plum­stead,’ said the archdea­con, with an ill-​na­tured in­ten­tion of as­ton­ish­ing Mr Craw­ley.

‘Of fox­es with two legs our friend is speak­ing, with­out doubt,’ said the vicar of St Ewold’s, with an at­tempt at grim pleas­antry.

‘Of them we have none at Plum­stead. No–I was speak­ing of the dear old fel­low with the brush. Pass the bot­tle, Mr Craw­ley. Won’t you fill your glass?’ Mr Craw­ley passed the bot­tle, but would not fill the glass. Then the dean, look­ing up sly­ly, saw the vex­ation writ­ten in the archdea­con’s face. The par­son whom the archdea­con feared most of all was the par­son who wouldn’t fill his glass.

Then the sub­ject was changed. ‘I’m told that the bish­op has at last made his reap­pear­ance on his throne,’ said the archdea­con.

‘He was in the cathe­dral last Sun­day,’ said the dean.

‘Does he ev­er mean to preach again?’ ‘He nev­er did preach very of­ten,’ said the dean.

‘A great deal too of­ten, from all peo­ple say,’ said the archdea­con. ‘I nev­er heard him my­self, and nev­er shall, I dare­say. You have heard him, Mr Craw­ley?’

‘I have nev­er had that good for­tune, Mr Archdea­con. But liv­ing as I shall now do, so near to the city, I may per­haps be en­abled to at­tend the cathe­dral ser­vice on some holy-​day of the Church, which may not re­quire prayers in my own ru­ral parish. I think that the cler­gy of the dio­cese should be ac­quaint­ed with the opin­ions, and with the voice, and with the very man­ner and words of their bish­op. As things are now done, this is not pos­si­ble. I could wish that there were oc­ca­sions on which a bish­op might as­sem­ble his cler­gy, and preach to them ser­mons adapt­ed to their use.’

‘What do you call a bish­op’s charge, then?’

‘It is usu­al­ly in the print­ed form that I have re­ceived it,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘I think we have had quite enough of that kind of thing,’ said the archdea­con.

‘He is a man whose con­ver­sa­tion is not pleas­ing to me,’ Mr Craw­ley said to his wife that night.

‘Do not judge him too quick­ly, Josi­ah,’ his wife said. ‘There is so much of good in him! He is kind, and gen­er­ous, and I think af­fec­tion­ate.’

‘But he is of the earth, earthy. When you and the oth­er ladies had re­tired, the con­ver­sa­tion at first fell on the habits and val­ue of–fox­es. I have been in­formed that in these parts the fox is great­ly prized, as with­out a fox to run be­fore the dogs, that scam­per­ing over the coun­try which is called hunt­ing, and which de­lights by the quick­ness and per­haps the per­il of the ex­er­cise, is not rel­ished by the rid­ers. Of the wis­dom or taste here­in dis­played by the hunters of the day I say noth­ing. But it seemed to me that in talk­ing of fox­es Dr Grant­ly was mas­ter of his sub­ject. Thence the top­ic glid­ed to the du­ties of a bish­op and to ques­tions of preach­ing, as to which Dr Grant­ly was not slow in of­fer­ing his opin­ion. But I thought that I would rather have heard him talk about the fox­es for a week to­geth­er.’ She said noth­ing more to him, know­ing well how use­less it was to at­tempt to turn him by any ar­gu­ment. To her think­ing the kind­ness of the archdea­con to them per­son­al­ly de­mand­ed some in­dul­gence in the ex­pres­sion, and even in the for­ma­tion, of an opin­ion, re­spect­ing his cler­ical pe­cu­liar­ities.

On the next day, how­ev­er, Mr Craw­ley, hav­ing been sum­moned by the archdea­con in­to the li­brary for a lit­tle pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion, found that he got on bet­ter with him. How the archdea­con con­quered him may per­haps be best de­scribed by a fur­ther nar­ra­tion of what Mr Craw­ley told his wife. ‘I told him that in re­gard to mon­ey mat­ters, as he called them, I had noth­ing to say. I on­ly trust­ed that his son was aware that my daugh­ter had no mon­ey, and nev­er would have any. “My dear Craw­ley,” the archdea­con said–for of late there seems to have grown up in the world a habit of greater fa­mil­iar­ity than that which I think did pre­vail when last I moved much among men–“my dear Craw­ley, I have enough for both.” “I would we stood on more equal ground,” I said. Then as he an­swered me, he rose from his chair. “We stand,” said he, “on the per­fect lev­el on which men can meet each oth­er. We are both gen­tle­men.” “Sir,” I said, ris­ing al­so, “from the bot­tom of the heart I agree with you. I could not have spo­ken such words; but com­ing from you who are rich to me am poor, they are hon­ourable to the one and com­fort­able to the oth­er.”‘

‘And af­ter that?’

‘He took down from the shelves a vol­ume of some ser­mons which his fa­ther pub­lished many years ago, and pre­sent­ed to me. I have it now un­der my arm. It hath the old bish­op’s manuscript notes, which I will study care­ful­ly.’ And thus the archdea­con had hit his bird on both wings.