THE WARDEN
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 wellnigh 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 today. 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 protegee
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.