THE WARDEN
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 usual, 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 mediaeval 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.