Scenes of Clerical Life

wear, the' woon't wear. Three's neer un'll carry his ' ears like that Sir

  Cris'fer Chuvrell."

  "'Ull bet ye two pots," said another of the seniors, "as that yoongster

  a-walkin' wi' th' parson's wife 'll be Sir Cris'fer's son?he fevours him."

  "Nay, yae'll bet that wi' as big a fule as yersen; hae's noo son at oall. As I

  oonderstan', hae's the nevey as is t' heir th' esteate. The coochman as puts oop

  at th' White Hoss tellt me as theer war another nevey, a dell finer chap t'

  looke at nor this un, as died in a fit, oall on a soodden, an' soo this here

  yoong un's got upo' th' perch istid."

  At the church gate Mr. Bates was standing in a new suit, ready to speak words of

  good omen as the bride and bridegroom approached. He had come all the way from

  Cheverel Manor on purpose to see Miss Tina happy once more, and would have been

  in a state of unmixed joy but for the inferiority of the wedding nosegays to

  what he could have furnished from the garden at the Manor.

  "God A'maighty bless ye both, an' send ye long laife an' happiness," were the

  good gardener's rather tremulous words.

  "Thank you, uncle Bates; always remember Tina," said the sweet low voice, which

  fell on Mr Bates's ear for the last time.

  The wedding journey was to be a circuitous route to Shepperton, where Mr Gilfil

  had been for several months inducted as vicar. This small living had been given

  him through the interest of an old friend who had some claim on the gratitude of

  the Oldinport family; and it was a satisfaction both to Maynard and Sir

  Christopher that a home to which he might take Caterina had thus readily

  presented itself at a distance from Cheverel Manor. For it had never yet been

  thought safe that she should revisit the scene of her sufferings, her health

  continuing too delicate to encourage the slightest risk of painful excitement.

  In a year or two, perhaps, by the time old Mr Crichley, the rector of

  Cumbermoor, should have left a world of gout, and when Caterina would very

  likely be a happy mother, Maynard might safely take up his abode at Cumbermoor,

  and Tina would feel nothing but content at seeing a new "little black-eyed

  monkey" running up and down the gallery and gardens of the Manor. A mother

  dreads no memories?those shadows have all melted away in the dawn of baby's

  smile.

  In these hopes, and in the enjoyment of Tina's nestling affection, Mr Gilfil

  tasted a few months of perfect happiness. She had come to lean entirely on his

  love, and to find life sweet for his sake. Her continual languor and want of

  active interest was a natural consequence of bodily feebleness, and the prospect

  of her becoming a mother was a new ground for hoping the best.

  But the delicate plant had been too deeply bruised, and in the struggle to put

  forth a blossom it died.

  Tina died, and Maynard Gilfil's love went with her into deep silence for

  evermore.

  EPILOGUE.

  This was Mr Gilfil's love-story, which lay far back from the time when he sat,

  worn and grey, by his lonely fireside in Shepperton Vicarage. Rich brown locks,

  passionate love, and deep early sorrow, strangely different as they seem from

  the scanty white hairs, the apathetic content, and the unexpectant acquiescence

  of old age, are but part of the same life's journey; as the bright Italian

  plains, with the sweet Addio of their beckoning maidens, are part of the same

  day's travel that brings us to the other side of the mountain, between the

  sombre rocky walls and among the guttural voices of the Valais.

  To those who were familiar only with the greyhaired Vicar, jogging leisurely

  along on his old chestnut cob, it would perhaps have been hard to believe that

  he had ever been the Maynard Gilfil who, with a heart full of passion and

  tenderness, had urged his black Kitty to her swiftest gallop on the way to

  Callam, or that the old gentleman of caustic tongue, and bucolic tastes, and

  sparing habits, had known all the deep secrets of devoted love, had struggled

  through its days and nights of anguish, and trembled under its unspeakable joys.

  And indeed the Mr Gilfil of those late Shepperton days had more of the knots and

  ruggednesses of poor human nature than there lay any clear hint of in the

  open-eyed loving Maynard. But it is with men as with trees: if you lop off their

  finest branches, into which they were pouring their young life-juice, the wounds

  will be healed over with some rough boss, some odd excrescence; and what might

  have been a grand tree expanding into liberal shade, is but a whimsical

  misshapen trunk. Many an irritating fault, many an unlovely oddity, has come of

  a hard sorrow, which has crushed and maimed the nature just when it was

  expanding into plenteous beauty; and the trivial erring life which we visit with

  our harsh blame, may be but as the unsteady motion of a man whose best limb is

  withered.

  And so the dear old Vicar, though he had something of the knotted whimsical

  character of the poor lopped oak, had yet been sketched out by nature as a noble

  tree. The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest, and in the

  greyhaired man who filled his pocket with sugar-plums for the little children,

  whose most biting words were directed against the evil-doing of the rich man,

  and who, with all his social pipes and slipshod talk, never sank below the

  highest level of his parishioners' respect, there was the main trunk of the same

  brave, faithful, tender nature that had poured out the finest, freshest forces

  of its life-current in a first and only love?the love of Tina.

  JANET'S REPENTANCE

  CHAPTER I.

  "No!" said lawyer Dempster, in a loud, rasping, oratorical tone, struggling

  against chronic huskiness, "as long as my Maker grants me power of voice and

  power of intellect, I will take every legal means to resist the introduction of

  demoralising, methodistical doctrine into this parish; I will not supinely

  suffer an insult to be inflicted on our venerable pastor, who has given us sound

  instruction for half a century."

  It was very warm everywhere that evening, but especially in the bar of the Red

  Lion at Milby, where Mr Dempster was seated mixing his third glass of

  brandy-and-water. He was a tall and rather massive man, and the front half of

  his large surface was so well dredged with snuff, that the cat, having

  inadvertently come near him, had been seized with a severe fit of sneezing?an

  accident which, being cruelly misunderstood, had caused her to be driven

  contumeliously from the bar. Mr Dempster habitually held his chin tucked in, and

  his head hanging forward, weighed down, perhaps, by a preponderant occiput and a

  bulging forehead, between which his closely-clipped coronal surface lay like a

  flat and new-mown table-land. The only other observable features were puffy

  cheeks and a protruding yet lipless mouth. Of his nose I can only say that it

  was snuffy, and as Mr Dempster was never caught in the act of looking at

  anything in particular, it would have been difficult to swear to the colour of

  his eyes.

  "Well! I'll not stick at giving myself trouble to put down such hypocri
tical

  cant," said Mr Tomlinson, the rich miller. "I know well enough what your

  Sunday-evening lectures are good for ?for wenches to meet their sweethearts, and

  brew mischief. There's work enough with the servantmaids as it is?such as I

  never heared the like of in my mother's time, and it's all along o' your

  schooling and newfangled plans. Give me a servant as can nayther read nor write,

  I say, and doesn't know the year o' the Lord as she was born in. I should like

  to know what good those Sunday schools have done, now. Why, the boys used to go

  a birds'-nesting of a Sunday morning; and a capital thing, too?ask any farmer;

  and very pritty it was to see the strings o' heggs hanging up in poor people's

  houses. You'll not see 'em nowhere now."

  "Pooh!" said Mr Luke Byles, who piqued himself on his reading, and was in the

  habit of asking casual acquaintances if they knew anything of Hobbes; "it is

  right enough that the lower orders should be instructed. But this sectarianism

  within the Church ought to be put down. In point of fact, these Evangelicals are

  not Churchmen at all; they're no better than Presbyterians."

  "Presbyterans? what are they?" inquired Mr Tomlinson, who often said his father

  had given him "no eddication, and he didn't care who knowed it; he could buy up

  most o' th' eddicated men he'd ever come across."

  "The Presbyterians," said Mr Dempster, in rather a louder tone than before,

  holding that every appeal for information must naturally be addressed to him,

  "are a sect founded in the reign of Charles I., by a man named John Presbyter,

  who hatched all the brood of dissenting vermin that crawl about in dirty alleys,

  and circumvent the lord of the manor in order to get a few yards of ground for

  their pigeon-house conventicles."

  "No, no, Dempster," said Mr Luke Byles, "you're out there. Presbyterianism is

  derived from the word presbyter, meaning an elder."

  "Don't contradict me, sir!" stormed Dempster. "I say the word presbyterian is

  derived from John Presbyter, a miserable fanatic who wore a suit of leather, and

  went about from town to village, and from village to hamlet, inoculating the

  vulgar with the asinine virus of dissent."

  "Come, Byles, that seems a deal more liker," said Mr Tomlinson, in a

  conciliatory tone, apparently of opinion that history was a process of ingenious

  guessing.

  "It's not a question of likelihood; it's a known fact. I could fetch you my

  Encyclop?dia, and show it you this moment."

  "I don't care a straw, sir, either for you or your Encyclop?dia," said Mr

  Dempster; "a farrago of false information, of which you picked up an imperfect

  copy in a cargo of waste paper. Will you tell me, sir, that I don't know the

  origin of Presbyterianism? I, sir, a man known through the county, intrusted

  with the affairs of half a score parishes; while you, sir, are ignored by the

  very fleas that infest the miserable alley in which you were bred."

  A loud and general laugh, with "You'd better let him alone, Byles;" "you'll not

  get the better of Dempster in a hurry," drowned the retort of the too

  well-informed Mr Byles, who, white with rage, rose and walked out of the bar.

  "A meddlesome, upstart, Jacobinical fellow, gentlemen," continued Mr Dempster.

  "I was determined to be rid of him. What does he mean by thrusting himself into

  our company? A man with about as much principle as he has property, which, to my

  knowledge, is considerably less than none. An insolvent atheist, gentlemen. A

  deistical prater, fit to sit in the chimney-corner of a pot-house, and make

  blasphemous comments on the one greasy newspaper fingered by beer-swilling

  tinkers. I will not suffer in my company a man who speaks lightly of religion.

  The signature of a fellow like Byles would be a blot on our protest."

  "And how do you get on with your signatures?" said Mr Pilgrim, the doctor, who

  had presented his large top-booted person within the bar while Mr Dempster was

  speaking. Mr Pilgrim had just returned from one of his long day's rounds among

  the farmhouses, in the course of which he had sat down to two hearty meals that

  might have been mistaken for dinners, if he had not declared them to be 'snaps;'

  and as each snap had been followed by a few glasses of 'mixture,' containing a

  less liberal proportion of water than the articles he himself labelled with that

  broadly generic name, he was in that condition which his groom indicated with

  poetic ambiguity, by saying that "master had been in the sunshine." Under these

  circumstances, after a hard day, in which he had really had no regular meal, it

  seemed a natural relaxation to step into the bar of the Red Lion, where, as it

  was Saturday evening, he should be sure to find Dempster, and hear the latest

  news about the protest against the evening lecture.

  "Have you hooked Ben Landor yet?" he continued, as he took two chairs, one for

  his body, and the other for his right leg.

  "No," said Mr Budd, the churchwarden, shaking his head, "Ben Landor has a way of

  keeping himself neutral in everything, and he doesn't like to oppose his father.

  Old Landor is a regular Tryanite. But we haven't got your name yet, Pilgrim."

  "Tut tut, Budd," said Mr Dempster sarcastically, "you don't expect Pilgrim to

  sign? He's got a dozen Tryanite livers under his treatment. Nothing like cant

  and methodism for producing a superfluity of bile."

  "O, I thought, as Pratt had declared himself a Tryanite, we should be sure to

  get Pilgrim on our side."

  Mr Pilgrim was not a man to sit quiet under a sarcasm, nature having endowed him

  with a considerable share of self-defensive wit. In his most sober moments he

  had an impediment in his speech, and as copious gin-and-water stimulated not the

  speech but the impediment, he had time to make his retort sufficiently bitter.

  "Why, to tell you the truth, Budd," he spluttered. "There's a report all over

  the town that Deb Traunter swears you shall take her with you as one of the

  delegates, and they say there's to be a fine crowd at your door the morning you

  start, to see the row. Knowing your tenderness for that member of the fair sex,

  I thought you might find it impossible to deny her. I hang back a little from

  signing on that account, as Prendergast might not take the protest well if Deb

  Traunter went with you."

  Mr Budd was a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five-and-forty, whose scandalous

  life had long furnished his more moral neighbours with an after-dinner joke. He

  had no other striking characteristic, except that he was a currier of choleric

  temperament, so that you might wonder why he had been chosen as clergyman's

  churchwarden, if I did not tell you that he had recently been elected through Mr

  Dempster's exertions, in order that his zeal against the threatened evening

  lecture might be backed by the dignity of office.

  "Come, come, Pilgrim," said Mr Tomlinson, covering Mr Budd's retreat, "you know

  you like to wear the crier's coat, green o' one side and red o' the other.

  You've been to hear Tryan preach at Paddiford Common?you know you have."

  "To be sure I have; and a capital sermon too. It's a pity you were not there. It
br />   was addressed to those 'void of understanding.'"

  "No, no, you'll never catch me there," returned Mr Tomlinson, not in the least

  stung, "he preaches without book, they say, just like a Dissenter. It must be a

  rambling sort of a concern."

  "That's not the worst," said Mr Dempster, "he preaches against good works; says

  good works are not necessary to salvation?a sectarian, antinomian, anabaptist

  doctrine. Tell a man he is not to be saved by his works, and you open the

  floodgates of all immorality. You see it in all these canting innovators;

  they're all bad ones by the sly; smooth-faced, drawling, hypocritical fellows,

  who pretend ginger isn't hot in their mouths, and cry down all innocent

  pleasures; their hearts are all the blacker for their sanctimonious outsides.

  Haven't we been warned against those who make clean the outside of the cup and

  the platter? There's this Tryan, now, he goes about praying with old women, and

  singing with charity children; but what has he really got his eye on all the

  while? A domineering ambitious Jesuit, gentlemen; all he wants is to get his

  foot far enough into the parish to step into Crewe's shoes when the old

  gentleman dies. Depend upon it, whenever you see a man pretending to be better

  than his neighbours, that man has either some cunning end to serve, or his heart

  is rotten with spiritual pride."

  As if to guarantee himself against this awful sin, Mr Dempster seized the brandy

  bottle, and poured out a larger quantity than usual.

  "Have you fixed on your third delegate yet?" said Mr Pilgrim, whose taste was

  for detail rather than for dissertation.

  "That's the man," answered Dempster, pointing to Mr Tomlinson. "We start for

  Elmstoke Rectory on Tuesday morning; so, if you mean to give us your signature,

  you must make up your mind pretty quickly, Pilgrim."

  Mr Pilgrim did not in the least mean it, so he only said, "I shouldn't wonder if

  Tryan turns out too many for you, after all. He's got a well-oiled tongue of his

  own, and has perhaps talked over Prendergast into a determination to stand by

  him."

  "Ve-ry little fear of that," said Dempster, in a confident tone. "I'll soon

  bring him round. Tryan has got his match. I've plenty of rods in pickle for

  Tryan."

  At this moment Boots entered the bar, and put a letter into the lawyer's hands,

  saying, "There's Trower's man just come into the yard wi' a gig, sir, an'he's

  brought this here letter."

  Mr Dempster read the letter and said, "Tell him to turn the gig?I'll be with him

  in a minute. Here, run to Gruby's and get this snuff-box filled ?quick!"

  "Trower's worse, I suppose; eh, Dempster? Wants you to alter his will, eh?" said

  Mr Pilgrim.

  "Business?business?business?I don't know exactly what," answered the cautious

  Dempster, rising deliberately from his chair, thrusting on his low-crowned hat,

  and walking with a slow but not unsteady step out of the bar.

  "I never see Dempster's equal; if I did I'll be shot," said Mr Tomlinson,

  looking after the lawyer admiringly. "Why, he's drunk the best part of a bottle

  o' brandy since here we've been sitting, and I'll bet a guinea, when he's got to

  Trower's his head 'll be as clear as mine. He knows more about law when he's

  drunk than all the rest on 'em when they're sober."

  "Ay, and other things too besides law," said Mr Budd. "Did you notice how he

  took up Byles about the Presbyterians? Bless your heart, he knows everything,

  Dempster does. He studied very hard when he was a young man."

  CHAPTER II.

  The conversation just recorded is not, I am aware, remarkably refined or witty;

  but if it had been, it could hardly have taken place in Milby when Mr Dempster

  flourished there, and old Mr Crewe, the curate, was yet alive.

  More than a quarter of a century has slipped by since then, and in the interval

  Milby has advanced at as rapid a pace as other market-towns in her Majesty's

  dominions. By this time it has a handsome railway station, where the drowsy