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Page 18
And who has not felt the same? We believe that Mr Horseman himself
would relent, and the spirit of Sir Benjamin Hall give way, were those
great reformers to allow themselves to stroll by moonlight round the
towers of some of our ancient churches. Who would not feel charity
for a prebendary when walking the quiet length of that long aisle at
Winchester, looking at those decent houses, that trim grass-plat, and
feeling, as one must, the solemn, orderly comfort of the spot! Who
could be hard upon a dean while wandering round the sweet close of
Hereford, and owning that in that precinct, tone and colour, design
and form, solemn tower and storied window, are all in unison, and all
perfect! Who could lie basking in the cloisters of Salisbury, and
gaze on Jewel's library and that unequalled spire, without feeling
that bishops should sometimes be rich!
The tone of our archdeacon's mind must not astonish us; it has been
the growth of centuries of church ascendancy; and though some fungi
now disfigure the tree, though there be much dead wood, for how much
good fruit have not we to be thankful? Who, without remorse, can
batter down the dead branches of an old oak, now useless, but, ah!
still so beautiful, or drag out the fragments of the ancient forest,
without feeling that they sheltered the younger plants, to which they
are now summoned to give way in a tone so peremptory and so harsh?
The archdeacon, with all his virtues, was not a man of delicate
feeling; and after having made his morning salutations in the warden's
drawing-room, he did not scruple to commence an attack on "pestilent"
John Bold in the presence of Miss Harding, though he rightly guessed
that that lady was not indifferent to the name of his enemy.
"Nelly, my dear, fetch me my spectacles from the back room," said her
father, anxious to save both her blushes and her feelings.
Eleanor brought the spectacles, while her father was trying, in
ambiguous phrases, to explain to her too-practical brother-in-law that
it might be as well not to say anything about Bold before her, and
then retreated. Nothing had been explained to her about Bold and the
hospital; but, with a woman's instinct she knew that things were going
wrong.
"We must soon be doing something," commenced the archdeacon, wiping
his brows with a large, bright-coloured handkerchief, for he had felt
busy, and had walked quick, and it was a broiling summer's day. "Of
course you have heard of the petition?"
Mr Harding owned, somewhat unwillingly, that he had heard of it.
"Well!"--the archdeacon looked for some expressions of opinion, but
none coming, he continued,--"We must be doing something, you know; we
mustn't allow these people to cut the ground from under us while we
sit looking on." The archdeacon, who was a practical man, allowed
himself the use of everyday expressive modes of speech when among his
closest intimates, though no one could soar into a more intricate
labyrinth of refined phraseology when the church was the subject, and
his lower brethren were his auditors.
The warden still looked mutely in his face, making the slightest
possible passes with an imaginary fiddle bow, and stopping, as he
did so, sundry imaginary strings with the fingers of his other hand.
'Twas his constant consolation in conversational troubles. While
these vexed him sorely, the passes would be short and slow, and the
upper hand would not be seen to work; nay, the strings on which it
operated would sometimes lie concealed in the musician's pocket, and
the instrument on which he played would be beneath his chair;--but as
his spirit warmed to the subject,--as his trusting heart looking to
the bottom of that which vexed him, would see its clear way out,--he
would rise to a higher melody, sweep the unseen strings with a bolder
hand, and swiftly fingering the cords from his neck, down along his
waistcoat, and up again to his very ear, create an ecstatic strain of
perfect music, audible to himself and to St Cecilia, and not without
effect.
"I quite agree with Cox and Cummins," continued the archdeacon.
"They say we must secure Sir Abraham Haphazard. I shall not have
the slightest fear in leaving the case in Sir Abraham's hands."
The warden played the slowest and saddest of tunes. It was but a
dirge on one string.
"I think Sir Abraham will not be long in letting Master Bold know what
he's about. I fancy I hear Sir Abraham cross-questioning him at the
Common Pleas."
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