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Page 21
Not a sound came from the eleven bedesmen, as they sat listening to
what, according to the archdeacon, was their intended estate. They
grimly stared upon his burly figure, but did not then express, by word
or sign, the anger and disgust to which such language was sure to give
rise.
"Now let me ask you," he continued: "do you think you are worse off
than John Hiram intended to make you? Have you not shelter, and food,
and leisure? Have you not much more? Have you not every indulgence
which you are capable of enjoying? Have you not twice better food,
twice a better bed, ten times more money in your pocket than you were
ever able to earn for yourselves before you were lucky enough to get
into this place? And now you send a petition to the bishop, asking
for a hundred pounds a year! I tell you what, my friends; you are
deluded, and made fools of by wicked men who are acting for their
own ends. You will never get a hundred pence a year more than what
you have now: it is very possible that you may get less; it is very
possible that my lord the bishop, and your warden, may make changes--"
"No, no, no," interrupted Mr Harding, who had been listening with
indescribable misery to the tirade of his son-in-law; "no, my friends.
I want no changes,--at least no changes that shall make you worse off
than you now are, as long as you and I live together."
"God bless you, Mr Harding," said Bunce; and "God bless you, Mr
Harding, God bless you, sir: we know you was always our friend," was
exclaimed by enough of the men to make it appear that the sentiment
was general.
The archdeacon had been interrupted in his speech before he had quite
finished it; but he felt that he could not recommence with dignity
after this little ebullition, and he led the way back into the garden,
followed by his father-in-law.
"Well," said he, as soon as he found himself within the cool retreat
of the warden's garden; "I think I spoke to them plainly." And he
wiped the perspiration from his brow; for making a speech under a
broiling mid-day sun in summer, in a full suit of thick black cloth,
is warm work.
"Yes, you were plain enough," replied the warden, in a tone which did
not express approbation.
"And that's everything," said the other, who was clearly well
satisfied with himself; "that's everything: with those sort of people
one must be plain, or one will not be understood. Now, I think they
did understand me;--I think they knew what I meant."
The warden agreed. He certainly thought they had understood to the
full what had been said to them.
"They know pretty well what they have to expect from us; they know how
we shall meet any refractory spirit on their part; they know that we
are not afraid of them. And now I'll just step into Chadwick's, and
tell him what I've done; and then I'll go up to the palace, and answer
this petition of theirs."
The warden's mind was very full,--full nearly to overcharging itself;
and had it done so,--had he allowed himself to speak the thoughts
which were working within him, he would indeed have astonished the
archdeacon by the reprobation he would have expressed as to the
proceeding of which he had been so unwilling a witness. But different
feelings kept him silent; he was as yet afraid of differing from his
son-in-law;--he was anxious beyond measure to avoid even a semblance
of rupture with any of his order, and was painfully fearful of having
to come to an open quarrel with any person on any subject. His life
had hitherto been so quiet, so free from strife; his little early
troubles had required nothing but passive fortitude; his subsequent
prosperity had never forced upon him any active cares,--had never
brought him into disagreeable contact with anyone. He felt that
he would give almost anything,--much more than he knew he ought to
do,--to relieve himself from the storm which he feared was coming.
It was so hard that the pleasant waters of his little stream should be
disturbed and muddied by rough hands; that his quiet paths should be
made a battlefield; that the unobtrusive corner of the world which had
been allotted to him, as though by Providence, should be invaded and
desecrated, and all within it made miserable and unsound.
Money he had none to give; the knack of putting guineas together
had never belonged to him; but how willingly, with what a foolish
easiness, with what happy alacrity, would he have abandoned the half
of his income for all time to come, could he by so doing have quietly
dispelled the clouds that were gathering over him,--could he have thus
compromised the matter between the reformer and the conservative,
between his possible son-in-law, Bold, and his positive son-in-law,
the archdeacon.
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