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Page 29
I must for the present leave my readers to imagine the state of Mr
Harding's mind after reading the above article. They say that forty
thousand copies of _The Jupiter_ are daily sold, and that each copy is
read by five persons at the least. Two hundred thousand readers then
would hear this accusation against him; two hundred thousand hearts
would swell with indignation at the griping injustice, the barefaced
robbery of the warden of Barchester Hospital! And how was he to
answer this? How was he to open his inmost heart to this multitude,
to these thousands, the educated, the polished, the picked men of his
own country; how show them that he was no robber, no avaricious, lazy
priest scrambling for gold, but a retiring, humble-spirited man, who
had innocently taken what had innocently been offered to him?
"Write to _The Jupiter_," suggested the bishop.
"Yes," said the archdeacon, more worldly wise than his father, "yes,
and be smothered with ridicule; tossed over and over again with
scorn; shaken this way and that, as a rat in the mouth of a practised
terrier. You will leave out some word or letter in your answer, and
the ignorance of the cathedral clergy will be harped upon; you will
make some small mistake, which will be a falsehood, or some admission,
which will be self-condemnation; you will find yourself to have been
vulgar, ill-tempered, irreverend, and illiterate, and the chances are
ten to one, but that being a clergyman, you will have been guilty of
blasphemy! A man may have the best of causes, the best of talents,
and the best of tempers; he may write as well as Addison, or as
strongly as Junius; but even with all this he cannot successfully
answer, when attacked by _The Jupiter_. In such matters it is
omnipotent. What the Czar is in Russia, or the mob in America, that
_The Jupiter_ is in England. Answer such an article! No, warden;
whatever you do, don't do that. We were to look for this sort of
thing, you know; but we need not draw down on our heads more of it
than is necessary."
The article in _The Jupiter_, while it so greatly harassed our poor
warden, was an immense triumph to some of the opposite party. Sorry
as Bold was to see Mr Harding attacked so personally, it still gave
him a feeling of elation to find his cause taken up by so powerful
an advocate: and as to Finney, the attorney, he was beside himself.
What! to be engaged in the same cause and on the same side with
_The Jupiter_; to have the views he had recommended seconded, and
furthered, and battled for by _The Jupiter_! Perhaps to have his own
name mentioned as that of the learned gentleman whose efforts had
been so successful on behalf of the poor of Barchester! He might be
examined before committees of the House of Commons, with heaven knows
how much a day for his personal expenses;--he might be engaged for
years on such a suit! There was no end to the glorious golden dreams
which this leader in _The Jupiter_ produced in the soaring mind of
Finney.
And the old bedesmen, they also heard of this article, and had a
glimmering, indistinct idea of the marvellous advocate which had now
taken up their cause. Abel Handy limped hither and thither through
the rooms, repeating all that he understood to have been printed,
with some additions of his own which he thought should have been
added. He told them how _The Jupiter_ had declared that their warden
was no better than a robber, and that what _The Jupiter_ said was
acknowledged by the world to be true. How _The Jupiter_ had affirmed
that each one of them--"each one of us, Jonathan Crumple, think of
that!"--had a clear right to a hundred a year; and that if _The
Jupiter_ had said so, it was better than a decision of the Lord
Chancellor: and then he carried about the paper, supplied by Mr
Finney, which, though none of them could read it, still afforded in
its very touch and aspect positive corroboration of what was told
them; and Jonathan Crumple pondered deeply over his returning wealth;
and Job Skulpit saw how right he had been in signing the petition, and
said so many scores of times; and Spriggs leered fearfully with his
one eye; and Moody, as he more nearly approached the coming golden
age, hated more deeply than ever those who still kept possession of
what he so coveted. Even Billy Gazy and poor bed-ridden Bell became
active and uneasy, and the great Bunce stood apart with lowering brow,
with deep grief seated in his heart, for he perceived that evil days
were coming.
It had been decided, the archdeacon advising, that no remonstrance,
explanation, or defence should be addressed from the Barchester
conclave to the editor of _The Jupiter_; but hitherto that was the
only decision to which they had come.
Sir Abraham Haphazard was deeply engaged in preparing a bill for the
mortification of papists, to be called the "Convent Custody Bill,"
the purport of which was to enable any Protestant clergyman over
fifty years of age to search any nun whom he suspected of being in
possession of treasonable papers or Jesuitical symbols; and as there
were to be a hundred and thirty-seven clauses in the bill, each clause
containing a separate thorn for the side of the papist, and as it
was known the bill would be fought inch by inch, by fifty maddened
Irishmen, the due construction and adequate dovetailing of it did
consume much of Sir Abraham's time. The bill had all its desired
effect. Of course it never passed into law; but it so completely
divided the ranks of the Irish members, who had bound themselves
together to force on the ministry a bill for compelling all men to
drink Irish whiskey, and all women to wear Irish poplins, that for
the remainder of the session the Great Poplin and Whiskey League was
utterly harmless.
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