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Page 37
"Oh! _The Jupiter_," answered the other. "_The Jupiter_ can break no
bones. You must bear with that; there is much, of course, which it
is our bounden duty to bear; it cannot be all roses for us here," and
the archdeacon looked exceedingly moral; "besides, the matter is too
trivial, of too little general interest to be mentioned again in _The
Jupiter_, unless we stir up the subject." And the archdeacon again
looked exceedingly knowing and worldly wise.
The warden continued his walk; the hard and stinging words of that
newspaper article, each one of which had thrust a thorn as it were
into his inmost soul, were fresh in his memory; he had read it more
than once, word by word, and what was worse, he fancied it was as well
known to everyone as to himself. Was he to be looked on as the unjust
griping priest he had been there described? Was he to be pointed at
as the consumer of the bread of the poor, and to be allowed no means
of refuting such charges, of clearing his begrimed name, of standing
innocent in the world, as hitherto he had stood? Was he to bear all
this, to receive as usual his now hated income, and be known as one
of those greedy priests who by their rapacity have brought disgrace
on their church? And why? Why should he bear all this? Why should
he die, for he felt that he could not live, under such a weight of
obloquy? As he paced up and down the room he resolved in his misery
and enthusiasm that he could with pleasure, if he were allowed, give
up his place, abandon his pleasant home, leave the hospital, and live
poorly, happily, and with an unsullied name, on the small remainder of
his means.
He was a man somewhat shy of speaking of himself, even before those
who knew him best, and whom he loved the most; but at last it burst
forth from him, and with a somewhat jerking eloquence he declared that
he could not, would not, bear this misery any longer.
"If it can be proved," said he at last, "that I have a just and honest
right to this, as God well knows I always deemed I had; if this salary
or stipend be really my due, I am not less anxious than another to
retain it. I have the well-being of my child to look to. I am too
old to miss without some pain the comforts to which I have been used;
and I am, as others are, anxious to prove to the world that I have
been right, and to uphold the place I have held; but I cannot do it
at such a cost as this. I cannot bear this. Could you tell me to do
so?" And he appealed, almost in tears, to the bishop, who had left
his chair, and was now leaning on the warden's arm as he stood on the
further side of the table facing the archdeacon. "Could you tell me
to sit there at ease, indifferent, and satisfied, while such things as
these are said loudly of me in the world?"
The bishop could feel for him and sympathise with him, but he could
not advise him; he could only say, "No, no, you shall be asked to
do nothing that is painful; you shall do just what your heart tells
you to be right; you shall do whatever you think best yourself.
Theophilus, don't advise him, pray don't advise the warden to do
anything which is painful."
But the archdeacon, though he could not sympathise, could advise;
and he saw that the time had come when it behoved him to do so in a
somewhat peremptory manner.
"Why, my lord," he said, speaking to his father;--and when he called
his father "my lord," the good old bishop shook in his shoes, for he
knew that an evil time was coming. "Why, my lord, there are two ways
of giving advice: there is advice that may be good for the present
day; and there is advice that may be good for days to come: now I
cannot bring myself to give the former, if it be incompatible with the
other."
"No, no, no, I suppose not," said the bishop, re-seating himself, and
shading his face with his hands. Mr Harding sat down with his back to
the further wall, playing to himself some air fitted for so calamitous
an occasion, and the archdeacon said out his say standing, with his
back to the empty fire-place.
"It is not to be supposed but that much pain will spring out of this
unnecessarily raised question. We must all have foreseen that, and
the matter has in no wise gone on worse than we expected; but it will
be weak, yes, and wicked also, to abandon the cause and own ourselves
wrong, because the inquiry is painful. It is not only ourselves we
have to look to; to a certain extent the interest of the church is in
our keeping. Should it be found that one after another of those who
hold preferment abandoned it whenever it might be attacked, is it
not plain that such attacks would be renewed till nothing was left
us? and, that if so deserted, the Church of England must fall to
the ground altogether? If this be true of many, it is true of one.
Were you, accused as you now are, to throw up the wardenship, and to
relinquish the preferment which is your property, with the vain object
of proving yourself disinterested, you would fail in that object, you
would inflict a desperate blow on your brother clergymen, you would
encourage every cantankerous dissenter in England to make a similar
charge against some source of clerical revenue, and you would do your
best to dishearten those who are most anxious to defend you and uphold
your position. I can fancy nothing more weak, or more wrong. It is
not that you think that there is any justice in these charges, or that
you doubt your own right to the wardenship: you are convinced of your
own honesty, and yet would yield to them through cowardice."
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