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Page 6
Do we not all know some reverend, all but sacred, personage before
whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be elastic? But
were we once to see him stretch himself beneath the bed-clothes, yawn
widely, and bury his face upon his pillow, we could chatter before
him as glibly as before a doctor or a lawyer. From some such cause,
doubtless, it arose that our archdeacon listened to the counsels of
his wife, though he considered himself entitled to give counsel to
every other being whom he met.
"My dear," he said, as he adjusted the copious folds of his nightcap,
"there was that John Bold at your father's again to-day. I must say
your father is very imprudent."
"He is imprudent;--he always was," replied Mrs Grantly, speaking from
under the comfortable bed-clothes. "There's nothing new in that."
"No, my dear, there's nothing new;--I know that; but, at the present
juncture of affairs, such imprudence is--is--I'll tell you what, my
dear, if he does not take care what he's about, John Bold will be off
with Eleanor."
"I think he will, whether papa takes care or no; and why not?"
"Why not!" almost screamed the archdeacon, giving so rough a pull at
his nightcap as almost to bring it over his nose; "why not!--that
pestilent, interfering upstart, John Bold;--the most vulgar young
person I ever met! Do you know that he is meddling with your father's
affairs in a most uncalled-for--most--" And being at a loss for an
epithet sufficiently injurious, he finished his expressions of horror
by muttering, "Good heavens!" in a manner that had been found very
efficacious in clerical meetings of the diocese. He must for the
moment have forgotten where he was.
"As to his vulgarity, archdeacon" (Mrs Grantly had never assumed a
more familiar term than this in addressing her husband), "I don't
agree with you. Not that I like Mr Bold;--he is a great deal too
conceited for me; but then Eleanor does, and it would be the best
thing in the world for papa if they were to marry. Bold would never
trouble himself about Hiram's Hospital if he were papa's son-in-law."
And the lady turned herself round under the bed-clothes, in a manner
to which the doctor was well accustomed, and which told him, as
plainly as words, that as far as she was concerned the subject was
over for that night.
"Good heavens!" murmured the doctor again;--he was evidently much put
beside himself.
Dr Grantly is by no means a bad man; he is exactly the man which such
an education as his was most likely to form; his intellect being
sufficient for such a place in the world, but not sufficient to put
him in advance of it. He performs with a rigid constancy such of the
duties of a parish clergyman as are, to his thinking, above the sphere
of his curate, but it is as an archdeacon that he shines.
We believe, as a general rule, that either a bishop or his archdeacons
have sinecures: where a bishop works, archdeacons have but little to
do, and _vice versa_. In the diocese of Barchester the Archdeacon
of Barchester does the work. In that capacity he is diligent,
authoritative, and, as his friends particularly boast, judicious. His
great fault is an overbearing assurance of the virtues and claims of
his order, and his great foible is an equally strong confidence in the
dignity of his own manner and the eloquence of his own words. He is a
moral man, believing the precepts which he teaches, and believing also
that he acts up to them; though we cannot say that he would give his
coat to the man who took his cloak, or that he is prepared to forgive
his brother even seven times. He is severe enough in exacting his
dues, considering that any laxity in this respect would endanger the
security of the church; and, could he have his way, he would consign
to darkness and perdition, not only every individual reformer, but
every committee and every commission that would even dare to ask a
question respecting the appropriation of church revenues.
"They are church revenues: the laity admit it. Surely the church is
able to administer her own revenues." 'Twas thus he was accustomed to
argue, when the sacrilegious doings of Lord John Russell and others
were discussed either at Barchester or at Oxford.
It was no wonder that Dr Grantly did not like John Bold, and that his
wife's suggestion that he should become closely connected with such a
man dismayed him. To give him his due, the archdeacon never wanted
courage; he was quite willing to meet his enemy on any field and with
any weapon. He had that belief in his own arguments that he felt sure
of success, could he only be sure of a fair fight on the part of his
adversary. He had no idea that John Bold could really prove that the
income of the hospital was malappropriated; why, then, should peace be
sought for on such base terms? What! bribe an unbelieving enemy of
the church with the sister-in-law of one dignitary and the daughter
of another--with a young lady whose connections with the diocese and
chapter of Barchester were so close as to give her an undeniable claim
to a husband endowed with some of its sacred wealth! When Dr Grantly
talks of unbelieving enemies, he does not mean to imply want of belief
in the doctrines of the church, but an equally dangerous scepticism as
to its purity in money matters.
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