Framley Parsonage: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Mr. Crawley of Hogglestock

And then there was that other trouble in Lady Lufton's mind, the
sins, namely, of her selected parson. She had selected him, and she
was by no means inclined to give him up, even though his sins against
parsondom were grievous. Indeed she was a woman not prone to give up
anything, and of all things not prone to give up a prot�g�. The very
fact that she herself had selected him was the strongest argument
in his favour. But his sins against parsondom were becoming very
grievous in her eyes, and she was at a loss to know what steps to
take. She hardly dared to take him to task, him himself. Were she to
do so, and should he then tell her to mind her own business--as he
probably might do, though not in those words--there would be a schism
in the parish; and almost anything would be better than that. The
whole work of her life would be upset, all the outlets of her energy
would be impeded if not absolutely closed, if a state of things were
to come to pass in which she and the parson of her parish should not
be on good terms.

But what was to be done? Early in the winter he had gone to
Chaldicotes and to Gatherum Castle, consorting with gamblers, Whigs,
atheists, men of loose pleasure, and Proudieites. That she had
condoned; and now he was turning out a hunting parson on her hands.
It was all very well for Fanny to say that he merely looked at the
hounds as he rode about his parish. Fanny might be deceived. Being
his wife, it might be her duty not to see her husband's iniquities.
But Lady Lufton could not be deceived. She knew very well in what
part of the county Cobbold's Ashes lay. It was not in Framley
parish, nor in the next parish to it. It was half-way across to
Chaldicotes--in the western division; and she had heard of that run
in which two horses had been killed, and in which Parson Robarts had
won such immortal glory among West Barsetshire sportsmen. It was not
easy to keep Lady Lufton in the dark as to matters occurring in her
own county.

All these things she knew, but as yet had not noticed, grieving over
them in her own heart the more on that account. Spoken grief relieves
itself; and when one can give counsel, one always hopes at least
that that counsel will be effective. To her son she had said, more
than once, that it was a pity that Mr. Robarts should follow the
hounds.--"The world has agreed that it is unbecoming in a clergyman,"
she would urge, in her deprecatory tone. But her son would by no
means give her any comfort. "He doesn't hunt, you know--not as I do,"
he would say. "And if he did, I really don't see the harm of it. A
man must have some amusement, even if he be an archbishop." "He has
amusement at home," Lady Lufton would answer. "What does his wife
do--and his sister?" This allusion to Lucy, however, was very soon
dropped.

Lord Lufton would in no wise help her. He would not even passively
discourage the vicar, or refrain from offering to give him a seat in
going to the meets. Mark and Lord Lufton had been boys together, and
his lordship knew that Mark in his heart would enjoy a brush across
the country quite as well as he himself; and then what was the harm
of it? Lady Lufton's best aid had been in Mark's own conscience. He
had taken himself to task more than once, and had promised himself
that he would not become a sporting parson. Indeed, where would be
his hopes of ulterior promotion, if he allowed himself to degenerate
so far as that? It had been his intention, in reviewing what he
considered to be the necessary proprieties of clerical life, in
laying out his own future mode of living, to assume no peculiar
sacerdotal strictness; he would not be known as a denouncer of
dancing or of card-tables, of theatres or of novel-reading; he would
take the world around him as he found it, endeavouring by precept
and practice to lend a hand to the gradual amelioration which
Christianity is producing; but he would attempt no sudden or majestic
reforms. Cake and ale would still be popular, and ginger be hot in
the mouth, let him preach ever so--let him be never so solemn a
hermit; but a bright face, a true trusting heart, a strong arm, and
an humble mind, might do much in teaching those around him that men
may be gay and yet not profligate, that women may be devout and yet
not dead to the world.

Such had been his ideas as to his own future life; and though many
would think that, as a clergyman, he should have gone about his work
with more serious devotion of thought, nevertheless there was some
wisdom in them;--some folly also, undoubtedly, as appeared by the
troubles into which they led him. "I will not affect to think that
to be bad," said he to himself, "which in my heart of hearts does
not seem to be bad." And thus he resolved that he might live without
contamination among hunting squires. And then, being a man only too
prone by nature to do as others did around him, he found by degrees
that that could hardly be wrong for him which he admitted to be right
for others.

But still his conscience upbraided him, and he declared to himself
more than once that after this year he would hunt no more. And then
his own Fanny would look at him on his return home on those days in a
manner that cut him to the heart. She would say nothing to him. She
never inquired in a sneering tone, and with angry eyes, whether he
had enjoyed his day's sport: but when he spoke of it, she could not
answer him with enthusiasm; and in other matters which concerned him
she was always enthusiastic. After a while, too, he made matters
worse, for about the end of March he did another very foolish thing.
He almost consented to buy an expensive horse from Sowerby--an animal
which he by no means wanted, and which, if once possessed, would
certainly lead him into further trouble. A gentleman, when he has a
good horse in his stable, does not like to leave him there eating
his head off. If he be a gig-horse, the owner of him will be keen to
drive a gig; if a hunter, the happy possessor will wish to be with a
pack of hounds.

"Mark," said Sowerby to him one day, when they were out together,
"this brute of mine is so fresh, I can hardly ride him; you are young
and strong; change with me for an hour or so." And then they did
change, and the horse on which Robarts found himself mounted went
away with him beautifully.

"He's a splendid animal," said Mark, when they again met.

"Yes, for a man of your weight. He's thrown away upon me;--too much
of a horse for my purposes. I don't get along now quite as well as
I used to do. He is a nice sort of hunter; just rising six, you
know." How it came to pass that the price of the splendid animal was
mentioned between them, I need not describe with exactness. But it
did come to pass that Mr. Sowerby told the parson that the horse
should be his for �130. "And I really wish you'd take him," said
Sowerby. "It would be the means of partially relieving my mind of a
great weight." Mark looked up into his friend's face with an air of
surprise, for he did not at the moment understand how this should be
the case.

"I am afraid, you know, that you will have to put your hand into your
pocket sooner or later about that accursed bill"--Mark shrank as the
profane words struck his ears--"and I should be glad to think that
you had got something in hand in the way of value."

"Do you mean that I shall have to pay the whole sum of �500?"

"Oh dear, no; nothing of the kind. But something I dare say you will
have to pay: if you like to take Dandy for a hundred and thirty, you
can be prepared for that amount when Tozer comes to you. The horse
is dog cheap, and you will have a long day for your money." Mark at
first declared, in a quiet, determined tone, that he did not want the
horse; but it afterwards appeared to him that if it were so fated
that he must pay a portion of Mr. Sowerby's debts, he might as well
repay himself to any extent within his power. It would be as well
perhaps that he should take the horse and sell him. It did not occur
to him that by so doing he would put it in Mr. Sowerby's power to
say that some valuable consideration had passed between them with
reference to this bill, and that he would be aiding that gentleman
in preparing an inextricable confusion of money-matters between them.
Mr. Sowerby well knew the value of this. It would enable him to make
a plausible story, as he had done in that other case of Lord Lufton.
"Are you going to have Dandy?" Sowerby said to him again.

"I can't say that I will just at present," said the parson. "What
should I want of him now the season's over?"

"Exactly, my dear fellow; and what do I want of him now the season's
over? If it were the beginning of October instead of the end of
March, Dandy would be up at two hundred and thirty instead of one:
in six months' time that horse will be worth anything you like to
ask for him. Look at his bone." The vicar did look at his bones,
examining the brute in a very knowing and unclerical manner. He
lifted the animal's four feet, one after another, handling the frogs,
and measuring with his eye the proportion of the parts; he passed his
hand up and down the legs, spanning the bones of the lower joint; he
peered into his eyes, took into consideration the width of his chest,
the dip of his back, the form of his ribs, the curve of his haunches,
and his capabilities for breathing when pressed by work. And then
he stood away a little, eyeing him from the side, and taking in a
general idea of the form and make of the whole. "He seems to stand
over a little, I think," said the parson.

"It's the lie of the ground. Move him about, Bob. There now, let him
stand there."

"He's not perfect," said Mark. "I don't quite like his heels; but no
doubt he's a niceish cut of a horse."

"I rather think he is. If he were perfect, as you say, he would not
be going into your stables for a hundred and thirty. Do you ever
remember to have seen a perfect horse?"

"Your mare Mrs. Gamp was as nearly perfect as possible."

"Even Mrs. Gamp had her faults. In the first place she was a bad
feeder. But one certainly doesn't often come across anything much
better than Mrs. Gamp." And thus the matter was talked over between
them with much stable conversation, all of which tended to make
Sowerby more and more oblivious of his friend's sacred profession,
and perhaps to make the vicar himself too frequently oblivious of it
also. But no: he was not oblivious of it. He was even mindful of it;
but mindful of it in such a manner that his thoughts on the subject
were nowadays always painful.

There is a parish called Hogglestock lying away quite in the northern
extremity of the eastern division of the county--lying also on the
borders of the western division. I almost fear that it will become
necessary, before this history be completed, to provide a map of
Barsetshire for the due explanation of all these localities. Framley
is also in the northern portion of the county, but just to the
south of the grand trunk line of railway from which the branch to
Barchester strikes off at a point some thirty miles nearer to London.
The station for Framley Court is Silverbridge, which is, however, in
the western division of the county. Hogglestock is to the north of
the railway, the line of which, however, runs through a portion of
the parish, and it adjoins Framley, though the churches are as much
as seven miles apart. Barsetshire, taken altogether, is a pleasant
green tree-becrowded county, with large bosky hedges, pretty damp
deep lanes, and roads with broad grass margins running along them.
Such is the general nature of the county; but just up in its northern
extremity this nature alters. There it is bleak and ugly, with low
artificial hedges and without wood; not uncultivated, as it is all
portioned out into new-looking large fields, bearing turnips, and
wheat, and mangel, all in due course of agricultural rotation; but it
has none of the special beauties of English cultivation. There is not
a gentleman's house in the parish of Hogglestock besides that of the
clergyman; and this, though it is certainly the house of a gentleman,
can hardly be said to be fit to be so. It is ugly, and straight, and
small. There is a garden attached to the house, half in front of it
and half behind; but this garden, like the rest of the parish, is
by no means ornamental, though sufficiently useful. It produces
cabbages, but no trees: potatoes of, I believe, an excellent
description, but hardly any flowers, and nothing worthy of the name
of a shrub. Indeed the whole parish of Hogglestock should have been
in the adjoining county, which is by no means so attractive as
Barsetshire;--a fact well known to those few of my readers who are
well acquainted with their own country.

Mr. Crawley, whose name has been mentioned in these pages, was the
incumbent of Hogglestock. On what principle the remuneration of our
parish clergymen was settled when the original settlement was made,
no deepest, keenest lover of middle-aged ecclesiastical black-letter
learning can, I take it, now say. That the priests were to be paid
from tithes of the parish produce, out of which tithes certain other
good things were to be bought and paid for, such as church repairs
and education, of so much the most of us have an inkling. That
a rector, being a big sort of parson, owned the tithes of his
parish in full,--or at any rate that part of them intended for the
clergyman,--and that a vicar was somebody's deputy, and therefore
entitled only to little tithes, as being a little body: of so much we
that are simple in such matters have a general idea. But one cannot
conceive that even in this way any approximation could have been
made, even in those old medi�val days, towards a fair proportioning
of the pay to the work. At any rate, it is clear enough that there
is no such approximation now. And what a screech would there not be
among the clergy of the Church, even in these reforming days, if any
over-bold reformer were to suggest that such an approximation should
be attempted? Let those who know clergymen, and like them, and have
lived with them, only fancy it! Clergymen to be paid, not according
to the temporalities of any living which they may have acquired,
either by merit or favour, but in accordance with the work to be
done! O Doddington! and O Stanhope, think of this, if an idea so
sacrilegious can find entrance into your warm ecclesiastical bosoms!
Ecclesiastical work to be bought and paid for according to its
quantity and quality!

But, nevertheless, one may prophesy that we Englishmen must come to
this, disagreeable as the idea undoubtedly is. Most pleasant-minded
Churchmen feel, I think, on this subject pretty much in the same way.
Our present arrangement of parochial incomes is beloved as being
time-honoured, gentleman-like, English, and picturesque. We would
fain adhere to it closely as long as we can, but we know that we do
so by the force of our prejudices, and not by that of our judgement.
A time-honoured, gentleman-like, English, picturesque arrangement
is so far very delightful. But are there not other attributes very
desirable--nay, absolutely necessary--in respect to which this
time-honoured, picturesque arrangement is so very deficient?

How pleasant it was, too, that one bishop should be getting fifteen
thousand a year, and another with an equal cure of parsons only four!
That a certain prelate could get twenty thousand one year and his
successor in the same diocese only five the next! There was something
in it pleasant, and picturesque; it was an arrangement endowed with
feudal charms, and the change which they have made was distasteful to
many of us. A bishop with a regular salary, and no appanage of land
and land-bailiffs, is only half a bishop. Let any man prove to me the
contrary ever so thoroughly--let me prove it to my own self ever so
often--my heart in this matter is not thereby a whit altered. One
liked to know that there was a dean or two who got his three thousand
a year, and that old Dr. Purple held four stalls, one of which was
golden, and the other three silver-gilt! Such knowledge was always
pleasant to me! A golden stall! How sweet is the sound thereof to
church-loving ears! But bishops have been shorn of their beauty, and
deans are in their decadence. A utilitarian age requires the fatness
of the ecclesiastical land, in order that it may be divided out into
small portions of provender, on which necessary working clergymen may
live,--into portions so infinitesimally small that working clergymen
can hardly live. And the full-blown rectors and vicars, with
full-blown tithes--with tithes when too full-blown for strict
utilitarian principles--will necessarily follow. Stanhope and
Doddington must bow their heads, with such compensation for temporal
rights as may be extracted,--but probably without such compensation
as may be desired. In other trades, professions, and lines of life,
men are paid according to their work. Let it be so in the Church.
Such will sooner or later be the edict of a utilitarian, reforming,
matter-of-fact House of Parliament.

I have a scheme of my own on the subject, which I will not introduce
here, seeing that neither men nor women would read it. And with
reference to this matter, I will only here further explain that all
these words have been brought about by the fact, necessary to be here
stated, that Mi. Crawley only received one hundred and thirty pounds
a year for performing the whole parochial duty of the parish of
Hogglestock. And Hogglestock is a large parish. It includes two
populous villages, abounding in brickmakers, a race of men very
troublesome to a zealous parson who won't let men go rollicking to
the devil without interference. Hogglestock has full work for two
men; and yet all the funds therein applicable to parson's work is
this miserable stipend of one hundred and thirty pounds a year. It
is a stipend neither picturesque, nor time-honoured, nor feudal, for
Hogglestock takes rank only as a perpetual curacy.

Mr. Crawley has been mentioned before as a clergyman of whom Mr.
Robarts said, that he almost thought it wrong to take a walk out of
his own parish. In so saying Mark Robarts of course burlesqued his
brother parson; but there can be no doubt that Mr. Crawley was a
strict man,--a strict, stern, unpleasant man, and one who feared God
and his own conscience. We must say a word or two of Mr. Crawley and
his concerns. He was now some forty years of age, but of these he had
not been in possession even of his present benefice for more than
four or five. The first ten years of his life as a clergyman had
been passed in performing the duties and struggling through the life
of a curate in a bleak, ugly, cold parish on the northern coast of
Cornwall. It had been a weary life and a fearful struggle, made up
of duties ill requited and not always satisfactorily performed, of
love and poverty, of increasing cares, of sickness, debt, and death.
For Mr. Crawley had married almost as soon as he was ordained, and
children had been born to him in that chill, comfortless Cornish
cottage. He had married a lady well educated and softly nurtured, but
not dowered with worldly wealth. They two had gone forth determined
to fight bravely together; to disregard the world and the world's
ways, looking only to God and to each other for their comfort. They
would give up ideas of gentle living, of soft raiment, and delicate
feeding. Others,--those that work with their hands, even the
bettermost of such workers--could live in decency and health upon
even such provision as he could earn as a clergyman. In such manner
would they live, so poorly and so decently, working out their work,
not with their hands but with their hearts.

And so they had established themselves, beginning the world with
one bare-footed little girl of fourteen to aid them in their small
household matters; and for a while they had both kept heart, loving
each other dearly, and prospering somewhat in their work. But a man
who has once walked the world as a gentleman knows not what it is to
change his position, and place himself lower down in the social rank.
Much less can he know what it is so to put down the woman whom he
loves. There are a thousand things, mean and trifling in themselves,
which a man despises when he thinks of them in his philosophy, but
to dispense with which puts his philosophy to so stern a proof. Let
any plainest man who reads this think of his usual mode of getting
himself into his matutinal garments, and confess how much such a
struggle would cost him. And then children had come. The wife of the
labouring man does rear her children, and often rears them in health,
without even so many appliances of comfort as found their way into
Mrs. Crawley's cottage; but the task to her was almost more than she
could accomplish. Not that she ever fainted or gave way: she was
made of the sterner metal of the two, and could last on while he was
prostrate.

And sometimes he was prostrate--prostrate in soul and spirit. Then
would he complain with bitter voice, crying out that the world was
too hard for him, that his back was broken with his burden, that his
God had deserted him. For days and days, in such moods, he would stay
within his cottage, never darkening the door or seeing other face
than those of his own inmates. Those days were terrible both to him
and her. He would sit there unwashed, with his unshorn face resting
on his hand, with an old dressing-gown hanging loose about him,
hardly tasting food, seldom speaking, striving to pray, but striving
so frequently in vain. And then he would rise from his chair, and,
with a burst of frenzy, call upon his Creator to remove him from this
misery. In these moments she never deserted him. At one period they
had had four children, and though the whole weight of this young
brood rested on her arms, on her muscles, on her strength of mind and
body, she never ceased in her efforts to comfort him. Then at length,
falling utterly upon the ground, he would pour forth piteous prayers
for mercy, and after a night of sleep would once more go forth to his
work.

But she never yielded to despair: the struggle was never beyond
her powers of endurance. She had possessed her share of woman's
loveliness, but that was now all gone. Her colour quickly faded, and
the fresh, soft tints soon deserted her face and forehead. She became
thin, and rough, and almost haggard: thin till her cheek-bones were
nearly pressing through her skin, till her elbows were sharp, and her
finger-bones as those of a skeleton. Her eye did not lose its lustre,
but it became unnaturally bright, prominent, and too large for her
wan face. The soft brown locks which she had once loved to brush
back, scorning, as she would boast to herself, to care that they
should be seen were now sparse enough and all untidy and unclean.
It was matter of little thought now whether they were seen or no.
Whether he could be made fit to go into his pulpit--whether they
might be fed--those four innocents--and their backs kept from the
cold wind--that was now the matter of her thought. And then two of
them died, and she went forth herself to see them laid under the
frost-bound sod, lest he should faint in his work over their graves.
For he would ask aid from no man--such at least was his boast through
all. Two of them died, but their illness had been long; and then
debts came upon them. Debt, indeed, had been creeping on them with
slow but sure feet during the last five years. Who can see his
children hungry, and not take bread if it be offered? Who can see
his wife lying in sharpest want, and not seek a remedy if there be a
remedy within reach? So debt had come upon them, and rude men pressed
for small sums of money--for sums small to the world, but impossibly
large to them. And he would hide himself within there, in that cranny
of an inner chamber--hide himself with deep shame from the world,
with shame, and a sinking heart, and a broken spirit.

But had such a man no friend? it will be said. Such men, I take it,
do not make many friends. But this man was not utterly friendless.
Almost every year one visit was paid to him in his Cornish curacy
by a brother clergyman, an old college friend, who, as far as
might in him lie, did give aid to the curate and his wife. This
gentleman would take up his abode for a week at a farmer's, in the
neighbourhood, and though he found Mr. Crawley in despair, he would
leave him with some drops of comfort in his soul. Nor were the
benefits in this respect all on one side. Mr. Crawley, though at some
periods weak enough for himself, could be strong for others; and,
more than once, was strong to the great advantage of this man whom he
loved. And then, too, pecuniary assistance was forthcoming--in those
earlier years not in great amount, for this friend was not then
among the rich ones of the earth--but in amount sufficient for that
moderate hearth, if only its acceptance could have been managed. But
in that matter there were difficulties without end. Of absolute money
tenders Mr. Crawley would accept none. But a bill here and there was
paid, the wife assisting; and shoes came for Kate--till Kate was
placed beyond the need of shoes; and cloth for Harry and Frank found
its way surreptitiously in beneath the cover of that wife's solitary
trunk--cloth with which those lean fingers worked garments for the
two boys, to be worn--such was God's will--only by the one.

Such were Mr. and Mrs. Crawley in their Cornish curacy, and during
their severest struggles. To one who thinks that a fair day's work is
worth a fair day's wages, it seems hard enough that a man should work
so hard and receive so little. There will be those who think that the
fault was all his own in marrying so young. But still there remains
that question, Is not a fair day's work worth a fair day's wages?
This man did work hard--at a task perhaps the hardest of any that a
man may do; and for ten years he earned some seventy pounds a year.
Will any one say that he received fair wages for his fair work, let
him be married or single? And yet there are so many who would fain
pay their clergy, if they only knew how to apply their money! But
that is a long subject, as Mr. Robarts had told Miss Dunstable. Such
was Mr. Crawley in his Cornish curacy.

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