Waverley Library (Quarto Edition) (no. 108) (1881 12 06)
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The Only Young Ladies’ Library of First-Class Copyright Novels Published! ee Wy Sih tly vt ie ov ° Bhi pak ig ‘See aw Ae aN POO: $2.50 a year. December 6, 1881. lke a re diy Va. i a\ ate a — err oe - bon — = sino . rn ae il a gam i! AA i THE RED LIGHT FELL FULL UPON THE BED WHERE MILLY LAY WITH THE HAND OF DEATH VISIBLY UPON HER, The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton. BY GEORGE ELIOT. CHAPTER IL. SHEPPERTON CHURCH was a very different-looking building five- and-twenty years ago. To be sure, its substantial stone tower looks at you through its intelligent eye, the clock, with the friendly expression of former days: but in everything else what changes! Now there is a wide span of slated roof flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the outer doors are resplendent with oak-graining, the inner doors reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize; and the walls, you are convinced no lichen will ever again effect a settle- ment on—they are smooth and innutriept as the summit of the Rev. Amos Barton’s bead, after ten years of baldness and supererogatory soap. Pass through the baize doors, and you will see the nave filled with well-shaped benches, underst»0d to be free seats; while in certain eligible corners, less directly under the fire of the clergyman’s eye, there are pews reserved for the Shepperton gentility. Ample galleries are supported on iron pillars, and in one of them stands the crowning glory, the very clasp or aigrette of Shepperton eburch-adornment— namely, an organ, not very much out of repair, on which a collect :r of small rents, differentiated by the force of circumstances into a1 organist, will accompany the alacrity of your departure after the blessing by a sacred minuet or an easy “ Gloria,” Immense improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unin- termittingly rejoices in the New Police, the Tithe-commutation Act, the penny-post, and all guarantees of human advancement, and has no moments when conservative-reforming intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the sly, reveling in regret that dear, old, brown, crumbling, picturesque inefficiency is eyerywbere giving place to spick-and-span new-painted efficiency, which will yield endless diagrams, elevations, and sections, but, alas, no picture. One, I fear, is not a well-regulated mind; it has an occasional tenderness for
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J « ’ THR SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV AMOS BARTON. old abuses ; it lingers with a certain fondness | had produced a strong Protestant reaction by over the days of nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed shades of vulgar errors. So it is not surprising that I recall with a fond sadness Shepperton Church as it was in the old days, with its outer coat of rough stucco, its red-tiled roof, its heteroge- neous windows patched with desultory bits of painted glass, and its little flight of steps with their wooden rail running up the outer wall, and leading to the school children’s gallery. Then inside, what dear old quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight even when I was so crude a member of the congre- gation that my nurse found it necessary to pro- vide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling bread-and-butter into the sacred edifice. There was the chancel, guarded by two little cherubims, looking un- comfortably squeezed between arch and wall, and adorned with the escutcheons of the Old- inport family, which showed me inexhaustible possibilities of meaning in their blood-red hands, their death’s-heads and cross-bones, their leopards’ paws and Maltese crosses. There were inscriptions on the panels of the singing- allery, telling of benefactions to the poor of Bieiipnton, with an involuted elegance of cap- itals and final flourishes, which my alphabetic erudition traced with ever-new delight. No benches in those days ; but huge roomy pews, round which devout church-goers sat during “lessons,” trying to look anywhere else than into each other’s eyes. No low partitions al- lowing you, with a dreary absence of contrast and mystery, to see everything at all moments ; but tall, dark panels, under whose shadow I sunk with a sense of retirement through the Litany, only to feel with more intensity my burst into the conspicuousness of public life when I was made to stand upon the seat dur- ing the psalms or the singing. And the singing was no mechanical affair of official routine; it had a drama. As the mo- ment of psalmody approached, by some process to me as mysterious and untraceable as the opening of the flowers or the breaking-out of the stars, a slate appeared in front of the. gal- lery, advertising in bold characters the psalm about to be sung, lest the sonorous announce- ment of the clerk should still leave the bucolic mind in doubt on that head. Then followed the migration of the clerk to the gallery, where, in company with a bassoon, two key-bugles, a carpenter understood to have anamazing power of singing ‘‘ counter,” and two lesser musical stars, he formed a complement of a choir re- garded in Shepperton as one of distinguished attraction, occasionally known to draw hearers from the next parish. The innovation of hymn-books was as yet undreamed of; even the Newe Version was regarded with a sort of melancholy tolerance, as part of the common degeneracy ina time when prices had dwin- dled, and a cotton gown was no longer stout enough to last a lifetime ; for the lyrical taste of the best heads in Shepperton had been form- ed on Sternhold and Hopkins. But the great- est triumphs of the’ Shepperton choir were reserved for the Sundays when the slate an- nounced an AnTuEeM, with a dignified absti- nence from particularization, both words and music lying far beyond the reach of the most ambitious amateur in the congregation—an an- them in which the key-bugles always ran away at a great pace, while the bassoon every now and then boomed a flying shot after them.” As for the clergyman, Mr. Gilfil, an excel- . lent old gentleman, who smoked very long pipes, and preached very short sermons, I must not speak of him, or I might be tempted to tell the story of his life, which. had its little romance, as most lives have between the ages of teetotum and tobacco. And at present Iam concerned with quite another sort of clergy- man—the Rev. Amos Barton, who did not come to Shepperton until long after Mr. Gilfil had departed this life—until after an interval in which Evangelicalism and the Catholic Ques- tion had begun to agitate the rustic mind with controversial debates. A Popish blacksmith declaring that, as soon as the Emancipation Bill was passed, he should do a great stroke of business in gridirons; and the disinclination of the Shepperton parishioners generally to dim the unique glory of St. Lawrence, ren- dered the Church and Constitution an affair of their business and bosoms. A zealous Evan- gelical preacher had made the old sounding- board vibrate with quite a different sort of elo- cution from Mr. Gilfil’s; the hymn-book had almost superseded the old and new versions; and the great square pews were crowded with new faces from distant corners of the parish— perhaps from Dissenting chapels. You are not imagining, I hope, that Amos Barton was the incumbent of Shepperton. He was no such thing. Those were days when a |man could hold three small livings, starve a curate apiece on two of them, and live badly himself on the third. It was s0 with the vicar of Shepperton; a vicar given to bricks and mortar, and thereby running into debt far away in a Northern county—who executed his vicarial functions toward Shepperton by pock- eting the sum of thirty-five pounds ten per annum, themet surplus remaining to him from the proceeds of that living, after the disburse- ment of eighty pounds as the annual stipend ‘of his curate. And now,’pray, can you solve me the following problem? Givena man with a wife and six children: let him be obliged always to exhibit himself when outside his own door in a suit of black broadcloth, buch as will not undermine the foundations of the Estab- lishment by a paltry plebeian, glogginess or an unseemly whiteness at the edges ;" in a snowy cravat, which is a serious investment of labor in the hemming, starching and ironing de- partments; and ina hat which shows no symp- | tom of taking to the hideous doctrine of ex- pediency, and shaping itself according to cir- cumstances; let him have a parish large enough to create an external necessity for abundant shoe-leather, and an internal neces- sity for abundant beef and mutton, as well as poor enough to require frequent priestly con- | solation in the shape of shillings and sixpences ; and, lastly, let him be compelled, by his own pride and other people’s, to dress his wife and children with gentility from bonnet-strings to shoe-strings. By what process of division can the sum of eighty pounds*per annum be made to yield a quotient which will cover that man’s weekly expenses? This was the problem presented by the position of the Rev. Amos Barton, as curate of Shepperton, rather more than twenty years ago. What was thought of this problem, and of the man who had to work it out, by some of the well-to-do inhabitants of Shepperton, two years or more after Mr. Barton’s arrival among them, you shall hear, if you will accompany me to Cross Farm, and to the fireside of Mrs. Patten, a childless old lady, who had got sich chiefly by the negative process of spending nothing. Mrs. Patten’s passive accumulation of wealth, through all sorts of ‘‘bad times,” on the farm of which she had been sole tenant since her husband’s death, her epigrammatic neighbor, Mrs. Hackit, sarcastically accounted for by of Cross Farm ;’’ while Mr. Hackit, expressing his views more literally, reminded his wife that ‘‘money breeds money.” Mr. and Mrs. Hackit, from the neighboring farm, are Mrs. Patten’s guests this evening; so is Mr. Pilgrim, the doctor from the nearest market-town, who, though occasionally affecting aristocratic airs, and giving late dinners with enigmatic side- dishes and poisonous port, is never so comfort- able as when he is relaxing his professional legs in one of those excellent farm-houses where the mice are sleek and the mistress sickly. And he is at this moment in clover. For the flickering of Mrs. Patten’s bright fire is reflected in her bright copper tea-kettle, the home-made muffins glisten with an inviting succulence, and Mrs. Patten’s niece (a single lady of fifty, who has refused the most ineligi- ble offers out of devotion to her aged aunt) is supposing that ‘‘sixpences grew on the bents | “SR pouring the rich cream into the fragrant tea with a discreet liberality. Po Reader! did you ever taste such a cup of tea as Miss Gibbs is this moment handing to Mr. Pilgrim? Do you know the dulcet strength, the animating blandness, of tea sufficiently blended with real farm-house cream? No— most likely you are a miserable town-bred read- er, who thinks of cream as a thinnish white fluid, delivered in infinitesimal pennyworths down area steps; or perhaps, from a presenti- ment of calves’ brains, you refrain from any lacteal addition, and rasp your tongue with un- mitigated bohea. You have a vague idea of a milk cow as probably a white "plaster animal standing in a butter man’s window, and you know nothing of the sweet history of genuine cream, such as Miss Gibbs’; how it was this morning in the udders of the large sleek beasts, as they stood lowing a patient entreaty under the milking-shed ; how it fell with a pleasant rythm into Betty’s pail, sending a delicious in- cense into the cool air; how it was carried into that temple of moist cleanliness, the dairy, where it quietly separated itself from the mean- er elements of milk, and lay in mellowed white- ness, ready for the skimming-dish which trans- ferred it to Miss Gibbs’ glass cream-jug. If I am right in my conjecture, you are unacquaint- ed with the highest possibilities of tea; and Mr. Pilgrim, who is holding that cup in his hand, has an idea beyond you. Mrs. Hackit declines cream; she has so long abstained from it with an eye to the weekly butter-money, that abstinence, wedded to hab- it, has begotten aversion. She is a thin wom- an, with a chronic liver-complaint, which would have secured her Mr. Pilgrim’s entire regard and ynreserved good word, even if he hadnot been in awe of her tongue, which was as sharp as his own lancet. She has brought her knit- ting—no frivolous faney knitting, but a sub- stantial woolen stocking; the click-click of her knittting-needles is the running accompani- _ ment to all her conversation ; and in her ut- most enjoyment of spoiling a friend’s self-sat- isfaction, she was never known tospoil a stock- ing. Mrs. Patten does not admire this excessive click-clicking activity. Quiescence in an easy- chair, under the sense of compound interest perpetually accumulating, has long seemed an ample function to her, and she does her maley- olence gently. She is a pretty little old wom- an of eighty, with a close cap and tiny flat white curls round her face, as natty and un- soiled and: invariable as the waxen image of a little old lady under a glass case ; once a lady’:- maid, and married for her beauty. She used to adore her husband, and now she adores her money, cherishing a quiet Llood-relation’s hatred for her niece, Janet Gibbs, who, she knows, expects a large legacy, and whom she is determined to disappoint. Her money shall all go in a lump to adistant relation of her hus- band’s, and Janet shall be saved the trouble of pretending to cry, by finding that she is left with a miserable pittance. §_* Mrs. Patten has more respect for her neigh- bor Mr. Hackit than for most people. “Mr. Hackit is a shrewd, substantial man, whose ad- vice about crops is always worth listening to, and who is too well off to want to borrow money. And now that we are snug and warm with this little tea-party, while it is freezing with February bitterness outside, we will listen to what they are talking about. ‘* So,” said Mr. Pilgrim, with his mouth only half empty of muffin, ‘you hada row inShep- perton Church last Sunday. I was at Jim Hood’s, the bassoon-man’s, this moruting, at- tending his wife, and he swears he’ll be re- venged on the parson—a confounded, metho- distical, meddlesome chap, who must be put- ting his finger in every pie. What was it all about ?” ‘¢Oh, ‘a passill o’ nonsense,” said Mr. Hack- it, sticking one thumb between the buttons of his capacious waistcoat, and retaining a pinch of snuff with the other—for he was but moder-
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THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON ately given to ‘‘the cups that cheer but not inebriate,” and had already finished his tea ; “‘they began to sing the wedding psalm for a new-married couple, as pretty a psalm an’ as etty a tune as any in the Prayer-book. It’s een sung for every new-married couple since Iwasa boy. And what can be better?’ Here Mr. Hackit stretched out his left arm, threw back his head, and broke into melody— “*Oh what a happy thing it is, And joyful for to see Brethren to dwell together in Friendship and unity.’ But Mr. Barton is allfor the hymns, anda sort o’ music as I can’t join in at all.” ‘And so,” said Mr. Pilgrim, recalling Mr. Hackit from lyrical reminiscences to narra- tive, ‘‘he called out Silence! did he, when he got into the pulpit, and gave a hymn out him- self to some meetin g-house tune ?” ‘“‘Yos,” said Mrs. Hackit, stooping towards the candle to pick up a stitch, ‘‘and turned as red as a turkey-cock. I often say, when he preaches about meekness, he gives himself a slap in the face. He’s like me—he’s got a tem- per of his own.” ' ' “Rather a low-bred fellow, I think, Barton,” said Mr. Pilgrim, who hated the Reverend Amos for two reasons—because he had called in a new doctor, recently settled in Shepperton ; and because, being himself a dabbler in drugs, he had the credit of having cured a patient of Mr. Pilgrim's. ‘‘They say his father was a Dissenting shoemaker; and he’s half a Dissen- ter himself. Why, doesn’t he preach extem- pore in that cottage up here, of a Sunday eve- ning ?” ‘*Tchuh !” this was Mr. Hackit’s favorite in- terjection—‘‘that preaching without book’s no good, only when a man has a gift, and has the Bible at his fingers’ ends. It was all very well for Parry—he’d 4 gift; and in my youth Ive heard the Ranters out-o’-doors in Yorkshire go on for an hour or two on end, without ever sticking fast a minute. There was one clever chap, I remember, as used to say, ‘ You're like the wood-pigeon ; it says do, do, do all day, and never sets about any work itself.’ That’s bringing ithome to people. But our parson’s no gift at all that way; he can preach as good a@ sermon as need be heard when he writes it down. But when he tries to preach wi’out book, he rambles about, and doesn’t stick to - his text; and every now and then he flounders about like a sheep as has cast itself, and can’t get on its legs again. You wouldn’t like that, Mrs. Patten, if you was to goto church now ?” ‘‘Eh, dear,” said Mrs. Patton, falling back in her chair, and lifting up her little withered hands, ‘“‘ What ’ud Mr. Gilfil say, if he was worthy to know the changes as have come about i’ the Church these last ten years? I don’t understand these new sort o’ doctrines, When Mr. Barton comes to see me, he talks about nothing but my sins and my need o’ marcy. Now, Mr. Hackit, I’ve never beena sinner. From the fust beginning, when I went into service, I al’ys did my duty by my employers. I was a good wife as any mm the county—never aggravated my husband. The cheese-factor used to say my cheese was al’ys to be depended on. I’ve known women, as their cheeses swelled ashame to be seen, when their husbands had counted on the cheese-money to make up their rent; and yet they'd three gowns to my one. If I'm not to be saved, Iknow ® Many as are in a bad way. But it’s well for me as I can’t go to church any longer; for if th’ old singers are to be done away with, there'll be nothing left as it was in Mr. Patten’s time ; and what’s more, I hear Faas settled to pull the church down and uild it up new ?” Now, the fact was that the Rev. Amos Bar- ton, on his last visit to Mrs. Patten, had urged her to enlarge her promised subscription of twenty pounds, representing to her that she was only a steward of her riches, and that she could not spend them more for the glory of God than by giving a heavy subscription towards the rebuilding of Shepperton Church— a practical precept which was not likely to smooth the way to her acceptance of his theo- logical doctrine. Mr. Hackit, who had more doctrinal enlightenment than Mrs. Patten, had been a little shocked by the heathenism of her A ge and was glad of the new turn given to e subject by this question, addressed to him as church-warden and anauthority in all par- ochial matters. ‘* Ah,” ho answered, ‘‘ the parson’s bothered usinto it at last, and we're to begin pulling down this spring. But we haven’t got money enough yet. I was for waiting till we'd made up the sum ; and, for my part, I think the con- gregation’s fell off o’ late, though Mr. Barton says that’s because there’s been no room for the people when they’ve come. You see, the congregation got so large in Parry’s time, the people stood in the aisles; but there’s never any crowd now, as I can see.” ** Well,” said Mrs. Hackit, whose good- nature began to act, now thatit was a little in contradiction with the dominant tone of the conversation, ‘‘Z like Mr. Barton. I think he’s a good sort o’ man, for all he’s not over- burden’d i’ th’ upper story ; and his wife’s as nice a lady-like woman as I’d wish to see. How nice she keeps her children ! and little enough money to do’t with; and a delicate creatur’— six children, and another a-coming. I don’t know how they make both ends meet, I’m sure, now her aunt has left’em. But I sent *em a cheese and a sack o’ potatoes last week ; that’s something towards filling the little mouths,” “Ah!” said Mr. Hackit, ‘‘and my wife makes Mr, Barton a good stiff glass o’ brandy- and-water when he comes in to supper after his cottage preaching. The parson likes it; guinea-pig, which were always with him the sign of suppressed disapproval. But he never contradicted Mrs. Hackit—a woman whose ‘*pot-luck”” was always to be relied on, and who on her side had unlimited reliance on bleeding, blistering and draughts. Mrs. Patton, however, felt equal disap- probation, and had no reasons for suppress- ing it. ‘* Well,” she remarked, ‘‘I’ve heard of no from interfering with one’s neighbors, poor or rich. And I hate the sight o’ women going about trapesing from house to house in all weathers, wet or dry, and coming in with their petticoats dagged and their shoes all over mud. Janet wanted to join in the tracking, but I told her I'd have nobody tracking out o’ my house; when I’m gone, she may do as she likes. I never dagged my petticoats in my life, and I’ve no opinion o’ that sort 0’ re- ligion.”’ ‘‘No,” said Mr. Hackit, who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the feminine mind with a jocose compliment, ‘‘you hold your petticoats so high, to show your tight ankles: it isn’t everybody as likes to show her ankles.” This joke met with general acceptance, even from the snubbed Janet, whose ankles were only tight in the sense of looking extremely squeezed by her boots. But Janet seemed al- ways to identify herself with her aunt’s person- ality, holding her own under protest. Under cover of the general laughter the gen- tlemen replenished their glasses, Mr. Pilgrim attempting to give his the character of a stir- rup-cup by observing that he ‘‘ must be going.” Miss Gibbs seized this opportunity of telling | Mrs. Hackit that she suspected Betty, the it puts a bit o’ color into his face, and makes | dairy-maid, of. frying the best bacon for the him look a deal handsomer.” shepherd, when he sat up with her to ‘‘help This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested | brew ;”” whereupon Mrs. Hackit replied that to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters, now that the tea was cleared away ; for in bucolic society five-and twenty years ago, the human animal of the malesex was un- derstood tobe perpetually athirst, and ‘‘some- thing to drink” was as necessary ‘‘ a con- dition of thought” as Time and Space. ‘‘Now, that cottage preaching,” said Mr. Pilgrim, mixing himself a strong glass of ‘*cold without;’ ‘‘I was talking about it to our Parson Ely the other day, and he doesn’t approve of it at all. He said it did as much harm as good to give a too familiar aspect to religious teaching. That was what Ely said— it does as much harm as good to give a too familiar aspect to religious preaching.” Mr. Pilgrim generally spoke with an inter- mittent kind of splutter; indeed, one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such 4 clever man had a ‘‘’pediment” in his speech. But when he came to what he conceived the ith of his argument or the point of his joke, he mouthed out his words with slow emphasis; asa hen, when advertising her accouchement, passes at irregular intervals from pianissimo semiquavers to fortissimo crochets. He thought this speech of Mr. Ely’s particularly metaphysical and profound, and the more she had always thought Betty false; and Mrs. Patten said there was no bacon stolen when she- was able to manage. Mr. Hackit, who often complained that he ‘‘never saw the like to women with their maids—he never had any trouble with his men,” avoided listening to this discussion - by raising the question of vetches with Mr. Pilgrim. The stream of conversation had thus diverged ; and no more was said abont the Rev. Amos Barton, who is the main object of interest tous justnow. So we may leave Cross Farm without waiting till Mrs. Hackit, resolutely donning her clogs and wrappings, renders it incumbent on Mr. Pilgrim also to fulfil his frequent threat of going. CHAPTER II. Ir was happy for the Rev. Amos Barton that he did not, like us, overhear the conversation recorded in the last chapter. Indeed, what niortal is there of us who would find his satis- faction enhanced by an opportunity of com- paring the picture he presents to himself of his own doings with the picture they make on the mental retina of his neighbors? Weare poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our own conceit: alas for us if we get a few pinches decisive of the question because it was a} that empty us of that windy self-subsistence! generality which represented no particulars to | The very capacity for good would go out of us. his mind. ** Well, I don’t know about that,” said Mrs. Hackit, who had always the courage of her opinion, ‘‘ but I know some of our laborers and stockingers as used never to come to church come to the cottage, and that’s better than never hearing anything good from week’s end to week’s end. And there’s that track society as Mr. Barton has begun—I’ve seen more o’ the poor people with going tracking than all the time I’ve lived in the parish be- fore. And there’d need be something done among ’em; for the drinking at them benefit clubs is shameful. There’s hardly a steady man, or steady woman either, but what’s a Dissenter.” During this speech of Mrs. Hackit's, Mr. Pilgrim had emitted a succession of little snorts, something like the treble grunts of a For, tell the most impassioned orator, sudden- ly, that his wig is awry, or his shirt-lap hang. ing out, and that he is tickling people by the oddity of his person instead of thrilling them by the energy of his periods, and you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep and wide saying, that no miracle can be wrought without faith—without the | worker’s faith in himself, as well as the recipi- ent’s faith in him. And the greater part of the | worker's faith in himself is made up of the | faith that others believe in him. Let me be persuaded that my neighbor Jen- kins considers me a blockhead, and I shall never shine in conversation with him any more, Let me discover that the lovely Phebe thinks my squint intolerable, and I shall never be able to fix her blandly with my disengaged eya again,
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“churchyard ! Thank heaven, then, that a little illuson is left to us, to enable us to be useful and agree- able—that we don’t know exactly what our friends think of us—that the world is not made of looking-glass, to show us just the figure we are making, and just what is going on behind our backs! By the help of dear friendly illu- sion, we are able to dream that we are charm- ing—and our faces wear a becoming air of self-possession; we are able to dream that other men admire our talents—and our benig- nity is undisturbed; we are able to dream that we are doing much good—and we do a little. Thus it was with Amos Barton on that very Thursday evening when he was the subject of the conversation at Cross Farm. He had been dining at Mr. Farquhar’s, the secondary squire of the parish, and, stimulated by unwonted gravies and port-wine, had been delivering his opinion on affairs parochial and extra-paro- chial with considerable animation. And he was now returning home in the moonlight, a little chill, it is true—for he had just now no greatcoat compatible with clerical dignity, anda fur boa round one’s neck, with a waterproof cape over one’s shoulders, doesn’t frighten away the cold from one’s legs—but entirely unsuspicious, not only of Mr. Hackit’s estimate of his oratorical powers, but ‘also of the critical remarks passed on him by the Misses Farquhar as soon as the drawing-room door had closed behind him. Miss Julia had observed that she never heard anyone sniff so frightfully as Mr. Barton did—she hada great mind to offer him her pocket-handkerchief; and Miss Ara- bella wondered why he always said he was going for to do a thing. He, excellent man! was meditating fresh pastoral exertions on the morrow; he would set on foot his lending library, in which he had introduced some books that would be a pretty sharp blow to the Dissenters—one especially, purporting to be written by a working-man who, out of pure zeal for the welfare of his class, took the trouble to warn them i this way against those hypocritical thieves, the Dissenting preachers. The Rev. Amos Barton profoundly believed in the existence of that working-man, and had thoughts of writing to him. Dissent, he con- sidered, would have its head bruised in Shep- erton, for did he not attack it in two ways? @ preached Low-church doctrine—as evan- gelical as anything to be heard in the Indepen- dent chapel; and he made a High-church as- sertion of ecclesiastical powers and functions. Clearly, the Dissenters would feel that ‘‘the n” was too many for them. Nothing ike a man who combines shrewdness with energy. The wisdom of the serpent, Mr. Bar- ton considered, was one of his strong points. Look at him as he winds through the little The silver light that falls aslant on church and tomb enables you to see his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons, as it flits past the pale gravestones. He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once— that is to say, by the robust maid-of-all-work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular complexion—even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have been of a mon- grel, indefinite kind—with features of no par- ticular shape, and an eye of no particular ex- pression, is surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been gone to bed. He opens the -sitting-room door, but instead of seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with the light of a candle altogether. She is softly pacing up and down by the red fire-light, holding in her arms _ little Walter, the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his back with her soft THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small stockings lying unmended on the table. She was a lovely woman—Mrs. Amos. Bar- ton; a large, fair, gentle Madonna, with thick, close chestnut curls beside her well-rounded cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing lines of her tallfigure made the limpest dress look graceful, and her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong: contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar’s gros de Naples. The caps she wore would bave been pronounced, when off her head, utterly heavy and hideous—for in those days even fashion- able caps were large and floppy; but sur- mounting her long, arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon with her chestnut curls, they seemed. miracles of successful millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of fifteen: she blushed crimson if anyone appealed to her opinion; yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation of timidity. he was quietly filling his long pipe when his Wife returned to the sitting-room. Maize is a | color that decidedly did not suit his complexion, and itis one that soon soils; why, then, did Mr. | Barton select it for domestic wear? - Perhaps because hé had a knack of hitting on the wrong | thing in garb as well as in grammar. Irs. Barton now lighted her candle, and seat- |ed herself before her heap of stockings. She | had something disagreeable to tell her husband, | but she would not enter on it at once. ‘* Have you had a nice evening, dear ?” ‘* Yes, pretty well. Ely was there to dinner, but went away rather early. Miss Arabella is: | setting her cap at him with a vengeance, But | I don’t think he’s much smitten. I’ve a notion , Ely’s engaged to some one ata distance, and will astonish all the ladies who are languishing for him here, by bringing home his bride oue of these days. LEly’s a sly dog; be’ll like that.” ‘*Did the Farquhars say anything about the singing last Sunday ?” ‘“Yes; Farquhar said he thought it was |time there was some improvement in the choir. But he was rather scandalized at my setting the tune of ‘Lydia.’ He says’ he’s | always hearing it as he passes the Independent meeting.” Here Mr, Barton laughed—he had Soothing, unspeakable charm of gentle|a way of laughing at criticisms that other womanhood! which supersedes all acquisi- tions, all accomplishments. You would never, have asked, at any period of Mrs. Amos Bar- ton's life, if she sketched or played the piano. people thought damaging—and thereby showed the remainder of a set of teeth which, like the remnants of the Old Guard, were few in num- ber, and very much the worse for wear. You would even, perhaps, have been rather | ‘ But,” he continued, ‘‘ Mrs, Farquhar talked scandalized if she had descended from the | the most about Mr. Bridmain and the count- serene dignity of being to the assiduous unrest | ess. She has taken up all the gossip about of doing. Happy the man, you would have| them, and wanted to convert me to her thought, whose eye will rest on her in the | opinion, but I told her pretty strongly what I pauses of his fireside reading—whose hot aching | forehead will be soothed by the contact of her cool, soft hand—who will recover himself from dejection at his mistakes and failures in the loving light of her unreproaching eyes ! would not, perhaps, have anticipated that this thought.” ‘‘Dear me! why will people take so much pains. to find out evil about others? Ihave had a note from the countess since you went, You | asking us to dine with them on Friday.” Here -Mrs. Barton reached the note from bliss would fall to the share of precisely such a| the mantel-piece and gave it to her hus- man as Amos Barton, whom you have already | band. We will look over his shoulder while surmised not to have the refined sensibilities | he reads it : for which you might have imagined Mrs. Bar- ton’s qualities to be destined by pre-establish- ed harmony. But I, for one, do not grudge Amos Barton his sweet wife. life had a sympathy for mongrel, ungainly dogs, who are nobody’s pets; and I would rather sur- prise one of them by a pat and a pleasant mor- sel than meet the condescending advances of the loveliest Skye-terrier who has his cushion by my lady’s chair. ‘That, to be sure, is not ‘‘Swzerest Miruy—Bring your lovely face with your husband to dine with us on Friday at seven—do. If not, I will be sulky with you I have all my till Sunday, when I shall be obliged to see you, and shall long to kiss you that very moment. ‘‘ Yours, according to your answer, ‘* CAROLINE OZERLASKI.” ‘« Just like her, isn’t it ?” said Mrs. Barton. the way of the world; if it happens to seea fel- | ‘‘I suppose we can go!” low of fine proportions and aristocratic mien, Che clerical ‘*Yes; I have no engagement. who makes no fauz pas, and wins golden opin- | meeting is to-morrow, you know.” ions from all sorts of men, it straightway ‘‘ And, dear, Woods the butcher called to picks out for him the loveliest of unmarried | say he must have some money next week. He women, and says: Z’here would be a proper | has a payment to make up.” match! Not at all, say I; let that successful, well-shapen, discreet, and able gentleman put | ful. This announcement made Mr. Barton thought- He puffed more rapidly and looked at the up with something less than the best in the mat- | fire. rimonial department; and let the sweet woman ‘‘T think I must ask Hackit to lend me go to make sunshine and a soft pillow for the | twenty pounds, for it is nearly two months tilk poor devil whose legs are not models, whose Lady-day, and we can’t give Woods our last efforts are often blunders, and who in general | shilling.” gets more kicks than halfpence. She—the sweet woman—will like it as well; for her sub- lime capes of loving will have all the more scope ; and I venture to say, Mrs. Barton’s na- ture would never have grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would perhaps have had in your eye for her—a man with suf- ficient income and abundant personal eclat. Be- sides, Amos was an affectionate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his best treasure. But now he has shut the door behind him, and said, ‘‘ Well, Milly ?” ‘* Well, dear,” was the corresponding greet- ing, made eloquent by a smile. ‘So that young rascal won't go to sleep. Can't you give him to Nanny ?” : ‘*‘ Why, Nanny has been busy ironing this evening, but I think J’ll take her to him now.’ And Mrs. Barton glided towards the kitchen, while her husband ran up stairs to put on his maize-colored dressing-gown, in which costume “TI hardly like you to ask Mr. Hackit, dear—he and Mrs. Hackit have been so very kind to us; and they have sent us sO many things lately.” ‘‘Then I must ask Oldinport. I’m going to write to him to-morrow morning, for to tell him the arrangement I’ve been thinking of about having service in the workhouse while the church is being enlarged. If he agrees to at- tend service there once or twice, the people will come. Net the large fish, and y>u’re sure to have the small fry.” “IT wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don’t see how we can. Poor Fred must nave some new shoes; I couldn't let him go to Mrs. Bond’s yesterday because his toes were peeping out, dear child; and I can’t let him walk anywhere except in the garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and shoes are the greatest trouble |of my life. Everything else one can turn and
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THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. +t. 5 tarn about, and make old look like new ; but there’s no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are.” Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in metamorphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her feet a pair of slip- pers which had long ago lived through the pru- nella phase of their existence, and were now running a respectable career as black-silk slip- pers, having been neatly covered with that : material by Mrs, Barton’s own neat fingers. Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty ;for if she went to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out come her thim- i ble and a piece of calico or muslin, which, be- fore she left, had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed ins and outs. She was even trying to persuade her husband to leave off tight pantaloons, because if he would wear the ordinary guncases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would suspect the sex of the tailor. But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his ‘ pipe, the candle begins to burn low, and Mrs. Barton goes to see if Nanny has succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment pains him in the little cot by his mother’s edside; the head, with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow ; and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is given to the infantine peccadillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny could now join in the short even- ing prayer, and all could go to bed. } f | { Mrs. Barton carried up stairs the remainder of her heap of stockings, and laid them on a ; table close to her bedside, where also she plac- ed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head : :| of her bed. Her body was very weary, but her } ! , ; dicated being the reverse of happy. an abbreviation for Madams. through the mysteries themselves. istically called the ‘‘College.” was a huge, square stone building, standing on the best apology for an elevation of ground that could be seen for about ten miles round Shep- perton. A flat, ugly district this; depressing enough to look at even on the brightest days. The roads are black with coal-dust, the brick houses dingy with smoke ; and at that time— the time of hand-loom weavers—every other cottage had aloom at its window, where you might see a pale, sickly-looking man or woman pressing a narrow chest against a board, and doing a sort of tread-mill work with legs and arms. A troublesome district for a clergyman ; at least to one who, like Amos Barton, un- derstood the ‘‘cure of souls’’ in something more than an official sense ; for over and above the rustic stupidity furnished by the farm- laborers, the miners brought obstreperous animalism, and the weavers an acrid radical- ism and dissent. Indeed, Mrs. Hackit often observed that the colliers, who manyeof them earned better wages than Mr. Barton, ‘‘ passed their time in doing nothing but swilling ale and smoking, like the beasts that perish” (speaking, we may presume, in a remotely analogical sense); and in some of the ale-house corners the drink was flavored by a dingy kind of infidelity, something like rinsings of Tom Paine in ditch-water. A certain amount of religious excitement created by the popular preaching of Mr.. Parry, Amos’ predecessor, ad nearly died out, and the religious life of Shepperton was falling back towards low- water mark, Here, you perceive, was a4 ter- rible stronghold of Satan; and you may well pity the Rey. Amos Barton, who had to stand single-handed and summon it to surrender. We read, indeed, that the walls of Jericho fell down before the sound of trumpets; but we nowhére hear that those trumpets were hoarse and feeble. Doubtless they were trumpets that gave forth clear ringing tones, and sent a mighty vibration through brick and mortar. But the oratory of the Rev. Amos resembled rather a Belgian railway horn, which shows raiseworthy intentions inadequately fulfilled. e often missed the right note both in public and private exhortation, and got a little angry in consequence, For though Amos thought himself strong, he did not feel himself strong. Nature had Min him the opinion, but not the sensation. ithout that opinion he would probably never have worn cambric bands, but would have been an excellent cabinet-maker and deacon of an Independent church, as his father was before him (he was not a shoemaker, as Mr. Pilgrim had reported). He might then have sniffed long and loud in the corner of his ew in Gun street chapel; he might have indulged in halting rhetoric at prayer-meet- ings, and have spoken faulty English in private life ; and these little infirmities would not have prevented him, honest, faithful man that he was, from being a shining light in the Dissent- ing circle of Bridgeport. A tallow dip, of the long-eight description, is an excellent thing in the kitchen candlestick, and Betty’s nose and heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods, the butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe- leather; for her heart so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of love that would care for her husband and babes bet- ter than she could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five o’clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round her bed—and angels might be glad of such an office—they saw Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just, light her candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm shawl round her shoul- ders, and renew her attack on the heap of un- darned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn; the candle was put out, and she sunk intoadoze. But at nine o’clock she wus at the breakfast-table busy cutting bread- and-butter for five hungry mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk-and- water. Nearest her mother sits the nine-year-old Patty, the eldest child, whose sweet fair face is al- ready rather grave sometimes, and who always wants to run up stairs to save mamma's legs, which get so tired of an evening. Then there are four other blond heads—two boys and two girls, gradually decreasing in size down to ubby, who is making a round O of her mouth to receive a bit of papa’s ‘‘ baton.” Papa’s attention was divided between petting Chubby, rebuking the noisy Fred, which he did with a somewhat excessive sharpness, and eating his own breakfast. He did not yet look at mamma, and did not know that her cheek was paler than usual. But Patty whispered, ‘‘Mamma, have you the headache ?” Happily coal was cheap in the neighborhood of Shepperton, and Mr. Hackit would any time let his horses draw 4 load for ‘‘ the par- : - gon” without charge; so there was a blazing F fire in the sitting-room, and not without need, for the vicarage garden, as they looked out on it from the bow-window, was hard with black frost, and the sky had the white, woolly look that portends snow. Breakfast over, Mr. Barton mounted to his study, and ocenpied himself in the first place with his letter to Mr. Oldinport. It was very NSE Se Ee r wea x ad es ee 6 NS EE Be A oa as ‘t- >» «, Rs % Oe ees ks much the same sort of letter as most clergymen would have written under the same cireum- stances, except that instead of perambulate, the Rev. Amos wrote pre-ambulate, and instead of ‘*if haply,” ‘if happily,” the contingency in- r. Bar- ton had not the gift of perfect accuracy in Eng- lish orthography and syntax, which was unfor- tunate, as he was known not to be a Hebrew scholar, and not in the least suspected of being an accomplished Grecian. The lapses, in a man who had gone through the Eleusinian Myste- ries of a university education, surprised the young ladies of his parish extremely ; espec- lally the Misses‘Farquhar, whom he had once addressed in a letter as Dear Mads, apparently The persons least surprised at the Rey. Amos’ deficiencies were his clerical brethren, who had gone At eleven o'clock, Mr. Barton walked forth in cape and boa, with the sleet driving in his face, to read prayers at the workhouse, euphu- The College eye are not sensitive to the difference between it and the finest wax; it is only when you stick it in the silver candlestick, and introduce it into the drawing-room, that it seems plebe- ian, dim and ineffectual. Alas for the worthy man who, like that candle, gets himself into the wrong place! It is only the very largest souls who will be able to appreciate and pity him—who will discern and love sincerity of purpose amidst all the bungling feebleness of achievement, But now Amos Barion has made his way through the sleet as far as the College, has thrown off his hat, cape and boa, and is reading, in the dreary, stone-floored dining -room, a por- ton of the morning service to the inmates seat- ed on the benches before him. Remember, the New Poor-law had not yet come into operation, and Mr. Barton was not acting as paid chap- lain of the Union, but as the pastor who had the cure of all the souls in his parish, pauper as well as other. After the prayers he always addressed to them a sbort discourse on some subject suggested by the lesson forthe day, striving if by this means some edifying matter might find its way into the pauper mind and conscience—perhaps a task as trying as you could well imagine to the faith and patience of any honest clergyman. For, on the very first bench, these were the faces on which his eye had to rest, watching whether there was any stirring under the stagnant surface: Right in front of him—probably because he was stone-deaf, and it was deemed more edi- fying to hear nothing at a short distance than at a long one—sat ‘‘ Old Maxum,” as he was familiarly called, his real patronymic remain- ing a mystery to most persons. A fine philo- logical sense discerns in this cognomen an in- dication that the pauper patriarch had once been considered pithy and sententious in his speech; but now the weight of ninety-five years lay heavy on his tongue as well as in his ears, and he sat before the clergyman with protruded chin, and munching mouth, and eyes that seemed to look at ewptiness. Next to him sat Poll Fodge—known to the magistracy of her courty as Mary Higgins—a one-eyed woman, with a scarred and seamy face, the most notorious rebel in the work- house, said to have once thrown her broth over the master's coat-tails, and who, in spite of na- ture’s apparent safeguards against that contin- gency, had contributed to the perpetuation of the Fodge characteristics in the person of a small boy, who was behaving naughtily on one of the back benches. Misss Fodge fixed her one sore eye on Mr. Barton with a sort of hardy defiance. Beyond this member of the softer sex, at the end of the bench, sat ‘‘ Silly Jim,” a youn man afflicted. with hydrocephalus, who roll his head from side to side, and gazed at the point of his nose, ‘These were the supporters of old Maxum on his right. On his left sat Mr. Fitchett, a tall fellow, who had once been & footman in the Oldinport family, and in that giddy elevation had enun- ciated a contemptuous opinion of boiled beef, which had been traditionally handed down in Shepperton as the direct cause of his ultimate reduction to pauper commons. His calves were now. shrunken, and his hair was without the aid of powder; but he still carried his chin as if he were conscious of a stiff cra- vat: he set his dilapidated hat on with a know- ing inclination towards the left ear; and when he was on field-work, he carted and uncarted the manure with a sort of flunky grace, the ghost of that jaunty demeanor with which he used to usher in my ‘lady’s morning vis- itors. The flunky nature was nowhere com- pletely subdued but in his stomach, and he still divided society into gentry, gentry’s flunkys, and the people who provided forthem. A clergyman without a flunky was an anomaly belonging to neither of these classes. Mr Fitchett bad an irrepressible tendency to drowsi- nessunder spiritval instruction, and in the recur- rent regularity with which he dozed off until he modded and awaked himself, he looked not.
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§ a ‘eg 6 unlike a piece of mechanism, ingeniously con- trived for measuring the length of Mr. Barton’s discourse, Perfectly wide-awake, on the contrary, was his left-hand neighbor, Mrs. Brick, one of those hard, undying old women, to whom age seems to have given a net-work of wrinkles, as a coat of magic armor against the attacks of winters, warm or cold. The point on which Mrs. Brick was still sensitive—the theme on which you might possibly excite her hope and fear—was snuff. It seemed to bean embalming powder, helping her soul to do the office of salt. And now, eke out an audience of which this front benchful was a sample with a certain number of refractory children, over whom Mr. Spratt, the master of the workhouse, exercised an irate surveillance, and I think you will admit that the university-taught clergyman, whose office it is to bring home the gospel to a handful of such souls, had a sufficiently hard task. For, to have any chance of success, short of miraculous intervention, he must bring his geographical, chronological, exegetical mind pretty nearly to the pauper point of view, or of no view; he must have some approximate conception of the mode in which the doctrines that have so much vitality in the plenum of his own brain will comport themselves in vacuo— that is to say, in a brainthat is neither geo- graphical, chronological, nor exegetical. It is a flexible imagination that can take such a leap as that, and an adroit tongue that can adapt its epeech to so unfamiliar a position. The Rey. Amos Barton had neither that flexible imagination, nor that adroittongue. He talked of Israel and its sins, of chosen vessels, of the Paschal lamb, of blood as a medium of recon- ciliation ; and he strove in this way to convey religious truth within reach of the Fodge and Fitchett mind. This very morning, the first lesson was the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and Mr. Barton's exposition turned on unleavened bread. Nothing in the world more suited to the simple understanding than instruction through familiar types and symbols! But there is always this danger attending it, that the in- terest or comprehension of your hearers may stop short precisely at the point where your spirtual interpretation begins. And Mr. Barton this morning succeeded in carrying the pauper imagination to the dough-tub, but unfortu- nately was not able to carry it upward from that well-known object to the unknown truths which it was intended te shadow forth. Alas! a natural incapacity for teaching, fin- ished by keeping ‘‘terms” at Cambridge, where there are able mathematicians, and but- ter sold by the yard, is not apparently the medium through which Christian doctrine will distil as weloome dew on withered souls. And so, while the sleet outside was turning to unquestionable snow, and the ap hg se room looked darker and drearier, and Mr. Fitch- ett was nodding his lowest, and Mr. Spratt was boxing the boy's ears with a constant rinfor- zando, aa he felt more keenly the tap of dinner-time, Mr, Barton wound up his exhor- tation with something of the February chill at his heart as well as his feet. Mr. Fitchett, thoroughly roused, now the instruction was at an end, o uiously and gracefully advanced to help Mr. Barton in putting on his cape, while Mrs. Brick rubbed her withered fore- finger round and round her little shoe-shaped snuffbox, Lig { seeking for the fraction of a inch. I can’t help thinking that if Mr. Barton ad shaken into that little box a small portion of Scotch high-dried, he might have produced something more like an amiable emotion in Mrs. Brick’s mind than anything she had felt under his morning’s exposition of the unleav- ened bread. . But our good Amos labored un- der a deficiency of small tact as well as of small cash ; and when he observed the action of the old woman's forefinger, he said, in his Peaeane way, “So your snuff is all gone, eh ” Mrs. Brick’s eyes twinkled with the vision- THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. to replenish her box, at least mediately,| them, and they are all ready in the sitting- through the present of a small copper. ‘‘Ah, well! you'll soon be going where there isno more snuff. You'll be in need of mercy | then. You must remember that you may have | to seek for mercy and not find it, just as you're | seeking for snuff.” At the first sentence of this admonition, the | twinkle subsided from Mrs. Brick’s eyes. The | lid of her box went ‘‘ click !” and her heart was | shut up at the same moment. ae But now Mr. Barton’s attention was called | for by Mr. Spratt, who was dragging a small and unwilling boy from the rear. Mr. Spratt | was a small-featured, small-statured man, with a remarkable power of language, mitigated by hesitation, who piqued himself on expressing unexceptionable sentiments in unexceptionable language on all occasions. ‘*Mr, Barton, sir—aw—aw—excuse my tres- passing on your time—aw—to beg that you will administer a rebuke to this boy; he is— aw—aw—most inveterate in ill-behavior during service-time.” The inveterate culprit was a boy of seven, vainly contending against ‘‘ candles” at his nose by feeble sniffing, But no sooner had Mr. Spratt uttered his impeachment than Miss Fodge rushed forward and placed herself be- tween Mr. Barton and the accused. ‘That's my child, Muster Barton,” she ex- claimed, further manifesting her maternal in- stincts by applying her apron to her offspring’s nose. ‘‘He’s al’ys a-findin’ faut wi’ him, and a-poundin’ him for nothin’. Let him goo an’ eat his roost goose as is a-smellin’ up in our noses while we’re a-swallering them greasy broth, and let my boy alooan.” Mr. Spratt’s small eyes flashed, and he was in danger of uttering sentiments not unexcep- tionable before the clergyman; but Mr. Bar- ton, foreseeing that a prolongation of this epi- sode would not be to edification, said, ‘‘Si- lence!” in his severest tones. ‘*Let the hear no abuse. Your boy is not| likely to behave well, if you sethim the exam- | ple of being saucy.” Then stooping down to Master Fodge, and taking him by the shoulder, ‘Do you like being beaten ?” **No-a.” ‘“‘Then what a silly boy you are to be naughty! If you were not naughty, you wouldn’t be beaten. But if you are naughty, God will be angry, as wellas Mr. Spratt; and God can burn you forever. That willbe worse than being beaten.” Master Fodge’s countenance was neither af- firmative nor negative of this proposition. ‘* But,” continued Mr. Barton, “ if you will be a good boy, God will love you, and you will grow oP to be a good man. Now, let me hear next fos ureday that you have been a good boy. Master Fodge had no distinct vision of the benefit that would accrue to him from this change of courses. But Mr. Barton, bein aware that Miss Fodge had touched ‘on a deli- cate subject in alluding to the roast goose, was determined to witness no more polemics be- tween her and Mr. Spratt; so, saying good- meaning to the latter, he hastily left the Col- ege. The snow was falling in thicker and thicker flakes, and already the vicarage-garden was cloaked in white as he passed through the goo Mrs. Barton heard him open the door, and ran out of the sitting-room to meet him. ‘* I’m afraid your feet are very wet, dear. Whata terrible morning! Let me take your hat. Your slippers are at the fire.” Mr. Barton was feeling a little cold and cross. It is difficult, when you have been doing disa- greeable duties, without praise, on a snowy day, toattend to the very minor morals. So he showed no recognition of Milly's attention, but simply said, ‘‘Fetch me my dressing- gown, will you ?” . ‘Tt is down, dear. I thought you wouldn’t go into the study, because you said you would letter and numberthe books for the Lending wary hope that the parson might be intending| Library, Patty and I have been covering room.” ‘Oh, Ican’t do those this morning,” said - Mr. Barton, as he took off his boots and pnt his feet into the slippers Milly had brought ae ; ‘‘you must put them away into the par- or.” The sitting-room was also the day nursery and schoolroom ; and while mamma’s back was turned, Dickey, the second boy, had insisted on superseding Chubby in the guidance of a headless horse, of the red—wafered species, which she was drawing round the room, so that when papa opened the door Chubby was giving tongue energetically. ‘Milly, some of these children must go away. I want to be quiet.” “Yes, dear. Hush; Chubby; go with Patty, and see what Nanny is getting for our dinner, Now, Fred and Sophy and Dickey, help me to carry these books into the parlor. There are three for Dickey. Carry them steadily.” Papa meanwhile settled himself in his easy- chair, and took up a work on Episcopacy, which he had from the Clerical Book Society; thinking he would finish it, and return it this afternoon, as he was going to the Clerical Meet- ing at Milby Vicarage, where the Book Society had its headquarters. The Clerical Meetings and Book Society, which had been founded some eight or ten months, had had a noticeable effect on the Rey. Amos Barton. When he first came to Shepper ton he was simply an evangelical clergyman, whose Christian experiences had commenced under the teaching of the Rev. Mr. Johns, of Gun Street Chapel, and had been consolidated at Cambridge under the influence of Mr. Simeon. John Newton and Thomas Scott were his doctrinal ideals; he would have taken in the Christian Observer and the Record, if he could have afforded it; his anecdotes were chiefly of the pious jocose kind, current in Dissenting circles: and he thought an Episco- palian Establishment unobjectionable. But by this time the effect of the 'Fractarian agitation was beginning to be felt in backward provincial regions, and the Tractarian’ satire on the Low-church party was beginning to tell even on those who disavowed or resisted Tracta- rian doctrines. The vibration of an intellect- ual movement was felt from the golden head to the miry toes of the establishment ; and so it came to pass that, in the district round Milby, the market-town clese to Shepperton, the clergy had agreed to havea clerical meeting every month, wherein they would exercise their intellects by discussing theological and ecclesi- astical questions, and cement their brotherly love by discussing a good dinner. A book so- ciety naturally suggested itself as an adjunct of this agreeable plan; and thus, you perceive, there was provision made for ample friction of the elerical mind. ‘ Now, the Rev. Amos Barton was one of those men who have a decided will and opinion of their own; he held himself bolt-upright, and had no self-distrust. He would march very determinedly along the road he thought best; but, then, it was wonderfully easy to convince him which was the best road. And soa very little unwonted reading and unwonted disouss- ion made him see that an Episcopalian Estab- lishment was much more than unobjectionable, and on many other points he began to feel that he held opinions a little too far-sighted and profound to be crudely and suddenly commun- icated to ordinary minds. He was like an onion that has been rubbed with spices; the strong original odor was blended with something new and foreign. The Low-church onion still offended refined High-church nostrils, and the new spice was unwelcome to the palate of the genuine onion-eater. We will not accompany him to the Clerical Meeting to-day, because weshall probably want to go thither some day when he-will be absent. And just now I am bent on introducing you to Mr. Bridmain and the Countess Czerlaski, with whom Mr. and Mrs. Barton are invited to dine to-morrow. ‘ : ; ¥ { f h
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L ¢ ; in friendshi Py es THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV AMOS BARTON. 7 eR net Nain EE er tS Re AS EA BASS ESS SE ews NE ewan TE CHAPTER III. Ovrsipz, the moon is shedding its cold light on the cold snow, and the white-bearded fir trees round Camp Villa are casting a blue shad- ow across the white ground, while the Rev. Amos Barton and his wife are audibly crushing the crisp snow beneath their feet, as, about seven o’clock on Friday evening, they approach | the door of the above-named desirable country residence, containing dining, breakfast, and drawing-rooms, etc., situated only half a mile from the market-town of Milby. Inside, there is a bright fire in the drawing- room, casting a pleasant but uncertain light on the delicate silk dress of a lady who is reclin- ing behind a screen in the corner of the sofa, and allowing you to discern thatthe hair of the gentleman who is seated in the arm-chair op- posite, with a newspaper over his knees, is be- coming decidedly gray. A little ‘‘King Charles,”’ with a crimson ribbon round his neck, who has been lying curled up in the very mid- dle of the hearth-rug, has just discovered that that zone is too hot forhim, and is jumping on the sofa, evidently with the intention ef accom- modating his person on the silk gown. On the table there are two wax-candles, which will be | lighted as soon as the expected knock is heard at the door. The knock is heard, the candles are lighted, and presently Mr. and Mrs. Barton are ushered in—Mr. Barton, erect and clerical, in a fault- less tie and shining cranium; Mrs. Barton graceful in a newly turned black silk. ‘‘Now this is charming of you,” said the Countess OCzerlaski, advancing to meet them, | and embracing Milly with careful elegance. my friends to come and see me in this fright- ful weather.” Then, giving her hand to Amos, *‘ And you, Mr. Barton, whose time is so pre- cious! But Iam doing a good deal in drawing you away from your labors. I have a plot to prevent youfrom martyrizing yourself.” While this greeting was going forward, Mr. “T) am really ashamed of my selfishness in asking | small brain for caressing words and charming exaggerations. ‘© And how are all the cherubs at home ?” said the countess, stooping to pick up Jet, and without waiting for an answer. ‘‘I have been kept indoors by a cold ever since Sunday, or I should not have rested without seeing you. What have you done with those wretched sing- ers, Mr. Barton?” ‘Oh, we have got a new chgir together, which will go on very well with a little practice. Iwas quite determined that the old set of sing- ers should be dismissed. I had given orders thatthey shoulduot sing the wedding-psalm, as they call it, again, to make a new-married couple look ridiculous, and they sung it in| defiance of me. I could put them into the Ecclesiastical Court, if I chose for to do so, for | g lifting up their voices in church in opposition to the clergyman.” ‘‘ And a most wholesome discipline that would be,” said the countess; ‘‘indeed, you are too patient and forbearing, Mr. Barton. For my part, J lose my temper when I fee how far you are from being appreciated in that miserable Shepperton.” If, as is probable, Mr. Barton felt at a loss what to say in reply to the insinuated compli- ment, it was a relief to him that dinner was an- nounced just then, and that he had to offer his| | arm to the countess. As Mr. Bridmain was leading Mrs. Barton to | the dining-room, he observed, ‘‘ The weather is very severe.” ‘* Very, indeed,” said Milly. Mr. Bridmain studied conversation as an art. To ladies he spoke of the weather, and was accustomed to consider it under three points of view: as a question of climate in general, com- | paring England with other countries in this Bridmain and Jet the spaniel looked on with | the air of actors who had no idea of by-play. | hinnsslt Suebiatadatiod him a man of considerable political information, , Mr. Bridmain, a stiff and rather thick-set man, gave his welcome with a labored cordiality. It was astonishing how very little he resembled his beautiful sister. For the Countess OCzerlaski was undeniably beautiful. As she seated herself by Mra. Barton on the sofa, Milly's eyes, indeed, rested—must it be confessed ?—chiefly on the details of the tasteful dress, the rich silk of a pinkish-lilac hue (the countess always wore delicate colors in an ooeene: , the black-lace pelerine, and the black-lace veil falling at the back of the small, closely braided head. For Milly had one weak- ness—don't love her any theless for it, for it was a pretty woman's weakness, she was fond of dress; and often, when she was making up her own economical millinery, she had romantie visions ay. nice id won be to put on really handsome, things —to have very stiff balloon sleeves, for example, with which a woman’s dress was naught in those days. You and I, too, reader, eakness, have we not? which makes us think foolish things now and then. Perha it may liein an excessive admiration for small hands and feet, a tall, lithe figure, large, dark eyes, and dark silken braided Tair, All these the countess possessed, and she had, however, a delicately formed nose, the least bit curved, and a clear brunette complexion. Her mouth, it must be admitted, receded too much from her nose and chin, and to a prophetic eye threatened ‘‘ nut-crackers” in vanced age. But by the light of fire and wax-candles that age seemed very far off indeed, and you would mee said that the countess was not more than Look at the two women on the ——— The large, fair, mild-eyed Milly is timid even P; it is not easy to her to of the affection of which her heart is The lithe, dark, thin-lipped countess is racking her respect; as a personal question, inquiring how it affected his lady interlocutor in particu- lar; andas a question of probabilities, discuss- ing whether there would be a change or a continuance of the present atmospheric condi- tions. To gentlemen he talked politics; and he read two daily papers expressly to qualify Mr. Barton thought but not of lively parts, ‘* And so you are always to hold your clerical meetings at Mr. Ely’s?” said the countess, be- tween her spoonfuls of soup. (The soup was a little overspiced. Mrs. Short, of Camp Villa, who was in the habit of letting her best apartments, gave only moderate wages to her cook. ‘“* Yes,” said Mr. Barton; ‘‘ Milby is a cen- tral place, and there are many conveniences in ners only one point of meeting.” ~ ” continued the countess,” everyone seems to agree in giving the precedence to Mr. Ely. For my part, I cannot admire him. His preaching is too cold for me. It has no fer- vor—no heart. I often say to my brother, it is a great comfort to me that Shepperton Church is not too far off for us to go to; don’t I, Ed- mund ?” ‘* Yes,” answered Mr. Bridmain; ‘they ghow us into sucha bad pew at Milby—just where there is a draught from that door. I caught a stiff neck the first time I went ‘Oh, it is the cold in the pulpit that affects me, not the cold in the pew. I was writing to my friend Lady Porter this morning, and tell- ing her all about my sveliae She and I think alike on such matters, She is most anxious that when Sir William has an opportunity of giving away the living at their place, Dip ley, they should have a thoroughly zealous, clever man there. I have been describing a ce friend of mine to her, who, I think, would be just to her mind. And there is such a pretty rectory, Milly ; shouldn’t I like to see you the mistress of it!” : Milly smiled, and blushed slightly. The Rey. Amos blushed very red, and gave a little embarrassed laugh—he could rarely keep his muscles within the limits of a smile. At this moment, John, the man-servant, ap- proached Mrs. Barton with a gravy-tureen, and also with a slight odor of the stable, which usually adhered to him throughout his indoor functions. John was rather nervous; and the countess happening to speak to him at this |inopportune moment, the tureen slipped and black silk. ‘‘Oh, horror! Tell Alice to come directly and rub Mrs. Barton’s dress,” said the countess to the trembling John, carefully abstaining | from approaching the gravy-sprinkled spot on the floor with her own lilac silk. But Mr. Bridmain, who had a strictly private in- terest in silks, good-naturedly jumped up and. applied his napkin at once to Mrs. Barton's own. Milly felt a little inward anguish, but no ill temper, and tried to make light of the matter for the sake of John as wellas others. The countess felt inwardly thankful that her own delicate silk had escaped, but threw out lavish interjections of distress and indignation. ‘* Dear saint that you are,” she said, when Milly laughed, and suggested that, as her silk was not very glossy to begin with, the dim patch would rot be much seen; ‘‘yon don’t mind about these things, I know. Just the same sort of thing happened to me at the Prin- cess Wengstein’s one day, on a pink satin. I was in anagony. But youare so indifferent to dress; and well you may be. It is you who makes dress pretty, and not dress that makes | you pretty.” ° Alice, the buxom lady’s-maid, wearing a much better dress than Mrs. Barton’s, now appeared | to take Mr. Bridmain’s place in retrieving the mischief, and after a great amount of supple- mentary rubbing, composure was restored, and the business of dining was continued. | When John was recounting his accident to the cook in the kitchen, he observed, ‘‘ Mrs. Bar- ton’s a hamable woman; I'd a deal sooner ha’ throwed the gravy o’er the countess’ fine ownd. But laws! what tantrums she'd ha’ een in arter the visitors was gone !” ‘«You’d a deal sooner not ha’ throwed it down at all, I should think,” responded the unsym- | pathetic cook, to whom John did not make \love. ‘*Who d’you think’s to make gra anuff, if you're to baste people’s gownds wi’ it?” ‘* Well,” suggested John, humbly, ‘ you should wet the bottom of the duree a bit, to hold it from slippin’.” ‘Wet your granny,” returned the cook; a retort which she probably regarded in the light of a reductio ad absurdum, and which, in fact, reduced John to silence. Later on in the evening, while John was re- moving the tea-things from the drawing-room, and brushing the crumbs from the table-cloth with an accompanying hiss, such as he was wont to encourage Himself with in rubbing down Mr. Bridmain’s horse, the Rev. Amos Barton drew from his pocket a thin, green+ covered pa _ and, presenting it to the . countess, sai ** You were on Christmas Day. It has been printed in The Pulpit, and I thought you might like a copy.” ‘That indeed I shall. I shall quite value the opportunity of reading that sermon. There was such depth in it!—such argument! It was not a sermon to be heard only once. I am de- lighted that it should become generally known, as it will be, now it is printed in The Pulpit.” ‘*Yes,” said Milly, innocently, “‘I was so pleased with the editor’s letter.” Andshe drew out her little pocket-book, where she carefully rtain | treasured the editorial autograph, while Mr. Barton laughed and blushed, and said: ‘ Non- sense, Milly!” ~ ‘You see,” she said, giving the letter to the countess, ‘* Iam very proud of the praise my husband gets.” The sermon in quéestion, by-fhe-bye, was an extremely argumentative one on the Incarna- tion; which, as it was preached to a congrega- |emptied itself on Mrs. Barton’s newly-turned leased, I think, with my sermon
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tps ea 7 ais ead ey fee b f be’ Ee, Ra Be ee ON 7 ree i ul a o Sata, einige tae 4 7 Otis } (Uwe - he - , nee 2 oN _— Sarr T tas pai a . THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. ce ee tion not one of whom had any doubt of that doctrine, and to whom the Socipians therein econfuted was as unknown as the Arimaspians, ‘was exceedingly well adapted to trouble and confuse the Sheppertonian mind. ‘‘ Ah,” said the countess, returning the edit- or’s letter, ‘‘ he may well say he will be glad of other sermons from the same source. But I would rather you should publish your sermons in an independent volume, Mr. Barton, it would be so desirable to have them in that shape. For instance, I could send a copy to the Dean of Radborough. And there is Lord Blarney, whom I knew before he wasa chancellor. I wasa special favorite of his, and you can’t think what sweet things he used to say tome. I shall not resist the temptation to write to him one of these days sans facon and tell him how he ought to dispose of the next vacant living in his gift.” Whether Jet, the spaniel, being a much more knowing dog than was suspected, wished to ex- press his disapproval of the countess’ last speech, as not accordant with his ideas of wis- dom and veracity, I cannot say ; but at this mo- ment he jumped off her lap, and turning his back upon her, placed one paw on the fender, and held the other up to warm, as if affecting to abstract himself from the current of conver- sation. But now Mr. Bridmain brought out the chess- board, and Mr. Barton accepted his challenge to play a game, with immense satisfaction. The Rev. Amos was very fond of chess, as most peo- ple are who can continue through many years to create interesting vicissitudes in the game, by taking long meditated moves with their knights, and subsequently discovering that they have thereby exposed their queen. Chess is a silent game; and the countess’ chat with Milly isin quite an undertone—prob- ably relating to women’s matters that it would be impertinent for us to listen to; so we will leave Camp Villa and proceed to Milby Vicar- age, where Mr. Farquhar has sat out two other guests with whom he has been dining at Mr. Ely’s, and is now rather wearying that reverend gentleman by his protracted small-talk. Mr. Ely wasa tall, dark-haired, distinguished looking man of three-and-thirty. By the laity of Milby and its neighborhood he was regarded as a man of quite remarkable powers and learn- ing, who must make a considerable sensation in London pulpits and drawing-rooms on his occa- sional visits to the metropolis; and by his brother clergy he was regarded as a discreet and agree- able fellow. Mr. Ely never got into a warm discussion; he suggested what might be thought, but rarely said what he thought him- self ; he never let either men or women see that he was laughing at them, and he never ~ anyone an opportunity of laughing at im. In one thing only he was injudicious, He his dark wavy hair down the mid- dle; and as his head was rather flat than other- wise, that style of coiffure was not advantageous to him. Mr. Farquhar, though not a parishioner of _ Mr. Ely’s, was one of his warmest admirers, and thought he would make an unexception- able son-in-law, in spite of his being of no particular ‘‘ family.” Mr. Farquhar was sus- ceptible on the point of ‘‘blood”—his own circulating fluid, which animated a short and somewhat flabby person, being, he considered, of very superior quality. | ** By-the-bye,” he said, with a certain pom- ity counteracted by @ lisp, ‘‘ what an ath rton makth of himthelf about that Bridmain ‘and the counteth, ath she callth herthelf. After you were gone the other evening, Mithith Farquhar wath telling him the general opinion ‘about them in the neighborhood, and he got quite red and angry. Bleth your thoul, he ‘bélievth the whole thtory about her Polish huthband and ith wonderful etheapeth; and ath for her—why, he thinkth her perfection, a woman of motht refined feelingth, and no end of thtuff.” Mr. Ely smiled. ‘‘Some people would say our friend Barton was not the best judge of refinement, Perhaps the lady flatters him a \ ‘ mre i ® z sy little, and we men are susceptible. She goes to Shepperton Church every Sunday—drawn there, let us suppose, by Mr. Barton’s elo- quence.” ‘‘Pthaw |’ said Mr. Farquhar; ‘‘ now, to my mind, you have only to look at that woman to thee what she ith—throwing her eyth about when she comth into church, and drething in a way to attract attention. I should thay she’th | tired of her brother Bridmain, and looking out | for another brother with a thtronger family | likeneth. Mithith Farquhar ith very fond of | Mithith Barton, and ith quite dithtrethed that she should athothiate with thuch a woman, tho she attacked him on the thubject purpothly. But I tell her it’th of no uthe, with a pig- headed fellow like him. Barton’th well-mean- ing enough, but tho contheited. I've left off giving him my advithe.” Mr. Ely smiled inwardly, and said to him- self, ‘‘What punishment?” But to Mr, Far- quhar he said, ‘“‘Barton might be more judicious, it must be confessed.” He was getting tired, and did not want to develop the subject. ‘“Why, nobody vithith them but the Bar- tonth,” continued Mr. Farquhar, ‘‘and why should thuch people come here, unleth they had particular reathonth for preferring a neighborhood where they are not known? Pooh! it lookth bad on the very fathe of it. You called on them, now; how did you find them ?” ‘‘Oh!—Mr. Bridmain strikes me as a com- mon sort of man who is making an effort to seem wise and well-bred. He comes down on one tremendously with political information, and seems knowing about the King of the French. The countess is certainly a handsome woman, but she puts on the grand air a little too powerfully. Woodcock was immensely taken with her, and insisted on his wife’s calling.on her and asking her to dinner; but I think Mrs. Woodcock turned restive after the first visit, and wouldn’t invite her again.” “‘Hal ha! Woodcock hath alwayth a thoft place in hith heart for a pretty fathe. It’th odd how he came to marry that plain woman, and no fortune either.” ‘‘ Mysteries of the tender passion,” said Mr. Ely. ‘I am not initiated yet, you know.” Here Mr, Farquhar’s carriage was announced, and as we have not found his rsa particularly brilliant under the stimulus of Mr. Ely’s exceptional presence, we will not accom- pany him home to the less exciting atmosphere of domestic life. Mr. Ely threw himself with a sense of relief into his easiest chair, set his feet on the hobs, and in his attitude of bachelor enjoyment began to read Bishop Jebb’s Memoirs. CHAPTER IV. I am by no means sure that if the good people of Milby had known the truth about the Countess Ozerlaski, they would not have been consliiereiy disappointed to find that it was very far from being as bad as they imagined, Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue or green to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbor is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion. Besides, think of all the virtuous declama- tion, all the penetrating observations, which had been built up entirely on the fundamental position that the countess was a very objection- able person indeed, and which would be ut- terly overturned and nullified by the destruc- tion of that premise. Mrs. Phipps, the bank- er’s wife, and Mrs. Landor, the attorney’s wife, had invested part of their reputaiion for acute- ness in the supposition that Mr. Bridmain was not the countess’ brother, Moreover, Miss Phipps was conscious that if the count- ess was not a disreputable person, she, Miss Phipps, had no compensating superiority gc lS it in virtue to sét against the other lady's manifest superiority in personal charms. Miss Phipps’ stumpy figure and unsuccessful at- tire, instead of looking down from a mount of virtue with an aureole round its head, would then be seen on the same level and in the same light as the Countess Ozerlaski’s Diana-like form and well-chosen drapery.. Miss Phipps, for her part, didn’t like dressing for effect— she had always avoided that style of appear- ance which was calculatad to create a sensa- tion. Then what amusing innuendoes of the Milby gentlemen over their wine would have been en- tirely frustrated and reduced to naught, if you had told them that the countess had really been guilty of no misdemeanors which demanded her exclusion from strictly respectable society ; that her husband had been the veritable Count Czerlaski, who had had wonderful escapes, as she said, and who, as she did not say, but as was said in certain circulars once folded by her fair hands, had subsequently given dancing lessons jn the metropolis; that Mr. Bridmain was neither more nor less than her half-broth- er who, by unimpeached integrity and indus- try, had won a partnership in a silk manufac- tory, and thereby a moderate fortune, that en- abled him to retire, as you see, to study pollf- tics, the weather, and the art of conversation at his leisure. Mr. Bridmain, in fact, quad- ragenarian bachelor as he was, felt extremely well pleased to receive his sister in her widow- hood, and to shine in the reflected light of her beauty and title. Every man who is nota monster, a mathematician, or a mad philoso- pher, is the slaye of some woman or other. Mr. Bridmain had put his neck under the yoke of his handsome sister, and though his soul was a very little one—of the smallest de- scription, indeed—he would not have ventured to call it his own. He might be slightly recal- citrant now and then, as is the habit of long- eared pachyderms, under the thong of the fair countess’ tongue; but there seemed little probability that he would ever get his neck loose. Still, a bachelor’s heart is an outlying fortress that some fair enemy may any day take either by storm or stratagem ; and there was always the possibility that Mr. Bridmain’s first nuptials might occur before the countess was quite sure of her second. As it was, how- ever, he submitted to all his sister’s caprices, never grumbled because her dress and her maid formed a considerable item beyond her own little income of sixty pounds per annum, and consented to lead with her a migratory life, as personages on debatable ground be- tween aristocracy and commonalty, instead of settling in some spot where his five hundred a year might have won him the definite dignity of a parochial magnate. r The countess had her views in choosing a quiet provincial place like Milby. After three years of widowhood, she had brought her feel- ings to contemplate giving » successor to her la- mented Ozerlaski, whose fine whiskers, fine air, and romantic fortunes had won her heart ten years ago, when, as pretty Caroline Bridmain in full bloom of five-and-twenty, she was governess to Lady Porter’s daughters, whom he initiated into the mysteries of the pas de basque and the Lancers’ quadrilles. She had had seven 2 em of sufficiently happy matrimony with Ozérlaski, who had taken her to Paris and Germany, and introduced her there to many of his old friends witb o titles and small fortunes. So that the fair Caroline had had considerable experi- ence of life, and had gathered therefrom, not, indeed, any very ripe and. comprehensive wis- dom, but much external polish, and certain practical conclusions of a very decided kind. One of these conclusions was, that there were things more solid in life than fine whiskers and & title, and that, in accepting a second hus- band, she would regard these items as quite subordinate to a carriage and a settlement. Now, she had ascertained, by tentative residen- ces, that the kind of bite she was angling for was difficult to be met with at watering-places, which were already preoccupied with abun- re + eo. <<
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‘all ‘might lift himself into the region of county ce- THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON 9 Es dance of angling beauties, and were chiefly stocked with men whose whiskers might be dyed, and whose incomes were still more prob- lematic; so she had determined on trying a | neighborhood where people were extremely well acquainted with each other’s affairs, and where the women were mostly ill-dressed and | ugly. Mr. Bridmain’s slow brain had adopted | his sister’s views, and it seemed to him that a woman 60 handsome and distinguished as the countess must certainly make a match that lebrities, and give him at least a sort of cousin- | ship to the Quarter-Sessions. All this, which was the simple truth, would | have seemed extremely flat tothe gossips of | Milby, who had made up their minds to some- thing much more exciting. There was nothing here so very detestable. It is true, the coun- tess was a little vain, a little ambitious, a little selfish, a little shallow and frivolous, a little given to white lies. But who considers such slight blemishes, such moral pimples as these, disqualifications for entering into the most re- spectable society ? Indeed, the severest ladies in Milby would have been perfectly aware that these characteristics would have created no wide distinction between the Countess Ozerlaski and themselves; and since it was clear there was a wide distinction—why, it must lie in the possession of some vices from which they were undeniably free. Hence it came to pass that Milby respecta- bility refused to recognize the Countess Czer- ki, in spite of her assiduous church-going, and the deep disgust she was known to have expressed at the extreme paucity of the congre- gations on Ash-Wednesdays, So she began to feel that she had miscalculated the advantages of a neighborhood where people are well ac- quainted with each other’s private affairs. Un- der these circumstances, you will imagine how welcome was the perfect credence and ad- miration she met with from Mr. and Mrs. Barton. She had been especially irritated by Mr. Ely’s behavior to her; she felt sure that he was notin the least struck with her beauty, that he quizzed her conversation, and that he spoke of her witha sneer. A woman always knows where she is utterly powerless, and shuns a coldly satirical eye as she would shun a Gorgon. And she was especially eager for clerical notice and friendship, not merely because that is quite the most respectable coun- tenance to be obtained in society, but because she really cared about religious matters, and had an uneasy sense that she was not altogether safe in that quarter. She had serious inten- tions of becoming guite pious—without any re- serves—when she had once got her carriage and settlement. And as she had by no means such fine taste and insight in theological teaching as in cos- tume, the Rev. Amos Barton seemed to her a man not only of learning—that is always under- stood with a clergyman—but of much power as praca director. As for Milly, the countess y loved her as well as the preoccupied state of her affections would allow. For you have already perceived that there was one being to whom the countess was absorbingly devoted, and to whose desires she made everything else subservient—namely, Caroline Ozerlaski, nee Bridmain. Thus there was really not much affectation in her sweet speeches and attentions to Mr. and _ Mrs. Barton. Still their friendship by no means ' adequately represented the object she had in view when she came to Milby, and it had been for some time clear to her that she must sug- gest a new rer, 14 of residence to her brother. The thing we look forward to often comes to pace, but never precisely in the way we have magined to ourselves. The countess did actu- ally leave Camp Villa before many months were but under circumstances which had not at all entered into her contemplation, CHAPTER V. Tue Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character ; and perhaps Iam doing a bold thing to be- posed your sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from remarkable, a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no un- detected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably common- place ; who was not even in love, but had had that complaint favorably many years ago. ‘* An utterly uninteresting character!” I think T hear a lady reader exclaim—Mrs. Farthingale, | for example, who prefers the ordeal in fiction ; to whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adul- try, and murder; and comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a ‘*character.” But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons returned in the last census are neither extraor- dinarily silly, nor extraordiarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms ; they have probab- ly had no hair-breadth escapes or thrilling ad- ventures ; their brains are certainly not preg- nant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of avoleano. They are simply men of com- plexions more or less muddy, whose couversa- tion is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people—many of them— bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful right; they have their finspoken sorrows and their sacred joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they havé mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance—in our com- parison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share? Depend upon it, you would gain unspeaka- bly if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voic®of quite ordinary tones, In that case, I should have no fear of your not caring to know what futher befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath your atten- tion. Asit is, you can, if you please, decline to._pursue my story farther: and you will easily find reading more to your taste, since I Jearn from the newspapers that many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling in- cidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last season. Meanwhile, readers who have begun to feel an interest in the Rev. Amos Barton and his wife will be glad to learn that Mr, Oldinport lent the twenty pounds. But twenty pounds are soon exhausted when twelve are due as back payment to the butcher, and when the possessions of eight extra sovereigns in Febru- ary weather is an irresistible temptation to order a new great-coat, And though Mr. Brid- main so far departed from the necessary econo- my entailed on him by the countess’ elegant toilet and expensive maid, as to choose a hand- some black silk, stiff as his experienced eye discerned, with the genuine strength of its own texture, and net with the factitious strength of gum, and present it to Mrs. Barton, in retrie- val of the accident that had occured at his table, yet, dear me!—as every husband has heard— what is the present of a gown when you are deficiently furnished with the ¢¢ ceteras of apparel, and when, moreover, there are six children whose wear and tear of clothes is something incredible to the non-maternal mind ? Indeed, the equation of income and expendi- ture was offering new and constantly accumulat- ing difficulties to Mr. and Mrs. Barton, for shortly after the birth of little Walter, y's aunt, who had lived with her eversinoe her mar- riage, bad withdrawn herself, her furniture, and her yearly income to the household of another niece; prompted to that step, ony. Sey, by a slight ‘‘ tiff” with the Rev. os, which occurred while Milly was up stairs, and proved one too many for the elderly lady’s presence and magnanimity. Mr. Barton’s temper was a little warm, but,‘on the other hand, elderly maid- en ladies are known to be susceptible; so we will not suppose that all the blame lay on his side—the less so, as he had every motive for humoring an inmate whose presence kept the wolf from his door, It was now nearly a year since Miss Jackson’s departure, and, toa fine ear, the howl of the wolf was audibly approaching. It was asad thing, too, that when the last snow had melted, when the purple and yellow crocuses were coming up in the garden, and the old church was akready half pulled down, Milly had an illness which made her lips look pale, and rendered it absolutely necessary that she should not exert herself for some time. Mr. Brand, the Shepperton doctor so obnoxions to Mr. Pilgrim, ordered her to drink port wine, and it was quite necessary to have achar-woman very often to assist Nanny in all the extra work that fell upon her. Mrs. Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to anyone but her oldest and nearest neighbor, Mrs. Patten, now took the unusual step of call- ing at the vicarage one morning ; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes as she saw Milly seated, pale and feeble in the parlor, un- able to persevere in sewing a pinafore that lay on the table beside her. Little Dickey, a bois- terous boy of five, with large pink cheeks and sturdy legs, was having his turn to sit with mamma, and was squatting quiet as a mouse at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his little red, black nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs. Hackit, in a severe mood, had pro- nounced ‘‘ stocky ” (a word that etymologically in all probability, conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory) : but seeing him thus subdued into goodness, she smiled at him with her kindest smile, and, stooping down, suggested a kiss—a favor which Dickey resolutely declined. wank ‘*Now, do you take nourishing things enough ?” was one of Mrs, Hackit’s first ques— tions, and Milly endeavored to make it appear that no woman was ever s0 much in danger of being over-fed and led into sélf-indulgent habits as herself. But Mrs. Hackit gathered one fact from her replies, namely, that Mr. Brand had ordered port wine, While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively stroking and kissing the soft white hand; so that at last, when a pause came, his mother Said, smilingly, ‘* Why are you kissing my haud, Dickey?” ha “It id to yovely,” answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly backward in his pronunciation. Mrs. Hackit remembered this little scene in after-days, and thought with peculiar tender- ness and pity of the “stocky boy.” The next day there came a hamper with Mrs. Hackit’s respects; and on being opened, it was found to contain halfa dozen of port wine and two couples of fowls. Mrs. Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs. Barton's re- jecting all arrowroot but hers, which was gen- uine Indian, and carried away Sophie and Fred to stay with her.a fotrnight, These and other good-natured attentions made the trouble of Milly’s illness more bearable; but they could not prevent it from swelling expenses, and Mr. Barton began to have serious thoughts of repre- senting his case to a certain charity for the re- lief of needy curates. Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more likely to have a strong sense that the clergyman needed their material aid than that they needed his spirit- ual aid—not the best state of things in this age and country, where faith in men solely on the ground of their spiritual gifts has con- siderably diminished, and especially unfavora- ble to the influence of the Rev. Amos, whose spiritual gifts would not have had a very com- manding power even in an age of faith. *
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10 THE SAD FORTUNES OF THR REV, AMOS BARTON. But, you ask, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any attention to her friends all this time? To be sure she did. She was indefatigable in visiting her ‘‘sweet Milly,” and sitting with her for hours together. It may seem remarka- ble to you that she neither thought of taking away any of the children, nor of providing for any of Milly's probable wants; but ladies of rank and of luxurious habits, you know, cam not be expected to surmise the details of poverty. She put a great deal of Eau-de-Co- logne on Mrs. Barton's pocket-handerchief, re- arranged her pillow and footstool, kissed her | cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm shawl from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life she had seen abroad. When Mr. Barton joined them she talked of Tractar- ianism, of her determination not to re-enter the vortex of fashionable life, and of her anxiety to sée him in a sphere large enough for his talents. Milly thought her sprightliness and affectionate warmth A. i charming, and was very fond of her; while the Rev. Amos had a vague con- sciousness that he had risen into aristocratic life, and only associated with his middle-class parishioners in a pastoral and parenthetic manner, However, as the days brightened, Milly's cheeks and lips brightened too ; and in a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful eyes might have seen that activity was not easy toher. Mrs. Hackit’s eyes were of that kind ; and one day when Mr. and Mrs. Barton had been dining with her for the first time since Milly’s illness, she observed to her husband, “That poor thing’s dreadful weak an’ dilicate ; she won’t stan’ havin’ many more children.” Mr. Barton, meanwhile, had been indefati- gable in his vocation. He had preached two extemporary sermons every Sunday at the work- house, where a room had been fitted up for di- vine service, pending the alterations in the church; and had walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other extremity of his parish to deliver another sermon, still more extempo- rary, in an atmosphere impregnated with spring-flowers and premreten. After all these labors you will easily conceive that he was con- siderably exhausted by half-past nine o’clock in the evening, and that a supper at a friendly parishioner’s, with a glass, or even two glasses, of brandy-and-water after it, was a welcome re- enforcement. Mr. Borton was not at all an as- cetic; he thought the benefits of fasting were entirely confined to the Old Testament dispen- sation; he was fond of relaxing himself with a little gossip; indeed Miss Bond, and other la- dies of enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr. Barton did not more uninterruptedly exhibit. superiority to the things of the flesh. Thin ladies, who take little exercise, and whose livers are not strong enough to bear stimulants, are so extremely critical about. one’s personal habits. And, after all, the Rey, Amos never came near the borders of a vice. His very faults were middling —he was not very ungrammatical. It was not in his nature to be superlative in anything; unless, indeed, he was superlatively iddling, the quintessential extract of medio- crity. there was any one point on which he showed an inclination to be excessive, it was confidence in his own shrewdness and ability inpractical matters, so that he was very full of plans which were something like his moves in chess—admirably well calculated, supposing the state of the case were otherwise. For example, that notable plan of introducing anti-Dissenting books into his Lending Library did not in the least appear to have bruised the head of Dissent, though it had certainly made Dissent strongly inclined to bite the Rev. Amos’ heel. Again, he vexed the souls of his church-wardens and influential parishioners by his fertile sugges- tiveness as to what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs, and other ecclesiastical secularities. “‘I never saw the like to parsons,” Mr. Hackit said one day in conversation with his brother church-warden, Mr. Bond ; ‘‘ they’re al’ys for meddling with business, an’ they know no more about it than my black filly.” “Ah!” said Mr. Bond, ‘‘they’re too high learnt to have much common-sense.” “Well,” remarked Mr. Hackit, in a modest and dubious tone, as if throwing out an hypo- thesis which might be considered bold, ‘‘] | sbould say that’s a bad sort of eddication as | makes folks unreasonable.”’ So that, you perceive, Mr. Barton’s popu- | larity was in that precarious condition, in that toppling and contingent state, in which a very | slight push from a malignant destiny would | utterly upset it. That push was not long in being given, as you shall hear. One fine May morning, when Amos was out | on his parochial visits, and the sunlight was streaming through the bow-window of the | sitting-room, where Milly was seated at her sewing, occasionally looking up to glance at the children playing in the garden, there came a loud rap at the door, which she at once re- cognized as the countess’, and that well-dressed | lady presently entered the sitting-room, with her veil drawn over her face. Milly was not at all surprised or sorry to see her; but when the countess threw up her veil, and showed that her eyes were red and swollen, she was both surprised and sorry. ‘What can be the matter, dear Caroline ?” Caroline threw down Jet, who gave a little } yelp; then she threw her arms round Milly’s neck, and began to sob; then she threw her- self on the sofa, and begged for a glass of water; then she threw off her bonnet and | shawl; and by the time Milly's imagination | had exhausted itself in conjuring up calamities, she said ——: ‘‘Dear, how shall I tell you? I am the most wretched woman. ‘To be deceived by a} brother to whom I have been so devoted—to see him degrading himself—giving himself ut- terly to the dogs!” ‘* What can it be?’ said Milly, who began to picture to herself the sober Mr. Bridmain taking to brandy and betting. ‘‘He is going to be married—to marry my own maid, that deceitful Alice, to whom I have been the most indulgent mistress. Did you ever hear of anything so disgraceful ? so morti- fying ? so disreputable?” ‘« And has he only just_told you of it ?” said Milly, who, having really heard of worse conduct, even in her innocent life, avoided a direct answer. ‘*Told me of it! He had not even the grace to do that. I went into the dining-room sud- denly and found him kissing her—disgusting at his time of life, is it not?—and when I re- proved her for allowing such liberties, she turned round saucily, and said she was engaged to be married to my brother, and she saw no shame in allowing him to kiss her. Edmund is a miserable coward, you know, and looked frightened ; but when she asked him to say whother it was not so, he tried to summon up courage and say yes. I left the room in dis- st, and this morning I have been question- ing Edmund, and find that he is bent on marrying this woman, and that he has been putting off telling me—because he was ashamed of himself, I suppose. I couldn’t possibly stay in the house after this, with my own maid turned mistress. And now, Milly, Iam come to throw myself on your charity for a week or two. ‘Will you take me in?” “That we will,” said Milly, ‘“‘if you will only put up with our poor rooms and way of living. It will be delightful to have you.” ‘Tt will soothe me to be with you and Mr. Barton a little while. I feel quite unable to go among my Other friends just at present. What those two Wretched people will do I don’t know —leave the neighborhood at once, I hope. I entreated my brother to do 80, before he dis- graced himself.” When Amos came home, he joined his cor- dial welcome and sympathy to Milly’s. By- and-by ethe countess’ formidable boxes, which she had carefully packed before her indigna- tion drove her away from Camp Villa, arrived at the vicarage, and were deposited in the spare bedroom, and in two closets, not spare, which Milly emptied for their reception. A week afterward, the excellent apartments at Camp Villa, comprising dining and drawing- rooms, three bedrooms and a dressing-room, were again to let, and Mr. Bridmain’s sudden departure, together wiih the Countess Czey- Jaski’s installation as a yisitor at Shepperton | | Vicarage, became a topic of general conver- sation in the neighborhood. The keen-sighted virtue of Milby and Shepperton saw in all this a confirmation of its worst suspicions, and pitied the Rev. Amos Barton’s gullibility. But when week after week, and month after month, slipped by without witnessing the countess’ departure—when summer and har- vest had fled, and still left her behind them occupying the spare bedroom and the closets, andalso a large proportion of Mrs. Barton’s time and attention, new surmises of a yery evil kind were added to the old rumors, and began to take the form of settled convictions in the minds. even .of Mr. Barton’s most friendly parishioners. And now, here is an opportunity for an ac- complished writer to apostrophize calumny, to quote Virgil, and to show that he is acquainted with the most ingenious things which have been said on that subject in polite literature. But what is opportunity to the man who can’t use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. So, as my memory is ill-furnished, and my note- book still worse, Iam unable to show myself either erudite or ae he apropos of the calumny whereof the Rev. Amos Barton was the victim. I can only ask my reader, Did you ever upset your ink-bottle, and watch, in helpless agony, the rapid spread of Stygian blackness oyer your fair manuscript or fairer table-cover? With a like inky swiftness did gossip now blacken the reputation of the Rev. Amos Barton, causing the unfriendly to scorn and even the friendly to stand aloof, at a time when difficulties of another kind were fast thickening around him. CHAPTER VI. One November morning, at least six months after the Countess Ozerlaski had taken up her residence at the vicarage, Mrs. Hackit heard that her neighbor Mrs. Patten had an attack of her old complaint, vaguely called ‘‘ the spasms.” Accordingly, about eleven o’clock, she put on her velvet bonnet and cloth cloak, with a long boa and muff large enough to stow a prize baby in ; for Mrs. Hackit regulated her costume by the calendar, and brought out her furs on the first of November, whatever might be the temperature. She was not a woman weakly to accommodate herself to shilly-shally proceed- ings. If the season didn’t know what it ought to do, Mrs. Hackit did. In her best days, it was always weather at ‘‘ Gunpowder Plot,” and she didn’t like new fashions. And this morning the weather was very ration- ally in accordance with her costume; for ag she made her way through the fields to Cross Farm, the yellow leaves on the hedge-girt elms, which showed bright and golden against the low-hanging purple clouds, were being scat- tered across the by the coldest of November winds. ‘t Ah,” Mrs. Hackit thought to herself, ‘‘E dare say we shall havea pinch this winter, and if we do, I shouldn't wonder if it takes the old lady off. They say ~ & green Yule makes a fat church-yard; but so does a white Yule too, for that matter. When the stool’s rotten enough, no matter who sits on it.” However, on her arrival at Cross Farm, the prospect of Mrs, Patten’s decease was again thrown into the dim distance in her imagination, for Miss Janet Gibbs met her with the news that Mrs. Patten. was much better, and led her, withovt any preliminary announcement, to the old lady’s bedroom. Janet had searcely reach- ed the end of her circumstantial narrative, how the attack came on and. what were her aunt's sensations—a narrative to which Mrs, Patten, in her neatly plaited nightcap, seemed to listen with a contemptuous resigfation to her niece's historical inaccuracy, contenting herself with
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THE SAD FORTUN 1S OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. 11 occasionally confounding Janet by a shake of the head—-when the clatter of a borse’s hoofs on the yard pavement announced the arrival of | Mr. Pilgrim, whose large, top-booted person | presently made its appearance up stairs. He found Mrs. Patten going on so well that there | was no need to look solemn. He might glide | from condolence into gossip without offence, | and the temptation of having Mrs. Hackit’s ear was irresistible. ‘‘ What a disgraceful business this is turning out of your parson’s !” was the remark with which he made this agreeble transition, throw- ing himself back in the chair from whieh he had been leaning towards the patient. ; ‘‘Eh, dear me!” said Mrs. Hackit, ‘‘ dis- graceful enough. I stuck to Mr. Barton as long as I could, for his wife’s sake; but I can’t | countenance such goings on. It’s hateful to see that woman coming with ’em to service of a Sunday; and if Mr. Hackit wasn’t church- warden and I didn’t. think it wrong to forsake one’s own parish, I should go to Knebley Church. There’s a many parish’ners as do,” ‘‘T used to think Barton was only a fool,” observed Mr. Pilgrim, in a tone which implied that he was conscious of having been weakly At this moment Mrs. Patten showed signs of | uneasiness, which recalled Mr. Pilgrim to pro- fessional attentions ; and Mrs. Hackit, observ- ing that it was Thursday, and she must see after the butter, said good-bye, promising to look in again soon and bring her knitting. This Thursday, by-the-bye, is the first in the month—the day on which the clerical meeting is held at Milby Vicarage: and as the Rev. among his clerical brethren. there, and hear whether Mr. Pilgrim has re- ported their opinion correctly. There is not a numerous party to-day, for it is a season of sore throats and catarrhs ; so that the exegetical and theological discussions, which are the preliminary of dining, have not been quite so spirited as usual; and although a question relative to the Epistle of Jude has not been quite cleared up, the striking of six by the church clock, and the simultaneous an- nouncement of dinner, are sounds that no one feels to be importunate. Pleasant (when one is not in the least bilious) to enter a comfortable dining-room, where the closely-drawn red curtains glow with the double charitable, ‘I thought he was imposed upon and led away by those people when they first came, But that’s impossible now.” Oh, it’s as plain as the nose in your face,” said Mrs. Hackit, unreflectingly, not perceiv- ing the equivoque in her comparison—‘‘ comin’ to Milby, like a sparrow perchin’ on a bough, as I may say, with her brother, as she called him ; and then all of a sudden the brother goes off with himself, and she throws herself on the Ba rtons. Though what could make her take up with a poor notomise of a parson, as hasn’t light of fire and candle, where glass and silver are glittering on the pure damask, and 4 soup- tureen gives a hint of the fragrance that will presently rush out to inundate your hungry senses, and prepare them, by the delicate visi- tation of atoms, for the keen gusto of ample contact! Especially if you have confidence in the dinner-giving capacity of your host—if you know that he is not a man who entertains mere satisfaction of hunger and thirst, and, dead to all the finer influences of the palate, got enough to keep wife and children, there’s One above knows—J don't.” ‘Mr. Barton may have attractions we don’t know of,” said Mr. Pilgrim, who piqued him- self ona talent for sarcasm. ‘‘ The countess has no maid now, and they say Mr. Barton is - handy in assisting at her toilet—laces her boots, and so forth.” ‘* Tilet be fiddled!” said Mrs. Hackit, with indignant boldness of metaphor; ‘‘ an’ there’s that poor thing a-sewing her fingers to the bone for them children—an’ another comin’ on. What she must have gone through! It goes to my heart toturn my back onher. Butshe’s i’ the wrong to let herself be put upon i’ that mai 7 ‘“‘Ah! I was talking to Mrs. Farquhar about that the other day. She said, ‘I think Mrs. Barton a v-e-r-y w-e-a-k w-o-m-an.’” (Mr. Pilgrim gave this quotation with slow empha- sis, as if he thought Mrs. Farquhar had uttered a remarkable sentiment.) ‘‘ They find it im- ible to invite her to their house while she that equivocal person staying with her.” ‘* Well!” remarked Miss Gibbs, ‘if I was a wife, nothing should induce me to bear what Mrs. Barton does.” ‘* Yes, it’s fine talking,” said Mrs. Patten, from her pillow; ‘‘old maid’s husbands are al’ys well ed. If you was a wife you'd be as foolish as your betters, belike.” ** All my wonder is,” observed Mrs, Hackit, ‘‘how the Bartons make both ends meet. You may depend on it, she’s got nothing to give’em; for I understand as he’s been having money from some clergy charity, They said at fust as she stuffed Mr. Barton wi’ notions about her writing to the chancellor an’ her fine friends, to give him a living. Howiver, I don’t know what's true, an’ What’sfalse. Mr. Barton keeps away from our house now, for I gave him a bit o’ my mind one day. Maybe he’s ashamed of himself. He seems to me to look dreadful thin an’ harassed of a Sunday.” ‘Oh, he must be aware he’s getting into bad odor everywhere. The clergy are quite dis- gusted with his folly. They say Carpe would be glad to get Barton out of the curacy if he could ; but he can’t do that without coming to Shepperton himself, as Barton’s a licensed curate; and he wouldn't like that, I suppose.” expects his guests to be brilliant on ill-flavored gravies and the cheapest marsala. Mr. Ely was particularly worthy of such confidence, and his virtues as an Amphitryon had probably contributed quite as much as the central situa- tion of Milby to the selection of his house as a clerical rendezvous. He looks particularly graceful at the head of his table, and, indeed, on all occasions where he acts as president or moderator: he isa man who seems to listen well, and is an excellent amalgam of dissimilar ingredients. At the other end of the table, as ‘‘ Vice,” sits Mr. Fellowes, rector and magistrate, a man of imposing appearance, with mellifluous voice and the readiest of tongues. Mr. Fel- lowes once obtained a living by the persuasive charms of his conversation, and the fluency with which he interpreted the opinions of an obese and stammering baronet, so as to give that elderly gentleman a very pleasing per- ception of his own wisdom. Mr. Fellowes isa very successful man, and has the highest character everywhere except in his own parish, where, doubtless because his parishioners hap- pen to be quarrelsome people, he is always at fierce feud with a farmer or two, a colliery Amos Barton has reasons for not attending, he | will very likely be a subject of conversation | Suppose we go | groveling views of eating and drinking as a) ——e was plucked at *Cambridge, entirely owing to his genius; at least I know that he soon after- ward published a volume of poems, which were considered remarkably beautiful by many _ young ladies of his acquaintance. Mr. Fur- ness preached his own sermons, as anyone of tolerable critical acumen might have certified by comparing them with his poems ; in both, there was an exuberance of metaphor and simile entirely original, and not in the least borrowed from any resemblance in the things compared. | On Mr. Furness’ left you see Mr. Pugh, ;another young curate, of much less marked | characteristics. He had not published any | poems; he had not evén been plucked; he had neat black whiskers and a pale complexion ; read prayers and asermon twice every Sunday, and might be seen any day sallying forth on ‘his parochial duties in a white tie, a well- | brushed hat, a perfect suit of black, and well- | polished boots—an equipment which he pro- bably supposed hieroglyphically to represent the spirit of Christianity to the parishioners of Whittlecombe. | Mr, Pugh’s ots-a-vis is the Rev. Martin | Cleves, a man about forty—middle-sized, broad- shouldered, with a negligently tied cravat, large, irregular features, and a large head, thickly covered with lanky brown hair. Yo a superficial glance, Mr. Cleves is the plainest and least clerical-looking of the | party; yet, strange to say, there is the true | parish priest, the pastor beloved, consulted, | relied on by his flock; a clergyman who is not associated with the undertaker, but thought of as the surest helper under a difficulty, asa monitor who is encouraging rather than severe. Mr. Cleves has the wonderful art of preaching sermons which the wheelwright and the black- smith can understand; not because he talks | condescending twaddle, but because he can call a spade a spade, and knows how to disencum- ber ideas of their wordy frippery. Look at him more attentively and you will see that his face is a very interesting one—that there isa great deal of humor and feeling playing in his gray eyes, and about the corners of his roughly- cut mouth: a man, you observe, who has most likely sprung from the harder-working section’ of the middle class, and has hereditary sym- pathies with the checkered life of the people. He gets together the working-men in his parish on a Monday evening, and gives them a sort of conversational lecture on useful practical mat- ters, telling them stories, or reading some select passages from an agreeable book, and commenting on them; and if you were to ask the first laborer or artisan in Tripplegate what sort of man the parson was, he would say, ‘*a uncommon knowin’, sensible, free-spoken gentleman; very kind an’ good-natur’d too.” Yet, for all this, he is perhaps the best Grecian of the party, if we except Mr. Baird, the young man on his left. Mr. Baird has since gained considerable celeb- proprietor, a grocer who was once church-| rity as an original writer and metropolitan lec- warden, and a tailor who formerly officiated as | turer, but at that time he used to preach ina clerk. At Mr. Ely’s right hand you see a very small man with a sallow and somewhat puffy face, whose hair is brushed ight up, evidently with the intention of giving him a height some- what less. disproportionate to his sense of his own importance than the measure of five feet three accorded him by an oversight of nature. This is the Rev. Archibald Duke, a very dyspeptic and evangelical man, who takes the gloomiest view of mankind and their pros- pects, and thi the immense sale of the ‘¢ Pickwick Papers,” recently completed, one of the strongest proofs of original sin. Unfor- tunately, though Mr. Duke was not burdened with a family, his yearly expenditure was apt considerably to exceed his income ; and the unpleasant circumstances resulting from this, together with heavy ; probably have contributed to his desponding views of the world generally. Next to him is seated Mr. Furness, a tall young man, with blond hair and whiskers, who 6 te bags rae is 5 vv. little church something like a barn, to 4 con- gregation consisting of three rich farmers and their servants, about fifteen laberers, and the due proportion of women and children. The rich farmers understood him to be ‘‘ very high learnt ;” but if you had interrogated them for a more precise description, they would have said that he was “‘athinnish-faced man, with a sort o’ cast in his eye, like.” ’ Seven, altogether: a delightful number for a dinner-party, supposing the units to be delight- ful, but. eve g depends on that. During dinner, Mr. Fellowes took the lead in the con- versation, which set strongly in the direction of mangel-wurzel and the rotation of crops; for Mr. Fellowes and Mr. Cleves cultivated their own glebes. Mr, Ely, too, had some agricultural notions, and even the Rey. Archi- meat-breakfasts, may | bald Duke was made alive to that class of mun- dane subjects by the possession of some potato-ground. The two young curates talked a little aside during these discussions, which had imperfect interest for their unbeneficed
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‘itating the the souls of his flock.”’ 12 THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. a minds; and the transcendental and near-| hope the countess does something towards | his wife. This seemed quite impossible to her sighted Mr. Baird seemed to listen somewhat | making the pot boil.” abstractedly, knowing little more ef potatoes} ‘‘Not she,” said Mr. Duke; ‘‘there are and mangel-wurze] than that they were some| greater signs of poverty about them than form of the ‘‘ Conditioned.” ever.” ‘“Whata hobby farmingis with Lord Wat-| ‘‘ Well, come,” returned Mr. Cleves, who ling!” said Mr. Fellowes, when the cloth was | could be caustic sometimes, and who was notat being drawn. ‘‘ I went over his farm at Tet-| all fond of his reverend brother, Mr. Duke, terley with him last summer. It is really a| ‘that’s something in Barton’s favor, at all model farm ; first-rate dairy, grazing, and wheat | events. He might be poor without showing land, and such splendid farm-buildings! An| signs of poverty.” : expensive hobby, though. He sinks a good| Mr. Duke turned rather yellow, which was deal of money there, I fancy.. He has a great| his way of blushing, and Mr. Ely came to his whim for black cattle, and he sends that| relief by observing : drunken old Scotch bailiff of his to Scotland| ‘‘They’re making a Mi good piece of work every year, with hundreds in his pocket, to buy | of Shepperton Church. Dolby, the architect, these beasts.” who has it in hand, is a very clever fellow.” ‘* By-the-bye,” said Mr. Ely, ‘‘do youknow| ‘“‘It’s he who has been doing Coppleton who is the man to whom Lord Watling has| Church,” said Mr. Furness. ‘‘They’ve got it given the Bramhill living ?” in excellent order for the visitation.” ‘¢ A man named Sargent. I knew him at Ox-| This mention of the visitation suggested the ford. His brother is a lawyer, and was very | bishop, and thus opened a wide duct, which useful to Lord Watling in that ugly Brounsell | entirely diverted the stream of animadversion affair. That’s why Sargent got the living.” from that small pipe—that capillary vessel, the ** Sargent,” said Mr. Ely. ‘I know him. | Rey. Amos Barton. Isn’t he a showy, talkative fellow; has written| The talk of the clergy about their bishop be- travels in Mesopotamia, or something of that | longs to the esoteric part of their profession ; 50 sort ?” we will at once quit the dining-room at Milby ** That's the man.” Vicarage, lest we should happen to overhear +‘ He was at Witherington once, as Bagshawe’s| remarks unsuited to the lay understanding, curate. He got into rather bad odor there, | and perhaps dangerous to our repose of mind. through some scandal about a flirtation, I think.” A * ‘‘ Talking of scandal,” returned Mr. Fellowes, CHAPTER VII. ‘‘ have you heard the last story about Barton?| I pang say the long residence of the Countess Nesbitt was ftelling me the other day that he} Czerlaski at Shepperton Vicarage is very. puz- dines alone with the countess at six, while Mrs. zling to you also, dear reader, as well as to Mr. Barton isin the kitchen acting as cook.” Barton’s clerical brethren; the more so, as I ‘* Ratheran apocryphal authority, Nisbett,” | hope you are not in the least inclined to put said Mr. Ely. ; that very evil interpretation on it which evi- ‘‘ Ah,” said Mr. Cleves, with good-natured | dently found acceptance with the sallow and humortwinkling in his eyes, ‘‘ depend upon it | dyspeptic Mr. Duke, and with the florid and that is a corrupt version, The original text is, | highly peptic Mr. Fellowes. You have seen that they alldined together wth six—meaning | enough, I trust, of the Rev. Amos Barton to be six children—and that Mrs. Barton is an ex-| convinced that he was more apt to fall into a cellent cook,” blunder than into a sin—more apt to be de- ‘‘I wish dining alone together may be the | ceived than toincur a necessity for being de- worst of that sad business,” said the Rev. Arch- | ceitful ; and if you havea keen eye for physi- ibald Duke, in a tone implying that his wish | ognomy, you will have detected that the Coun- was a strong figure of speech. tess Ozerlaski loved herself far too well to get ‘* Well,” said Mr. Fellowes, filling his glass | entangled in an unprofitable vice. and looking jocose, ‘‘ Barton is certainly either| How, then, you will say, could this fine lady the greatest gull in existence, or he has some | chooége to quarter herself on the establishment cunning secret, some pbiltre or other to make | of a poor curate, where the carpets were pro- himself charming in the eyes of a fair lady. It| bably falling into holes, where the attendance isn’t all of us that can make conquests when| was. limited to a maid-of-all-work, and ,where our ugliness is past it’s bloom.” six children were running loose from eight ‘‘ The lady seemed to have made a conquest | o’clock in the morning till eight o’clock in the of him at the very outset,” said Mr. Ely. ‘‘I| evening? Surely you must be straining proba- was immensely amused one night at Granby’s | bility. when he was telling us her story about her hus-| Heaven forbid! For, not having a lofty band’s adventures. He said, ‘When she told | imagination, as you perceive, and being unable me the tale, I felt don’t know how—I felt it|to invent thrilling incidents for your amuse- from the crown of my head to the sole of my | ment, my only merit must lie in the truth with feet.’” which I represent to you the humble experience Mr. Ely aye these words dramatically, im-| of ordinary fellow-mortals. I wish to stir your y. Amos’ fervor and symbolio| sympathy with commonplace troubles—to win action, and everyone laughed except Mr. Duke, | your tears for real sorrow: sorrow such as may whose after dinner view of things was not apt | live next door to you—such as walks neither in to be jovial. He said : rags nor in velvet, but in very ordinary decent ‘‘T think some of us ought to remonstrate | apparel. with Mr. Barton on the scandal be is causing. erefore, that you may dismiss your suspi- He is not only imperilling his own soul, but/| cions as to the truth of. my picture, I will beg you to consider that at the time the Countess Ozerlaski left Camp Villain dudgeon, she had only twenty pounds in her pocket, being about one-third of the income she possessed inde- pendently of her brother. You will then per- ceive that she was in the extremely inconvenient predicament of having quarrelled, not indeed with her bread and cheese, but certainly with her chicken and tart—a predicament all the more inconvenient to her, because the habit of idleness had quite unfitted her for earning those necessary superfluities, and because, with all her fascinations, she had not secured any en- thusiastic friends whose houses were open to her, and who were dying to see her. Thusshe had completely checkmated herself, unless she could resolve on one unpleasant move—namely, us | to humble herself to her brother and recognize ‘‘ Depend upon it,” said Mr, Cleves, ‘* there is some simple explanation of the whole affair, if we only happened to know it. Barton has always impressed me as a right-minded man, who has the knack of doing himself injustice by his manner,” ‘* Now J never liked Barton,” said Mr. Fel- lowes. ‘‘He’s not a gentleman. Why, he used to be on terms of intimacy with that cant- ing Prior, who dieda little while ago; a fel- low who soaked himself with spirits, and talk- ed of the Gospel through an inflamed nose.” ‘‘ The countess has given him more refined tastes,,I dare say,” said Mr. Ely. ‘“Well,” observed Mr. Cleves, ‘‘the poor fellow must havea hard pull to get magia Palen 4is smallincome and large family. t as long as she entertained the hope that he would make the first advances; and in this flattering hope she remained month after month at Shep- perton Vicarage, gracefully overlooking the de- ficiencies of accommodation, and feeling that she was really behaving charmingly. ‘‘ Who, indeed,” she thought to herself, ‘‘ could do otherwise, with a lovely, gentle creature like Milly ? I shall really be sorry to leave the poor thing.” So, though she lay in bed till ten, and came down to a separate breakfast at eleven, she kindly consented to dine as early as five, when a hot joint was prepared, which coldly furnished forth the children’s table the next day; she considerately prevented Milly from devoting herself too closely to the children, by insisting on reading, talking, and walking with her, and she even began to embroider a cap for the next baby, which must certainly be a girl, and be named Caroline. After the first month or two of her residence at the vicarage, the Rev. Amos Barton became aware—as, indeed, it was unavoidable that he should—of the strong disapprobation it drew upon him,and the change of feeling towards him which it was producing in his kindest parishion- ers. But, in the first place, he still believed in the countess as a eharming and influential wom- an, disposed to befriend him, and, in any case,* he could hardly hint departure to a lady guest who had been kind to him and his, and who ” might any day spontaneously announce the termination of her visit; in the second place, he was conscious of his own innocence, and felt some contemptuous indignation towards people who were ready to imagine evil of him; and, lastly, he had, as I have already intima mated, @ strong will of his own, so that a cer- tain obstinacy and defiance mingled itself with his other feelings on the subject. The one unpleasant consequence which was not to be evaded or counteracted by any mere mental state, was the increasing drain on his slender purse for household expenses, to meet which the remittance he had received from the ° clerical charity threatened to be quite inade- quate. Slander may be defeated by equanim- ity ; but courageous thoughts will not pay your baker’s bill, and fortitude is nowhere consider- ed legal tender for beef. Month after month the financial aspect of the Rey. Amos’ affairs became more and more serious to him, and month ‘after month, too, wore away more and more of that armor of indignation and defiance with which he had at first defended himself from the harsh looks of faces that were once the friendliest. But quite the heaviest pressure of the trouble fell on Milly—on gentle, uncomplaining Milly— whose delicate body was becoming daily less fit for allthe many things that had to be done be- tween rising up and lying down. At first, she thought the countess’ visit would not last long, and she was quite glad to incur extra exertion for the sake of making her friend’comfortable. I can hardly bear to think of all the rough work she did with those lovely hands—all by the sly, without leting her husband know anything about it, «nd husbands are not clajrvoyant; how she salted bacon, ironed shirts and cravats, put patches on patches, and redarned darns. Then there was the task of mending and eking out baby-liven in prospect, and the problem perpetually suggesting itself how she and Nan- ny should manage when there was another baby, as there would be before very many months were past. : When time glided on, and the countess’ vis- it did not end, Milly was not blind to any phase of their position. She knew of the slander ; she was aware of the keeping aloof of old friends; but these she felt almost entirely on her husband’s account. A loving woman’s world lies within the four wallsof her own home ; and it is only through her husband that she is in any electric communication with the world beyond. Mrs. Simpkins may have look- ed scornfully at her, but baby crows and out his little arms none the less blithely; Mrs, -~
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Tomkins may have left off calling on her, but | her husband comes home none the less to re- ceive her care and caresses; it has been wet and gloomy out-of-doors to-day, but she has looked well after the shirt-buttons, has cut out baby’s pinafores, and half-finished Willy’s | blouse. So it was with Milly. She was only vexed that her husband should be vexed—only wounded becaused he was misconceived. But the diffi- culty about ways and means she felt in quite a different manner. Her rectitude was alarmed least they should have to make tradesmen wait | for their money ; her motherly love dreaded the diminution of comforts for the children; and the sense of her own failing health gave ex- aggerated force to these fears. Milly could no longer shut her eyes to the fact that the countess was inconsiderate, if she did not allow herself to entertain severer thoughts; and she began to feel that it would soon be a duty to tell her frankly that they really could not afford to have her visit further prolonged. But a process was going forward in two other minds which ultimately saved Milly from having to perform this painful task. In the first place, the countess was getting | weary of Shepperton— weary of waiting for her | brother's overtures which never came; so, one | fine morning, she reflected that forgiveness was a Christian duty, that a sister should be placable, that Mr. Bridmain must feel the need of her | advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very likely ‘‘ that woman” didn’t make the poor man happy. In this! amiable frame of mind she wrote a very affec- | tionate appeal, and addressed it to Mr. Brid. main, through his banker. Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper. Nanny adored her mistress; she had been heard to say, that she was ‘‘ ready to kiss the ground as the missis trod on ;” and Walter, she considered, was her baby, of whom she was as jealous asa lover. But she had, from the first, very slight admiration -for the Countess Czer- laski. That lady, from Nanny’s point of view, was a personage always ‘‘drawed out ;’ fine clothes,” the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths, and cook- ing of dinners. It was a perpetually heighten- ing ‘‘ aggravation” to Nanny that she and her mistress had to ‘‘ slave” more than ever, be- caused there was this fine lady in the house. ‘*An’ she pays nothin’ for't neither,’ ob- served Nanny to Mr. Jacob Tomms, a young gentleman in the tuiloring line, who occasion- ally—simply out of a taste for dialogue—looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening. ‘‘I know the master's shorter o’ money than iver, an’ it meks no end 0’ difference i’ th’ house- keepin’—her bein’ here, besides bein’ obliged to have a char- woman constant.” “There’s fine stories i’ the village about her,” said Mr. Tomms. ‘‘ They say as Muster Bar- ton’s great wi’ her, or else she'd niver stop here.” “Then they say a passill o’ lies, an’ you ought to be ashamed to go an’ tell’em o’er again. Do you think as the master, as has got a wife like the missis, ’ud go running arter a stuck-up piece o’ goods like that countess, as isn’t fit to black the misses’s shoes? I’m none so fond o’ the master, but I know better on him nor that.” ‘‘ Well, I didn’t b’lieve it,” said Mr. Tomms, humbly. spark might any day cause the long-smoulder- ing anger to flame forth in open indignation. That spark happened to fall the very morn- ing that Mrs. Hackit paid the visit to Mrs. Pat- ten, recorded in the last chapter. Nanny’s dislike to the countess extended to the inno- cent dog Jet, whom she ‘‘couldn’t a-bear to see made a fuss wi’ like a Christian. An’ the little ouzel must be washed, too, ivery Satur- day, as if there wasn’t children enoo to wash, wi'out washin’ dogs.” Now this particular morning it happened that Milly was quite too poorly to get up, and Mr. Barton observed to Nanny, on going out, that he would call and tell Mr. Brand to come. These circumstances were already enough to make Nanny anxious.and susceptible. Bunt the countess, comfortably ignorant of them, came down as usual about eleven o’clock to her sep- arate breakfast, which stood ready for her at that hour in the parlor; the kettle singing on the hob that she might make her own tea. There was a little jug of cream, taken, according to custom, from last night’s milk, and specially saved for the countess’ breakfast. Jet always awaited his mistress at her bedroom door, and it was her habit to carry him down stairs. ‘‘Now, my little Jet,” she said, putting him down gently on the hearth-rug, ‘‘ you shall have a nice, nice breakfast.” Jet indicated that he thought that observa- tion extremely pertinent and well-timed, by immediately raising himself on his hind legs, and the countess emptied the cream-jug into the saucer. Now, there was usually a small jug of milk standing on the tray by the side of the cream, and destined for Jet’s breakfast, but this morning Nanny, being ‘‘ moithered,” had forgotten that part of the arrangements, so that when the countess had made her tea, she per- ceived there wasno second jug, and rung the bell. Nanny appeared, looking very red and heated—the fact was, she had been “doing up” the kitchen fire, and that is'a sort of work which by no means conduces to blandness of temper. ‘‘Nanny, you have forgotten Jet’s milk; will you bring me some more cream, please ?” This was just a little too much for Nanny’s forbearance. ‘* Yes, I dare say! Here am I with my hands full o’ the children an’ the dinner, and missis ill abed, and Mr. Brand a-comin’; and I must run o’er the village to get more cream, ’cause you've give it to that nasty little blackamoor !” ‘Ts Mrs. Barton ill?” ‘**Tll—yes—I should think she is ill, an’ much you care! She’s likely to be ill, moith- ered as she is from mornin’ to night, wi’. folks as had better be elsewhere.” ‘What do you mean by behaving in this way 9) ‘*Mean? Why Imean as the missis is a- slavin’ her life out an’ a-sittin’ up o’ nights for folks as are better able to wait of her, i’stid o’ lyin’ abed an’ doin’ nothin’ all*the blessed day but mek work,” ‘* Leave the room, and don't be insolent.” ‘‘Insolent! I'd better be insolent than like what some folks is—a-livin’ on other folks, an’ bringin’ a bad name on 'em into the bargain.” Here Nanny flung out of the room, leaving the lady to digest this unexpected breakfast at her leisure. The countess was stunned for a few minutes, but when she began to recall Nanny’s words, there was no possibility of avoiding very un- pleasant conclusions from them, or of failing to see her position at the vicarage in an entirely new light. The interpretation, too, of Nanny’s ‘‘Bilieve it? you'd ha’ been a ninny if yer|allnsion to a ‘‘bad name” did not lie out of did. An’ she’s a nasty, stingy thing, that coun- tess. She’s niver giv’ me a sixpence nor an old rag neither, sin’ here she’s been here. A lyin’ abed an’ a-comin’ down to breakfast when other folks wants their dinner!” If such was the state of Nanny’s mind as early as the end of August, when this dialogue with Mr. Tomms occurred, you may imagine what it must have been by the beginning of November, and that at that time a very slight the reach of the countess’ imagination, and she saw the necessity of quitting Shepperton without delay. Still, she would like to wait for her brother’s letter—no—she would ask Milly to forward it to her; still better, she would go at once to London, inquire her brother’s ad- dress at his banker's, and go to see him with- out preliminary. She went up to Milly's room, and, after kiss- es and inquiries, said, ‘‘I find on considera- THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. ‘18 tion, dear Milly, from the letter I had yester- day, that I must bid you good-bye and go up to London at once. But you must not let me leave you ill, you naughty thing.” “Oh no,” said Milly, who felt asifa load had been taken off her back, ‘‘{ shall be very well in an hour ortwo. Indeed, I’m much bet- ter now. You will want me to help you to pack. But you won't go for two or three days ?” ‘“Yes, I must go to-morrow. But I shall not let you help me to pack, so don’t entertain any unreasonable projects, but lie still. Mr. brand is coming, Nanny says.” The news was not an unpleasant surprise to Mr. Barton when he came home, though he was able to express more regret at the idea of parting than Milly could summon to her lips. He retained more of his original feeling for the countess than Milly did, for women never betray themselves to men as they do to each other; and the Kev. Amos had not a keen instinct for character. But he felt that he was being relieved from a difficulty, and in the way that was easiest for him. Neither he nor Milly suspected that it was Nanny who had cut the knot for them, for the countess took care to give no sign on that subject. As for Nanny, she was perfectly aware of the relation between cause and effect in the affair, and seerectly chuckled oyer her outburst of ‘‘ sauce” as the best morning’s work she had ever done. So, on Friday morning, a fly was seen stand- ing at the vicarage gate with the countess’ box packed upon it; and presently that lady herself was seen getting into the vehicle. After a last shake of the hand to Mr. Barton, and last kisses to Milly and the children, the door was closed ; and as the fly rolled off, the little party at the vicarage gate caught a last glimpse of the hand- some countess leaning and waving kisses from the carriage window. Jet’s little black phiz was also seen, and doubtless he had his thoughts and feelings on the occasion, but he kept them strictly within his own bosom. The schoolmistress opposite witnessed this departure, and lost no time in telling it to the school-master, who again communicated the news to the landlord of ‘‘ The Jolly Colliers,” at the close of the morning school-hours. Nan- ny poured the joyful tidings into the ear of Mr. Farquhar’s footman, who happened to call with a letter, and Mr. Brand carried them to all the patients he visited that morning, after call- ing on Mrs. Barton. So that, before Sunday, it was very generally known in Shepperton par- ish that the Countess Czerlaski had left the vicarage. The countess had left, but alas! the bills she had contributed to swell still remained ; so did the exiguity of the children’s clothing, which also was partly an indirect consequence of her presence; and so, too, did the coolness and alienation in the parishioners, which could not at once vanish before the fact of her departure. The Rey. Amos was not exculpated—the past was not expunged. But what was worse than all, Milly’s health gave frequent cause for alarm, and the prospect of baby’s birth was overshad- owed by more than the usual fears. The birth came prematurely, about six weeks after the countess’s departure, but Mr. Brand gave favor- able reports to all inquirers on the following day, which was Saturday. On Sunday, after morning service, Mrs. Hackit called at the vicar- age to inquire how Mrs. Barton was, and was invited up stairs to see her. Milly lay, placid and lovely in her feebleness, and held out her hand to Mrs, Hackit with a beaming smile. It was very pleasant to her to see her old friend unreserved and cordial once more. The seven months’ baby was very tiny and very red, but ‘handsome is that handsome does ”—he was pronounced to be ‘‘doing well,” and Mrs. Hackit went home gladdened at heart to think that the perilous hour was over. CHAPTER VIII Tue following Wednesday, when Mr. and Mrs. Hackit were seated comfortably by their
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14 THE SAD FORTUNES OF THE REV. AMOS BARTON. bright hearth, enjoying the long afternoon af- forded by an early dinner, Rachel,the house- maid, came in and said; ‘““If you please, ’m, the shepherd says, have you heard as Mrs. Barton's wuss, and not ex- pected to live ?” Mrs. Hackit turned pale, and hurried out to question the shepherd, who, she found, had heard the sad news at an ale-house in the vil- lage. Mr. Hackit followed her out and said, ‘*You'd better have the pony-chaise, and go directly.” ‘* Yes,” said Mrs. Hackit, too much overcome to utter any exclamations. ‘‘ Rachel, come and help me on wi’ my things.” When her husband was wrapping her cloak round her feet in the pony-chaise, she said: “Tf I don’t come home to-night, I shall send back the pony-chaise, and you'll know I'm wanted there.” ‘* Yes, yes.” It was a bright frosty day, and by the time Mrs. Hackit arrived at the vicarage, the sun was near its setting. There was a carriage and pair standing at the gate, which she recognized as Dr. Madeley’s, the physician from Rotherby. She entered at the kitchen door that she might avoid knocking, and quietly questioned Nanny. No one was‘in the kitchen, but, passing on, she saw the sitting-room door open, and Nanny, with Walter in her arms, removing the knives and forks, which had been laid for dinner three hours ago. ‘‘ Master says he can’t eat no dinner,” was Nanny’s first word. ‘‘ He’s never tasted nothin’ sin’ yesterday mornin’ but a cup o’ tea.” ‘When was your missis took worse ?” ‘QO’ Monday night. They sent for Dr. Made- ley i’ the middle o’ the day yisterday, an’ he’s here again now.” “Ts the baby alive ?” ‘*No, it died last night. The children’s all at Mrs. Bond’s. She come and took ’em away last night, but the master says they must be fetched soon. He’s up stairs now, wi’ Dr. Madeley and Mr. Brand.” At this moment Mrs. Hackit heard the sound of aheavy, sk w foot in the passage ; and pres- ently Amos Barton entered, with dry, despair- ing eyes, haggard and unshaven. He expected to find the sitting-room as he left it, with noth- ing to meet his eyes but Milly’s work-basket in the corner of the sofa, and the children’s toys overturned in the bow-window. But when he saw Mrs. Hackit come towards him with an- swering sorrow in her face the pent-up foun- tain of tears was opened ; he threw himself on the sofa, hid his face, and sobbed aloud. ‘«Bear up, Mr. Barton,” Mrs. Hackit ven- tured to say at Iast ; ‘‘ bear up, for the sake o’ them dear children. ” ‘*The children,” said Amos, starting up. ‘«They must be sent for. Some one must fetch them. Mill y will want to re He couldn’t finish the sentence, but Mrs. Hackit understood him, and said, ‘‘T’ll send the man with the pony-carriage for ’em.” She went out to give the order, encountered Dr. Madeley and Mr. Brand, who were just oing. Mic Brand said, ‘‘I am very glad to see you are here, Mrs. Hackit. No time must be lost in sending for the children. Mrs. Barton wants to see them.” ’ ‘Do you quite give her up, then?” She can hardly live through the night. She begged us to tell her how long she had to live, ind then asked for the children.” The pony-carriage was sent; and Mrs. ; ' flackit, retutning to Mr. Barton, said she would like to go up stairs now. He went up stairs with her and opened the door. The chamber fronted the west; the sun was just setting, and the red light fell full upon the bed, where Milly lay with the hand of death visibly upon her. The feather-bed had been removed, and she lay low ona mattress, with her head slightly raised by pillows. Her long fair neck seemed to be struggling with a painful effort ; her features were pallid and pinched, and her eyes were closed. There was no one in the pong te room but the nurse, and the mistress of the free school, who had come to give her help from the beginning of the change. Amos and Mrs. Hackit stood beside the bed, and Milly opened her eyes. ‘*My darling, Mrs. Hackit is come to see you.” Milly smiled and looked at her with that cerenge, far-off look which belongs to ebbing ife. ‘* Are the children coming ?” she said, pain- fully. ‘* Yes, they will be here directly.” She closed her eyes again. Presently thé pony-carriage was heard; and Amos, motioning to Mrs. Hackit to follow him, left the room. On their way down stairs, she suggested that the carriage should remain to take them away again afterward, and Amos as- sented. There they stood in the melanéholy sitting- room—the five. sweet children, from Patty to Chubby—all, with their mother’s eyes—all, ex- cept Patty, looking up with a vague fear at their father as he entered. Patty understood the great sorrow that had come upon them, and tried to check her sobs as she heard her papa’s footsteps, ‘My children,” said Amos, taking Chubby in his arms, ‘‘God is going to take away your dear mamma from us. She wants to see you to say good-bye. You must try to be very good and not cry.” He could say no more, but turned round tosee if Nanny was there with Walter, and then led the waytup stairs, leading Dickey with the other hand. . Hackit followed with Sophy and Patty, and then came Nanny with Walter and Fred. It seemed as if Milly had heard the little footsteps on the stairs, for when Amos en- tered her eyes were wide open, eagerly looking towards the door. They all stood by the bed- side—Amos nearest to her, holding Chubby and Dickey. But she motioned for Patty to come first, and clasping the poor pale child by the hand, said: ‘*Patty, ’'m going away from you. Love your papa. Comfort him ; and take care of your little brothers and sisters. God will help you.” Patty stood perfectly quiet, and said: ‘‘ Yes, mamma.” The mother motioned with her pallid lips for the dear child to lean towards her and kiss her; and then Patty’s great anguish overcame her, and she burst into sobs. Amos drew her towards him and pressed her head gently to him, while Milly beckoned Fred and Sophy, and said to them, more faintly : ‘« Patty will try to be your mamma when I am gone, my darlings. You will be good, and not vex her.” They leaned towards her, and she stroked their fair heads, and kissed their tear-stained cheeks. ‘They cried because mamma was ill and papa looked so unhappy; but they thought, perhaps, next week things would be as they used to be again. The little ones’ were lifted on the bed to kiss her. Tittle Walter said, ‘* Mamma, mamma,” and stretched out his’ fat arms and smiled ; and Chubby seemed gravely wondering; but Dickey, who had been looking fixedly at her, with lip hanging down, ‘ever since he came | into the room, now seemed suddenly pierced with the idea that mamma was going away somewhere ; his little heart swelled, and he | cried aloud, Then Mrs. Hackit and Nanny tock them all | away. Patty at first begged to stay at home, and not go to Mrs Bond’s again; but when Nanny reminded her that she had better go to take care of the younger ones, she submitted at once, and they were all placed in the pony- carriage once more. Milly kept her eyes shut for some time after the childre were gone. Amos had sunk on his knees, and was ais | her hand while he watched her face. By-and-bye she opened her ee ey eyes, and drawing him close to her, whispered slowly : ‘‘My dear—dear—husband—you have been —very—good tome. You—have—made me— very—happy.” She spoke no more for many hours. They watched her breathing becoming more and more difficult, until evening deepened into night, and until midnight was past. About half-past twelve she seemed to be trying to speak, and they leaned to catch her words. ** Music—music—didn’t you hear it?” Amos knelt by the bed and held her hand in his. He did not believe in his sorrow. It was a bad dream. He did not know when she was gone. But Mr. Brand, whom Mr, Hackit had ~ sent for before twelve o'clock, thinking that Mr. Barton might probably need his help, now came up to him, and said : ‘* She feels no more pain now. Oome, my dear sir, come with me.”’ ‘* She isn’t dead?” shrieked the poor deso- late man, struggling to shake off Mr. Brand, who had taken him by the arm. But his weary, weakened frame was not equal to resistance, and he was dragged out of the room. CHAPTER IX. Tury laid her in the grave—the sweet mother with her baby in her arms—while the Christ- mas snow lay thick upon the graves. It was Mr. Cleves who buried her. On the first news of Mr. Barton’s calamity, he had ridden over from Tripplegate to beg that he might be made of some use, and his silent grasp of Amos’ hand had penetrated like the painful thrill of life-recovering warmth to the poor benumbed heart of the stricken man. The snow lay thick upon the graves, and the day was cold and dreary ; but there was many a sad eye watching that black. procession as it passed from the vicarage to the church, and from the church to the open grave. There were men and women standing in that church- yard who had bandied vulgar jests about their pastor, and who had lightly charged him with sin ; but now, when they saw him following the coffin, pale and haggard, he was consecrated anew by his great sorrow, and they looked at him with respectful pity. All the children were there, for Amos had willed it so, thinking that some dim memory of that sacred moment might remain even with little Walter, and link itself with what he would hear of his sweet mother in after-years. He himself led Patty and Dickey ; then came Sophy and Fred; Mr. Brand had begged to carry Chubby, and Nanny followed with Walter. They made a circleround the grave while the coffin was being lowered. Patty alone of all the children felt that mamma was in the coffin, and that a new and sadder life had begun for papa and herself. She was pale and trembling, but she clasped his hand more firmly as the coffin went down, and gave nosob. Fred and Sophy, though they were only two and three years younger, and though they had seen mamma ia her coffin, seemed to themselves to be looking at some strange show. They had not learned to decipher that terrible handwrit- ing of human destiny, illness and death. Dickey had rebelled against’ his black clothes, until he was told that it: would be naughty to mamma not to put them on, when he at once sub- mitted ; and now, though he had heard Nanny say that mamma was in heaven, he had a vague notion that she would come home again to-morrow, and say he had been a good boy, andlet him empty her work-box. He stood close to his father, with great rosy cheeks and | wide-open blue eyes, looking first up at Mr. Cleves and then down at the coffin, and think- ing he and Chubby would play at that when they got home. The burial was over, and Amos turned with his children to re-enter the house—the house where, an hour ago, Milly’s dear body lay, where the windows were half-darkened, and sorrow seemed to have a hallowed precinct for itself shut out from the world. But now she was
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THE SAD FORTUNES OF THR REY. AMOS BARTON. gone; the broad, snow-reflected daylight was in all the rooms; the vicarage again seemed part of the common, working-day world, and Antos, for the first time, felt that he was alone —that day after day, month after month, year after year, would have to be lived through without Milly’s love. Spring would come, and she would not be there: summer, and she would not be there; and he would never have her again with him by the fireside in the long even- ings. The seasons all seemed irksome to his thoughts: and how dreary the sunshiny days that would be sure to come! She was gone « ty love any more, never make up for omissions in the past by filling future days with tenderness. Oh, the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light ans wers we returned : to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little qj reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know! _Amos Barton had been an affectionate hus- band, and while Milly was with him he was never visited by the thought that perhaps his sympathy with her was not quick and watchful enough, but now he relived all their life to- gether with that terrible keenness of memory and imagination which bereavement gives, and he felt as if his very love needed a pardon for its poverty and selfishness. No outward solace could counteract the bit- terness of this inward woe. But outward solace eame. Cold faces looked kind again and par- ishioners turned over in their minds what they could best do to help their pastor. Mr. Oldin- port wrote to express his sympathy, and en- closed another twenty-pound note, begging that he might be permitted to contribute in this way to the relief of Mr. Barton’s mind from pecuniary anxieties under the pressure of a grief which all his parishioners must share ; and offering his interest towards placing the two eldest girls in a school expressly founded for clergymen’s daughters. Mr. Cleves suc- ceeded in collecting thirty pounds among his | richer clerical brethren, and, adding ten pounds | himself, sent the sum to Amos, with the kind- | est and most delicate words of Christian fellow- ship and manly friendship. Miss Jackson for- got old grievances, and came to stay some months with Milly’s children, bringing such material aid as she could spare from her small income. These were substantial helps, which relieved Amos from the pressure of his money difficulties; and the friendly attentions, the kind pressure of the hand, the cordial looks he met with everywhere in his parish, made him feel that the fatal frost which had settled on his pastoral duties during the countess’ resi- dence at the vicarage was completely thawed, and that the hearts of his parishioners were eo once more open to him. No one breathed the countess’ name now; for Milly's memory hallowed her husband, as of old the place was hallowed on which an angel from God had alighted. When the spring came, Mrs. Hackit begged ‘that she might have Dickey to stay with her, and great was the enlargement of Dickey’s ex- By! perience from that visit. Every merning he was allowed—being well wrapped up as to his chest by Mrs, Hackit’s own hands, but very bare and red as to his legs—to run loose in the | cow and poultry yard, to persecute the turkey- cock by satirical imitations of his gobble, and to put difficulty questions to the groom as to the reasons why horses had four legs, and others transcendental matters. Then Mr. Hackit would take Dickey up on horseback when he rode round his farm, and Mrs. Hackit had a large plum-cake in cut, ready to meet incidental attacks of hunger. So that Dickey had considerably modified his views as to the desirability of Mrs, Hackit’s kisses. The Misses Farquhar made particular pets of Fred and Sophy, to whom they undertook to give lessons twice a week in writing and geo- graphy ; and Mrs Farquhar devised many treats for the little ones. Patty’s treat was to stay at | from him, and he could never show her his | | | home, or walk about with her papa; and when | that last evening; and after all the packing he sat by the fire in an evening, after the other | was done and all the arrangements were mad children had gone to bed, she would bring a | Amos felt the oppression of that blank inte stool, and placing it against his feet, would sit down upon it and lean her head against his knee. head, and he would feel that Milly’s love was not quite gone out of his life. . So the time wore on till it was May again, and the church was quite finished and reopen- ed in all its new splendor, and Mr. Barton was devoting himself with more vigor than ever to his parochial duties. But one morning—-it was hen his hand would rest on that fair in which one has nothing left to think of but the dreary future—the separation from the loved and familiar, and the chilling entrance on the new and strange. In every parting there is an image of death. Soon after ten o’clock, when he had sent Nanny to bed, that she might have a good night’s rest before the fatigues of the morrow, he stole softly out to pay a last visit to Milly’s ve. It was a moonless night, but the sky a very bright morning, and evil tidings some-| was thick with stars, and their light was enough times like to fly in the finest weather—there came @ letter for Mr. Barton, addressed in the vicar’s handwriting. Amos opened it with announcement that Mr. Carpe had resolved on coming to reside at pra ig aan, and that, con- sequently, in six months from that time Mr. Barton’s duties as curate in that parish would be closed. Oh, it was hard! Just when Shepperton had become the place where he most wished to stay —where he had friends who knew his sorrows— where he lived close to Milly’s grave. be ome from that grave seemed like parting with Milly a second time; for Amos was one who clung to all the material links between his mind and the past. His imagination was not vivid, and required the stimulus of actual perception. It roused some bitter feeling, too, to think that Mr. Carpe’s wish to reside at Shepperton was merely a pretext for removing Mr. Barton, in order that he might ultimately give the cura- cy of Shepperton to his own brother-in-law, who was known to be wanting a new position. Still it must be borne; and the painful busi- ness of seeking another curacy must be set about without loss of time. After the lapse of some months, Amos was obliged to renounce the hope of getting one at all near Shepperton, and he at length resigned himself to accepting one in a distant county. The parish was in a large manufacturing town, where his walks would lie among noisy streets and dingy alleys, and where the children would have no garden to play in, no pleasant farm-houses to visit. It was another blow inflicted on the bruised man. CHAPTER X. Ar length the dreaded week was come when Amos and his children must leave Shepperton. There was general regret among the parishion- ers -at his departure: not that anyone of them thought his spiritual gifts pre-eminent, or was conscious of great edification from his ministry. But his recent troubles had called out their better sympathies, and that is always a source of love. Amos failed to touch the spring of guodness by his sermons, but he touched it ef- fectually by his sorrows; and there was now a real bond between him and his flock. ‘My heart aches for them poor motherless children,” said Mrs. Hackit to her husband, ‘“‘agoing among strangers, and into a nasty town, where there’s no good victuals to be had, and you must pay dear to get bad uns.” Mrs. Hackit had a vague notion of a town life as. a combination of dirty backyards, measly | pork, and dingy linen. The same sort of sympathy was strong among the poorer class of parishioners. Old stiff- jointed Mr. Tozer, who was still able to earn a little by gardening ‘‘jobs,” stopped Mrs, Cramp, the char-woman, on her way home from the vicarage, where she had been helping Nanny to pack up the day before the departure, and inquired very particularly into Mr. Barton’s prospects, ; ‘“Ah, poor mon,” he was heard to say, ‘‘ I’m sorry for un. He hedn’t much here, but he’ll be wuss off theer. Half a loaf's better nor ne’er un.” The sad good-byes had all been said before to show that the grass had grown long on the grave, and that there was a tombstone telling in bright letters, on a dark ground, that beneath | some anxiety—somehow or other, he had a/| were deposited the remains of Amelia, the be- | presentiment of evil. The letter contained the | Joyed wife of Amos Barton, who died in the thirty-fifth year of her age, leaving a husband and six children to lament her loss. The final words of the inscription were, ‘‘ Thy will be done.” The husband was now advancing towards the dear mound from which he was so soon to be parted, perhaps forever. He stood a few min- utes reading over and over again the words on the tombstone, as if to assure himself that all the happy and unhappy past was a reality. For love is frightened at the intervals of insen- sibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the dominion of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish. Gradually as his eye dwelt on the words, ‘Amelia the beloved wife,” the waves of feel- ing swelled within the soul, and he threw him- self on the grave, clasping it with his arm, and kissing the cold turf. ‘Milly, Milly, dost thou hear me? I didn’t love thee enough—I wasn’t tender enough to thee—but I think of it allnow!” The sobs came and choked his utterance, and the warm tears fell. CONCLUSION. Onty once again in his life has Amos Barton visited Milly’s grave. It.was in the calm and softened light of an autumnal afternoon, and he was not alone. He held on his arm a young woman, with a sweet, grave face, which strong- ly recalled the expression of Mrs, Barton’s, but was less lovely in form and color. She was about thirty, but there were some premature lines round her mouth and eyes, which told of early anxiety. : Amos himself was much changed. His thin circlet of hair was nearly white, and his walk was no longer firmand upright. But his glance was calm, and even cheerful, and his neat linen told of a woman’s tare. Milly did not take all her love fron& the earth when she diéd. She had left some of ii ‘n Patty's heart. All the other children were now grown up, and had gone their several ways. Dickey, you will be glad to hear, had shown remarkable | talents as an engineer. His cheeks are still ruddy, in spite of mixed mathematics, and his | eyes are still large and blue; but in other re- spects his person would present no marks of identification for his friend Mrs. Hackit, if she were to see him; especially now that her eyes must be grown very dim, with the wear of more than twenty additional years. He is nearly six feet high, and has a proportionately broad | chest; he wears spectacles, and rubs his large | white hands through a mass of shaggy brown hair. But I am sure you have no doubt | that Mr. Richard Barton is a thoroughly good fellow, as well as a man of talent, and you will be glad any day to shake hands with him, for his own sake as well as his mother’s. Patty alone remains by her father’s side, and makes the evening sunshine of his life. (THE END. ]
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