The Last Chronicle of Barset (100 page)

‘Your letter came to hand yesterday morning, Dr Tempest,' said Mr Crawley, still standing, though the doctor had pointed to a chair for him after shaking hands with him; ‘and having given yesterday to the consideration of it, with what judgment I have been able to exercise, I have felt it to be incumbent upon me to wait upon you without further delay, as by doing so I may perhaps assist your views and save labour to those gentlemen who are joined with you in this commission of which you have spoken. To some of them it may possibly be troublesome that they should be brought here on next Monday.'

Dr Tempest had been looking at him during this speech, and could
see by his shoes and trousers that he had walked from Hogglestock to Silverbridge. ‘Mr Crawley, will you not sit down?' said he, and then he rang his bell. Mr Crawley sat down, not on the chair indicated, but on one further removed and at the other side of the table. When the servant came – the objectionable butler in black clothes that were so much smarter than Mr Crawley's own – his master's orders were communicated without any audible word, and the man returned with decanter and wineglasses.

‘After your walk, Mr Crawley,' said Dr Tempest, getting up from his seat to pour out the wine.

‘None, I thank you.'

‘Pray let me persuade you. I know the length of the miles so well.'

‘I will take none if you please, sir,' said Mr Crawley.

‘Now, Mr Crawley,' said Dr Tempest, ‘do let me speak to you as a friend. You have walked eight miles, and are going to talk to me on a subject which is of vital importance to yourself. I won't discuss it unless you'll take a glass of wine and a biscuit.'

‘Dr Tempest!'

‘I'm quite in earnest. I won't. If you do as I ask, you shall talk to me till dinner-time, if you like. There. Now you may begin.'

Mr Crawley did eat the biscuit and did drink the wine, and as he did so, he acknowledged to himself that Dr Tempest was right. He felt that the wine made him stronger to speak. ‘I hardly know why you have preferred today to next Monday,' said Dr Tempest; ‘but if anything can be done by your presence here today, your time shall not be thrown away.'

‘I have preferred today to Monday,' said Crawley, ‘partly because I would sooner talk to one man than to five.'

‘There is something in that, certainly,' said Dr Tempest.

‘And as I have made up my mind as to the course of action which it is my duty to take in the matter to which your letter of the 9th of this month refers, there can be no reason why I should postpone the declaration of my purpose. Dr Tempest, I have determined to resign my preferment at Hogglestock, and shall write today to the Dean of Barchester, who is the patron, acquainting him of my purpose.'

‘You mean in the event – in the event –'

‘I mean, sir, to do this without reference to any event that is future. The bishop, Dr Tempest, when I shall have been proved to be a thief, shall have no trouble either in causing my suspension or my deprivation. The name and fame of a parish clergyman should be unstained. Mine have become foul with infamy. I will not wait to be deprived by any court, by any bishop, or by any commission. I will bow my head to that public opinion which has reached me, and I will deprive myself.'

He had got up from his chair, and was standing as he pronounced the final sentence against himself. Dr Tempest still remained seated in his chair, looking at him, and for a few moments there was silence. ‘You must not do that, Mr Crawley,' said Dr Tempest at last.

‘But I shall do it.'

‘Then the dean must not take your resignation. Speaking to you frankly, I tell you that there is no prevailing opinion as to the verdict which the jury may give.'

‘My decision has nothing to do with the jury's verdict. My decision –'

‘Stop a moment, Mr Crawley. It is possible that you might say that which should not be said.'

‘There is nothing to be said – nothing which I could say, which I would not say at the Town Cross if it were possible. As to this money, I do not know whether I stole it or whether I did not.'

‘That is just what I have thought.'

‘It is so.'

‘Then you did not steal it. There can be no doubt about that.'

‘Thank you, Dr Tempest. I thank you heartily for saying so much. But, sir, you are not the jury. Nor, if you were, could you whitewash me from the infamy which has been cast on me. Against the opinion expressed at the beginning of these proceedings by the bishop of the diocese – or rather against that expressed by his wife – I did venture to make a stand. Neither the opinion which came from the palace, nor the vehicle by which it was expressed, commanded my respect. Since that, others have spoken to whom I feel myself bound to yield – yourself not the least among them, Dr Tempest – and to them I shall yield. You may tell the Bishop of Barchester that I shall at once
resign the perpetual curacy of Hogglestock into the hands of the Dean of Barchester, by whom I was appointed.'

‘No, Mr Crawley; I shall not do that. I cannot control you, but thinking you to be wrong, I shall not make that communication to the bishop.'

‘Then I shall do it myself.'

‘And your wife, Mr Crawley, and your children?'

At that moment Mr Crawley called to mind the advice of his friend Giles Hoggett. ‘It's dogged as does it.' He certainly wanted something very strong to sustain him in his difficulty. He found that this reference to his wife and children required him to be dogged in a very marked manner. ‘I can only trust that the wind may be tempered to them,' he said. ‘They will, indeed, be shorn lambs.'

Dr Tempest got up from his chair, and took a couple of turns about the room before he spoke again. ‘Man,' he said, addressing Mr Crawley with all his energy, ‘if you do this thing, you will then at least be very wicked. If the jury find a verdict in your favour you are safe, and the chances are that the verdict will be in your favour.'

‘I care nothing now for the verdict,' said Mr Crawley.

‘And you will turn your wife into the poorhouse for an idea!'

‘It's dogged as does it,' said Mr Crawley to himself. ‘I have thought of that,' he said aloud. ‘That my wife is dear to me, and that my children are dear, I will not deny. She was softly nurtured, Dr Tempest, and came from a house in which want was never known. Since she has shared my board she has had some experience of that nature. That I should have brought her to all this is very terrible to me – so terrible, that I often wonder how it is that I live. But, sir, you will agree with me, that my duty as a clergyman is above everything. I do not dare, even for their sake, to remain in the parish. Good morning, Dr Tempest.' Dr Tempest, finding that he could not prevail with him, bade him adieu, feeling that any service to the Crawleys within his power might be best done by intercession with the bishop and with the dean.

Then Mr Crawley walked back to Hogglestock, repeating to himself Giles Hoggett's words, ‘It's dogged as does it.'

*

Mr Crawley, when he got home after his walk to Silverbridge, denied that he was at all tired. ‘The man at Silverbridge, whom I went to see, administered refreshment to me – nay, he administered it with salutary violence,' he said, affecting even to laugh. ‘And I am bound to speak well of him on behalf of mercies over and beyond that exhibited by the persistent tender of some wine. That I should find him judicious I had expected. What little I have known of him taught me so to think of him. But I found with him also a softness of heart for which I had not looked.'

‘And you will not give up the living, Josiah?'

‘Most certainly I will. A duty, when it is clear before a man, should never be made less so by any tenderness in others.' He was still thinking of Giles Hoggett. ‘It's dogged as does it.' The poor woman could not answer him. She knew well that it was vain to argue with him. She could only hope that in the event of his being acquitted at the trial, the dean, whose friendship she did not doubt, might re-endow him with the small benefice which was their only source of bread.

On the following morning there came by post a short note from Dr Tempest. ‘My dear Mr Crawley,' the note ran, ‘I implore you, if there be yet time, to do nothing rashly. And even although you should have written to the bishop or to the dean, your letters need have no effect, if you will allow me to make them inoperative. Permit me to say that I am a man much older than you, and one who has mixed much both with clergymen and with the world at large. I tell you with absolute confidence, that it is not your duty in your present position to give up your living. Should your conduct ever be called in question on this matter you will be at perfect liberty to say that you were guided by my advice. You should take no step till after the trial. Then, if the verdict be against you, you should submit to the
bishop's judgment. If the verdict be in your favour, the bishop's interference will be over.

‘And you must remember that if it is not your duty as a clergyman to give up your living, you can have no right, seeing that you have a wife and family, to throw it away as an indulgence to your pride. Consult any other friend you please – Mr Robarts, or the dean himself. I am quite sure that any friend who knows as many of the circumstances as I know will advise you to hold the living, at any rate till after the trial. You can refer any such friend to me.

‘Believe me to be, yours very truly,                 

        ‘M
ORTIMER
T
EMPEST
.'

Mr Crawley walked about again with this letter in his pocket, but on this occasion he did not go in the direction of Hoggle End. From Hoggle End he could hardly hope to pick up further lessons of wisdom. What could any Giles Hoggett say to him beyond what he had said to him already? If he were to read the doctor's letter to Hoggett, and to succeed in making Hoggett understand it all, Hoggett could only caution him to be dogged. But it seemed to him that Hoggett and his new friend at Silverbridge did not agree in their doctrines, and it might be well that he should endeavour to find out which of them had most of justice on his side. He was quite sure that Hoggett would advise him to adhere to his project of giving up the living – if only Hoggett could be made to understand the circumstances.

He had written, but had not as yet sent away his letter to the dean.

His letter to the bishop would be but a note, and he had postponed the writing of that till the other should be copied and made complete.

He had sat up late into the night composing and altering his letter to his old friend, and now that the composition was finished he was loth to throw it away. Early in this morning, before the postman had brought to him Dr Tempest's urgent remonstrance, he had shown to his wife the draft of his letter to the dean. ‘I cannot say that it is not true,' she had said.

‘It is certainly true.'

‘But I wish, dear, you would not send it. Why should you take any step till the trial be over?'

‘I shall assuredly send it,' he had replied. ‘If you will peruse it again, you will see that the epistle would be futile were it kept till I shall have been proved to be a thief.'

‘Oh, Josiah, such words kill me.'

‘They are not pleasant, but it will be well that you should become used to them. As for the letter, I have taken some trouble to express myself with perspicuity, and I trust that I may have succeeded.' At that time Hoggett was altogether in the ascendant; but now, as he started on his walk, his mind was somewhat perturbed by the contrary advice of one, who after all, might be as wise as Hoggett. There would be nothing dogged in the conduct recommended to him by Dr Tempest. Were he to follow the doctor's advice, he would be trimming his sails, so as to catch any slant of a breeze that might be favourable to him. There could be no doggedness in a character that would submit to such trimming.

The postman came to Hogglestock but once in a day, so that he could not despatch his letter till the next morning – unless, indeed, he chose to send it a distance of four miles to the nearest post-office. As there was nothing to justify this, there was another night for the copying of his letter – should he at last determine to send it. He had declared to Dr Tempest that he would send it. He had sworn to his wife that it should go. He had taken much trouble with it. He believed in Hoggett. But, nevertheless, this incumbency of Hogglestock was his all in the world. It might be that he could still hold it, and have bread at least for his wife to eat. Dr Tempest had told him that he would be probably acquitted. Dr Tempest knew as much of all the circumstances as did he himself, and had told him that he was not guilty. After all, Dr Tempest knew more about it than Hoggett knew.

If he resigned the living, what would become of him – of him – of him and of his wife? Whither would they first go when they turned their back upon the door inside which there had at any rate been shelter for them for so many years? He calculated everything that he had, and found that at the end of April, even when he should have received his rentcharge, there would not be five pounds in hand
among them. As for his furniture, he still owed enough to make it impossible that he should get anything out of that. And these thoughts all had reference to his position if he should be acquitted. What would become of his wife if he should be convicted? And as for himself, whither should he go when he came out of prison?

He had completely realised the idea that Hoggett's counsel was opposed to that given to him by Dr Tempest; but then it might certainly be the case that Hoggett had not known all the facts. A man should, no doubt, be dogged when the evils of life are insuperable; but need he be so when the evils can be overcome? Would not Hoggett himself undergo any treatment which he believed to be specific for rheumatism? Yes; Hoggett would undergo any treatment that was not in itself opposed to his duty. The best treatment for rheumatism might be to stay away from the brickfield on a rainy day; but if so, there would be no money to keep the pot boiling, and Hoggett would certainly go to the brickfield, rheumatism and all, as long as his limbs would carry him there. Yes; he would send his letter. It was his duty, and he would do it. Men looked askance at him, and pointed at him as a thief. He would send the letter, in spite of Dr Tempest. Let justice be done, though the heaven may fall.