the
income, you have had no past right to it; and the very fact
of your abandoning your position would create a demand for
repayment of that which you have already received and spent.'
The poor
warden groaned as he sat
perfectly still, looking
up at the hard-hearted
orator who thus tormented him, and
the
bishop echoed the sound
faintly from behind his hands;
but the archdeacon cared little for such signs of
weakness, and
completed his exhortation.
'But let us suppose the office to be left
vacant, and that your
own troubles
concerning it were over; would that satisfy you?
Are your only aspirations in the matter confined to yourself
and family? I know they are not. I know you are as anxious
as any of us for the church to which we belong; and what a
grievous blow would such an act of apostacy give her! You
owe it to the church of which you are a member and a minister,
to bear with this
affliction, however
severe it may be: you owe
it to my father, who instituted you, to support his rights: you
owe it to those who preceded you to
assert the legality of their
position; you owe it to those who are to come after you, to
maintain uninjured for them that which you received uninjured
from others; and you owe to us all the unflinching assistance
of perfect
brotherhood in this matter, so that upholding
one another we may support our great cause without blushing
and without
disgrace.'
And so the archdeacon ceased, and stood self-satisfied,
watching the effect of his
spoken wisdom.
The
warden felt himself, to a certain
extent, stifled; he
would have given the world to get himself out into the open
air without
speaking to, or noticing those who were in the
room with him; but this was impossible. He could not leave
without
saying something, and he felt himself confounded by
the archdeacon's
eloquence. There was a heavy, unfeeling,
unanswerable truth in what he had said; there was so much
practical, but
odious common sense in it, that he neither knew
how to
assent or to
differ. If it were necessary for him to
suffer, he felt that he could
endure without
complaint and
without
cowardice, providing that he was self-satisfied of the
justice of his own cause. What he could not
endure was, that
he should be accused by others, and not acquitted by himself.
Doubting, as he had begun to doubt, the justice of his own
position in the hospital, he knew that his own self-confidence
would not be restored because Mr Bold had been in error as
to some legal form; nor could he be satisfied to escape,
because, through some legal
fiction, he who received the greatest
benefit from the hospital might be considered only as one of
its servants.
The archdeacon's speech had silenced him--stupefied him
--annihilated him; anything but satisfied him. With the
bishop it fared not much better. He did not
discern clearly
how things were, but he saw enough to know that a battle was
to be prepared for; a battle that would destroy his few
remaining comforts, and bring him with sorrow to the grave.
The
warden still sat, and still looked at the archdeacon, till
his thoughts fixed themselves
wholly on the means of escape
from his present position, and he felt like a bird fascinated by
gazing on a snake.
'I hope you agree with me,' said the archdeacon at last,
breaking the dread silence; 'my lord, I hope you agree with me.'
Oh, what a sigh the
bishop gave! 'My lord, I hope you
agree with me,' again
repeated the
merciless tyrant.
'Yes, I suppose so,' groaned the poor old man, slowly.
'And you,
warden?'
Mr Harding was now stirred to action--he must speak and
move, so he got up and took one turn before he answered.
'Do not press me for an answer just at present; I will do
nothing
lightly in the matter, and of
whatever I do I will give
you and the
bishop notice.' And so without another word he
took his leave, escaping quickly through the palace hall, and
down the lofty steps, nor did he breathe
freely till he found
himself alone under the huge elms of the silent close. Here he
walked long and slowly, thinking on his case with a troubled
air, and
trying in vain to confute the archdeacon's argument.
He then went home,
resolved" target="_blank" title="a.决心的;坚定的">
resolved to bear it all--ignominy, suspense,
disgrace, self-doubt, and heart-burning--and to do as those
would have him, who he still believed were most fit and most
able to
counsel him aright.
CHAPTER X
Tribulation
Mr Harding was a sadder man than he had ever yet been when
he returned to his own house. He had been
wretched enough
on that well-remembered morning when he was forced to expose
before his son-in-law the publisher's
account for ushering into
the world his dear book of
sacred music: when after making such
payments as he could do unassisted, he found that he was a
debtor of
more than three hundred pounds; but his sufferings then were as
nothing to his present
misery;--then he had done wrong, and he
knew it, and was able to
resolve that he would not sin in like
manner again; but now he could make no
resolution, and comfort
himself by no promises of
firmness. He had been forced to
think that his lot had placed him in a false position, and he
was about to
maintain that position against the opinion of the
world and against his own convictions.
He had read with pity, amounting almost to
horror, the
strictures which had appeared from time to time against the
Earl of Guildford as master of St Cross, and the invectives that
had been heaped on rich diocesan dignitaries and overgrown
sinecure pluralists. In judging of them, he judged leniently;
the whole bias of his
profession had taught him to think that
they were more sinned against than sinning, and that the animosity
with which they had been pursued was
venomous and
unjust; but
he had not the less regarded their
plight as most miserable.
His hair had stood on end and his flesh had crept as he read the
things which had been written; he had wondered how men could live
under such a load of
disgrace; how they could face their
fellow-creatures while their names were bandied about so
injuriously and so publicly--and now this lot was to be his--he,
that shy, retiring man, who had so comforted himself in the
hidden
obscurity of his lot, who had
so enjoyed the unassuming
warmth of his own little corner, he
was now dragged forth into the glaring day, and gibbeted
before
ferocious multitudes. He entered his own house a
crestfallen, humiliated man, without a hope of overcoming
the
wretchedness which
affected him.
He wandered into the drawing-room where was his daughter;
but he could not speak to her now, so he left it, and went into
the book-room. He was not quick enough to escape Eleanor's
glance, or to prevent her from
seeing that he was disturbed;
and in a little while she followed him. She found him seated
in his accustomed chair with no book open before him, no
pen ready in his hand, no ill-shapen notes of blotted music
lying before him as was usual, none of those hospital
accounts
with which he was so
precise and yet so unmethodical: he
was doing nothing, thinking of nothing, looking at nothing;
he was merely suffering.
'Leave me, Eleanor, my dear,' he said; 'leave me, my
darling, for a few minutes, for I am busy.'
Eleanor saw well how it was, but she did leave him, and
glided
silently back to her drawing-room. When he had sat