Читать книгу The Clergyman's Widow - Барбара Хофланд - Страница 8

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As the crowd were slowly dispersing on all sides of the parsonage, and the widow, with her fatherless children, pursuing their melancholy journey, a smart gig, with two clerical gentlemen, attended by a servant, drove down the lane.

'What a number of people,' said the driver of the gig, 'are standing about the house! Are they attending the sale, or are they looking out for me, I wonder? I shall be cursedly vexed if I do not find the house empty; and yet it may be my own fault too, for I sent the widow of the last owner a message, importing my arrival would not take place till Saturday.'

'You had better have written to her,' said his friend, 'and then no mistake could have arisen.'

'But I detest writing. I sent down a man on whom I could depend, to buy up the best of the furniture, and to lock it up; of course I concluded she would leave the house when it was empty.'

'A fair conclusion certainly.' As these words were spoken, the gig was drawn up to the garden-gate, and the last lingering group of parishioners were modestly withdrawing, when the new rector, addressing the nearest, cried out—'Harkee, my honest fellow, are all these people assembled to meet me? or what are they about, hey?'

'Ye, zur! why noa, we none on us thout about ye, loike; we be comed to bid madam ferweel, and to wish her good luck, and such loike, that be all; we hopez no offence: 'tis an ill day to we, God knowz.'

'Oh, 'tis all very well, I find; the widow is gone then?'

'Yeez, more'z the pity; zhe be gone, zure enough.'

'This same widow, or her late husband, or both,' said the rector's friend, 'must have been people of no common character, to have attracted these people's attention and attachment so strongly; from the grief expressed in their countenances, I fear she is poorly provided for.'

'Very poorly, your honour,' said Mrs. Gooch, dropping a low curtsey, as she applied the corner of her apron to her eye; 'and zhe do dezerve richez without end, zo zhe do. This be her zun; your honour never zeed a zweeter; we do all call um zweet William, zo we do; he be the immage of his feather, zo he be.'

'And how happens this little boy to be left with you, good woman?' inquired the clergyman, as he patted sweet William's rosy cheek, still moistened by the parting tear.

'Why, zur, what cud her do wi zix childer? It brak her poor heart to part, to be zure, wi' thiz'n; but still zhe were fain to put him under huzband and I, for zhe did know we would feed him o'th best we had, and the curate in good time will see after his larning.'

'How you stand, Simpson, listening to that woman's palaver,' cried the new rector, 'while I am quite at a nonplus about dinner! I came here as hungry as a hunter, and had set my heart on a boiled fowl and a slice of ham for my dinner, things one expects, of course, to find in a country village; and here's one fellow tells me he had but three chickens, and his wife put them into Mrs. Gardiner's cart; and another informs me very coolly, that he put the only ham in the village into the same cart himself—what the devil shall we do?'

'I am thinking,' said his friend, awaking from a reverie, 'I am thinking we must procure——'

'We can procure nothing but a beef steak and a leg of mutton.'

''Tis but a trifle, indeed, among so many; but still it will be a great matter to her.'

'To her! to us, you mean; then you think we can manage with these things?'

'I will never rest till I have managed it; and I have two friends on whose services I can rely.

'Two friends! why, for such a dinner, one cook is as good as a thousand.'

'Cook!' cried the benevolent absentee; 'yes, Cook is the very man who is most likely to secure the bounty.'

'Bounty! what are you talking about?'

'Queen Anne's bounty to be sure, which we must get immediately for Mrs. Gardiner; and by-and-by, when this little man is big enough, surely either you or I can find interest to get him into Christ's school.'

'May God in heaven bless your worship, and your worship's children after ye!' cried Mrs. Gooch, dropping on her knees; 'Christ's zchool, indeed! ay, that be the school where ye were taut yourself, zo it waz, I be zure. I think i' my heart, zo I do, yer juzt zuch another az our own parzon; and may the bleszing of bleszings be on ye!'

The emotion of the honest dame attracted the remaining group, and they all fervently joined in invoking good for him who sought it for the widow and the fatherless.

The rector was moved with this scene, for he was a good-natured man; and while with a relaxed countenance and conciliating voice, he led his friend into the house, he assured him, that after dinner, he would gladly concert any measures most likely to procure the wished-for annuity for Mrs. Gardiner.

This business the benevolent clergyman did not suffer to pass unnoticed. When the proper letters were dispatched, the evening shut in, and the hour of social intercourse returned, after thanking the rector for his attention to a subject which was so interesting to him, he inquired farther, what motive had induced him to take up his residence in a house, which, though neat and pleasant, was far inferior to the vicarage of his more beneficial living in Staffordshire?

'Dear me, what a question! I thought I told you, when I asked you to induct me to this, that it is the very best sporting place in the West of England. I know I shall not be able to live here after Christmas, but, in the mean time, I expect much amusement. I have engaged a curate on that account—the young man you saw in the garden.'

'Whose modest deportment, I confess, interested me much. Did you tell me what you meant to give him?'

'I do not recollect; he is the schoolmaster here, and as I concluded he could live somehow, even if he had not my curacy, I settled to give him thirty pounds a-year.'

'You forget yourself; it is your footman you give that.'

'No, I am right. I give my footman twenty-five guineas, and find him in boots; so, as you say, 'tis much the same.'

'No, you are mistaken there; 'tis by no means the same, for your footman lives in your house—your curate has to pay for his board.'

'True, very true; but what can we do? one cannot live without servants; and these fellows are so scaucy now-a-days; and then, as to the curate, poor man, if he is content, you know, why, that is every thing.'

'Not every thing, my dear sir. Many of our cloth practise resignation as a duty, whose external calmness induces the unthinking to mistake it for content; but, alas! the feeling heart can be seldom blessed with the sweet cheerfulness of content, when it is burthened with the cares of poverty, or smarting under the sneers of vulgar pride, too often bestowed on that very delicacy which is the natural offspring of superior education and conscious worth. The situation of such men presses heavily on my heart, not the less so because their sufferings are endured in silence, and their sighs breathed only in secret.'

''Tis a sad thing indeed, and I wish the legislature would think about it.'

'As you say, 'tis a sad thing. I hope something will be done by-and-by; mean time, do you think it would be right for me to give Wallingford forty pounds a-year?'

'I think it would be a very good thing indeed; 'tis a very excellent thought; I give you great credit for it.'

'And when I am not here, he may as well live in the house; 'twill save him some expence, you know, hey?'

'This too is an admirable thought,' said Mr. Simpson, rising; 'you are going to use your new acquisition as you ought, I perceive; and I wish you good night, under the most pleasing impressions both of the parishioners of Whitechapel and their new rector.'