The Vicar Of Bullhampton Part 41

Puddleham had told him,--he began to think that the chapel had better be built elsewhere. The Vicar was a pestilent man to whom punishment was due, but the punishment should be made to attach itself to the man, rather than to the man's office. So was working the Marquis's mind, till the Marquis came upon that horrid pa.s.sage in the Vicar's letter, in which it was suggested that the building of a Methodist chapel in his own park, immediately in front of his own august hall-door might under certain circ.u.mstances be expedient. The remark was almost as pernicious and unpardonable as that which had been made about his lordship's daughters. It was manifest to him that the Vicar intended to declare that marquises were no more than other people,--and that the declaration was made and insisted on with the determination of insulting him. Had this apostate priest been capable of feeling any proper appreciation of his own position and that of the Marquis, he would have said nothing of Turnover Park. When the Marquis had read the letter a second time and had digested it he perceived that its whole tenour was bad, that the writer was evil-minded, and that no request made by him should be granted. Even though the obnoxious chapel should have to be pulled down for the benefit of another vicar, it should be put up for the punishment of this vicar. A man who wants to have a favour done for him, can hardly hope to be successful if he asks for the favour with insolence. So the heart of the Marquis was hardened, and he was strengthened to do that which misbecame him both as a gentleman and a landlord.

He did not answer the letter for some time; but he saw Packer, saw his head agent, and got out the map of the property. The map of the property was not very clear in the matter, but he remembered the s.p.a.ce well, and convinced himself that no other place in all Bullhampton could be so appropriate for a Methodist chapel. At the end of a week he caused a reply to be written to Mr. Fenwick. He would not demean himself by writing with his own hand, but he gave his orders to the head agent. The head agent merely informed the Vicar that it was considered that the spot of ground in question was the most appropriate in the village for the purpose in hand.

Mrs. Fenwick when she heard the reply burst out into tears. She was a woman by no means over devoted to things of this world, who thought much of her duties and did them, who would have sacrificed anything for her husband and children, who had learned the fact that both little troubles and great, if borne with patience, may be borne with ease; but she did think much of her house, was proud of her garden, and rejoiced in the external prettiness of her surroundings. It was gall to her that this hideous building should be so placed as to destroy the comeliness of that side of her abode. "We shall hear their singing and ranting whenever we open our front windows," she said.

"Then we won't open them," said the Vicar.

"We can't help ourselves. Just see what it will be whenever we go in and out. We might just as well have it inside the house at once."

"You speak as though Mr. Puddleham were always in his pulpit."

"They're always doing something,--and then the building will be there whether it's open or shut. It will alter the parish altogether, and I really think it will be better that you should get an exchange."

"And run away from my enemy?"

"It would be running away from an intolerable nuisance."

"I won't do that," said the Vicar. "If there were no other reason for staying, I won't put it in the power of the Marquis of Trowbridge to say that he has turned me out of my parish, and so punished me because I have not submitted myself to him. I have not sought the quarrel. He has been overbearing and insolent, and now is meanly desirous to injure me because I will not suffer his insolence. No doubt, placed as he is, he can do much; but he cannot turn me out of Bullhampton."

"What is the good of staying, Frank, if we are to be made wretched?"

"We won't be made wretched. What! be wretched because there is an ugly building opposite to your outside gate? It is almost wicked to say so. I don't like it. I like the doing of the thing less even than the thing itself. If it can be stopped, I will stop it. If it could be prevented by any amount of fighting, I should think myself right to fight in such a cause. If I can see my way to doing anything to oppose the Marquis, it shall be done. But I won't run away." Mrs.

Fenwick said nothing more on the subject at that moment, but she felt that the glory and joy of the Vicarage were gone from it.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

SAM BRATTLE GOES OFF AGAIN.

Mr. Grimes had suggested to the Vicar in a very low whisper that the new chapel might perhaps be put down as a nuisance. "It ain't for me to say, of course," said Mr. Grimes, "and in the way of business one building is as good as another as long as you see your money. But buildings is stopped because they're nuisances." This occurred a day or two after the receipt of the agent's letter from Turnover, and the communication was occasioned by orders given to Mr. Grimes to go on with the building instantly, unless he intended to withdraw from the job. "I don't think, Grimes, that I can call a place of Christian worship a nuisance," said the Vicar. To this Grimes rejoined that he had known a nunnery bell to be stopped because it was a nuisance, and that he didn't see why a Methodist chapel bell was not as bad as a nunnery bell. Fenwick had declared that he would fight if he could find a leg to stand upon, and he thanked Grimes, saying that he would think of the suggestion. But when he thought of it, he did not see that any remedy was open to him on that side. In the meantime Mr.

Puddleham attacked Grimes with great severity because the work was not continued. Mr. Puddleham, feeling that he had the Marquis at his back, was eager for the fight. He had already received in the street a salutation from the Vicar, cordial as usual, with the very slightest bend of his neck, and the sourest expression of his mouth. Mrs. Puddleham had already taught the little Puddlehams that the Vicarage cabbages were bitter with the wormwood of an endowed Establishment, and ought no longer to be eaten by the free children of an open Church. Mr. Puddleham had already raised up his voice in his existing tabernacle, as to the injury which was being done to his flock, and had been very touching on the subject of the little vineyard which the wicked king coveted. When he described himself as Naboth, it could not but be supposed that Ahab and Jezebel were both in Bullhampton. It went forth through the village that Mr. Puddleham had described Mrs. Fenwick as Jezebel, and the torch of discord had been thrown down, and war was raging through the parish.

There had come to be very high words indeed between Mr. Grimes and Mr. Puddleham, and some went so far as to declare that they had heard the builder threaten to punch the minister's head. This Mr. Grimes denied stoutly, as the Methodist party were making much of it in consequence of Mr. Puddleham's cloth and advanced years. "There's no lies is too hot for them," said Mr. Grimes, in his energy, and "no lawlessness too heavy." Then he absolutely refused to put his hand to a spade or a trowel. He had his time named in his contract, he said, and n.o.body had a right to drive him. This was ended by the appearance on a certain Monday morning of a Baptist builder from Salisbury, with all the appurtenances of his trade, and with a declaration on Mr.

Grimes' part, that he would have the law on the two leading members of the Puddleham congregation, from whom he had received his original order. In truth, however, there had been no contract, and Mr.

Grimes had gone to work upon a verbal order which, according to the Puddleham theory, he had already vitiated by refusing compliance with its terms. He, however, was hot upon his lawsuit, and thus the whole parish was by the ears.

It may be easily understood how much Mr. Fenwick would suffer from all this. It had been specially his pride that his parish had been at peace, and he had plumed himself on the way in which he had continued to clip the claws with which nature had provided the Methodist minister. Though he was fond of a fight himself, he had taught himself to know that in no way could he do the business of his life more highly or more usefully than as a peacemaker; and as a peacemaker he had done it. He had never put his hand within Mr.

Puddleham's arm, and whispered a little parochial nothing into his neighbour's ear, without taking some credit to himself for his cleverness. He had called his peaches angels of peace, and had spoken of his cabbages as being dove-winged. All this was now over, and there was hardly one in Bullhampton who was not busy hating and abusing somebody else.

And then there came another trouble on the Vicar. Just at the end of January, Sam Brattle came up to the Vicarage and told Mr. Fenwick that he was going to leave the mill. Sam was dressed very decently; but he was attired in an un-Bullhampton fashion, which was not pleasant to Mr. Fenwick's eyes; and there was about him an air which seemed to tell of filial disobedience and personal independence.

"But you mean to come back again, Sam?" said the Vicar.

"Well, sir; I don't know as I do. Father and I has had words."

"And that is to be a reason why you should leave him? You speak of your father as though he were no more to you than another man."

"I wouldn't a' borne not a tenth of it from no other man, Mr.

Fenwick."

"Well--and what of that? Is there any measure of what is due by you to your father? Remember, Sam, I know your father well."

"You do, sir."

"He is a very just man, and he is very fond of you. You are the apple of his eye, and now you would bring his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."

"You ask mother, sir, and she'll tell you how it is. I just said a word to him,--a word as was right to be said, and he turned upon me, and bade me go away and come back no more."

"Do you mean that he has banished you from the mill?"

"He said what I tells you. He told mother afterwards, that if so as I would promise never to mention that thing again, I might come and go as I pleased. But I wasn't going to make no such promise. I up and told him so; and then he--cursed me."

For a moment or two the Vicar was silent, thinking whether in this affair Sam had been most wrong, or the old man. Of course he was hearing but one side of the question. "What was it, Sam, that he forbade you to mention?"

"It don't matter now, sir; only I thought I'd better come and tell you, along of your being the bail, sir."

"Do you mean that you are going to leave Bullhampton altogether?"

"To leave it altogether, Mr. Fenwick. I ain't doing no good here."

"And why shouldn't you do good? Where can you do more good?"

"It can't be good to be having words with father day after day."

"But, Sam, I don't think you can go away. You are bound by the magistrates' orders. I don't speak for myself, but I fear the police would be after you."

"And is it to go on allays,--that a chap can't move to better hisself, because them fellows can't catch the men as murdered old Trumbull? That can't be law,--nor yet justice." Upon this there arose a discussion in which the Vicar endeavoured to explain to the young man that as he had evidently consorted with the men who were, on the strongest possible grounds, suspected to be the murderers, and as he had certainly been with those men where he had no business to be,--namely, in Mr. Fenwick's own garden at night,--he had no just cause of complaint at finding his own liberty more crippled than that of other people. No doubt Sam understood this well enough, as he was sharp and intelligent; but he fought his own battle, declaring that as the Vicar had not prosecuted him for being in the garden, n.o.body could be ent.i.tled to punish him for that offence; and that as it had been admitted that there was no evidence connecting him with the murder, no policeman could have a right to confine him to one parish.

He argued the matter so well, that Mr. Fenwick was left without much to say. He was unwilling to press his own responsibility in the matter of the bail, and therefore allowed the question to fall through,--tacitly admitting that if Sam chose to leave the parish, there was nothing in the affair of the murder to hinder him. He went back, therefore, to the inexpediency of the young man's departure, telling him that he would rush right into the Devil's jaws. "May be so, Mr. Fenwick," said Sam, "but I'm sure I'll never be out of 'em as long as I stays here in Bullhampton."

"But what is it all about, Sam?" The Vicar, as he asked the question had a very distinct idea in his own head as to the cause of the quarrel, and was aware that his sympathies were with the son rather than with the father. Sam answered never a word, and the Vicar repeated his question. "You have quarrelled with your father before this, and have made it up. Why should not you make up this quarrel?"

"Because he cursed me," said Sam.

"An idle word, spoken in wrath! Don't you know your father well enough to take that for what it is worth? What was it about?"

"It was about Carry, then."

"What had you said?"

"I said as how she ought to be let come home again, and that if I was to stay there at the mill, I'd fetch her. Then he struck at me with one of the mill-bolts. But I didn't think much o' that."

"Was it then he--cursed you?"

"No; mother came up, and I went aside with her. I told her as I'd go on speaking to the old man about Carry;--and so I did."

"And where is Carry?" Sam made no reply to this whatever. "You know where she can be found, Sam?" Sam shook his head, but didn't speak.