Of late years an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England: they lie very thick on the hills; every parish has one or more of them; they are young enough to be very active, and ought to be doing a great deal of good. But not of late years are we about to speak; we are going back to the beginning of this century: late years—present years are dusty, sunburnt, hot, ; we will the noon, forget it in , pass the midday in , and dream of dawn.
If you think, from this , that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and , and ? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool, and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto. It is not affirmed that you shall not have a taste of the exciting, perhaps towards the middle and close of the meal, but it is resolved that the first dish set upon the table shall be one that a Catholic—ay, even an Anglo-Catholic—might eat on Good Friday in Passion Week: it shall be cold lentils and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb.
Of late years, I say, an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England; but in eighteen-hundred-eleven-twelve that rain had not . 4 Curates were scarce then: there was no Pastoral Aid—no Additional Curates' Society to stretch a hand to worn-out old rectors and , and give them the wherewithal to pay a vigorous young colleague from or Cambridge. The present successors of the apostles, of Dr. Pusey and tools of the Propaganda, were at that time being hatched under cradle-blankets, or undergoing regeneration by nursery-baptism in wash-hand basins. You could not have guessed by looking at any one of them that the Italian-ironed double frills of its net-cap surrounded the brows of a preordained, specially-sanctified successor of St. Paul, St. Peter, or St. John; nor could you have foreseen in the folds of its long night-gown the white surplice in which it was hereafter cruelly to exercise the souls of its parishioners, and strangely to its old-fashioned vicar by flourishing aloft in a pulpit the shirt-like raiment which had never before waved higher than the reading-desk.
Yet even in those days of there were curates: the precious plant was rare, but it might be found. A certain favoured district in the West Riding of Yorkshire could boast three rods of Aaron blossoming within a circuit of twenty miles. You shall see them, reader. Step into this neat garden-house on the skirts of Whinbury, walk forward into the little parlour. There they are at dinner. Allow me to introduce them to you: Mr. Donne, curate of Whinbury; Mr. Malone, curate of Briarfield; Mr. Sweeting, curate of Nunnely. These are Mr. Donne's , being the habitation of one John , a small clothier. Mr. Donne has invited his brethren to with him. You and I will join the party, see what is to be seen, and hear what is to be heard. At present, however, they are only eating; and while they eat we will talk aside.
These gentlemen are in the bloom of youth; they possess all the activity of that interesting age—an activity which their moping old vicars would fain turn into the channel of their pastoral duties, often expressing a wish to see it in a superintendence of the schools, and in frequent visits to the sick of their respective parishes. But the youthful Levites feel this to be dull work; they prefer their energies on a course of which, though to other eyes it appear more heavy with , more cursed with monotony, than the of the 5 at his , seems to yield them an unfailing supply of and occupation.
I to a rushing and forwards, amongst themselves, to and from their respective lodgings—not a round, but a triangle of visits, which they keep up all the year through, in winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Season and weather make no difference; with they dare snow and hail, wind and rain, and dust, to go and dine, or drink tea, or sup with each other. What attracts them it would be difficult to say. It is not friendship, for whenever they meet they quarrel. It is not religion—the thing is never named amongst them; theology they may discuss occasionally, but piety—never. It is not the love of eating and drinking: each might have as good a and pudding, tea as , and toast as succulent, at his own lodgings, as is served to him at his brother's. Mrs. Gale, Mrs. Hogg, and Mrs. Whipp—their respective landladies—affirm that "it is just for else but to give folk trouble." By "folk" the good ladies of course mean themselves, for indeed they are kept in a continual "fry" by this system of invasion.
Mr. Donne and his guests, as I have said, are at dinner; Mrs. Gale waits on them, but a spark of the hot kitchen fire is in her eye. She considers that the privilege of a friend to a meal occasionally, without additional charge (a privilege included in the terms on which she lets her lodgings), has been quite exercised of late. The present week is yet but at Thursday, and on Monday Mr. Malone, the curate of Briarfield, came to breakfast and stayed dinner; on Tuesday Mr. Malone and Mr. Sweeting of Nunnely came to tea, remained to supper, occupied the spare bed, and favoured her with their company to breakfast on Wednesday morning; now, on Thursday, they are both here at dinner, and she is almost certain they will stay all night. "C'en est trop," she would say, if she could speak French.
Mr. Sweeting is the slice of roast beef on his plate, and complaining that it is very tough; Mr. Donne says the beer is flat. Ay, that is the worst of it: if they would only be civil Mrs. Gale wouldn't mind it so much, if they would only seem satisfied with what they get she wouldn't care; but "these young parsons is so high and so scornful, they set everybody beneath their 'fit.' They treat her with less than civility, just because she doesn't keep a6 servant, but does the work of the house herself, as her mother did afore her; then they are always speaking against Yorkshire ways and Yorkshire folk," and by that very token Mrs. Gale does not believe one of them to be a real gentleman, or come of gentle . "The old parsons is worth the whole lump of college lads; they know what belongs to good manners, and is kind to high and low."
"More bread!" cries Mr. Malone, in a tone which, though prolonged but to utter two , proclaims him at once a native of the land of shamrocks and potatoes. Mrs. Gale hates Mr. Malone more than either of the other two; but she fears him also, for he is a tall, strongly-built personage, with real Irish legs and arms, and a face as genuinely national—not the Milesian face, not Daniel O'Connell's style, but the high-featured, North-American-Indian sort of visage, which belongs to a certain class of the Irish , and has a and proud look, better suited to the owner of an estate of slaves than to the landlord of a free peasantry. Mr. Malone's father termed himself a gentleman: he was poor and in debt, and besottedly ; and his son was like him.
Mrs. Gale offered the loaf.
"Cut it, woman," said her guest; and the "woman" cut it accordingly. Had she followed her , she would have cut the parson also; her Yorkshire soul revolted absolutely from his manner of command.
The curates had good appetites, and though the beef was "tough," they ate a great deal of it. They swallowed, too, a tolerable allowance of the "flat beer," while a dish of Yorkshire pudding, and two tureens of vegetables, disappeared like leaves before . The cheese, too, received marks of their attention; and a "spice-cake," which followed by way of dessert, vanished like a vision, and was no more found. Its was chanted in the kitchen by Abraham, Mrs. Gale's son and heir, a youth of six summers; he had reckoned upon the reversion thereof, and when his mother brought down the empty platter, he lifted up his voice and wept sore.
The curates, meantime, sat and their wine, a liquor of unpretending vintage, moderately enjoyed. Mr. Malone, indeed, would much rather have had whisky; but Mr. Donne, being an Englishman, did not keep the . While they sipped they argued, not on politics, nor on philosophy, nor on literature—these topics were now,7 as ever, totally without interest for them—not even on theology, practical or doctrinal, but on minute points of ecclesiastical discipline, frivolities which seemed empty as bubbles to all save themselves. Mr. Malone, who to secure two glasses of wine, when his brethren themselves with one, waxed by degrees after his fashion; that is, he grew a little , said rude things in a hectoring tone, and laughed clamorously at his own brilliancy.
Each of his companions became in turn his . Malone had a stock of jokes at their service, which he was accustomed to serve out regularly on occasions like the present, seldom varying his wit; for which, indeed, there was no necessity, as he never appeared to consider himself , and did not at all care what others thought. Mr. Donne he favoured with hints about his extreme meagreness, to his turned-up nose, cutting on a certain threadbare chocolate surtout which that gentleman was accustomed to sport whenever it rained or seemed likely to rain, and criticisms on a choice set of cockney phrases and modes of pronunciation, Mr. Donne's own property, and certainly deserving of remark for the and finish they communicated to his style.
Mr. Sweeting was about his —he was a little man, a boy in height and breadth compared with the Malone; rallied on his musical accomplishments—he played the and sang like a , some young ladies of his parish thought; at as "the ladies' pet;" teased about his mamma and sisters, for whom poor Mr. Sweeting had some lingering regard, and of whom he was foolish enough now and then to speak in the presence of the priestly Paddy, from whose the of natural affection had somehow been omitted.
The victims met these attacks each in his own way: Mr. Donne with a self-complacency and half-sullen phlegm, the sole of his otherwise somewhat rickety dignity; Mr. Sweeting with the of a light, easy , which never to have any dignity to maintain.
When Malone's raillery became rather too offensive, which it soon did, they joined, in an attempt to turn the tables on him by asking him how many boys had shouted "Irish Peter!" after him as he came along the road that day (Malones name was Peter 8 Malone----the . Peter Augustus Malone); requesting to be informed whether it was the mode in Ireland for clergymen to carry loaded pistols in their pockets, and a shillelah in their hands, when they made pastoral visits; inquiring the signification of such words as vele, firrum, hellum, storrum (so Mr. Malone invariably pronounced veil, firm, helm, storm), and employing such other methods of as the of their minds suggested.
This, of course, would not do. Malone, being neither good-natured nor , was presently in a towering passion. He vociferated, gesticulated; Donne and Sweeting laughed. He them as Saxons and at the very top pitch of his high Celtic voice; they him with being the native of a conquered land. He menaced rebellion in the name of his "counthry," bitter against English rule; they of rags, beggary, and . The little parlour was in an ; you would have thought a must follow such abuse; it seemed a wonder that Mr. and Mrs. Gale did not take alarm at the noise, and send for a to keep the peace. But they were accustomed to such ; they well knew that the curates never dined or took tea together without a little exercise of the sort, and were quite easy as to consequences, knowing that these clerical quarrels were as harmless as they were noisy, that they resulted in nothing, and that, on whatever terms the curates might part to-night, they would be sure to meet the best friends in the world to-morrow morning.
As the pair were sitting by their kitchen fire, listening to the repeated and contact of Malone's fist with the mahogany plane of the parlour table, and to the consequent start and of decanters and glasses following each assault, to the mocking laughter of the English disputants, and the stuttering of the Hibernian—as they thus sat, a foot was heard on the outer door-step, and the knocker quivered to a sharp appeal.
Mr. Gale went and opened.
"Whom have you upstairs in the parlour?" asked a voice—a rather voice, nasal in tone, in .
"O Mr. Helstone, is it you, sir? I could hardly see you for the darkness; it is so soon dark now. Will you walk in, sir?"
9 "I want to know first whether it is worth my while walking in. Whom have you upstairs?"
"The curates, sir."
"What! all of them?"
"Yes, sir."
"Been dining here?"
"Yes, sir."
"That will do."
With these words a person entered—a man, in black. He walked straight across the kitchen to an inner door, opened it, inclined his head forward, and stood listening. There was something to listen to, for the noise above was just then louder than ever.
"Hey!" he ejaculated to himself; then turning to Mr. Gale—"Have you often this sort of work?"
Mr. Gale had been a churchwarden, and was indulgent to the .
"They're young, you know, sir—they're young," said he deprecatingly.
"Young! They want . Bad boys—bad boys! And if you were a , John Gale, instead of being a good Churchman, they'd do the like—they'd expose themselves; but I'll——"
By way of finish to this sentence, he passed through the inner door, drew it after him, and mounted the stair. Again he listened a few minutes when he arrived at the upper room. Making entrance without warning, he stood before the curates.
And they were silent; they were transfixed; and so was the . He—a personage short of stature, but straight of port, and bearing on broad shoulders a hawk's head, , and eye, the whole by a Rehoboam, or hat, which he did not seem to think it necessary to lift or remove before the presence in which he then stood—he folded his arms on his chest and surveyed his young friends, if friends they were, much at his leisure.
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