“He says a great many things, I tell you,” said Mr. Reporter.
“Well now,” said Old Surmise, “do you know that I have had my suspicions several times as to the genuineness of our new preacher. My suspicions are now confirmed. I do not think I can hear him preach any more with pleasure.”
“If you can, I can’t, and I won’t,” said Mrs. Rash, in great excitement.
The matter now spread like the light. It got into everybody’s ears, and came forth from their mouths much magnified. A great change came over the Church and congregation in regard to Mr. Good. Some said one thing and some said another. The balance, however, went against him. What was being said reached his ears, and he was astonished at the things he heard. It deeply affected him, as we may suppose. He observed a change in the congregation and in the feeling of many of the people towards him. In conversation one day with Mr. Watson, he asked him what he thought was the cause of the changed feeling in the Church towards him. Mr. Watson told him what he had heard, but as he did not as yet believe any of the stories, he would like to hear Mr. Good’s own statement of things. Mr. Good gave him a minute and faithful account of everything that had taken place between him and the Church at Stukely. It was just as Mr. Watson expected. He was confirmed in his confidence in Mr. Good, and used all his influence to suppress the scandal which was spreading, and to restore right feeling in the Church towards their Minister; but Mr. Watson was not equal to this. The fire had burnt too far and too deep to be quenched. The suspicion and prejudice excited could not be destroyed. Mr. Good wept over the state of things. He felt that the tide was too strong for him to stem. He saw that his usefulness was at an end so far as this Church was concerned. He resolved to give in his resignation, and to live a year or two in retirement from the ministry until the storm had swept away into the ocean of air.
A short time after Mr. Good had resigned his ministry, Mr. Webster met with Mr. Watson again.
“You have had fine times,” he said, “in your Church with Mr. Good, haven’t you?”
“What do you mean by ‘fine times’?” asked Mr. Watson.
“O, why, he has been playing the same games with you as he did with the Church at Stukely, hasn’t he?”
“Mr. Good has been playing no games with us, Mr. Webster, nor did he play any with the people at Stukely,” said Mr. Watson, rather warmly.
“Well, I have been informed so, anyhow.”
“So you may have been, Mr. Webster; but your information in this, as in that you brought from Stukely, is almost altogether fabulous. It is scandal which you hear and which you repeat. There is not a word of truth as you state matters. I have heard an account of the whole affair at Stukely from an authority which is as reliable as any you could possibly adduce. I have every reason for thinking that the parties who informed you are influenced by the basest malice and ill-humour. Mr. Good stands as fair now before my eyes and the eyes of all decent people as he did the first day he came amongst us. It is only such as you, who delight in hearing and spreading scandal, that are prejudiced against him; and such, too, as are influenced by your libellous reports. It is a shame, Mr. Webster, that you, a man who pretends to membership in a Christian Church, should be guilty of believing malicious reports respecting a Christian minister, and more particularly that you should spread them abroad in the very neighbourhood where he labours. This is a conduct far beneath a man of honour, of charity, and self-respect.”
“Are you intending this lecture for me, Mr. Watson?” asked Webster, rather petulantly.
“I am, sir: and you deserve it, in much stronger language than I can use. You have been the means of blackening Mr. Good’s character in this place, when it was all clean and unimpeachable. You have been the means of weakening his influence in the pulpit, and out of the pulpit. You have injured him, injured his wife and family; and the good man, through you, has been obliged to give in his resignation as our pastor.”
“Through me, do you say, Mr. Watson?”
“Yes, sir, through you.”
“How can that be?”
“It was you who brought the scandal into the neighbourhood: who told it to Newsman and Reporter and everybody you met with, until your scandal grew as mushrooms in every family of the congregation. It became the talk of all. Many kept from church. They suspected Mr. Good: more than this, they accused him in their conversation of many things inconsistent with a minister; and how could they receive benefit from his preaching, even if they went to hear him? Yes, sir, you have been the cause of the ‘fine times,’ as you call them, in our Church, and not Mr. Good.”
“I am sorry for it.”
“Well, sir, if you are sorry for it, repent of it; forsake the evil of your doing. Give up the itching you have for scandal. Do not repeat things upon mere rumour; you have done more injury in this one case than you will do good if you live to be a hundred years old. Remember, Mr. Webster, what the Wise Man says, “He that uttereth slander is a fool.”
Mr. Webster shrunk away from Mr. Watson as one condemned in his own conscience. He evidently felt the keen remarks thus made; and I hope he became a reformed man in this regard, during his future life.
VI.
THE PLEONAST
“This barren verbiage current among men.”
The habit of this talker is to encumber his ideas with such a plethora of words as frequently prove fatal to their sense. Some of this class employ fine words because they are fine, with perfect indifference to the signification: others do it from “that fastidiousness,” as one says, “which makes some men walk on the highroad as if the whole business of their life was to keep their boots clean.”
Mr. Hill was a man very much accustomed to talk in this way. He had read little, but had studied the dictionary with considerable diligence. His ideas were few and far between, but his words were many and diversified, long and hard, sometimes connected in the most absurd and ludicrous manner. Most of the illiterate who heard him thought he was highly educated and intelligent, while men of taste and judgment considered him greatly deficient in the first rudiments of correct speaking.
Mr. Hill and his friend Mr. Pope made a call one day last spring upon Squire Foster. As they came to the front door of his house Mr. Hill said to Mr. Pope, —
“Will you do me the exuberant honour of agitating the communicator of the ingress door, that the maid may receive the information that some attendant individuals are leisurely waiting at the exterior of the mansion to propose their interrogatories after the resident proprietor.”
“Did you want me to pull the door bell for you?” asked Mr. Pope.
“If you have that extremely obliging state of mind, which will permit you to do that deed of exceeding condescension, I shall experience the deepest emotionals of unprecedented gratitude,” replied Mr. Hill.
“Why didn’t you say, If you please? and have done with it,” replied Mr. Pope, in a manner which indicated impatience at his gibberish.
The servant appeared and opened the door.
“Will you have the propitiousness, the kindness to stay and communicate unto me whether Squire Foster is in his residence?” said Mr. Hill.
The girl looked vacant, not knowing what to make of his question.
“What does the gentleman mean?” asked the servant of Mr. Pope.
“He wants to know if Squire Foster is at home.”
“Yes,