Mr Harding owned, somewhat unwillingly, that he had heard of it.
“Well!”—the archdeacon looked for some expressions of opinion, but none coming, he continued,—”We must be doing something, you know; we mustn’t allow these people to cut the ground from under us while we sit looking on.” The archdeacon, who was a practical man, allowed himself the use of everyday expressive modes of speech when among his closest intimates, though no one could soar into a more intricate labyrinth of refined phraseology when the church was the subject, and his lower brethren were his auditors.
The warden still looked mutely in his face, making the slightest possible passes with an imaginary fiddle bow, and stopping, as he did so, sundry imaginary strings with the fingers of his other hand. ‘Twas his constant consolation in conversational troubles. While these vexed him sorely, the passes would be short and slow, and the upper hand would not be seen to work; nay, the strings on which it operated would sometimes lie concealed in the musician’s pocket, and the instrument on which he played would be beneath his chair;—but as his spirit warmed to the subject,—as his trusting heart looking to the bottom of that which vexed him, would see its clear way out,—he would rise to a higher melody, sweep the unseen strings with a bolder hand, and swiftly fingering the cords from his neck, down along his waistcoat, and up again to his very ear, create an ecstatic strain of perfect music, audible to himself and to St Cecilia, and not without effect.
“I quite agree with Cox and Cummins,” continued the archdeacon. “They say we must secure Sir Abraham Haphazard. I shall not have the slightest fear in leaving the case in Sir Abraham’s hands.”
The warden played the slowest and saddest of tunes. It was but a dirge on one string.
“I think Sir Abraham will not be long in letting Master Bold know what he’s about. I fancy I hear Sir Abraham cross-questioning him at the Common Pleas.”
The warden thought of his income being thus discussed, his modest life, his daily habits, and his easy work; and nothing issued from that single cord, but a low wail of sorrow. “I suppose they’ve sent this petition up to my father.” The warden didn’t know; he imagined they would do so this very day.
“What I can’t understand is, how you let them do it, with such a command as you have in the place, or should have with such a man as Bunce. I cannot understand why you let them do it.”
“Do what?” asked the warden.
“Why, listen to this fellow Bold, and that other low pettifogger, Finney;—and get up this petition too. Why didn’t you tell Bunce to destroy the petition?”
“That would have been hardly wise,” said the warden.
“Wise;—yes, it would have been very wise if they’d done it among themselves. I must go up to the palace and answer it now, I suppose. It’s a very short answer they’ll get, I can tell you.”
“But why shouldn’t they petition, doctor?”
“Why shouldn’t they!” responded the archdeacon, in a loud brazen voice, as though all the men in the hospital were expected to hear him through the walls; “why shouldn’t they? I’ll let them know why they shouldn’t; by the bye, warden, I’d like to say a few words to them all together.”
The warden’s mind misgave him, and even for a moment he forgot to play. He by no means wished to delegate to his son-in-law his place and authority of warden; he had expressly determined not to interfere in any step which the men might wish to take in the matter under dispute; he was most anxious neither to accuse them nor to defend himself. All these things he was aware the archdeacon would do in his behalf, and that not in the mildest manner; and yet he knew not how to refuse the permission requested.
“I’d so much sooner remain quiet in the matter,” said he, in an apologetic voice.
“Quiet!” said the archdeacon, still speaking with his brazen trumpet; “do you wish to be ruined in quiet?”
“Why, if I am to be ruined, certainly.”
“Nonsense, warden; I tell you something must be done;—we must act; just let me ring the bell, and send the men word that I’ll speak to them in the quad.”
Mr Harding knew not how to resist, and the disagreeable order was given. The quad, as it was familiarly called, was a small quadrangle, open on one side to the river, and surrounded on the others by the high wall of Mr Harding’s garden, by one gable end of Mr Harding’s house, and by the end of the row of buildings which formed the residences of the bedesmen. It was flagged all round, and the centre was stoned; small stone gutters ran from the four corners of the square to a grating in the centre; and attached to the end of Mr Harding’s house was a conduit with four cocks covered over from the weather, at which the old men got their water, and very generally performed their morning toilet. It was a quiet, sombre place, shaded over by the trees of the warden’s garden. On the side towards the river, there stood a row of stone seats, on which the old men would sit and gaze at the little fish, as they flitted by in the running stream. On the other side of the river was a rich, green meadow, running up to and joining the deanery, and as little open to the public as the garden of the dean itself. Nothing, therefore, could be more private than the quad of the hospital; and it was there that the archdeacon determined to convey to them his sense of their refractory proceedings.
The servant soon brought in word that the men were assembled in the quad, and the archdeacon, big with his purpose, rose to address them.
“Well, warden, of course you’re coming,” said he, seeing that Mr Harding did not prepare to follow him.
“I wish you’d excuse me,” said Mr Harding.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t let us have division in the camp,” replied the archdeacon: “let us have a long pull and a strong pull, but above all a pull all together; come, warden, come; don’t be afraid of your duty.”
Mr Harding was afraid; he was afraid that he was being led to do that which was not his duty; he was not, however, strong enough to resist, so he got up and followed his son-in-law.
The old men were assembled in groups in the quadrangle—eleven of them at least, for poor old Johnny Bell was bedridden, and couldn’t come; he had, however, put his mark to the petition, as one of Handy’s earliest followers. ‘Tis true he could not move from the bed where he lay; ‘tis true he had no friend on earth, but those whom the hospital contained; and of those the warden and his daughter were the most constant and most appreciated; ‘tis true that everything was administered to him which his failing body could require, or which his faint appetite could enjoy; but still his dull eye had glistened for a moment at the idea of possessing a hundred pounds a year “to his own cheek,” as Abel Handy had eloquently expressed it; and poor old Johnny Bell had greedily put his mark to the petition.
When the two clergymen appeared, they all uncovered their heads. Handy was slow to do it, and hesitated; but the black coat and waistcoat of which he had spoken so irreverently in Skulpit’s room, had its effect even on him, and he too doffed his hat. Bunce, advancing before the others, bowed lowly to the archdeacon, and with affectionate reverence expressed his wish, that the warden and Miss Eleanor were quite well; “and the doctor’s lady,” he added, turning to the archdeacon, “and the children at Plumstead, and my lord;” and having made his speech, he also retired among the others, and took his place with the rest upon the stone benches.
As the archdeacon stood up to make his speech, erect in the middle of that little square, he looked like an ecclesiastical statue placed there, as a fitting impersonation of the church militant here on earth; his shovel hat, large, new, and well-pronounced, a churchman’s hat in every inch, declared the profession as plainly as does the Quaker’s broad brim; his heavy eyebrows, large open eyes, and full mouth and chin expressed the solidity of his order; the broad chest, amply covered with fine cloth, told