THE WARDEN(沃尔登)

VIP免费

2024-12-26 1 0 702.94KB 191 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

THE WARDEN

Anthony Trollope

THE WARDEN

CHAPTER I Hiram's Hospital

The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed

clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ---; let us call it Barchester.

Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it

might be presumed that something personal was intended; and as this tale

will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we

are anxious that no personality may be suspected. Let us presume that

Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England, more remarkable for the

beauty of its cathedral and the antiquity of its monuments than for any

commercial prosperity; that the west end of Barchester is the cathedral

close, and that the aristocracy of Barchester are the bishop, dean, and

canons, with their respective wives and daughters.

Early in life Mr Harding found himself located at Barchester. A fine

voice and a taste for sacred music had decided the position in which he

was to exercise his calling, and for many years he performed the easy but

not highly paid duties of a minor canon. At the age of forty a small

living in the close vicinity of the town increased both his work and his

income, and at the age of fifty he became precentor of the cathedral.

Mr Harding had married early in life, and was the father of two

daughters. The eldest, Susan, was born soon after his marriage; the other,

Eleanor, not till ten years later.

At the time at which we introduce him to our readers he was living as

precentor at Barchester with his youngest daughter, then twenty-four years

of age; having been many years a widower, and having married his eldest

daughter to a son of the bishop a very short time before his installation to

the office of precentor.

Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the beauty of

his daughter, Mr Harding would have remained a minor canon, but here

probably Scandal lied, as she so often does; for even as a minor canon no

one had been more popular among his reverend brethren in the close than

Mr Harding; and Scandal, before she had reprobated Mr Harding for being

made precentor by his friend the bishop, had loudly blamed the bishop for

having so long omitted to do something for his friend Mr Harding. Be

THE WARDEN

this as it may, Susan Harding, some twelve years since, had married the

Rev. Dr Theophilus Grantly, son of the bishop, archdeacon of Barchester,

and rector of Plumstead Episcopi, and her father became, a few months

later, precentor of Barchester Cathedral, that office being, as is not usual,

in the bishop's gift.

Now there are peculiar circumstances connected with the

precentorship which must be explained. In the year 1434 there died at

Barchester one John Hiram, who had made money in the town as a wool-

stapler, and in his will he left the house in which he died and certain

meadows and closes near the town, still called Hiram's Butts, and Hiram's

Patch, for the support of twelve superannuated wool-carders, all of whom

should have been born and bred and spent their days in Barchester; he also

appointed that an alms-house should be built for their abode, with a fitting

residence for a warden, which warden was also to receive a certain sum

annually out of the rents of the said butts and patches. He, moreover,

willed, having had a soul alive to harmony, that the precentor of the

cathedral should have the option of being also warden of the almshouses,

if the bishop in each case approved.

From that day to this the charity had gone on and prospered --at least,

the charity had gone on, and the estates had prospered. Wool-carding in

Barchester there was no longer any; so the bishop, dean, and warden, who

took it in turn to put in the old men, generally appointed some hangers-on

of their own; worn-out gardeners, decrepit grave-diggers, or octogenarian

sextons, who thankfully received a comfortable lodging and one shilling

and fourpence a day, such being the stipend to which, under the will of

John Hiram, they were declared to be entitled. Formerly, indeed--that is,

till within some fifty years of the present time--they received but sixpence

a day, and their breakfast and dinner was found them at a common table

by the warden, such an arrangement being in stricter conformity with the

absolute wording of old Hiram's will: but this was thought to be

inconvenient, and to suit the tastes of neither warden nor bedesmen, and

the daily one shilling and fourpence was substituted with the common

consent of all parties, including the bishop and the corporation of

Barchester. Such was the condition of Hiram's twelve old men when Mr

THE WARDEN

Harding was appointed warden; but if they may be considered as well-to-

do in the world according to their condition, the happy warden was much

more so. The patches and butts which, in John Hiram's time, produced

hay or fed cows, were now covered with rows of houses; the value of the

property had gradually increased from year to year and century to century,

and was now presumed by those who knew anything about it, to bring in a

very nice income; and by some who knew nothing about it, to have

increased to an almost fabulous extent.

The property was farmed by a gentleman in Barchester, who also acted

as the bishop's steward--a man whose father and grandfather had been

stewards to the bishops of Barchester, and farmers of John Hiram's estate.

The Chadwicks had earned a good name in Barchester; they had lived

respected by bishops, deans, canons, and precentors; they had been buried

in the precincts of the cathedral; they had never been known as griping,

hard men, but had always lived comfortably, maintained a good house, and

held a high position in Barchester society. The present Mr Chadwick was

a worthy scion of a worthy stock, and the tenants living on the butts and

patches, as well as those on the wide episcopal domains of the see, were

well pleased to have to do with so worthy and liberal a steward.

For many, many years--records hardly tell how many, probably from

the time when Hiram's wishes had been first fully carried out--the

proceeds of the estate had been paid by the steward or farmer to the

warden, and by him divided among the bedesmen; after which division he

paid himself such sums as became his due. Times had been when the

poor warden got nothing but his bare house, for the patches had been

subject to floods, and the land of Barchester butts was said to be

unproductive; and in these hard times the warden was hardly able to make

out the daily dole for his twelve dependents. But by degrees things

mended; the patches were drained, and cottages began to rise upon the

butts, and the wardens, with fairness enough, repaid themselves for the

evil days gone by. In bad times the poor men had had their due, and

therefore in good times they could expect no more. In this manner the

income of the warden had increased; the picturesque house attached to the

hospital had been enlarged and adorned, and the office had become one of

THE WARDEN

the most coveted of the snug clerical sinecures attached to our church. It

was now wholly in the bishop's gift, and though the dean and chapter, in

former days, made a stand on the subject, they had thought it more

conducive to their honour to have a rich precentor appointed by the bishop,

than a poor one appointed by themselves. The stipend of the precentor of

Barchester was eighty pounds a year. The income arising from the

wardenship of the hospital was eight hundred, besides the value of the

house. Murmurs, very slight murmurs, had been heard in Barchester--few

indeed, and far between--that the proceeds of John Hiram's property had

not been fairly divided: but they can hardly be said to have been of such a

nature as to have caused uneasiness to anyone: still the thing had been

whispered, and Mr Harding had heard it. Such was his character in

Barchester, so universal was his popularity, that the very fact of his

appointment would have quieted louder whispers than those which had

been heard; but Mr Harding was an open-handed, just-minded man, and

feeling that there might be truth in what had been said, he had, on his

instalment, declared his intention of adding twopence a day to each man's

pittance, making a sum of sixty-two pounds eleven shillings and fourpence,

which he was to pay out of his own pocket. In doing so, however, he

distinctly and repeatedly observed to the men, that though he promised for

himself, he could not promise for his successors, and that the extra

twopence could only be looked on as a gift from himself, and not from the

trust. The bedesmen, however, were most of them older than Mr Harding,

and were quite satisfied with the security on which their extra income was

based.

This munificence on the part of Mr Harding had not been unopposed.

Mr Chadwick had mildly but seriously dissuaded him from it; and his

strong-minded son-in-law, the archdeacon, the man of whom alone Mr

Harding stood in awe, had urgently, nay, vehemently, opposed so impolitic

a concession: but the warden had made known his intention to the hospital

before the archdeacon had been able to interfere, and the deed was done.

Hiram's Hospital, as the retreat is called, is a picturesque building

enough, and shows the correct taste with which the ecclesiastical

architects of those days were imbued. It stands on the banks of the little

THE WARDEN

river, which flows nearly round the cathedral close, being on the side

furthest from the town. The London road crosses the river by a pretty

one-arched bridge, and, looking from this bridge, the stranger will see the

windows of the old men's rooms, each pair of windows separated by a

small buttress. A broad gravel walk runs between the building and the

river, which is always trim and cared for; and at the end of the walk, under

the parapet of the approach to the bridge, is a large and well-worn seat, on

which, in mild weather, three or four of Hiram's bedesmen are sure to be

seen seated. Beyond this row of buttresses, and further from the bridge,

and also further from the water which here suddenly bends, are the pretty

oriel windows of Mr Harding's house, and his well-mown lawn. The

entrance to the hospital is from the London road, and is made through a

ponderous gateway under a heavy stone arch, unnecessary, one would

suppose, at any time, for the protection of twelve old men, but greatly

conducive to the good appearance of Hiram's charity. On passing

through this portal, never closed to anyone from 6 A.M. till 10 P.M., and

never open afterwards, except on application to a huge, intricately hung

mediaeval bell, the handle of which no uninitiated intruder can possibly

find, the six doors of the old men's abodes are seen, and beyond them is a

slight iron screen, through which the more happy portion of the Barchester

elite pass into the Elysium of Mr Harding's dwelling.

Mr Harding is a small man, now verging on sixty years, but bearing

few of the signs of age; his hair is rather grizzled, though not gray; his eye

is very mild, but clear and bright, though the double glasses which are

held swinging from his hand, unless when fixed upon his nose, show that

time has told upon his sight; his hands are delicately white, and both hands

and feet are small; he always wears a black frock coat, black knee-

breeches, and black gaiters, and somewhat scandalises some of his more

hyperclerical brethren by a black neck-handkerchief.

Mr Harding's warmest admirers cannot say that he was ever an

industrious man; the circumstances of his life have not called on him to be

so; and yet he can hardly be called an idler. Since his appointment to his

precentorship, he has published, with all possible additions of vellum,

typography, and gilding, a collection of our ancient church music, with

THE WARDEN

some correct dissertations on Purcell, Crotch, and Nares. He has greatly

improved the choir of Barchester, which, under his dominion, now rivals

that of any cathedral in England. He has taken something more than his

fair share in the cathedral services, and has played the violoncello daily to

such audiences as he could collect, or, faute de mieux, to no audience at

all.

We must mention one other peculiarity of Mr Harding. As we have

before stated, he has an income of eight hundred a year, and has no family

but his one daughter; and yet he is never quite at ease in money matters.

The vellum and gilding of 'Harding's Church Music' cost more than any

one knows, except the author, the publisher, and the Rev. Theophilus

Grantly, who allows none of his father-in-law's extravagances to escape

him. Then he is generous to his daughter, for whose service he keeps a

small carriage and pair of ponies. He is, indeed, generous to all, but

especially to the twelve old men who are in a peculiar manner under his

care. No doubt with such an income Mr Harding should be above the

world, as the saying is; but, at any rate, he is not above Archdeacon

Theophilus Grantly, for he is always more or less in debt to his son-in-law,

who has, to a certain extent, assumed the arrangement of the precentor's

pecuniary affairs.

THE WARDEN

CHAPTER II The Barchester

Reformer Mr Harding has been now

precentor of Barchester for ten years;

and, alas, the murmurs respecting the

proceeds of Hiram's estate are again

becoming audible. It is not that any

one begrudges to Mr Harding the

income which he enjoys, and the

comfortable place which so well

becomes him; but such matters have

begun to be talked of in various parts

of England. Eager pushing

politicians have asserted in the House

of Commons, with very telling

indignation, that the grasping priests

of the Church of England are gorged

with the wealth which the charity of

former times has left for the solace of

the aged, or the education of the

young. The well-known case of the

Hospital of St Cross has even come

THE WARDEN

before the law courts of the country,

and the struggles of Mr Whiston, at

Rochester, have met with sympathy

and support. Men are beginning to

say that these things must be looked

into.

Mr Harding, whose conscience in the matter is clear, and who has

never felt that he had received a pound from Hiram's will to which he was

not entitled, has naturally taken the part of the church in talking over these

matters with his friend, the bishop, and his son-in-law, the archdeacon.

The archdeacon, indeed, Dr Grantly, has been somewhat loud in the matter.

He is a personal friend of the dignitaries of the Rochester Chapter, and has

written letters in the public press on the subject of that turbulent Dr

Whiston, which, his admirers think, must wellnigh set the question at rest.

It is also known at Oxford that he is the author of the pamphlet signed

'Sacerdos' on the subject of the Earl of Guildford and St Cross, in which it

is so clearly argued that the manners of the present times do not admit of a

literal adhesion to the very words of the founder's will, but that the

interests of the church for which the founder was so deeply concerned are

best consulted in enabling its bishops to reward those shining lights whose

services have been most signally serviceable to Christianity. In answer to

this, it is asserted that Henry de Blois, founder of St Cross, was not greatly

interested in the welfare of the reformed church, and that the masters of St

Cross, for many years past, cannot be called shining lights in the service of

Christianity; it is, however, stoutly maintained, and no doubt felt, by all

the archdeacon's friends, that his logic is conclusive, and has not, in fact,

been answered.

With such a tower of strength to back both his arguments and his

conscience, it may be imagined that Mr Harding has never felt any

compunction as to receiving his quarterly sum of two hundred pounds.

THE WARDEN

Indeed, the subject has never presented itself to his mind in that shape.

He has talked not unfrequently, and heard very much about the wills of old

founders and the incomes arising from their estates, during the last year or

two; he did even, at one moment, feel a doubt (since expelled by his son-

in-law's logic) as to whether Lord Guildford was clearly entitled to receive

so enormous an income as he does from the revenues of St Cross; but that

he himself was overpaid with his modest eight hundred pounds--he who,

out of that, voluntarily gave up sixty-two pounds eleven shillings and

fourpence a year to his twelve old neighbours--he who, for the money,

does his precentor's work as no precentor has done it before, since

Barchester Cathedral was built,--such an idea has never sullied his quiet,

or disturbed his conscience.

Nevertheless, Mr Harding is becoming uneasy at the rumour which he

knows to prevail in Barchester on the subject. He is aware that, at any

rate, two of his old men have been heard to say, that if everyone had his

own, they might each have their hundred pounds a year, and live like

gentlemen, instead of a beggarly one shilling and sixpence a day; and that

they had slender cause to be thankful for a miserable dole of twopence,

when Mr Harding and Mr Chadwick, between them, ran away with

thousands of pounds which good old John Hiram never intended for the

like of them. It is the ingratitude of this which stings Mr Harding. One

of this discontented pair, Abel Handy, was put into the hospital by himself;

he had been a stone-mason in Barchester, and had broken his thigh by a

fall from a scaffolding, while employed about the cathedral; and Mr

Harding had given him the first vacancy in the hospital after the

occurrence, although Dr Grantly had been very anxious to put into it an

insufferable clerk of his at Plumstead Episcopi, who had lost all his teeth,

and whom the archdeacon hardly knew how to get rid of by other means.

Dr Grantly has not forgotten to remind Mr Harding how well satisfied

with his one-and-sixpence a day old Joe Mutters would have been, and

how injudicious it was on the part of Mr Harding to allow a radical from

the town to get into the concern. Probably Dr Grantly forgot at the

moment, that the charity was intended for broken-down journeymen of

Barchester.

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

THEWARDEN1THEWARDENAnthonyTrollopeTHEWARDEN2CHAPTERIHiram'sHospitalTheRev.SeptimusHardingwas,afewyearssince,abeneficedclergymanresidinginthecathedraltownof---;letuscallitBarchester.WerewetonameWellsorSalisbury,Exeter,Hereford,orGloucester,itmightbepresumedthatsomethingpersonalwasintended;andasthista...

展开>> 收起<<

THE WARDEN(沃尔登).pdf

共191页,预览39页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

THE WARDEN(沃尔登)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: