Scenes of Clerical Life | Page 7

one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such a clever
man had a 'pediment' in his speech. But when he came to what he
conceived the pith of his argument or the point of his joke, he mouthed
out his words with slow emphasis; as a hen, when advertising her
accouchement, passes at irregular intervals from pianissimo
semiquavers to fortissimo crotchets. He thought this speech of Mr.
Ely's particularly metaphysical and profound, and the more decisive of

the question because it was a generality which represented no
particulars to his mind.
'Well, I don't know about that,' said Mrs. Hackit, who had always the
courage of her opinion, 'but I know, some of our labourers and
stockingers as used never to come to church, come to the cottage, and
that's better than never hearing anything good from week's end to
week's end. And there's that Track Society's as Mr. Barton has
begun--I've seen more o' the poor people with going tracking, than all
the time I've lived in the parish before. And there'd need be something
done among 'em; for the drinking at them Benefit Clubs is shameful.
There's hardly a steady man or steady woman either, but what's a
dissenter.'
During this speech of Mrs. Hackit's, Mr. Pilgrim had emitted a
succession of little snorts, something like the treble grunts of a
guinea-pig, which were always with him the sign of suppressed
disapproval. But he never contradicted Mrs. Hackit--a woman whose
'pot-luck' was always to be relied on, and who on her side had
unlimited reliance on bleeding, blistering, and draughts.
Mrs. Patten, however, felt equal disapprobation, and had no reasons for
suppressing it.
'Well,' she remarked, 'I've heared of no good from interfering with one's
neighbours, poor or rich. And I hate the sight o' women going about
trapesing from house to house in all weathers, wet or dry, and coming
in with their petticoats dagged and their shoes all over mud. Janet
wanted to join in the tracking, but I told her I'd have nobody tracking
out o' my house; when I'm gone, she may do as she likes. I never
dagged my petticoats in my life, and I've no opinion o' that sort o'
religion.'
'No,' said Mr. Hackit, who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the
feminine mind with a jocose compliment, 'you held your petticoats so
high, to show your tight ankles: it isn't everybody as likes to show her
ankles.'

This joke met with general acceptance, even from the snubbed Janet,
whose ankles were only tight in the sense of looking extremely
squeezed by her boots. But Janet seemed always to identify herself with
her aunt's personality, holding her own under protest.
Under cover of the general laughter the gentlemen replenished their
glasses, Mr. Pilgrim attempting to give his the character of a
stirrup-cup by observing that he 'must be going'. Miss Gibbs seized this
opportunity of telling Mrs. Hackit that she suspected Betty, the
dairymaid, of frying the best bacon for the shepherd, when he sat up
with her to 'help brew'; whereupon Mrs. Hackit replied that she had
always thought Betty false; and Mrs. Patten said there was no bacon
stolen when she was able to manage. Mr. Hackit, who often
complained that he 'never saw the like to women with their maids--he
never had any trouble with his men', avoided listening to this discussion,
by raising the question of vetches with Mr. Pilgrim. The stream of
conversation had thus diverged: and no more was said about the Rev.
Amos Barton, who is the main object of interest to us just now. So we
may leave Cross Farm without waiting till Mrs. Hackit, resolutely
donning her clogs and wrappings, renders it incumbent on Mr. Pilgrim
also to fulfil his frequent threat of going.
Chapter 2
It was happy for the Rev. Amos Barton that he did not, like us,
overhear the conversation recorded in the last chapter. Indeed, what
mortal is there of us, who would find his satisfaction enhanced by an
opportunity of comparing the picture he presents to himself of his own
doings, with the picture they make on the mental retina of his
neighbours? We are poor plants buoyed up by the air-vessels of our
own conceit: alas for us, if we get a few pinches that empty us of that
windy self-subsistence! The very capacity for good would go out of us.
For, tell the most impassioned orator, suddenly, that his wig is awry, or
his shirt-lap hanging out, and that he is tickling people by the oddity of
his person, instead of thrilling them by the energy of his periods, and
you would infallibly dry up the spring of his eloquence. That is a deep
and wide saying, that no miracle can be