Uncle Walter. A novel

Chapter I

'Twas a brUliant Sunday in the month of May 184 — ; and the world of London was doing its best to look as like the festive time as its natural smoke-grimed complexion, and its respectable Sunday duties would permit. But both these circumstances were rather against the attempt. The glad brightness of the sun, it is true, almost contrived to gUd the heavy masses of smoke which eter naUy overhang the metropolis of the world's workshop, and a large portion of its inhabitants were, it is also true, doing their best to enjoy the day, after the various fashions of their different ranks and classes. VOL. I. s That is to say, a pretty considerable majority of them were substituting occupations which they professed to believe sinful, for the duties which they professed to believe obligatory, but which they indisputably found disagreeable.

Among the more dignified and select classes of society it might indeed seem that very little could be gained by this bold emancipation from ecclesiastical restraint ; for a dusty drive round the park seems, at least to the profane vulgar, not many degrees more agreeable than the dreamy imprisonment for longsome hours in a hot church, as prescribed by most Anglican ministers. Nevertheless, the influence of the park, versus the pulpit, avails to ensure a sufficient number of lordly sabbath-breakers, to make it abundantly clear to the great unwashed that their rulers were only humbugging them when they enacted Sabbath Observance BiUs, and harangued against the wickedness of all popular Sunday recreations. It was probably this not very unaccountable conviction, combined with the acknowledged sinfulness of human nature, which fiUed the streets, suburban tea-gardens, railway excursion trains, and aU other haunts of plebeian pleasure LNCLE WALTER. 3 with the teeming population ; whUe, on the Sunday afternoon on which our narrative commences, many a metropolitan preacher was left in a degree of abandonment approaching that which reduced the Dean of St. Patrick's to the weU-remembered formulary, " Dearly be loved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me."

Indeed, on the particular Sunday in May of which we have been speaking, the streets of London presented in more than ordinary degree a variety of sights and sounds grievous to the eyes and ears of good churchmen, and legislative Sabbatarians ; for it was the first Sunday of genial, bright May weather which the lagging spring of 184 — had yet produced. Thousands were thronging forth from their close, crowded homes, and dim alleys, to solace their toUsome lives with such pale pleasures as the law permits, or to indulge in those dearer stolen delights which the wisdom of our law-makers have rendered immoral, by pronouncing them iUegal. Great had been the disgust and indignation produced that day, by irreligious apple-women and rebellious news-vendors, on the weU-regu- B lated mind of the Reverend Henry Harrington, Doctor of Divinity, Warden of AU Saints' CoUege in the University of Oxford, Preben dary of the Cathedral Church of Glastonbury, and Rector of a large and wealthy parish at the west end of the metropolis.

Very great and very fervent had been his indignation, as he was returning home with his family in their carriage after the exemplary discharge of their morning duties. For many weeks past had the worthy Dr. Harrington been engaged in a vigorous attempt to put down, overcome, and annihilate these particularly scandalous offences against religion and decorum, within the bounds of his own parish ; but the inefficiency of the law, or the supine apathy of the secular arm which should have enforced its provisions, had iU seconded his laudable endeavours ; and apples and newspapers were still sold under his very nose every Sunday, to his great and very painful irritation. The outrage thus offered to his professional feelings had tinged the usuaUy placid temper of this exceUent divine with a slight exacerbation, which in some sort spoiled his enjoyment of the neat little hot luncheon which awaited his return from the morning service, though it was as usual invitingly spread, and as usual in a peculiarly snug room of that peculiarly comfortable residence, which caUed the Rector of St. Martin's in the West its master.

This room indeed was a most enviable sanctum : but we must now take the liberty of following him to its privacy. Enough has already been said to convince the reader that the Warden of AU Saints was what the world very justly caUs, and considers, a fortunate man ; yet the entire catalogue of good things that had fallen to his share has not yet been rehearsed ; and while he is employed in taking off his beautifully starched bands, wash ing his white hands, and pouring a little eau de Cologne on his delicate cambric handkerchief before addressing himself to the refreshment just placed upon his table, we wUl give a brief sketch of Dr. Harrington's past history, and present social position. His father, the Rev. John Harrington, had held the famUy living of Stanton Parva ; which was a snug piece of preferment, worth about seven hundred a-year, with a population under two hundred, the said population being wholly composed of the household of Stanton Hall, the ancestral seat of the Harringtons, and of the tenants and labourers on their property.

Although this Rev. John Harrington who held the living, was some five years younger than his brother Walter, who held the estate, the Rector was the father of a couple of sons, some ten or twelve years old, before the squire was married, and it can hardly be sup posed that the congratulations from the Rectory to the HaU, when this event at length took place, were whoUy unmixed with a feeling of disappointment. The Rector, excusably enough perhaps under the circumstances of the case, had lived up to the extent of his income, and now there were two boys to be educated who had to make their way in the world. However the Squire was a good brother and lent a helping hand, and the two boys were sent to one of those provincial schools whose merit is more to be found in the scholarships and fellowships, which the local partialities of pious founders have indefeasibly established in our universities, than in the particularly brilliant educational powers attributed to the management of them.

It seems strange that these worthy founders and benefactors should have been so ignorant, or careless, of the inevitable fact that by such bequests they were for the most part providing a very powerfuUy operative premium on idleness and dunce-hood. But thus it is. The notions which are self-evident to every school-boy in one generation, were in a previous age truths too recondite to be discovered by the wisdom of sages. In the case before us, however, the good things provided by the founder of AU Saints CoUege for the natives of the hundred of Whippleshaw who should be educated on the foundation of Frambury school and proceed thence to AU Saints in the University of Oxford, faUed to produce the mischief alluded to. Of Walter Harrington indeed the Rev. TheophUus Porsonby could make nothing at all ; but of Henry, his younger brother (whom we left washing his hands, while his butler was waiting for the beU that should summon his luncheon), he made, despite her assured feUowship, an exceUent scholar.

And it must be admitted, moreover, that this latter result was extremely creditable to the scholarly tastes and habits of Dr. Porsonby, for nothing but a genuine love for learning could have induced him to take any trouble in the matter, the mastership of Frambury school being richly endowed by the same munificent founder who had built the venerable haUs of AU Saints. The master was indeed bound by the statutes to teach Latin, Greek, and chanting, to aU such poor students born in a certain district, as should present themselves ; but in the course of ages it came to pass that very few of the inhabitants of the hundred of Whippleshaw cared to be taught Latin, Greek, and chant ing, so that the richly paid mastership of Frambury school became by degrees very like a sinecure ; and would no doubt have become so quite, had it not been or the bribe held out to students in the shape of the scholarships.

Dr. Porsonby had just sent off his own son brim full of " Adam's Antiquities," and Greek plays, to enjoy the bounties of the pious founder ; and had literally no recipient for the overflowing treasures of his erudition, when the two Harrington boys were sent to him. It is quite clear that the most palmy state and most perfect beau-ideal of a richly endowed school must be to have no pupils at aU, as evidently as it is that of an unendowed school to have the greatest number possible ; so that the labour bestowed by the good Doctor on the education of Walter and Henry Harrington, can be regarded in no other light than as a true labour of love. The first half-yearly report, sent home with the two boys from Frambury to Stanton Parva at the holidays, informed their father that Walter had been a little unruly, and not a little idle ; but that his brother Henry was a model of application, and manifested dispositions of the highest promise.

The subsequent half-year brought with them further buUetins of exactly simUar import, till, in the year which made Walter fourteen and Henry thirteen, Dr. Porsonby wrote to Mr. Harrington explicitly declaring that he feared it was but too clear that his eldest son was wholly averse to inteUectual pursuits, his utmost efforts having proved unavaUing in leading him to perceive in "Virgil" higher beauties than were to be found in " Robinson Crusoe," which in truth was the only book that he ever seemed to open wUlingly. He had brought with him, from home, as it appeared, a copy of that idle work, which had unfortunately had the effect of withdrawing his mind from aU useful studies to a most lamentable degree. The learned gentleman added, that he could not but take that occasion to remark how very pernicious it was to permit lads to obtain any access to modern literature during the precious years of youth, which ought to be devoted to laying on the solid rock of classical learning, the foundation of a truly liberal education.

On other points, however, the Doctor seemed quite ready to avow that Master Walter Harring ton was not a bad boy ; far from it indeed, for he manifested many amiable qualities, and was a particular favourite with Mrs. Porsonby. Nevertheless, he added, he could not but feel that he should fail in his duty if he omitted to inform Mr. Harrington, that he saw no proba bUity that his eldest son would achieve any satisfactory success in the noble career that had been marked out for him. Of the younger boy, Dr. Porsonby had the satisfaction of reporting very differently. The only book that had ever been found in the hands of Harrington junior, beside the immortal master-pieces of Greece and Rome, was a little work that contained detailed information respecting all the scholarships and feUowships in the University of Oxford, their value, and the conditions and methods of election to them.

His progress in his studies had been most satisfactory ; and if it pleased God, said the Doctor in conclusion, that he should succeed during the ensuing half-year in imbuing the young gentleman's mind with the spirit of Aristophanes as thoroughly as he had grounded him in that of the great tragedian, he doubted not that he would live to be a comfort to his family, and an honour to his country. Now it so happened, that much about the time when this discouraging report of his eldest son reached the Rev. Mr. Harrington, the Squire's lady at the HaU had presented her husband with a fine boy ; thus definitively cutting off any lingering hope the younger brother might have still suffered to lurk in his heart, that his own son might inherit the acres which had been so long attached to his race. It also happened much about the same time, that a cousin of the family was on a visit to the HaU, who had just returned from Australia, and was about to proceed thither again.

He had originaUy gone out with about two thousand pounds, together with a fine stock of health, energy, and industry. AU these talents had increased and multiplied. He was now the owner of some thirty thousand sheep, and the father of a large family. He was an inteUigent, bright, laughing-eyed, broad shouldered man of five-and-forty, and an exceUent good feUow. He and the young Walter became great friends, and soon feU into the habit of taking long rambles together over the surrounding country. The inteUigence which had remained so perversely closed to the beauties of Horace, and the merits of Greek metres, seemed to kindle and expand readUy enough as the boy listened to cousin George's accounts of the stirring life he had been leading in the Bush, and the varied incidents of a settler's struggle with the elements of nature, on a soU not yet subjugated to the uses of civUized man.

At length, and nearly on the eve of Mr. George Harrington's departure for Sydney, he proposed to Walter's father to take the boy with him to that young world where no man endowed with health, courage, and inteUigence can be a burden to his fellows, and there to put him in a fair way to find his own path in the world, in a manner that should be more congenial to his nature than the learned career in which he had so signaUy failed. Walter himself was delighted with the proposal much beyond his power of expressing the strength of his approval. To cross the ocean, to see new countries where there were primeval forests and real wUd men, and never to hear mention of prosody more, appeared to him an exuberance of good-fortune almost beyond the bounds of credibility. To the worthy Rector, who was just then very sadly at a loss as to what he should do with a stalwart boy of fourteen, over whose indocile mind aU the culture of the Rev. TheophUus Porsonby had passed bootless as water over a duck's back, the offer was far too good, and too commodious to be re jected.

And so, despite some natural reluctance on the part of poor Mrs. Harrington, whose motherly love had been in no degree diminished by her Walter's short-comings in the career of a scholar, it was speedily determined that the offer of cousin George should be accepted with aU thankfulness. Cousin George was not one of those that let the grass grow under their feet, and but little time was suffered to elapse after the offer had been made and accepted, before he started with his young friend for his home at the antipodes. And thus Walter Harrington, with many blessings from father and mother, and a present of five hundred pounds from his uncle the Squire, had a second start offered him in the race of life. With what success he pursued it we cannot now inquire, for it could only be done at the cost of keeping his learned brother a most unconscionably long time waiting for his luncheon.

We must, however, hereafter take time to say a few words concerning that learned brother's subsequent fortunes. But this is a topic the discussion of which we would wait for patiently, especially as nothing can be stated concerning it but what must be altogether pleasant for him to hear.

Chapter II

The course along the railroad in which Henry Harrington had been appointed to run, by the regulations of the sage founder of All Saints, was perfectly smooth and uninterrupted. From being a scholar on the foundation of Frambury he became in due course a scholar at AU Saints. From a scholar of that magni ficent institution he became by the natural operation of time, and a regular consumption of " commons," a fellow of the same. And here he might have stopped. Thus far the mere fact of being a native of Whippleshaw Hundred, and a pupU at Frambury Grammar School, would have advanced him; but for his farther advancement he was altogether in debted to his own abilities and qualifications. Without the dignified propriety of de meanour, and courteous suavity of address, for which he was distinguished, he never would have attained the position in which we find him.

Nor could this have sufficed alone to make him what he was. Neither his dignity nor his courtesy would have been so rewarded, had not then effect been aided by that profound far sighted and ever-present perception of the side on which his bread would ultimately be found to be buttered, which, in the opinion of the majority of mankind, constitutes virtue. With out aU this he never would have been Warden of AU Saints, Prebendary of Glastonbury, or Rector of St. Martin's in the West. When chosen Warden of All Saints by the votes of the majority of the fellows, the Rev. Henry Harrington was in his fortieth year. But regular habits, ease both of body and mind, a daUy " constitutional," and daUy dinner eaten, " Untaxed, untroubled, under The portrait of the pious founder," joined to a naturally weU-formed frame, and good constitution, made him stiU a young and very comely-looking man.

VOL. I. C Regular and weU-shaped, though rather heavy features, coal-black hair, eye-brows and eyes, a clear healthy-looking complexion, and a stature of six feet without his shoes, were gifts which, joined to a generally placid and easy temper, rendered the Rev. Mr. Harrington a very popular man at this period of his life in more circles than that of the common room at AU Saints. It was about the same time, and just previous to his election to the headship of his college, that he had been called to Stanton Parva by the sudden death of his father, an event which put him into possession of the farmly living; for the Squire of the family for the time being had no second son to present to it. So the fortunate Henry was presented to the living, and about the same time to a lady, who within a month or two afterwards became his wife.

This was no other than the Lady Augusta Withers, third daughter of the Earl of Bently. The match was promoted and approved by all the members of both famUies, so the world could not but consider the union as a highly proper one. The world did so consider it, and poured in congratulations and cards accordingly ; and none but envious old maids, sulky bachelors, and others of the smaU fungus tribe, whose conduct must appear detestable to all weU-constituted minds, were sufficiently Uliberal to speculate whether the reverend gen tleman would have thrown himself and his fellowship at the feet of the Lady Augusta, if it had not chanced that his Oxford letters brought him news that the Warden was given over, and that he felt himself pretty sure of succeeding him. Neither, perhaps, might the Lady Augusta's heart, and her father's unqualified approbation of the connexion have been so readUy obtained (if we may believe such envious gossipings) had not the indiscreet " Peerage" of those days made patent to aU the world that her graceful Lady ship had attained her thirty-fifth year.

Such suggestions are reaUy odious ! But in spite of them, the parties were joined together in very holy wedlock ; and it would be weU if as much could be truly said of half the soi-disant holy wedlocks which the world witnesses. Their married life passed smoothly and pros perously ; successive pieces of preferment had made the Warden a wealthy man, and his aris- C tocratic marriage had greatly assisted him in obtaining such a standing in the fashionable world as suited his own tastes and propensities, as weU as those of his high-born partner. Their union had been blessed with three chUdren. Henry, the eldest, was now eight and-twenty; James, the second son, who was in holy orders, was twenty-five ; and their sister Catherine had just completed her nineteenth year. This clerical son James, was now rector of the family living of Stanton Parva, his father having resigned in his favour.

Now the reader is in possession of aU the particulars of the history and present posi tion of the Rev. Dr. Harrington, which it is needful for him to be acquainted with at this period of our story. If the uniformity of all this prosperity was, as may well be supposed, not altogether unchequered by annoyances and vexations less apparent to the world in general than his brUliant success had been, it is pro bable that the reader may discover them, as well as the sources from whence they sprung, in the course of that more intimate acquaint ance with his famUy to which it is our purpose to introduce him. And now it is high time that the exhausted dignitary should be supplied with the refreshment, which his morning's exertions have made so necessary to him. " Send Hutchinson to me," said the Doctor to the footman, who was putting his appetizing little repast on his study-table ; and as he spoke he sank into the morocco easy-chair which had been just wheeled to the said table with the air y of a man extenuated with fatigue.

He had preached that morning, and was to do so again in the afternoon ; and it is probable enough, as the day was warm, and he, though a fine weU-preserved old man, was of rather a full habit of body, that he did feel the need of a little stimulus. For the Doctor was now seventy. The once abundant black hair, though nearly as plentiful as ever, was perfectly white ; the florid com plexion, though stiU clear, had become of a deeper hue than the consulting physician of an insurance-office would have approved ; the fuU rich tone of his voice, though stiU mellow and powerful, had been rendered somewhat thick by years and good living, and the burly propor tions of his person, which were well carried off by his six feet of stature, though they did exceed sixteen stone, rested on supporters which, to judge by his outline of them as shown by the close-fitting long black gaiters, might be warranted to carry any weight.

Add to these particulars an abundant double chin reposing on a stiU more abundant cushion of soft cambric, a stiU bright eye and a large good-humoured mouth, stiU very tolerably weU fiUed with stout teeth, and you will have a very fair notion of the Warden of AU Saints in his seventieth year. Hutchinson was a contemporary of the Warden's, had risen through the various grades of College service from scout to common-room man, and now fiUed the easy and dignified post of butler and confidential servant, to which he had been promoted at the time of the Doctor's election to. the headship. He was a long bony dry old man, as tall as his master, but very much less stout, with a know ing shrewd expression of features, and a nose into which many successive pipes of common room port-wine had contributed to infuse a bright shade of ruddy hue, which graduaUy deepening in intensity became a glowing purple at its extremity.

Hutchinson loved his master much, and venerated him more, for in his order of ideas the most important and most venerable spot upon the earth's surface was Oxford, and the most important and greatest man in Oxford was the Warden of AU Saints. Ox ford was the central sun of Hutchinson 's cosmogony, London England, the world were but greater or less outflying planets which revolved round it. Such was the respectable functionary who now presented himself at the door of the Doc tor's study. " Hutchinson," said the Doctor in a languid voice, " I won't take any sherry to-day ; let me have a glass of the twenty-two India Madeira. I reaUy am worn out." " Of course, Sir ! of course ! These great crowded London churches is fit for nothing but a strong young curate to preach in. I hope, Sir, you are not a-going to preach again this afternoon ?"

" I must, Hutchinson ! I must," returned the Doctor ; " the world expects it of me." "The world ought to be taught," returned Hutchinson doggedly, " that the properest place for the Warden of All Saints to preach in is All Saints' CoUege chapel ; and if he takes to a London parish for the good of the church, it is as much as they can expect of him to read the Commandments and the Gospel at the altar now and then. That's what I say." "Well, Hutchinson, bring me the Madeira, and reach me that bundle of sermons from my writing-table." The Doctor helped himself t0| some pulled turkey from a covered silver dish that stood before him, added a few delicate green peas to it from another silver dish, and proceeded whUe eating to look over the pile of sermons he had referred to, in order to select one for his after noon's discourse.

They were the first-fruits of the Doctor's ecclesiastical labours, having been written by him during the early years of his incumbency of Stanton Parva, and preached to the two hundred rustics which formed his congregation there. The Doctor had a great objection to clergy men preaching sermons which were not their own composition. To do so, he argued, was ,to abandon aU attempt at supplying the peculiar teaching which every different congregation required according to its circumstances and condition. On the present occasion, he felt desirous of touching severely on those street desecrations of the Sabbath, which had given him such offence on his way home from the morning service. So he selected one which had been written at a time when the country around Stanton Parva had been infested by Swing riots and incen diary fires.

The text had been taken from the 7th verse of the 28th chapter of the Book of Proverbs : " Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, but he that is a companion of a riotous man shameth his father." This text was evidently admirably adapted to the case of the apple-women. So the sermon required only a few alterations, here and there, to render it exactly what was needed for the peculiar teaching required at that especial junc ture by the parish of St. Martin's in the West. Thus, in the foUowing passage, a few words only were required to be changed. In the Stanton Parva discourse it had stood written: " Nor in ourown neighbourhood, my brethren, have there been wanting signs and portentous warnings, which speak trumpet-tongued to every thoughtful and pious mind, of the especial dangers of these latter days !

Dangerous doctrines are abroad, and we read them translated into deeds of lawless violence and terror, in things that are passing round us." The latter phrases were, he thought, perhaps a trifle too strong for the apple-women, but a stroke of the Doctor's pen rapidly changed them into the softened epithets of " lawless indecency " and " alarming impiety." Then followed : " Hideous anarchy has invaded our peaceful villages" (which was altered to streets), " and no man can any longer feel that his life and property are secure " (altered to church and religion). Towards the close of the discourse, an en tirely new passage was inserted to complete its perfect adaptation to the occasion. It ran thus : " But painful, my brethren, grievously pain ful to every thinking mind as are aU these evidences of the prelude of a subversive and irreligious spirit among our people, there is no one symptom which so irresistibly proves that the insidious poison of revolutionary doctrines have spread among the masses of the popula tion, as the shameless, the revolting practice of openly desecrating the Sabbath and defying the police, by carrying on a traffic demoralizing alike to purchaser and vendor in the public streets.

For what guilt can be worse than his who seeks to make a profit of the wickedness of that portion of the community whose tender years lay them most open to insidious temp tation ? And is it not an additional aggrava tion, which deepens indignation into horror, and nurtures disgust into loathing, when the sex of the tempter is that in which every pure feeling, and every holy instinct should lead to the shedding of tears over the loss of the young soul thus lured to destruction ?" The Doctor was getting rapidly into the highest regions of the pathetic, and was polish ing off a peroration, in the construction of which he had got a little hampered between " sin against the Holy Ghost," and overt rebel lion against the police, when he was admonished by a silvery sound from the little time-piece on the chimney, that it was already half-past two o'clock.

So he was obhged to draw his pen through the straggling members of the unfinished sen tence, and to give up a very forcible parallel which he had intended to draw between the first apple which caused the universal fall of man, and those later specimens of the same ill starred fruit, which were every Sunday causing the stiU deeper faU of so many of the children of men. He hastily poured out a second glass of Madeira, rose with a sigh from his easy chair, and ringing for the footman, sent him to ask the Lady Augusta whether she intended to go to church, or whether her Ladyship needed the carriage elsewhere. The answer which was speedily brought back stated that her Ladyship did not feel equal to attending church a second time that day, and that she should be glad of the carriage at half past four, which would just give time for it to bring him back from church.