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Vicar of Bullhampton

<h3>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h3> <h4>SAM BRATTLE GOES OFF AGAIN.  </h4> Mr. Grimes had suggested to the Vicar in a very low whisper that the new chapel might perhaps be put down as a nuisance. "It ain't for me to say, of course," said Mr. Grimes, "and in the way of business one building is as good as another as long as you see your money. But buildings is stopped because they're nuisances." This occurred a day or two after the receipt of the agent's letter from Turnover, and the communication was occasioned by orders given to Mr. Grimes to go on with the building instantly, unless he intended to withdraw from the job. "I don't think, Grimes, that I can call a place of Christian worship a nuisance," said the Vicar. To this Grimes rejoined that he had known a nunnery bell to be stopped because it was a nuisance, and that he didn't see why a Methodist chapel bell was not as bad as a nunnery bell. Fenwick had declared that he would fight if he could find a leg to stand upon, and he thanked Grimes, saying that he would think of the suggestion. But when he thought of it, he did not see that any remedy was open to him on that side. In the meantime Mr. Puddleham attacked Grimes with great severity because the work was not continued. Mr. Puddleham, feeling that he had the Marquis at his back, was eager for the fight. He had already received in the street a salutation from the Vicar, cordial as usual, with the very slightest bend of his neck, and the sourest expression of his mouth. Mrs. Puddleham had already taught the little Puddlehams that the Vicarage cabbages were bitter with the wormwood of an endowed Establishment, and ought no longer to be eaten by the free children of an open Church. Mr. Puddleham had already raised up his voice in his existing tabernacle, as to the injury which was being done to his flock, and had been very touching on the subject of the little vineyard which the wicked king coveted. When he described himself as Naboth, it could not but be supposed that Ahab and Jezebel were both in Bullhampton. It went forth through the village that Mr. Puddleham had described Mrs. Fenwick as Jezebel, and the torch of discord had been thrown down, and war was raging through the parish. There had come to be very high words indeed between Mr. Grimes and Mr. Puddleham, and some went so far as to declare that they had heard the builder threaten to punch the minister's head. This Mr. Grimes denied stoutly, as the Methodist party were making much of it in consequence of Mr. Puddleham's cloth and advanced years. "There's no lies is too hot for them," said Mr. Grimes, in his energy, and "no lawlessness too heavy." Then he absolutely refused to put his hand to a spade or a trowel. He had his time named in his contract, he said, and nobody had a right to drive him. This was ended by the appearance on a certain Monday morning of a Baptist builder from Salisbury, with all the appurtenances of his trade, and with a declaration on Mr. Grimes' part, that he would have the law on the two leading members of the Puddleham congregation, from whom he had received his original order. In truth, however, there had been no contract, and Mr. Grimes had gone to work upon a verbal order which, according to the Puddleham theory, he had already vitiated by refusing compliance with its terms. He, however, was hot upon his lawsuit, and thus the whole parish was by the ears. It may be easily understood how much Mr. Fenwick would suffer from all this. It had been specially his pride that his parish had been at peace, and he had plumed himself on the way in which he had continued to clip the claws with which nature had provided the Methodist minister. Though he was fond of a fight himself, he had taught himself to know that in no way could he do the business of his life more highly or more usefully than as a peacemaker; and as a peacemaker he had done it. He had never put his hand within Mr. Puddleham's arm, and whispered a little parochial nothing into his neighbour's ear, without taking some credit to himself for his cleverness. He had called his peaches angels of peace, and had spoken of his cabbages as being dove-winged. All this was now over, and there was hardly one in Bullhampton who was not busy hating and abusing somebody else. And then there came another trouble on the Vicar. Just at the end of January, Sam Brattle came up to the Vicarage and told Mr. Fenwick that he was going to leave the mill. Sam was dressed very decently; but he was attired in an un-Bullhampton fashion, which was not pleasant to Mr. Fenwick's eyes; and there was about him an air which seemed to tell of filial disobedience and personal independence. "But you mean to come back again, Sam?" said the Vicar. "Well, sir; I don't know as I do. Father and I has had words." "And that is to be a reason why you should leave him? You speak of your father as though he were no more to you than another man." "I wouldn't a' borne not a tenth of it from no other man, Mr. Fenwick." "Well—and what of that? Is there any measure of what is due by you to your father? Remember, Sam, I know your father well." "You do, sir." "He is a very just man, and he is very fond of you. You are the apple of his eye, and now you would bring his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." "You ask mother, sir, and she'll tell you how it is. I just said a word to him,—a word as was right to be said, and he turned upon me, and bade me go away and come back no more." "Do you mean that he has banished you from the mill?" "He said what I tells you. He told mother afterwards, that if so as I would promise never to mention that thing again, I might come and go as I pleased. But I wasn't going to make no such promise. I up and told him so; and then he—cursed me." For a moment or two the Vicar was silent, thinking whether in this affair Sam had been most wrong, or the old man. Of course he was hearing but one side of the question. "What was it, Sam, that he forbade you to mention?" "It don't matter now, sir; only I thought I'd better come and tell you, along of your being the bail, sir." "Do you mean that you are going to leave Bullhampton altogether?" "To leave it altogether, Mr. Fenwick. I ain't doing no good here." "And why shouldn't you do good? Where can you do more good?" "It can't be good to be having words with father day after day." "But, Sam, I don't think you can go away. You are bound by the magistrates' orders. I don't speak for myself, but I fear the police would be after you." "And is it to go on allays,—that a chap can't move to better hisself, because them fellows can't catch the men as murdered old Trumbull? That can't be law,—nor yet justice." Upon this there arose a discussion in which the Vicar endeavoured to explain to the young man that as he had evidently consorted with the men who were, on the strongest possible grounds, suspected to be the murderers, and as he had certainly been with those men where he had no business to be,—namely, in Mr. Fenwick's own garden at night,—he had no just cause of complaint at finding his own liberty more crippled than that of other people. No doubt Sam understood this well enough, as he was sharp and intelligent; but he fought his own battle, declaring that as the Vicar had not prosecuted him for being in the garden, nobody could be entitled to punish him for that offence; and that as it had been admitted that there was no evidence connecting him with the murder, no policeman could have a right to confine him to one parish. He argued the matter so well, that Mr. Fenwick was left without much to say. He was unwilling to press his own responsibility in the matter of the bail, and therefore allowed the question to fall through,—tacitly admitting that if Sam chose to leave the parish, there was nothing in the affair of the murder to hinder him. He went back, therefore, to the inexpediency of the young man's departure, telling him that he would rush right into the Devil's jaws. "May be so, Mr. Fenwick," said Sam, "but I'm sure I'll never be out of 'em as long as I stays here in Bullhampton." "But what is it all about, Sam?" The Vicar, as he asked the question had a very distinct idea in his own head as to the cause of the quarrel, and was aware that his sympathies were with the son rather than with the father. Sam answered never a word, and the Vicar repeated his question. "You have quarrelled with your father before this, and have made it up. Why should not you make up this quarrel?" "Because he cursed me," said Sam. "An idle word, spoken in wrath! Don't you know your father well enough to take that for what it is worth? What was it about?" "It was about Carry, then." "What had you said?" "I said as how she ought to be let come home again, and that if I was to stay there at the mill, I'd fetch her. Then he struck at me with one of the mill-bolts. But I didn't think much o' that." "Was it then he—cursed you?" "No; mother came up, and I went aside with her. I told her as I'd go on speaking to the old man about Carry;—and so I did." "And where is Carry?" Sam made no reply to this whatever. "You know where she can be found, Sam?" Sam shook his head, but didn't speak. "You couldn't have said that you would fetch her, if you didn't know where to find her." "I wouldn't stop till I did find her, if the old man would take her back again. She's bad enough, no doubt, but there's others worse nor her." "When did you see her last?" "Over at Pycroft." "And whither did she go from Pycroft, Sam?" "She went to Lon'on, I suppose, Mr. Fenwick." "And what is her address in London?" In reply to this Sam again shook his head. "Do you mean to seek her now?" "What's the use of seeking her if I ain't got nowhere to put her into. Father's got a house and plenty of room in it. Where could I put her?" "Sam, if you'll find her, and bring her to any place for me to see her, I'll find a home for her somewhere. I will, indeed. Or, if I knew where she was, I'd go up to London to her myself. She's not my sister—!" "No, sir, she ain't. The likes of you won't likely have a sister the likes of her. She's a—" "Sam, stop. Don't say a bitter word of her. You love her." "Yes;—I do. That don't make her not a bad 'un." "So do I love her. And as for being bad, which of us isn't bad? The world is very hard on her offence." "Down on it, like a dog on a rat." "It is not for me to make light of her sin;—but her sin can be washed away as well as other sin. I love her too. She was the brightest, kindest, sauciest little lass in all the parish, when I came here." "Father was proud enough of her then, Mr. Fenwick." "You find her and let me know where she is, and I will make out a home for her somewhere;—that is, if she will be tractable. I'm afraid your father won't take her at the mill." "He'll never set eyes on her again, if he can help it. As for you, Mr. Fenwick, if there was only a few more like you about, the world wouldn't be so bad to get on in. Good-bye, Mr. Fenwick." "Good-bye, Sam;—if it must be so." "And don't you be afeared about me, Mr. Fenwick. If the hue-and-cry is out anyways again me, I'll turn up. That I will,—though it was to be hung afterwards,—sooner than you'd be hurt by anything I'd been a doing." So they parted, as friends rather than as enemies, though the Vicar knew very well that the young man was wrong to go and leave his father and mother, and that in all probability he would fall at once into some bad mode of living. But the conversation about Carry Brattle had so softened their hearts to each other, that Mr. Fenwick found it impossible to be severe. And he knew, moreover, that no severity of expression would have been of avail. He couldn't have stopped Sam from going had he preached to him for an hour. After that the building of the chapel went on apace, the large tradesman from Salisbury being quicker in his work than could have been the small tradesman belonging to Bullhampton. In February there came a hard frost, and still the bricklayers were at work. It was said in Bullhampton that walls built as those walls were being built could never stand. But then it might be that these reports were spread by Mr. Grimes, that the fanatical ardour of the Salisbury Baptist lent something to the rapidity of his operations, and that the Bullhampton feeling in favour of Mr. Fenwick and the Church Establishment added something to the bitterness of the prevailing criticisms. At any rate, the walls of the new chapel were mounting higher and higher all through February, and by the end of the first week in March there stood immediately opposite to the Vicarage gate a hideously ugly building, roofless, doorless, windowless;—with those horrid words,—"New Salem, 186—" legibly inscribed on a visible stone inserted above the doorway, a thing altogether as objectionable to the eyes of a Church of England parish clergyman as the imagination of any friend or enemy could devise. We all know the abominable adjuncts of a new building,—the squalid half-used heaps of bad mortar, the eradicated grass, the truculent mud, the scattered brickbats, the remnants of timber, the debris of the workmen's dinners, the morsels of paper scattered through the dirt! There had from time to time been actual encroachments on the Vicarage grounds, and Mrs. Fenwick, having discovered that the paint had been injured on the Vicarage gate, had sent an angry message to the Salisbury Baptist. The Salisbury Baptist had apologised to Mr. Fenwick, saying that such things would happen in the building of houses, &c., and Mr. Fenwick had assured him that the matter was of no consequence. He was not going to descend into the arena with the Salisbury Baptist. In this affair the Marquis of Trowbridge was his enemy, and with the Marquis he would fight, if there was to be any fight at all. He would stand at his gate and watch the work, and speak good-naturedly to the workmen; but he was in truth sick at heart. The thing, horrible as it was to him, so fascinated him that he could not keep his mind from it. During all this time it made his wife miserable. She had literally grown thin under the infliction of the new chapel. For more than a fortnight she had refused to visit the front gate of her own house. To and from church she always went by the garden wicket; but in going to the school, she had to make a long round to avoid the chapel,—and this round she made day after day. Fenwick himself, still hoping that there might be some power of fighting, had written to an enthusiastic archdeacon, a friend of his, who lived not very far distant. The Archdeacon had consulted the Bishop,—really troubled deeply about the matter,—and the Bishop had taken upon himself, with his own hands, to write words of mild remonstrance to the Marquis. "For the welfare of the parish generally," said the Bishop, "I venture to make this suggestion to your lordship, feeling sure that you will do anything that may not be unreasonable to promote the comfort of the parishioners." In this letter he made no allusion to his late correspondence with the Marquis as to the sins of the Vicar. Nor did the Marquis in his reply allude to the former correspondence. He expressed an opinion that the erection of a place of Christian worship on an open space outside the bounds of a clergyman's domain ought not to be held to be objectionable by that clergyman;—and that as he had already given the spot, he could not retract the gift. These letters, however, had been written before the first brick had been laid, and the world in that part of the country was of opinion that the Marquis might have retracted his gift. After this Mr. Fenwick found no ground whatever on which he could fight his battle. He could only stand at his gateway, and look at the thing as it rose above the ground, fascinated by its ugliness. He was standing there once, about a month or five weeks after his interview with Sam Brattle, just at the beginning of March, when he was accosted by the Squire. Mr. Gilmore, through the winter,—ever since he had heard that Mary Lowther's engagement with Walter Marrable had been broken off,—had lived very much alone. He had been pressed to come to the Vicarage, but had come but seldom, waiting patiently till the time should come when he might again ask Mary to be his wife. He was not so gloomy as he had been during the time the engagement had lasted, but still he was a man much altered from his former self. Now he came across the road, and spoke a word or two to his friend. "If I were you, Frank, I should not think so much about it." "Yes, you would, old boy, if it touched you as it does me. It isn't that the chapel should be there. I could have built a chapel for them with my own hands on the same spot, if it had been necessary." "I don't see what there is to annoy you." "This annoys me,—that after all my endeavours, there should be people here, and many people, who find a gratification in doing that which they think I shall look upon as an annoyance. The sting is in their desire to sting, and in my inability to show them their error, either by stopping what they are doing, or by proving myself indifferent to it. It isn't the building itself, but the double disgrace of the building."     <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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