“I fancy I’ve heard my reverend relative talk of a Fortescue he knew at Cambridge. I daresay that’s the way it’s worked round. Anyhow, assuming the letter’s for you, what do you mean to do? Go, of course.”
“Well, no, Sam, I think not. You see, Archdeacons and I don’t assimilate somehow. Who was it that wondered how the old augurs and haruspices kept their faces when they saw each other? Well, I’m that way with parsons. Not that I ever came across a live Archdeacon. But I suppose he’ll be a cleric, double distilled. I think you’d better write and offer your own valuable services. Besides, it looks like chamber business, and that’s your department, you know.”
“Well, I’m not having any, thank you, Beaumont. I pass this deal. I’ve no sort of fancy for passing a week in a country vicarage with a parson double-distilled or diluted. I know the kind of thing; family prayers at eight, croquet with the parsonettes till luncheon, cold mutton and rice pudding and small beer, inspection of the village school at three, yawn yourself to death till dinner, heavy joint, sodden pudding, cheap claret, family prayers again at ten, no beer, no baccy, no cards, unless its back-gammon or whist for penny points and no grog. A washed-out archdeaconess, gushing or prim daughters, a dozen of ’em, a cub of a son home from the local grammar-school, a noodle of a curate, and the devil and all to pay if you wink at the chambermaid. No thank you, Beaumont, you’re the man asked for, and ought to go. You can talk theology till you’re black in the face, and flirt mildly with the saintly misses, take it out of the curate generally, and perhaps shoot a rabbit or two if you fancy yourself with a gun,” concluded Sam, viciously.
And so it came to pass that Edward Beaumont some three days later found himself in a market train crawling between Doncaster and Caisterholm, marvelling at the, to him, new and unaccustomed types he saw on the platforms or had for companions in his department—gentlemen farmers, with a horsey look, ponderous bucolics, farmers of their thousand acres, and slouching, sleepy peasants, with occasional glimpses of country Hebes, with tangled, tawny locks, blooming cheeks, cherry lips, dancing eyes of azure hue, bidding noisy farewells or boisterous greetings to bent and wrinkled parents as they left for or returned to their rural homes from domestic service in the colliery towns, where so many leave their roses and their innocency. As the train crept its leisurely way into the heart of the fen country, with its thorpes and long spires or hoary towers, its dykes and placid streams—the majestic Trent spanned and left many miles behind—its hazel groves, its clustered copses, its broad expanse of teeming soil, groaning in labour of the bearded barley and the golden wheat, Beaumont could scarcely realise that but a few hours’ journey had borne him from the rough, brown, bare, moor-crested hills of his home, with their streams all foul with the waste of the dye-pans, the sky greyed by the smoke of a legion of long and lean mill-chimneys, sallow, gaunt, eager-visaged, restless mill hands, rude and assertive of speech, clattering everywhere with clogged feet, all nerve, hurry, impatience, and irreverence. When he asked his whereabouts, and was told that the Parts of Holland lay to his left, he could have well-believed that he had slept and awoke in the flat land of Hans and Frau and schiedam. The talk, such as there was, of his companions for the first few miles had been of mangols and “’tates,” of beasts and calves, of tithes and rents, of bushels and loads, and the dreadful low prices ruling at the Corn Exchange in Doncaster. The farmers had talked with dreamy complacency of inevitable ruin, and seemed to be sheathing themselves in fat as they progressed comfortably to the Bankruptcy Court. There had been a good many clergymen travelling by the same train for short distances, and they seemed as learned in matters agricultural as their parishioners. One, indeed, had spoken of chemistry and scientific agriculture, and certain classes that were spoken of for the farmers, with professors from London, and the farmers had listened with tolerant contempt, but with the evident conviction that nothing was to be learned from gentlemen in London.
“I went to one o’ the classes when I was staying with my missus’ brother, Selby way. An’ if he didn’t talk of oxides an’ nitrates. If he’d ha’ talked about poor-rates and sheep scab there’d ha’ been some sense in it.”
Edward Beaumont did not anticipate his stay at Caistorholm Vicarage without some inward trepidation. To begin with, he did not quite know what manner of man an Archdeacon might be. He had a vague memory that Lord Palmerston had defined an Archdeacon to be a priest who discharged archidiaconal functions; but that did not seem to help him much. His own acquaintance among ministers of religion lay chiefly among the professors of dissenting doctrines with whom his political activities had brought him into contact on the Liberal Two Hundred and on platforms. He bethought him of two doctors of divinity of his own town, one a pillar of Congregationalism, a Scotchman, long, lean, ascetic, but a scholar; the other a Boanerges of the Baptist faith, loud, blatant, pushing, with an American degree. A week of either in the enforced companionship of a country house would be badly paid by any fee the most indulgent taxing-master would be likely to approve. But an Archdeacon! That might mean anything from a prince of the Church, haughty, dignified unconsciously patronizing, to a country vicar with a sounding title, but differing only from an educated farmer in the necessity of preaching a sermon a week to a sprinkling of clodhoppers and pensioners.
“Anyhow, I won’t be patronized!” resolved Edward, as he drew near his destination. “If I find the place too much of a bore, or too much against the grain, I can either chuck the thing altogether or send Storth. He’s got a better stomach for spattle than I have, and if there’s a decent inn in the place, with a respectable tap, Master Sam will comfort himself o’ nights for the ennui of the days.”
The station at Caistorholm seemed to consist of a platform and a wooden waiting-room, a porter’s-room, and a ticket-office. An aged station-master received his portmanteau, and told him a carriage from the Vicarage was waiting outside for a gent from Yorkshire. A steep flight of wooden steps led from the top of the embankment, on which the station stood, to the long, straight, chalky road outside—a Roman road Edward learned later, straight as an arrow’s flight, running mile after mile in undeviating line—“the shortest distance between two extreme points,” ruminated Edward. A neat dogcart was at the foot of the steps, a natty groom stood at the head of the mettlesome cob; the aged porter, descending the steps with difficulty, placed Edward’s portmanteau at the back of the phaeton, received a more liberal tip, as he reflected subsequently, than he was accustomed to receive from visitors to the Vicarage, and the mare, at a word, jumped to the collar, and the carriage bowled away. On each side the road a broad, unfenced ditch ran between the highway and the hedgerows that fenced the spreading acres of potatoes, cabbage, and turnip that spread on either side, far as the eye could reach, in one vast expanse of weary level, unbroken save by an occasional windmill, whose great wheels turned slowly with many a creak and groan in the warm autumn air.
“These roads must be dangerous on a dark night,” suggested Beaumont, by way of breaking a silence that was becoming irksome.
“Not when you knows the road, sir.”