“I should think not,” said Walter gaily, mounting into the curious little oblong wooden vehicle.
“It isn’t very far,” said Kenrick, “and I daresay you don’t know any one about here; so it won’t matter.”
“Pooh! Ken, as if I minded such nonsense.” Indeed, Walter would not have thought twice about the conveyance, if Kenrick had not harped upon it so much, and seemed so much ashamed of it, and mortified at being obliged to use it. “Shall I drive?” asked Walter.
“Drive? Why, the pony is stone blind, and as scraggy as a scarecrow, so there’s not much driving to be had out of him. Fancy if the aristocratic Power, or some other Saint Winifred’s fellow saw us! Why, it would supply Henderson with jokes for six weeks,” said Kenrick, getting up and touching the old pony with his whip. Both he and Walter were wholly unconscious that their equipage had been seen, and contemptuously scrutinised by one of their schoolfellows. Unknown to Walter, Jones was in the train; and, after a long stare at the pony-chaise, had flung himself back in his seat to indulge in a long guffaw, and in anticipating the malicious amusement he should feel in retailing at Saint Winifred’s the description of Kenrick’s horse and carriage. Petty malignity was a main feature of Jones’s mind.
“That is Fuzby,” said Kenrick laconically, pointing to a straggling village from which a few lights were beginning to glimmer; “and I wish it were buried twenty thousand fathoms under the sea.”
Ungracious as the speech may seem, it cannot be wondered at. A single muddy road runs through Fuzby. Except along this road—muddy and rutty in winter, dusty and rutty in summer—no walk is to be had. The fields are all more or less impassable with ditches and bogs. Kenrick had christened it “The Dreary Swamp.” Nothing in the shape of a view is to be found anywhere, and barely a single flower will deign to grow. The air is unhealthy with moisture, and the only element to be had there in perfection is earth.
All this, Kenrick’s father—who had been curate of the village—had fancied would be at least endurable to any man upheld by a strong sense of duty. So when he had married, and had received the gift of a house in the village, he took thither his young and beautiful bride, intending there to live and work until something better could be obtained. He was right. Over the mere disadvantages of situation he might easily have triumphed, and he might have secured there, under different circumstances, a fair share of happiness, which lies in ourselves and not in the localities in which we live. But in making his calculation he had always assumed that it would be easy to get on with the inhabitants of Fuzby; and here lay his mistake.
The Vicar of Fuzby, a non-resident pluralist, only appeared at rare intervals to receive the adoration which his flock never refused to any one who was wealthy. His curate, having a very slender income, came in for no share at all of this respect. On the contrary, the whole population assumed a right to patronise him, to interfere with him, to annoy and to thwart him. There was at Fuzby one squire—a rich farmer, coarse, ignorant, and brutal. This man, being the richest person in the parish, generally carried everything in his own way, and among other attempts to imitate the absurdities of his superiors, had ordered the sexton never to cease ringing the church-bell, however late, until he and his family had taken their seats. A very few Sundays after Mr Kenrick’s arrival the bell was still ringing eight minutes after the time for morning service, and sending to desire the sexton to leave off, he received the message that—
“Mr Hugginson hadn’t come yet.”
“I will not have the congregation kept waiting for Mr Hugginson or any one else,” said the curate.