“Mr. Sloak, I have the pleasure to drink your health; Mr. Sloak, rector of Chipping-Friars,” cried the patron, raising his voice. “Buckhurst,” added he, with a malicious smile, “you do not fill your glass.”
Buckhurst sat aghast. “Colonel, is this a jest?”
“A jest?—by G——! no,” said the colonel; “I have had enough of jests and jesters.”
“What can this mean?”
“It means,” said the colonel, coolly, “that, idiot as you take me, or make me to be, I’m not fool enough to patronize a mimick to mimick myself; and, moreover, I have the good of the church too much at heart, to make a rector of one who has no rectitude—I can have my pun, too.”
The laugh was instantly turned against Buckhurst. Starting from table, he looked alternately at Colonel Hauton and at Mr. Sloak, and could scarcely find words to express his rage. “Hypocrisy! Treachery! Ingratitude! Cowardice! If my cloth did not protect you, you would not dare—Oh! that I were not a clergyman!” cried Buckhurst.
“It’s a good time to wish it, faith!” said the colonel; “but you should have thought better before you put on the cloth.”
Cursing himself, his patron, and his father, Buckhurst struck his forehead, and rushed out of the room: an insulting laugh followed from Colonel Hauton, in which Mr. Sloak and all the company joined—Buckhurst heard it with feelings of powerless desperation. He walked as fast as possible—he almost ran through the barrack-yard and through the streets of the town, to get as far as he could from this scene—from these people. He found himself in the open fields, and leaning against a tree—his heart almost bursting—for still he had a heart: “Oh! Mr. Percy!” he exclaimed aloud, “once I had a friend—a good, generous friend—and I left him for such a wretch as this! Oh! if I had followed his advice! He knew me—knew my better self! And if he could see me at this moment, he would pity me. Oh! Caroline! you would pity—no, you would despise me, as I despise myself—I a clergyman!—Oh! father! father! what have you to answer for!”
To this sudden pang of conscience and feeling succeeded the idea of the reproaches which his father would pour upon him—the recollection of his debts, and the impossibility of paying them—his destitute, hopeless condition—anger against the new rector of Chipping-Friars, and against his cold, malicious patron, returned with increased force upon his mind. The remainder of that day, and the whole of the night, were passed in these fluctuations of passion. Whenever he closed his eyes and began to doze, he heard the voice of Colonel Hauton drinking the health of Mr. Sloak; and twice he started from his sleep, after having collared both the rector and his patron. The day brought him no relief: the moment his creditors heard the facts, he knew he should be in immediate danger of arrest. He hurried to town to his father—his father must know his situation sooner or later, and something must be done.
We spare the reader a shocking scene of filial and parental reproaches.