But though they did this only as a matter of duty, they would all have been extremely astonished, not to say offended, had they known that he said “What a bore!” on receiving the invitation. He was at that moment very much occupied about all the new things that he was setting up, altogether indifferent to the consideration that the next curate might not be of his way of thinking and might feel it a burden. Mr. Asquith, however, never spoke of the possibility of a change, but seemed to think that there never would be any other curate. He looked as though he meant to go on forever bringing all his schemes to perfection. The Rector could only afford to give him £100 a year and the use of the cottage in which the curates always lived, with the very barest furniture—merely what was necessary. But Mr. Asquith did not seem to think either of the small stipend or the bare lodgings; he seemed only to think of the work which he made so unnecessarily hard for himself. And presently he was so absorbed in this work, and found so many things to do, and set so many things going which nobody but himself took any interest in, that he fell almost out of the knowledge of the more important persons in the parish. They went their way, which was the old-established, correct way for gentlefolks in a country parish to go, in which they had gone long before he appeared, and would most likely go long after he had disappeared; and he went his, which was novel and new-fangled, and on the whole not a way approved of by the best people. And though the parish was quite small, and you would have supposed that all the educated persons belonging to the upper classes in it must have jostled each other every day, the fact was that they went on in parallel lines, as it were, without ever seeing each other.
He went to the Rectory now and then, of course, as in duty bound, but otherwise, when he was seen passing any of the chief houses in the place, and a chance visitor asked who he was, “Oh, it is only the curate,” was always the answer in Horton. This was really almost all that any one knew of him.
As a matter of fact, the Rector knew more, and all the world might have known what his antecedents were. He was a man from the North, the son of one of those sturdy small proprietors who are called statesmen in Cumberland, or were called so in former times—born upon his own paternal acres in a house which had belonged to his family for generations, and thus possessing many of the advantages of ancient lineage, though his was not what is called gentle blood. He had won a scholarship at Oxford, and had made his way through the university without, however, gaining any of those social advantages which, in the eyes of many people, are the chief recommendations of these homes of learning. He had not “made friends.” He had settled himself to his work there with the same gravity as at Horton, and thought the finest “wines” and the best company a bore. His talents did not lie in that way. He had no genius for acquaintance, and though he liked the river very well for relaxation, he never could be persuaded to make a business of it, as the boating men did, or, indeed, to “go in” for anything except his work. And even in his work he was not brilliant. His college set no high hopes on his head. He made his way quite quietly, unobserved, very much as he did at Horton, through those groves of Academe, generally to be found out of the crowd, in paths not much frequented, busy always, caring very little for pleasures by the way. As he got on, he became a little better known as having “coached” very effectually, but with little demonstration, several dunces for their smalls, and one or two better men for special subjects, especially theology: and so came through that part of his life with little fame, but such as it was, very good. Such a man leaves an impression, faint but lasting, and which is not dependent upon known and proved facts. This, indeed, is what almost everybody does one way or other. We don’t know any harm that the good-for-nothing may have done, but we become aware by something in the air that he is a good-for-nothing; and we may have no act of virtue to set against a man’s name, yet know that he is a good man by instinct, by an atmosphere about him, something like a moral taste of which we cannot explain the cause.
Mr. Asquith had this kind of reputation, if it can be called a reputation. He was poor; he had very little, if anything, more than the £100 a year which Mr. Prescott, the Rector, gave him. He was accustomed to spare living, and liked it, being unreasonably, and indeed wrongly, indifferent to what he ate and drank, and quite unworthy of the good cooking at the Rectory or the more pretentious efforts at the Hall. He liked his own chop at home quite as well, even when he had, as was sometimes necessary, to scrape off the cinders which it brought along with it from the gridiron, before he ate it. Mr. Asquith thought this was a very natural accident, and did not complain.
Such a man is the only man altogether independent in our complicated social system. He never remarked the ugly Kidderminster under his feet, or wished for a Persian rug in its place. He did not mind in the least when his clerical coat got shabby. What did it matter? Everybody knew him on the one hand—nobody knew him on the other. In either case he was indifferent, and consequently independent. If there was anything he was a little particular over, it was his washing, his landlady said. The landlady was an old servant at the Rectory, who had been provided for in this curate’s house, and who knew the ways of the kind. But she had never met with any like Mr. Asquith—no one who gave so little trouble, or was so easily satisfied.
But he was only the curate. Such qualities as his make little show. And after a while the Prescotts almost forgot that there was such a person in their neighbourhood. They said “How do you do, Mr. Asquith?” when they met him at the Rectory or on the road; but after they had done their duty by him, and asked him twice (which was really a superfluity of attention), he dropped into his own sphere, and save at Uncle Hugh’s, or in church, by accident, was seen of them no more.
