Between the Dark and the Daylight

by Richard Marsh

CHAPTER I

Mr. Plumber was a passable preacher. Not an orator, perhaps--though it is certain that they had had less oratorical curates at Exdale. His delivery was not exactly good. But then the matter was fair, at times. Though Mr. Ingledew did say that Mr. Plumber's sermons were rather in the nature of reminiscences--tit-bits collated from other divines. According to this authority, listening to Mr. Plumber preaching was a capital exercise for the memory. His pulpit addresses might almost be regarded in the light of a series of examination papers. One might take it for granted that every thought was borrowed from some one, the question--put by the examiner, as it were--being from whom? On the other hand, it must be granted that Mr. Ingledew's character was well understood in Exdale. He was one of those persons who are persuaded that there is no such thing as absolute originality in the present year of grace. From his point of view, all the moderns are thieves. He read a new book, not for the pleasure of reading it, but for the pleasure of finding out, as a sort of anemonic exercise, from whom its various parts had been pilfered. He held that, nowadays, nothing new is being produced, either in prose or verse; and that the only thing which the latter day writer does need, is the capacity to use the scissors and the paste. So it was no new thing for the Exdale congregation to be informed that the sermon which they had listened to had been preached before.

Nor, Mrs. Manby declared, in any case, was that the point. She wanted a preacher to do her good. If he could not do her good out of his own mouth, then, by all means, let him do her good out of the mouths of others. All gifts are not given to all men. If a man was conscious of his incapacity in one direction, then she, for one, had no objection to his availing himself, to the best of his ability, of his capacity in another. But--and here Mrs. Manby held up her hands in the manner which is so well known to her friends--when a man told her, from the pulpit, on the Sunday, that life was a solemn and a serious thing, and then on the Monday wrote for a comic paper--and such a comic paper!--that was the point, and quite another matter entirely.

How the story first was told has not been clearly ascertained. The presumption is, that a proof was sent to Mr. Plumber in one of those wrappers which are open at both ends in which proofs sometimes are sent; and that on the front of this wrapper was imprinted, by way of advertisement, the source of its origin: "Skittles: Not to mention the Beer. A Comic Croaker for the Cultured Classes."

The presumption goes on to suggest that, while it was still in the post office, the proof fell out of the wrapper,--they sometimes are most insecurely enclosed, and the thing might have been the purest accident. One of the clerks--it is said, young Griffen--noticing it, happened to read the proof--just glanced over it, that is--also, of course, by accident. And then, on purchasing a copy of a particular issue of the periodical in question, this clerk--whoever he was--perceived that it contained the, one could not call it poem, but rhyming doggerel, proof of which had been sent to the Reverend Reginald Plumber. He probably mentioned it to a friend, in the strictest confidence. This friend mentioned it to another friend, also in the strictest confidence. And so everybody was told by everybody else, in the strictest confidence; and the thing which was meant to be hid in a hole found itself displayed on the top of the hill.

It was felt that something ought lo be done. This feeling took form and substance at an informal meeting which was held at Mrs. Manby's in the guise of a tea, and which was attended by the churchwardens, Mr. Ingledew, and others, who might be expected to do something, when, from the point of view of public policy, it ought to be done. The pièces de conviction were not, on that particular occasion, actually produced in evidence, because it was generally felt that the paper, "Skittles: Not to mention the Beer, etc." was not a paper which could be produced in the presence of ladies.

"And that," Mrs. Manby observed, "is what makes the thing so very dreadful. It is bad enough that such papers should be allowed to appear. But that they should be supported by the contributions of our spiritual guides and teachers, opens a vista which cannot but fill every proper-minded person with dismay."

Miss Norman mildly hinted that Mr. Plumber might have intended, not so much to support the journal in question, either with his contributions or otherwise, as that it should aid in supporting him. But this was an aspect of the case which the meeting simply declined to even consider. Because Mr. Plumber chose to have an ailing wife and a horde of children that was no reason, but very much the contrary, why, instead of elevating, he should assist in degrading public morals. So the resolution was finally arrived at that, without loss of time, the churchwardens should wait upon the Vicar, make a formal statement of the lamentable facts of the case, and that the Vicar should then be requested to do the something which ought to be done.

So, in accordance with this resolution, the churchwardens waited on the vicar. The Rev. Henry Harding was, at that time, the Vicar of Exdale. He was not only an easy-going man and possessed of large private means, but he was also one of those unfortunately constituted persons who are with difficulty induced to make themselves disagreeable to any one. The churchwardens quite anticipated that they might find it hard to persuade him, even in so glaring a case as the present one, to do the something which ought to be done. Nor were their expectations, in this respect, doomed to meet with disappointment.

"Am I to understand," asked the vicar, when, to a certain extent, the lamentable facts of the case had been laid before him, and as he leaned back in his easy chair he pushed his spectacles up on his forehead, "that you have come to complain to me because a gentleman, finding himself in straitened circumstances, desires to add to his income by means of contributions to the press?"