In the end, Froude gave up doing duty, and retired into a small house in Molland, as more sheltered than Knowstone. In The Maid of Sker, Blackmore represents him as torn to pieces by his hounds. Actually this was not the occasion of his death. Before his parlour window grew a peculiarly handsome trimmed box-tree. Now Froude had done a mean and cruel act to a young farmer near, tricking him out of a considerable sum of money. One night the box-tree was pulled up by the roots and carried away, no one knew whither, or for certain by whom, though the young farmer was suspected of the deed.
Froude raged over the insult; but as he was unable to bring it home, and as his powers were failing, his rage was impotent.
The uprooting of the box-tree apparently precipitated his death. He felt that the awe of him was gone, his control over the neighbourhood was lost. This thought, even more than mortification at not being able to revenge the uprooting of his box-tree, broke him down, and he rapidly sank, intellectually and physically, and died 9 December, 1852.
A little before his death, Jack Babbage, his huntsman, visited him. “Oh, Jack!” said he, “it’s all over with me. I’m going to glory, Jack”—which shows what is the value of assurance on a death-bed.
“Well,” said Babbage, “if the old master be so cock-sure that he’s on that way, I reckon there be a good chance of a snug corner for me.”
There was another parson, if possible, more evil than Froude, whom Blackmore has called Parson Hannaford, but we have had enough specimens of a type of clergy that is, we trust, for ever passed away; but it has gone not without leaving its mark on the present, for it was this sort of parson who drove all the God-fearing people in the parish into dissent. Happily these men were exceptions even in their day, and were not the rule. The bulk of the clergy were worthy men, doing their duty up to their light, the services in the churches not a little dreary; but then, at that time, it was exceptional to find that the country people could read, and therefore sing out a hymn or psalm with one accord as they can now. They preached dull sermons, because their own minds were not clear. But they were kind, they visited their flock, they were charitable, and their families set a good example in the parish, and had immense influence in purifying the moral tone, and they taught in Sunday-schools. I can recall those old days, and I know that men like Froude and Russell were but spots widely scattered over an otherwise white reputation such as the general body of the clergy bore. But that there were such spots none could deny, and in almost every case the Bishop was powerless to eradicate them.
To a farmer said a vicar of Holsworthy, himself one of the disreputable, who thought fit to reprimand him for his conduct, “Go by the light, man, not by the lantern.” To which the farmer replied, “When the lantern is covered with muck, none can see the light.”
For the account I have given of Parson Froude I am indebted partly to the late Prebendary Matthews, rector of Knowstone after Froude, and also to Rev. W. H. Thornton’s Reminiscences of an Old West-country Clergyman, as well to a Froudiana, a collection made by one who intimately knew the neighbourhood and the individuals, and who most kindly placed his collection of anecdotes at my disposal.
The accompanying illustration represents Jack Russell’s port-wine glass with a fox beautifully cut in it, his barometer, which he probably tapped with his knuckles many a time before he started on a day’s hunting, as well as a Chamberlain Worcester tea service, formerly in his possession. All these were bought after his death at Black Torrington at a sale of his effects, by Miss Bernasconi, now Mrs. Arnull, and presented to the publisher, Mr. John Lane, in whose possession they are. Dr. Linnington Ash on the same occasion purchased several mementoes for his Majesty the King—then Prince of Wales—as well as for himself and other friends.