In the final settlement of the accounts of one of his pupils, who was leaving him for the university, some misunderstanding arose between himself and the father. The sum in question was but a few pounds; but the objection was put forward in a manner which Bolton considered as reflecting upon his own straightforward and liberal dealing; and it so happened that the young man had, from circumstances, been indebted in an unusual degree to his kindness. He therefore, I have no doubt, took the matter up warmly; for those who remember him as I do, can well imagine how his blood would boil at anything he considered mean or unhandsome. It ended in his insisting on the whole amount—a hundred or so—respecting which the difference had arisen, being paid in to the treasurer of the county hospital instead of to himself; and he vowed silently, but determinedly, to renounce pupilising thenceforth for ever. In vain did some of his best friends persuade him to change his resolution; he kept two who were with him at the time for a few months, when they also were to enter college; but he steadily refused any other offers: he sold off at once all his superfluous luxuries, and, as soon as practicable, gave up his curacy, and quitted the neighbourhood, to the general regret of all who knew him, and to the astonishment of all but the very few who were in the secret.
When Bolton's friends next heard of him, he was living in a remote district of H—— shire, on an income necessarily very small; for it could have been scarcely more than the proceeds of his curacy; and curacies in that part of the country were then but a wretched provision for any man—especially for one accustomed as he had been to good living and good society. However, he was not much troubled with the latter in his present position; not to speak of the fact that his nearest conversible neighbour lived seven miles off. Wherever parsons are mostly poor, and many of them ill-educated, they are not thought much of, either by farmers or gentlemen. And as it did not suit Harry's tastes to enjoy his pipe and pot in the society of the first, as his predecessor had done with much contentment, nor yet to wait for the arrival of the one landed proprietor in the parish before he commenced the morning service, he was voted by the overseers and churchwardens to be "mighty set up," and by the squire to be "a d—— d unmannerly fellow." Both indeed soon found out that they were wrong; and the farmers had the grace to confess it, and came, in course of time, to believe it possible for a curate to be a gentleman without being proud, and that it was at least as well for him to be visiting the sick and poor, and overlooking the parish school, and able to give a little good advice to themselves in matters of difficulty, as to be boozing in their company at the Crown and Thistle. And, in course of time, those rough but honest people came to respect him almost as much perhaps, in their way, as his more enlightened neighbours had done in his former position. It must have been a great change, however, to a man like Bolton, used to good society, fond of it, and readily welcomed in it, as he had always been. No doubt he felt it; yet he declared that, after the first few weeks, he never was happier in his life. His gun was given up, as an indulgence too expensive, but there was excellent trout fishing for miles on both sides of his cottage; and, though a sport to which he had no great liking in his earlier days, he now took to it vigorously as the only amusement at hand, and became no unworthy disciple of honest Isaac. The worst effect of this new life of isolation was, that he became somewhat negligent in his habits; took to smoking a great deal, and made his tobacconist's account a good deal longer than his tailor's. He had still many old friends and connections at a distance, with whom he might have spent half the year if he had pleased; but, in his first pique with the world in general, he had fixed himself purposely as far out of their reach as possible; travelling was expensive (railways as yet were not); assistance in his clerical duties was not easily obtained; and so, partly from choice, and partly from necessity, his new life became one of almost utter isolation.
Of course there were occasions when he found it necessary to visit the neighbouring market-town—if it could be called neighbouring when it was twelve miles off. The main road lay about a mile from Harry's little cottage, and a coach, passing daily, would usually deposit him safely in the High Street in the course of the forenoon—allowing an hour for waiting for it at the crossing, (it was always after its time,) and about two more, if the roads were not unusually heavy, for getting over the distance. It was not a very luxurious style of travelling; and Harry often preferred to walk in one day, and return the next. It was on one of these rare visits that a soaking rain discouraged him from setting out for home on foot, and gave the Regulator the unusually full complement of one inside and one outside passenger. On the box was our friend Harry, inside a rather precise-looking personage, whose costume, as far as a large cloak allowed it to be seen, looked somewhat more clerical than the Curate's, the latter being clad in a smart upper benjamin of the landlord's of the Swan, finished round the throat with a very gay shawl of his daughter's, both forced upon him in consideration of the weather; for Harry, though by no means a frequent, was a highly favoured guest, and they would sooner have kept him in No. 1 for a week gratis, than have allowed him to turn out in the rain without due protection.
Slower than usual that day was the Regulator's progress through the mud and against the wind, and briefer than usual its driver's replies to Harry's good-humoured attempts at conversation.
"Who have we inside, do you know, Haines?"
"Well, I reckon it's what you'd call a hopposition coach like," grunted out Joe Haines.
"Eh? I don't exactly understand."
"Why, I mean a Methodist bishop, or summat o' that sort. You see there was a great opening of the Independent College here o' Tuesday, and there was a lot o' them gentry about the town, looking too good to live. I druv' five on 'em down yesterday, and they gev' me a shilling and a fourpenny amongst the whole lot. Oh! I loves them sort, don't I just?" and Joe gave his near wheeler a cut, illustrative of his affection. It was a longer speech than he had made all the way, and he relapsed into a gloomy silence.
The wind was driving right into their teeth, and the evening closing fast, and they were passing the last mile-stone to the turning without any farther attempt at conversation, when there came first an ominous crack from under their feet, then a jolt, an unsteady wavering motion for a few seconds, when, with scarcely time for an exclamation, the coach toppled over on one side, and Bolton found himself reclining on the portly person of Mr Joseph Haines, who, in his turn, was saved from contusions by a friendly heap of mud by the road-side. Beyond a broken axle, however, no damage was done. The horses were glad of any opportunity to stand still. Bolton got up, shook himself, and laughed. Joe Haines was proceeding to philosophise rather strongly on the accident, not exactly after the manner of Job or Seneca, when the inside passenger, putting his head out of the only practicable window, begged him to spare his oaths, and help him out of his prison.