TOWN TALK.

He was a man, as the reader will perhaps have gathered, of many shifts, and cool-headed; but for a moment he felt something of the anguish of discovery which had so tortured the surprised servant. The table shook beneath his hand, and it was with difficulty he repressed a wild impulse to overturn the candle, and escape in the darkness. He did repress it, however; nay, he forced his eyes to meet the rector's, and twisted his lips into the likeness of a smile. But when he thought of the scene afterward he found his chief comfort in the reflection that the light had been too faint to betray his full embarra.s.sment.

Naturally the rector was the first to speak. "Clode!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed softly, his surprise above words. "Is it you? Why, man," he continued, still standing with his hand on the door and his eyes devouring the scene, "what is up?"

The money-box stood open at the curate's side, and the letters lay about his feet where they had fallen. The little cupboard yawned among the books. No wonder Lindo's amazement, as he gradually took it all in, rather increased than diminished, or that the curate's tongue was dry and his throat husky when he at last found his voice. "It is all right. I will explain it," he stammered, almost upsetting the table in his agitation. "I expected you before," he added fussily, moving the light.

"The d.i.c.kens you did!" slipped from the rector. It was difficult for him not to believe that his arrival had been the last thing expected.

"Yes," returned the curate, with a little snap of defiance. He was recovering himself, and could look the other in the face now. "But I am glad you did not come before, all the same."

"Why?"

"I will explain."

The light which the one candle gave was not so meagre that Clode's embarra.s.sment had altogether escaped Lindo; and had the latter been a suspicious man he might have had queer thoughts, and possibly expressed them. As it was, he was only puzzled, and when the curate said he would explain, answered simply, "Do."

"The truth is," said Stephen Clode, beginning with an effort, "I have taken a good deal on myself, and I am afraid you will blame me, Mr. Lindo. If so, I cannot help it." His face flushed, and he beat a tattoo on the table with his fingers. "I came across," he continued, "to borrow a book a little before ten. The lights here were out; but, to my surprise, your house-door was open."

"As I found it myself!" the rector exclaimed.

"Precisely. Naturally I had misgivings, and I looked into the hall. I saw a streak of light proceeding from the doorway of this room, and I came in softly to see what it meant. I heard a man moving about in here, and I threw open the door much as you did."

"Did you?" said Lindo eagerly. "And who was it--the man, I mean?"

"That is just what I cannot tell you," replied the curate. His face was pale, but there was a smile upon it, and he met the other's gaze without flinching. He had settled his plan now.

"He got away, then?" said the rector, disappointed.

"No. He did not try either to escape or to resist," was the answer.

"But was he really a burglar?"

"Yes."

"Then where is he?" The rector looked round as if he expected to see the man lying bound on the floor. "What did you do with him?"

"I let him go."

Lindo whistled; and when he had done whistling still stood with his mouth open and a face of the most complete mystification. "You let him go?" he repeated mechanically, but not until after a pause of half a minute or so. "Why, may I ask?"

"You have every right to ask," the curate answered with firmness, and yet despondently. "I will tell you why--why I let him go, and why I cannot tell you his name. He is a parishioner of yours. It was his first offence, and I believe him to be sincerely penitent. I believe, too, that he will never repeat the attempt, and that the accident of my entrance saved him from a life of crime. I may have been wrong--I dare say I was wrong," continued the curate, growing excited--excitement came very easily to him at the moment--"but I cannot go back from my word. The man's misery moved me. I thought what I should have felt in his place, and I promised him, in return for his pledge that he would live honestly in the future, that he should go free, and that I would not betray his name to any one--to any one!"

"Well!" exclaimed the rector, his tone one of unbounded admiration in every sense of the word. "When you do a thing n.o.bly, my dear fellow, you do do it n.o.bly, and no mistake! I wonder who it was! But I must not ask you."

"No." said Clode. "And now," he continued, still beating the tattoo on the table, "you do not blame me greatly?"

"I do not, indeed. No. Only I think perhaps that you should have retained the right to tell me."

"I should have done so," said the curate regretfully.

"He has taken nothing, I suppose?" the rector continued, turning to the cupboard, and, not only satisfied with the explanation, but liking Clode better than he had liked him before.

"No," the other answered. "I was putting things straight when you entered and startled me. He had dropped the money about the floor, but you will find it right, I think. He has made a mess among the papers, I fear, and damaged the cupboard door in forcing it, but that is the extent of the mischief. By the way," the curate added, "I have a key to this cupboard at my lodgings. Williams gave it to me. He only kept parish matters here. I must let you have it."

"Right," said the rector carelessly; and, a few more words having pa.s.sed between them as to the attempted robbery, and the manner in which the outer door had been opened, the curate took his hat and prepared to go. "You had a pleasant party, I suppose?" he said, pausing and turning when halfway across the hall.

"A very pleasant one," Lindo answered with enthusiasm.

"They are nice people," said Clode smoothly.

"They are--very nice. You told me I should find them so, and you were right. Good-night."

"Good-night."

Such harmless words! And yet they roused the curate's jealousy anew. As he walked home, the church clock tolling midnight above his head, he drank in no peaceful influence from the dark stillness or the solemn sound. He was gnawed by fresh hatred of the man who had surprised and confounded him, and forced him to lie and quibble in order to escape from a dishonorable position. If you would make a man your enemy come upon him when he is doing something of which he is ashamed. He will fear you afterward, but he will hate you more. In the curate's case it was only he who knew himself discovered, so that he had no ground for fear. But he hated none the less vigorously.

And, somehow, in a few days an ugly rumor of which the new rector was the subject began to gain currency in the town. It was an ill-defined rumor, coming to one thing in one person's mouth and to a different thing in another's--a kind of cloud on the rector's fair fame, shifting from moment to moment, and taking ever a fresh shape, yet always a cloud.

One whispered that he had obtained the presentation as the reward of questionable services rendered to the patron. Another that he had forged his own deed of presentation, if such a thing existed. A third that he had been presented by mistake; and a fourth that he had deceived the authorities as to his age. It was noticeable that these rumors began low down in the social scale of the town and worked their way upward, which was odd; and that, whatever form the rumor took, there was not one who heard it who did not within a fortnight or three weeks come to a.s.sociate it with the presence of a seedy, down-looking, unwholesome man, who was much about the rector's doorway, and, when he was not there, was generally to be found at the Bull and Staff. Whether he was the disseminator of the reports, or, alike with the rector, was the unconscious subject of them, was not known; but at sight of him--particularly if he were seen, as frequently happened, in the rector's neighborhood--people shrugged their shoulders and lifted their eyebrows, and expressed a great many severe things without using their tongues.

To the circle of the rector's personal friends the rumors did not reach. That was natural enough. To tell a person that his or her intimate friend is a forger or a swindler is a piquant but somewhat perilous task. And no one mentioned the matter to the Hammonds, or to the archdeacon, or to the Homfrays of Holberton, or the other county people living round, with whom it must be confessed that, after that dinner-party at the Town House, he consorted perhaps too exclusively. It might have been thought that even the townsfolk, seeing the young fellow's frank face pa.s.sing daily about their streets, and catching the glint of his fair curly hair when, the wintry sunlight pierced the lanthorn windows and fell in gules and azure on the reading-desk, would have been slow to believe such tales of him.

They might have been; but circ.u.mstances and Mr. Bonamy were against him. The lawyer did not circulate the stories; he had not even mentioned them out-of-doors, nor, for aught the greater part of Claversham knew, had heard of them at all. But all his weight--and with the Low-Church middle-cla.s.s in the town it was great--was thrown into the scale against the rector. It was known that he did not trust the rector. It was known that day by day his frown on meeting the rector grew darker and darker. And the why and the wherefore not being understood--for no one thought of questioning the lawyer, or observed how frequently of late the curate happened upon him in the street or the reading-room--many concluded that he knew more of the clergyman's antecedents than appeared.

There was one person, and perhaps only one, who openly circulated and rejoiced in these rumors. That was a man whom Lindo met daily in the street and pa.s.sed with a careless nod and a word, not dreaming for an instant that the spiteful little busybody was concerning himself with him. The man was Dr. Gregg, the snappish, ill-bred man who had chanced upon Lindo and the Bonamy girls breakfasting together at Oxford. The sight, it will be remembered, had not pleased him, for he had long had a sneaking liking for Miss Kate himself, and had only refrained from trying to win her because he still more desired to be of the "best set" in Claversham. He had been ashamed, indeed, up to this time of his pa.s.sion; but, reading on that occasion unmistakable admiration of the girl in the young clergyman's face, and being himself rather cavalierly treated by Lindo, he had somewhat changed his views. The girl had acquired increased value in his eyes. Another's appreciation had increased his own, and, merely as an incident, the man who had effected this has earned his hearty jealousy and ill-will. And this, while Lindo thought him a vulgar but harmless little man.

But if the rector, immersed in new social engagements, did not see whither he was tending, others, though they knew nothing of the unpleasant tales we have mentioned, saw more clearly. The archdeacon, coming into town one Sat.u.r.day five or six weeks after Lindo's arrival, did his business early and turned his steps toward the rectory. He felt pretty sure of finding the young fellow at home, because he knew it was his sermon day. A few yards from the door he fell in, as it chanced, with Stephen Clode. The two stood together talking, while the archdeacon waited to be admitted, and presently the curate said, "If you wish to see the rector, archdeacon, I am afraid you will be disappointed. He is not at home."

"But I thought that he was always at home on Sat.u.r.days?"

"Generally he is," Clode replied, looking down and tracing a pattern with the point of his umbrella. "But he is away to-day."

"Where?" said the archdeacon rather abruptly.

"He has gone to the Homfrays' at Holberton. They have some sort of party to-day, and the Hammonds drove him over." Despite himself, the curate's tone was sullen, his manner constrained.

"Oh!" said the archdeacon thoughtfully. The Homfrays were his very good friends, but of the county families round Claversham they were reckoned the fastest and most frivolous. And he sagely suspected that a man in Lindo's delicate position might be wiser if he chose other companions. "Lindo seems to see a good deal of the Hammonds," he remarked after a pause.

"Yes," said Clode. "It is very natural."

"Oh, very natural," the archdeacon hastened to say; but his tone clearly expressed the opinion that "toujours Hammonds" was not a good bill of fare for the rector of Claversham. "Very natural, of course. Only," he continued, taking courage, for he really liked the rector, "you have had some experience here, and I think it would be well if you were to give him a hint not to be too exclusive. A town rector must not be too exclusive. It does not do."

"No," said Clode.

"It is different in the country, of course. And then there is Mr. Bonamy. He is unpleasant, I know, and yet he is honest after a fashion. Lindo must beware of getting across with him. He has done nothing about the sheep yet, has he?"

"No."

"Well, do not let him, if you can help it. You are not urging him on in that, are you?"

"On the contrary," the curate answered rather warmly, "I have all through told him that I would not express an opinion on it. If anything, I have discouraged him in the matter."

"Well, I hope he will let it drop now. I hope he will let it drop."

They parted then, and the archdeacon, sagely revolving in his mind the evils of exclusiveness, strolled back to the hotel where he put up his horses. On his way, casting his eye down the wide, quiet street, with its old-fashioned houses on this side and that, he espied Mr. Bonamy's tall spare figure approaching, and he purposely pa.s.sed the inn and went to meet him. As a county magnate the archdeacon could afford to know Mr. Bonamy, and even to be friendly with him. I am not sure, indeed, that he had not a sneaking liking and respect for the rugged, snappish, self-made man.

"How do you do, Mr. Bonamy?" he began. And then, after saying a few words about closing a road in which he was interested, he slid into a mention of Lindo, with a view to seeing how the land lay. "I have just been to call on your rector," he said.

"You did not find him at home," replied Bonamy, with a queer grin, and a little jerk of his head which sent his hat still farther back.

"No, I was unlucky."

"Not more than most people," said the churchwarden, with much enjoyment. "I will tell you what it is, Mr. Archdeacon. Mr. Lindo is better suited for your place. He would make a very good archdeacon. With a pair of horses and a park phaeton and a small parish, and a little general superintendence of the district--with that and the life of a country gentleman he would get on capitally."

There was just so much of a jest in the words that the clergyman had no choice but to laugh. "Come, Bonamy," he said good-humoredly, "he is young yet."

"Oh, yes, he is quite out of place here in that respect, too!" replied the lawyer navely.

"But he will improve," pleaded the archdeacon.

"I am not sure that he will have the chance," Mr. Bonamy answered in his gentlest tone.

The archdeacon was so far from understanding him that he did not answer save by raising his eyebrows. Could Bonamy really be so foolish, he wondered, as to think he could get rid of a beneficed clergyman. The archdeacon was surprised, and yet that was all he could make of it.

"He is away at Mr. Homfray's of Holberton now," the lawyer continued, condemnation in his thin voice.

"Well, there is no harm in that, Mr. Bonamy," replied the archdeacon, somewhat offended, "as long as he is back to do the duty to-morrow."

Mr. Bonamy grunted. "A one-day-a-week duty is a very fine thing," he said. "You clergymen are to be envied, Mr. Archdeacon!"

"You would be a great deal more to be envied yourself, Mr. Bonamy," the magnate returned with heat, "if you did not carp at everything and look at other people through distorted gla.s.ses. Fie! here is a young clergyman new to the parish, and, instead of helping him, you find fault with everything he does. For shame! For shame, Mr. Bonamy!"

"Ah!" said the lawyer, quite unabashed, "you did not mean to say that when you came across the street to me. But--well, least said soonest mended, and I will wish you good evening. You will have a wet drive home, I am afraid, Mr. Archdeacon."

And he put up his umbrella and went his way st.u.r.dily, while the archdeacon, crossing to his carriage, which was in front of the inn, entertained an uncomfortable suspicion that he had done more harm than good by his intercession. "I am afraid," he said to himself, as he handled the reins and sent his horses down the street in a fashion of which he was not a little proud--"I am afraid that there is trouble in front of that young man. I am afraid there is."

If he had known all, he might have shaken his head still more gravely,

CHAPTER X.

OUT WITH THE SHEEP.

Stephen Clode, while listening with a certain pleasure to the archdeacon's hints, did not dream of the good turn which fortune was about to do him. If he had foreseen it, he would probably have taken a bolder part in the conversation, and parted from the elder clergyman with a more jubilant step. As it was, he heard no rumor that evening, nor was it until ten o'clock on the Sunday morning that he learned anything was amiss. Calling at the house in the churchyard at that hour, he was received by Mrs. Baker herself; and he remarked at once that the housekeeper's face fell in a manner far from flattering when she recognized him.

"Oh, it is you, is it, Mr. Clode?" she said, her tone one of disappointment. "You have not seen him, sir, have you?"

"Seen whom?" the curate replied in surprise.

"Mr. Lindo, sir?"

"Why? Is he not here?"

"He is not, indeed, sir," the housekeeper said, putting her head out to look up and down. "He never came back last night, and we have not heard of him. I sent across to the Town House to inquire, and the only thing Mrs. Hammond could say was that Mr. Lindo was to follow them, and they supposed he had come."

"Well, but--who is to do the duty at the church?" Clode e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. His dismay at the moment was genuine, for he did not at once see how much this was to his advantage.

"There is only you, sir, unless he comes in time," the housekeeper added despondently.

"But I am going to the Hamlet church," said Clode, rapidly turning things over in his mind. If there was no one at the parish church to conduct the chief service of the week, what a talk there would be! Why it would almost be matter for the bishop's interference! "You see I cannot possibly neglect that," he continued, in answer as much to the remonstrance of his own conscience as to the housekeeper. "It was the rector's own arrangement, Mrs. Baker. You may be sure he will be here in time for the eleven o'clock service. Mr. Homfray has kept him over night. That is all."

"You do not think he has met with an accident, sir? They say the coal-pits on Baer Hill----"

"Pooh, pooh! He will be here in a few minutes, you will see," the curate answered. And he affected to be so cheerfully certain of this that he would not wait even for a little while, but started at once for the Hamlet church--a small chapel-of-ease in the outskirts of the town. There he put on his surplice early, and was ready in excellent time. Punctuality is a virtue.

At half-past ten the bells of the great church began to ring, and presently door after door in the quiet streets about it opened silently, and little parties issued forth in their Sunday clothes and walked stiffly and slowly toward the building. At the moment when the High Street was dotted most thickly with these groups, and the small bell was tinkling its impatient summons, the rattle of an old taxed-cart was heard as the vehicle flashed quickly over the bridge at the foot of the street. One and another of the church-goers turned in curiosity to gaze, for such a sound was rare on a Sunday morning. Judge of their astonishment, then, when they recognized, perched up beside the boy who urged on the pony, no less a person than the rector himself! As he jogged up the street in his sorry conveyance and with his sorry companion, he had to pa.s.s under the fire of a battery of eyes which did not fail to notice all the peculiarities of his appearance. His tie was awry and his chin unshaven. He had a haggard, dissipated air, as of one who had been up all night, and there was a great smudge on his cheek. He looked dissipated---nothing less than disreputable, some said; and he seemed aware of it, for he sat erect, gazing straight before him, and declining to see any one. At the top of the street he descended hastily, and, as the bell jerked out its final note, hurried toward the vestry with a depressed and gloomy face.

"Well!" said Mr. Bonamy to Kate, who was walking up by his side, and whose face for some mysterious reason was flushed and troubled, "I think that is the coolest young man I have ever met!"

"Eh?" said a voice behind them as they entered the porch--the speaker was Gregg. "What do you think of that, Bonamy? A gay young spark, is he not?"

There was time for no more then. But as the congregation waited in their seats through a long voluntary, many were the nods and winks, and incessant the low mutterings, as one communicated to another the details of the scene outside, and his or her view of them. When the rector appeared--nine minutes late by Mr. Bonamy's watch--he looked pale and f.a.gged, and the sermon he preached was of the shortest. Nine-tenths of the congregation noted only the brevity of the discourse and drew their conclusions. But Kate Bonamy, who sat by her father with downcast eyes and a tinge of color still in her cheeks, and who scarcely once looked up at the weary face and tumbled hair, fancied, heaven knows why, that she detected a new pathos and a deeper tone of appeal in the few simple sentences; and though she had scarcely spoken to the rector for a month, and was nursing a tiny contempt for him, the girl felt on a sudden more kindly disposed toward the young man.

Not so Mr. Bonamy, He came out of church chuckling; full of a grim delight in the fulfilment of his predictions. It was not his custom to linger in the porch, for he was not a sociable man; but he did so to-day, and, letting Kate and Daintry go on, formed one of a coterie of men, who had no difficulty in coming to a conclusion about the rector.

"He has been studying hard, poor fellow!" said Gregg, with a wink--there is no dislike so mean and cruel as that which the ill-bred man feels for the gentleman--"reading the devil's books all night!"

"Nine minutes late!" said the lawyer. "That is what comes of having a young fellow who is always gadding about the country!"

"He could not gad to a more congenial place than Holberton, I should think," sneered a third.

And then all the sins which the Homfrays had ever committed, and all those which had ever been laid to their charge, were cited to render the rector's case more black. To do him justice, Mr. Bonamy took but a listener's part in this. He was a shrewd man, and he did not believe that the rector could have had anything to do with an elopement from Holberton which had taken place before his name was heard in the county; but he was honestly a.s.sured that the young fellow had been sitting over the cards half the night. And as for the other crimes, perhaps he would commit them if he were left to follow his own foolish devices.

"What is ill-gotten soon goes," said one charitable person with a sneer. "You may depend upon it that what we hear is true."

"It is all of a piece," said another. "A man does not have a follower of that kind for nothing?"

"It comes over the devil's back, and goes--you know how?" said a third. "But perhaps he is wise to make the most of it while it lasts. He is consequential enough now, but the Homfrays will not have much to say to him presently, you will see. A few weeks, and he will go."

"Well, let him go for the d--d dissipated gambling parson he is!" said Gregg coa.r.s.ely, carried away by the unusual agreement with him. "And the sooner the better, say I!"