The Warden | Page 9

those who see the bishops
without their aprons, and the archdeacons even in a lower state of
dishabille?
Do we not all know some reverend, all but sacred, personage before
whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be elastic? But were
we once to see him stretch himself beneath the bed-clothes, yawn
widely, and bury his face upon his pillow, we could chatter before him
as glibly as before a doctor or a lawyer. From some such cause,
doubtless, it arose that our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his
wife, though he considered himself entitled to give counsel to every
other being whom he met.
'My dear,' he said, as he adjusted the copious folds of his nightcap,
'there was that John Bold at your father's again today. I must say your
father is very imprudent.'
'He is imprudent--he always was,' replied Mrs Grantly, speaking from
under the comfortable bed-clothes. 'There's nothing new in that.'
'No, my dear, there's nothing new--I know that; but, at the present
juncture of affairs, such imprudence is--is--I'll tell you what, my dear, if
he does not take care what he's about, John Bold will be off with
Eleanor.'
'I think he will, whether papa takes care or no; and why not?'
'Why not!' almost screamed the archdeacon, giving so rough a pull at
his nightcap as almost to bring it over his nose; 'why not!-that pestilent,

interfering upstart, John Bold--the most vulgar young person I ever met!
Do you know that he is meddling with your father's affairs in a most
uncalled-for-- most--' And being at a loss for an epithet sufficiently
injurious, he finished his expressions of horror by muttering, 'Good
heavens!' in a manner that had been found very efficacious in clerical
meetings of the diocese. He must for the moment have forgotten where
he was.
'As to his vulgarity, archdeacon' (Mrs Grantly had never assumed a
more familiar term than this in addressing her husband), 'I don't agree
with you. Not that I like Mr Bold --he is a great deal too conceited for
me; but then Eleanor does, and it would be the best thing in the world
for papa if they were to marry. Bold would never trouble himself about
Hiram's Hospital if he were papa's son-in-law.' And the lady turned
herself round under the bed-clothes, in a manner to which the doctor
was well accustomed, and which told him, as plainly as words, that as
far as she was concerned the subject was over for that night.
'Good heavens!' murmured the doctor again--he was evidently much
put beside himself.
Dr Grantly is by no means a bad man; he is exactly the man which such
an education as his was most likely to form; his intellect being
sufficient for such a place in the world, but not sufficient to put him in
advance of it. He performs with a rigid constancy such of the duties of
a parish clergyman as are, to his thinking, above the sphere of his
curate, but it is as an archdeacon that he shines.
We believe, as a general rule, that either a bishop or his archdeacons
have sinecures: where a bishop works, archdeacons have but little to do,
and vice versa. In the diocese of Barchester the Archdeacon of
Barchester does the work. In that capacity he is diligent, authoritative,
and, as his friends particularly boast, judicious. His great fault is an
overbearing assurance of the virtues and claims of his order, and his
great foible is an equally strong confidence in the dignity of his own
manner and the eloquence of his own words. He is a moral man,
believing the precepts which he teaches, and believing also that he acts
up to them; though we cannot say that he would give his coat to the

man who took his cloak, or that he is prepared to forgive his brother
even seven times. He is severe enough in exacting his dues, considering
that any laxity in this respect would endanger the security of the church;
and, could he have his way, he would consign to darkness and perdition,
not only every individual reformer, but every committee and every
commission that would even dare to ask a question respecting the
appropriation of church revenues.
'They are church revenues: the laity admit it. Surely the church is able
to administer her own revenues.' 'Twas thus he was accustomed to
argue, when the sacrilegious doings of Lord John Russell and others
were discussed either at Barchester or at Oxford.
It was no wonder that Dr Grantly did not like John Bold, and that his
wife's suggestion that he should become closely connected with such a
man dismayed him. To give him his due, the archdeacon never wanted
courage; he was quite