Chronicles of Barsetshire - Complete Edition (All 6 Books in One Edition). Anthony Trollope
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by Dr. Gwynne.
Two or three days after Eleanor’s departure, Mr. Arabin went to Oxford and soon found himself closeted with the august head of his college. It was quite clear that Dr. Gwynne was not very sanguine as to the effects of his journey to Barchester and not over-anxious to interfere with the bishop. He had had the gout, but was very nearly convalescent, and Mr. Arabin at once saw that had the mission been one of which the master thoroughly approved, he would before this have been at Plumstead.
As it was, Dr. Gwynne was resolved on visiting his friend and willingly promised to return to Barchester with Mr. Arabin. He could not bring himself to believe that there was any probability that Mr. Slope would be made Dean of Barchester. Rumour, he said, had reached even his ears, not at all favourable to that gentleman’s character, and he expressed himself strongly of opinion that any such appointment was quite out of the question. At this stage of the proceedings, the master’s right-hand man, Tom Staple, was called in to assist at the conference. Tom Staple was the Tutor of Lazarus and, moreover, a great man at Oxford. Though universally known by a species of nomenclature so very undignified, Tom Staple was one who maintained a high dignity in the university. He was, as it were, the leader of the Oxford tutors, a body of men who consider themselves collectively as being by very little, if at all, second in importance to the heads themselves. It is not always the case that the master, or warden, or provost, or principal can hit it off exactly with his tutor. A tutor is by no means indisposed to have a will of his own. But at Lazarus they were great friends and firm allies at the time of which we are writing.
Tom Staple was a hale, strong man of about forty-five, short in stature, swarthy in face, with strong, sturdy black hair and crisp black beard of which very little was allowed to show itself in shape of whiskers. He always wore a white neckcloth, clean indeed, but not tied with that scrupulous care which now distinguishes some of our younger clergy. He was, of course, always clothed in a seemly suit of solemn black. Mr. Staple was a decent cleanly liver, not over-addicted to any sensuality, but nevertheless a somewhat warmish hue was beginning to adorn his nose, the peculiar effect, as his friends averred, of a certain pipe of port introduced into the cellars of Lazarus the very same year in which the tutor entered it as a freshman. There was also, perhaps, a little redolence of port wine, as it were the slightest possible twang, in Mr. Staple’s voice.
In these latter days Tom Staple was not a happy man; university reform had long been his bugbear, and now was his bane. It was not with him, as with most others, an affair of politics, respecting which, when the need existed, he could, for parties’ sake or on behalf of principle, maintain a certain amount of necessary zeal; it was not with him a subject for dilettante warfare and courteous, commonplace opposition. To him it was life and death. The status quo of the university was his only idea of life, and any reformation was as bad to him as death. He would willingly have been a martyr in the cause, had the cause admitted of martyrdom.
At the present day, unfortunately, public affairs will allow of no martyrs, and therefore it is that there is such a deficiency of zeal. Could gentlemen of £10,000 a year have died on their own door-steps in defence of protection, no doubt some half-dozen glorious old baronets would have so fallen, and the school of protection would at this day have been crowded with scholars. Who can fight strenuously in any combat in which there is no danger? Tom Staple would have willingly been impaled before a Committee of the House, could he by such self-sacrifice have infused his own spirit into the component members of the hebdomadal board.
Tom Staple was one of those who in his heart approved of the credit system which had of old been in vogue between the students and tradesmen of the university. He knew and acknowledged to himself that it was useless in these degenerate days publicly to contend with The Jupiter on such a subject. The Jupiter had undertaken to rule the university, and Tom Staple was well aware that The Jupiter was too powerful for him. But in secret, and among his safe companions, he would argue that the system of credit was an ordeal good for young men to undergo.
The bad men, said he, the weak and worthless, blunder into danger and burn their feet, but the good men, they who have any character, they who have that within them which can reflect credit on their alma mater, they come through scatheless. What merit will there be to a young man to get through safely, if he be guarded and protected and restrained like a schoolboy? By so doing, the period of the ordeal is only postponed, and the manhood of the man will be deferred from the age of twenty to that of twenty-four. If you bind him with leading-strings at college, he will break loose while eating for the bar in London; bind him there, and he will break loose afterwards, when he is a married man. The wild oats must be sown somewhere. ’Twas thus that Tom Staple would argue of young men, not, indeed, with much consistency, but still with some practical knowledge of the subject gathered from long experience.
And now Tom Staple proffered such wisdom as he had for the assistance of Dr. Gwynne and Mr. Arabin.
“Quite out of the question,” said he, arguing that Mr. Slope could not possibly be made the new Dean of Barchester.
“So I think,” said the master. “He has no standing and, if all I hear be true, very little character.”
“As to character,” said Tom Staple, “I don’t think much of that. They rather like loose parsons for deans; a little fast living, or a dash of infidelity, is no bad recommendation to a cathedral close. But they couldn’t make Mr. Slope; the last two deans have been Cambridge men; you’ll not show me an instance of their making three men running from the same university. We don’t get our share and never shall, I suppose, but we must at least have one out of three.”
“Those sort of rules are all gone by now,” said Mr. Arabin.
“Everything has gone by, I believe,” said Tom Staple. “The cigar has been smoked out, and we are the ashes.”
“Speak for yourself, Staple,” said the master.
“I speak for all,” said the tutor stoutly. “It is coming to that, that there will be no life left anywhere in the country. No one is any longer fit to rule himself, or those belonging to him. The Government is to find us all in everything, and the press is to find the Government. Nevertheless, Mr. Slope won’t be Dean of Barchester.”
“And who will be warden of the hospital?” said Mr. Arabin.
“I hear that Mr. Quiverful is already appointed,” said Tom Staple.
“I think not,” said the master. “And I think, moreover, that Dr. Proudie will not be so short-sighted as to run against such a rock: Mr. Slope should himself have sense enough to prevent it.”
“But perhaps Mr. Slope may have no objection to see his patron on a rock,” said the suspicious tutor.
“What could he get by that?” asked Mr. Arabin.
“It is impossible to see the doubles of such a man,’ said Mr. Staple. “It seems quite clear that Bishop Proudie is altogether in his hands, and it is equally clear that he has been moving heaven and earth to get this Mr. Quiverful into the hospital, although he must know that such an appointment would be most damaging to the bishop. It is impossible to understand such a man and dreadful to think,” added Tom Staple, sighing deeply, “that the welfare and fortunes of good men may depend on his intrigues.”
Dr. Gwynne or Mr. Staple were not in the least aware, nor even was Mr. Arabin, that this Mr. Slope, of whom they were talking, had been using his utmost efforts to put their own candidate into the hospital, and that in lieu of being permanent in the palace, his own expulsion therefrom had been already decided on by the high powers of the diocese.
“I’ll tell you what,” said the tutor, “if this Quiverful is thrust into the hospital and Dr. Trefoil does die, I should not wonder if the Government were to make Mr. Harding Dean of Barchester. They would feel bound to do something for him after all that was said when he resigned.”
Dr. Gwynne at the moment made no reply to this suggestion, but it did not the less impress itself on his mind. If Mr. Harding could not be warden of the hospital, why should he not be Dean of Barchester?
And so the conference ended without any very fixed resolution, and Dr. Gwynne and Mr. Arabin prepared