Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

HARRY BOLTON'S CURACY

One of the greatest enjoyments which are likely to fall to the lot of a man in middle life, is to spend a week or so with the old school-and-college companion whom he has not seen since the graver page of life has turned over for both parties. It is as unlike any ordinary visit-making as possible. It is one of the very few instances in which the complimentary dialogue between the guest and his entertainer comes to have a real force and meaning. One has to unlearn, for this special occasion, the art so necessary in ordinary society, of interpreting terms by their contraries. And in fact it is difficult, at first, for one who has been used for some years to a social atmosphere, whose warmth is mainly artificial, to breathe freely in the natural sunshine of an old friend's company; just as a native Londoner is said sometimes to pine away, when removed into the fresh air of the country. We are so used to consider the shake of the hand, and the "Very glad to see you," of the hundred and one people who ask us to dinner, as merely a polite and poetical form of expressing, "You certainly are a bore; but as you are here, I must make the best of you" – that it costs us an effort to comprehend that "How are you, old fellow?" does, in the present case, imply a bonâ fide hope that we are as sound in health and heart, if not as young, as formerly. And especially when a man's pursuits have led him a good deal into the world, and many of his warmer feelings have been, insensibly perhaps, chilled by the contact, the heartiness of his reception by some old college friend who has led a simple life, the squire of his paternal acres, or the occupant of a country parsonage, and has gained and lost less by the polishing process of society, will come upon him with a strangeness almost reproachful. But once fairly fixed within the hospitable walls, the natural tone is recognised, and proves contagious; the formal incrustations of years melt in the first hour of after-dinner chat, and the heart is opened to feelings and language which it had persuaded itself were long forgotten. And when the end of your three weeks' holiday arrives at last, which you cannot persuade yourself has been more than three days, (though you seem to have lived over again the best half of your life in the time,) you have so far forgotten the conventional rules of good-breeding, that when your friend says to you on the last evening, "Must you really go? Can't you stay till Monday?" you actually take him at his word, and begin to cast about in your mind for some possible excuse for stealing another couple of days or so, though you have heard the same expression from the master of every house where you have happened to visit, and never dreamt of understanding it in any other than its civilised (i. e., non-natural) sense – as a hint to fix a day for going, and stick to it, that your entertainer may "know the worst."

I was heartily glad, therefore, when at last I found that there was nothing to prevent me from paying a visit (long promised, and long looked forward to, but against which, I began to think, gods and men had conspired) to my old and true friend Lumley. I dare say he has a Christian name; indeed, I have no reason to doubt it, and, on the strength of an initial not very decipherable, prefixed to the L in his signature, I have never hesitated to address him, "J. Lumley, Esq.;" but I know him as Long Lumley, and so does every man who, like myself, remembers him at Oxford; and as Long Lumley do all his cotemporaries know him best, and esteem him accordingly; and he must excuse me if I immortalise him to the public, in spite of godfathers and godmothers, by that more familiar appellation. A cousin was with him at college, a miserable, sneaking fellow, who was known as "Little Lumley;" and if, as I suspect, they were both Johns or Jameses, it is quite desirable to distinguish them unmistakably; for though the other has the best shooting in the country, I would not be suspected of spending even the first week of September inside such a fellow's gates.

But Long Lumley was and is of a very different stamp; six feet three, and every inch a gentleman. I wish he was not, of late years, quite so fond of farming: a man who can shoot, ride, and translate an ode of Horace as he can, ought to have a soul above turnips. It is almost the only point on which we are diametrically opposed in tastes and habits. We nearly fell out about it the very first morning after my arrival.

Breakfast was over – a somewhat late one in honour of the supposed fatigues of yesterday's journey, and it became necessary to arrange proceedings for the day. What a false politeness it is, which makes a host responsible for his guests' amusement! and how often, in consequence, are they compelled to do, with grimaces of forced satisfaction, the very thing they would not! However, Lumley and myself were too old friends to have any scruples of delicacy on that point. I had been eyeing him for some minutes while he was fastening on a pair of formidable high-lows, and was not taken by surprise when the proposal came out, "Now, old fellow, will you come and have a look at my farm?"

"Can't I see it from the window?"

"Stuff! come, I must show you my sheep: I assure you they are considered about the best in this neighbourhood."

"Well, then, I'll taste the mutton any day you like, and give you my honest opinion."

"Don't be an ass now, but get your hat and come along; it's going to be a lovely day; and we'll just take a turn over the farm – there's a new thrashing machine I want to show you, too, and then back here to lunch."

"Seriously then, Lumley, I won't do anything of the kind. I do you the justice to believe, that you asked me here to enjoy myself; and that I am quite ready to do in any fairly rational manner; and I flatter myself I am in nowise particular; but as to going bogging myself among turnips, or staring into the faces and poking the ribs of short-horns and south-downs – why, as an old friend, you'll excuse me."

"Hem! there's no accounting for tastes," said Lumley, in a half-disappointed tone.

"No," said I, "there certainly is not."

"Well, then," said he – he never lost his good humour – "what shall we do? I'll tell you – you remember Harry Bolton? rather your junior, but you must have known him well, because he was quite in our set from the first – to be sure, didn't you spill him out of a tandem at Abingdon corner? Well, he is living now about nine miles from here, and we'll drive over and see him. I meant to write to ask him to dine here, and this will save the trouble."

"With all my heart," said I; "I never saw him since I left Oxford. I fancied I heard of his getting into some mess – involved in some way, was he not?"

"Not involved exactly; but he certainly did make himself scarce from a very nice house and curacy which he had when he first left Oxford, and buried himself alive for I don't know how long, and all for the very queerest reason, or rather without any reason at all. Did you never hear of it?"

"No; only some vague rumour, as I said just now."

"You never heard, then, how he came into this neighbourhood? Have the dog-cart round in ten minutes, Sam, and we dine at seven. Now, get yourself in marching order, and I'll tell you the whole story as we go along."

He did so, but it was so interrupted by continual expostulations with his horse, and remarks upon the country through which we were driving, that it will be at least as intelligible if I tell it in my own words; especially as I had many of the most graphic passages from Bolton's own lips afterwards.

It was before he left Oxford, I think, that Bolton lost his father, and was thrown pretty much upon his own resources. A physician with a large family, however good his practice, seldom leaves much behind him; and poor Harry found himself, after spending a handsome allowance and something more, left to begin life on his own account, with a degree, a good many bills, and a few hundreds, quite insufficient to pay them. However, he was not the sort of man to look upon the dark side of things; and no heir, long expectant, and just stepping into his thousands per annum, carried away from the university a lighter heart and a merrier face than Harry Bolton. He got ordained in due course; and though not exactly the material out of which one would prefer to cut a country curate, still he threw off, with his sporting coats and many-coloured waistcoats, most of the habits thereto belonging, and less suited to his profession. To live upon a curate's stipend he found more difficult; and being a fair scholar, and having plenty of friends and connections, he announced his intention of "driving," as he called it, a pair of pupils, whom he might train up in so much Latin and Greek, and other elements of general knowledge, (including, perhaps, a little shooting and gig-driving,) as they might require for their matriculations. The desired youths were soon found; and Harry entered upon this new employment with considerable ardour, and a very honest intention of doing his best. How the Latin and Greek prospered is a point in some degree obscure to present historians; but all the pupils were unanimous in declaring the wine to be unexceptionable, and their preceptor's dogs and shooting first-rate; in fact, he sustained, with them, as with the public generally, the reputation of being one of the heartiest and best fellows in the world. From the poorest among his parishioners, to whom he was charitable above his means, but who felt almost more than his gifts the manner of his giving, to the squire ten miles off, who met his pleasant face and smile once a-year at a dinner party, all spoke well of Harry Bolton. No wonder that his pupils looked upon him as the very paragon of tutors, and found their path of learning strewed with unexpected flowers. How many scholars he made is still unknown; but he made many friends: with the uncalculating gratitude of youth, all remembered the pleasant companion when they might have forgotten the hard-working instructor: and frequent were the tokens of such remembrance, varying with the tastes of the senders, which reached the little parsonage by the Oxford coach, from those who successively assumed the toga virilis, and became (university) men. Collars of brawn and cases of claret were indeed but perishable memorials; but there came also whips extravagantly mounted, and tomes of orthodox divinity in the soberest bindings, all bearing inscriptions more or less classical, from his "quondam alumni." The first named delicacies were duly passed on, with Harry's compliments, to grace more fittingly the tables of some of his hospitable entertainers; and, in an equally unselfish spirit, he seldom sat down alone to any of his literary dainties, but kept them in honourable state on his most conspicuous bookshelf, for the use and behoof of any friend who might wish to enjoy them.

But here I am anticipating. For some time the pupilising went on pretty smoothly. Two or three couple of youths were fairly launched upon the university, and nothing particularly untoward had occurred to ruffle the curate's good-humour or injure his reputation. There had been no attempt at elopement with the cook or housemaid – (Bolton's precaution had secured ugly ones;) no poaching on Sir Thomas's favourite preserve, though close at hand, and sportsmen of eighteen are not overnice in their distinctions: a tall Irishman had been with him, summer vacations and all, for nearly two years, and had not made love to either of the squire's undeniably pretty daughters. In short, the pupils were less of a bore than Harry had supposed it possible, and, in some cases, very agreeable companions to enliven the occasional dulness of a country parish.

But somehow or other, in one chief point which he had aimed at, he found himself disappointed. In counting so many additional hundreds to his scanty income, Harry Bolton had fancied he was going to make himself a rich man. He was not avaricious, or even selfish – far from it; but he wanted to be independent; there were visions, perhaps, flitting indistinctly before him, of a time when he might tire of a solitary home, and resign into some fair and gentle hand the reins of the liberty he was so fond of boasting as a bachelor. He did not grudge his time or labour; he had cast off much of his old habit of idleness, and took a real interest in his pupils; still he had expected some of the results to himself would take the tangible shape of pounds shillings and pence. But though the cheques came duly in at midsummer and Christmas, the balance at his banker's increased but very slowly; in short, he found that the additional expenses, necessary and unnecessary, entailed upon him by the change in his establishment, nearly counterbalanced the additional income. Not to speak of such ordinary matters as butchers' and bakers' and wine-merchants' bills – for his table was always most liberal, now that he had to entertain others, as it had been simple and economical while alone – indeed the hospitality of the neighbourhood had then made his housekeeping almost a sinecure; but independently of this, Harry had been led to extend his expenses – he said unavoidably – in other directions. A rough pony had hitherto contented him to gallop into the neighbouring town for letters, and to carry him and his valise to the dinner-parties even of his most aristocratic entertainers. But now, inasmuch as sometimes an hospitable invitation extended itself to "the young men," he had felt in duty bound, for his and their joint accommodation, to replace the pony by a showy-looking mare, and to invest the legal sum of nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence in the purchase of a dog-cart. As an almost necessary consequence, the boy "Jim" gave way to a grown-up groom, who did, rather less work for considerably more wages, hissing and whistling over the said mare and dog-cart in the most knowing manner, and condescending, though with some scruples of conscience, to clean boots and knives. Harry's reminiscences of his more sporting days were yet fresh enough for him to make a point of seeing his turn-out "look as it ought to do." Jim and the pony, and all their accoutrements, were rough, and useful, and cheap, and made no pretensions to be otherwise. Now, things were changed, and saddlery and harness of the best (there was no economy, as Harry observed, in buying a poor article) found their place among the bills at Christmas. In short, he was led into a maze of new wants, individually trifling, but collectively sufficient to tell upon his yearly expenditure; and he was beginning gravely to attempt to solve that universal problem – the asses' bridge, which the wisest domestic economists stick fast at year after year – "where the deuce all the money goes to?" – when circumstances occurred which put all such useless inquiries out of his head, and indeed put his debtor and creditor transactions on a much more primitive footing.

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.