第253章

He was sitting saturated with rain--saturated also with thinking --and quite unobservant of anything around him, when he was accosted by an old man from Hoggle End, with whom he was well acquainted. 'Thee be wat, Master Crawley,' said the old man.

'Wet!' said Crawley, recalled suddenly back to the realities of life.

'Well--yes. I am wet. That's because it's raining.'

'Thee be teeming o'wat. Hadn't thee better go home?'

'And are you not wet also,' said Mr Crawley, looking at the old man, who had been at work in the brickfield, and who was soaked with mire, and from whom there seemed to come a steam of muddy mist.

'Is it me, yer reverence? I'm wat of course. The loikes of us is always wat--that is barring the insides of us. It comes to us natural to have the rheumatics. How is one of us to help hisself against having on 'em? But there ain't no call for the loikes of you to have the rheumatics.'

'My friend,' said Crawley, who was now standing on the road--and as he spoke he put out his arm and took the brickmaker by the hand, 'there is a worse complaint than rheumatism--there is, indeed.'

'There's what they calls the collerer,' said Giles Hoggett, looking up into Crawley's face. 'That ain't a-got hold of yer?'

'Ay, and worse than the cholera. A man is killed all over when he is struck with pride--and yet he lives.'

'Maybe that's bad enough too,' said Giles, with his hand still held by the other.

'It is bad enough,' said Crawley, striking his breast with his left hand. 'It is bad enough.'

'Tell 'ee what, Master Crawley;--and yer reverence mustn't think as Imeans to be preaching; there ain't nowt a man can't bear if he'll only be dogged. You to whome, Master Crawley, and think o' that, and maybe it'll do ye a good yet. It's dogged as does it. It ain't thinking about it.' Then Giles Hoggett withdrew his hand from the clergyman's, and walked away towards his home at Hoggle End. Mr Crawley also turned away homewards, and as he made his way through the lanes, he repeated to himself Giles Hoggett's words. 'It's dogged as does it. It's not thinking about it.'

He did not say a word to his wife on that afternoon about Dr Tempest;and she was so much taken up with his outward condition when he returned, as almost to have forgotten the letter. He allowed himself, but barely allowed himself, to be made dry, and then for the remainder of the day applied himself to learn the lesson which Hoggett had endeavoured to teach him. But the learning of it was not easy, and hardly became more easy when he had worked the problem out in his own mind, and discovered that the brickmaker's doggedness simply meant self-abnegation--that a man should force himself to endure anything that might be sent upon him, not only without outward grumbling, but also without grumbling inwardly.

Early on the next morning, he told his wife that he was going into Silverbridge. 'It is that letter--the letter which I got yesterday that calls me,' he said. And then he handed her the letter as to which he had refused to speak to her on the preceding day.

'But this speaks of your going next Monday, Josiah,' said Mrs Crawley.

'I find it more suitable that I should go today,' said he. 'Some duty Ido owe in this matter, both to the bishop, and to Dr Tempest, who, after a fashion is, as regards my present business, the bishop's representative. But I do not perceive that I owe it as a duty to either to obey implicitly their injunctions, and I will not submit myself to the cross-questioning of the man Thumble. As I am purposed at present Ishall express my willingness to give up the parish.'

'Give up the parish altogether?'

'Yes, altogether.' As he spoke he clasped both his hands together, and having held them for a moment on high, allowed them to fall thus clasped before him. 'I cannot give it up in part; I cannot abandon the duties and reserve the honorarium. Nor would I if I could.'

'I did not mean that, Josiah. But pray think of it before you speak.'

'I have thought of it, and I will think of it. Farewell, my dear.'

Then he came up to her and kissed her, and started on his journey on foot to Silverbridge.

It was about noon when he reached Silverbridge, and he was told that Doctor Tempest was at home. The servant asked him for a card. 'I have no card,' said Mr Crawley, 'but I will write my name for your behoof if your master's hospitality will allow me paper and pencil.' The name was written, and as Crawley waited in the drawing-room he spent his time in hating Dr Tempest because the door had been opened by a man-servant dressed in black. Had the man been in livery he would have hated Dr Tempest all the same. And he would have hated him a little had the door been opened by a smart maid.

'Your letter came to hand yesterday morning, Dr Tempest,' said Mr Crawley, still standing, though the doctor had pointed to a chair for him after shaking hands with him; 'and having given yesterday to the consideration of it, with what judgment I have been able to exercise, Ihave felt it to be incumbent upon me to wait upon you without further delay, as by doing so I may perhaps assist your views and save labour to those gentlemen who are joined with you in this commission of which you have spoken. To some of them it may possibly be troublesome that they should be brought here on next Monday.