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untempted, to have remained happy with one and sixpence a day.

'Come, Skulpit,' repeated Handy, getting impatient, 'you're
not going to go along with old Bunce in helping that parson

to rob us all. Take the pen, man, and right yourself. Well,'
he added, seeing that Skulpit still doubted, 'to see a man as is

afraid to stand by hisself is, to my thinking, the meanest thing
as is.'

'Sink them all for parsons, says I,' growled Moody;
'hungry beggars, as never thinks their bellies full till they have

robbed all and everything!'
'Who's to harm you, man?' argued Spriggs. 'Let them

look never so black at you, they can't get you put out when
you're once in--no, not old Catgut, with Calves to help him!'

I am sorry to say the archdeacon himself was designated by
this scurrilous allusion to his nether person.

'A hundred a year to win, and nothing to lose,' continued
Handy. 'My eyes! Well, how a man's to doubt about sich

a bit of cheese as that passes me--but some men is timorous--
some men is born with no pluck in them--some men is cowed

at the very first sight of a gentleman's coat and waistcoat.'
Oh, Mr Harding, if you had but taken the archdeacon's

advice in that disputed case, when Joe Mutters was this
ungrateful demagogue's rival candidate!

'Afraid of a parson,' growled Moody, with a look of ineffable
scorn. 'I tell ye what I'd be afraid of--I'd be afraid of

not getting nothing from 'em but just what I could take by
might and right--that's the most I'd be afraid on of any

parson of 'em all.'
'But,' said Skulpit, apologetically, 'Mr Harding's not so

bad--he did give us twopence a day, didn't he now?'
'Twopence a day!' exclaimed Spriggs with scorn, opening

awfully the red cavern of his lost eye.
'Twopence a day!' muttered Moody with a curse; 'sink

his twopence!'
'Twopence a day!' exclaimed Handy; 'and I'm to go, hat

in hand, and thank a chap for twopence a day, when he owes
me a hundred pounds a year; no, thank ye; that may do for

you, but it won't for me. Come, I say, Skulpit, are you a going
to put your mark to this here paper, or are you not?'

Skulpit looked round in wretched indecision to his two
friends. 'What d'ye think, Bill Gazy?' said he.

But Bill Gazy couldn't think. He made a noise like the
bleating of an old sheep, which was intended to express the

agony of his doubt, and again muttered that 'he didn't know.'
'Take hold, you old cripple,' said Handy, thrusting the pen

into poor Billy's hand: 'there, so--ugh! you old fool, you've
been and smeared it all--there--that'll do for you--that's as

good as the best name as ever was written': and a big blotch
of ink was presumed to represent Billy Gazy's acquiescence.

'Now, Jonathan,' said Handy, turning to Crumple.
'A hundred a year's a nice thing, for sartain,' again argued

Crumple. 'Well, neighbour Skulpit, how's it to be?'
'Oh, please yourself,' said Skulpit: 'please yourself, and

you'll please me.'
The pen was thrust into Crumple's hand, and a faint,

wandering, meaningless sign was made, betokening such
sanction and authority as Jonathan Crumple was able to convey.

'Come, job,' said Handy, softened by success, 'don't let
'em have to say that old Bunce has a man like you under his

thumb--a man that always holds his head in the hospital as
high as Bunce himself, though you're never axed to drink

wine, and sneak, and tell lies about your betters as he does.'
Skulpit held the pen, and made little flourishes with it in the

air, but still hesitated.
'And if you'll be said by me,' continued Handy, 'you'll not

write your name to it at all, but just put your mark like the
others,' --the cloud began to clear from Skulpit's brow--'we

all know you can do it if you like, but maybe you wouldn't
like to seem uppish, you know.'

'Well, the mark would be best,' said Skulpit. 'One name
and the rest marks wouldn't look well, would it?'

'The worst in the world,' said Handy; 'there--there': and
stooping over the petition, the learned clerk made a huge

cross on the place left for his signature.
'That's the game,' said Handy, triumphantly pocketing the

petition; 'we're all in a boat now, that is, the nine of us; and
as for old Bunce, and his cronies, they may--' But as he was

hobbling off to the door, with a crutch on one side and a
stick on the other, he was met by Bunce himself.

'Well Handy, and what may old Bunce do?' said the gray-
haired, upright senior.

Handy muttered something, and was departing; but he
was stopped in the doorway by the huge frame of the newcomer.

'You've been doing no good here, Abel Handy,' said he, ''tis
plain to see that; and 'tisn't much good, I'm thinking, you

ever do.'
'I mind my own business, Master Bunce,' muttered the

other, 'and do you do the same. It ain't nothing to you what
I does--and your spying and poking here won't do no good

nor yet no harm.'
'I suppose then, job,' continued Bunce, not noticing his

opponent, 'if the truth must out, you've stuck your name to
that petition of theirs at last.'

Skulpit looked as though he were about to sink into the
ground with shame.

'What is it to you what he signs?' said Handy. 'I suppose
if we all wants to ax for our own, we needn't ax leave of you

first, Mr Bunce, big a man as you are; and as to your sneaking
in here, into Job's room when he's busy, and where you're

not wanted--'
'I've knowed job Skulpit, man and boy, sixty years,' said

Bunce, looking at the man of whom he spoke, 'and that's ever
since the day he was born. I knowed the mother that bore

him, when she and I were little wee things, picking daisies
together in the close yonder; and I've lived under the same

roof with him more nor ten years; and after that I may come
into his room without axing leave, and yet no sneaking neither.'

'So you can, Mr Bunce,' said Skulpit; 'so you can, any
hour, day or night.'

'And I'm free also to tell him my mind,' continued Bunce,
looking at the one man and addressing the other; 'and I tell

him now that he's done a foolish and a wrong thing. He's
turned his back upon one who is his best friend; and is playing

the game of others, who care nothing for him, whether he be
poor or rich, well or ill, alive or dead. A hundred a year?

Are the lot of you soft enough to think that if a hundred a
year be to be given, it's the likes of you that will get it?'--and

he pointed to Billy Gazy, Spriggs, and Crumple. 'Did any of
us ever do anything worth half the money? Was it to make

gentlemen of us we were brought in here, when all the world
turned against us, and we couldn't longer earn our daily

bread? A'n't you all as rich in your ways as he in his?'--and
the oratorpointed to the side on which the warden lived.

'A'n't you getting all you hoped for, ay, and more than you
hoped for? Wouldn't each of you have given the dearest limb

of his body to secure that which now makes you so unthankful?'
'We wants what John Hiram left us,' said Handy. 'We

wants what's ourn by law; it don't matter what we expected.
What's ourn by law should be ourn, and by goles we'll have it.'

'Law!' said Bunce, with all the scorn he knew how to
command--'law! Did ye ever know a poor man yet was the

better for law, or for a lawyer? Will Mr Finney ever be as
good to you, job, as that man has been? Will he see to you

when you're sick, and comfort you when you're wretched?
Will he--'

'No, nor give you port wine, old boy, on cold winter nights!
he won't do that, will he?' asked Handy; and laughing at the

severity of his own wit, he and his colleagues retired, carrying
with them, however, the now powerful petition.

There is no help for spilt milk; and Mr Bunce could only
retire to his own room, disgusted at the frailty of human nature.

Job Skulpit scratched his head--Jonathan Crumple again
remarked, that, 'for sartain, sure a hundred a year was very

nice'--and Billy Gazy again rubbed his eyes, and lowly
muttered that 'he didn't know.'

CHAPTER V
Dr Grantly Visits the Hospital

Though doubt and hesitation disturbed the rest of our poor
warden, no such weakness perplexed the nobler

breast of his son-in-law. As the indomitable cock preparing
for the combat sharpens his spurs, shakes his feathers, and

erects his comb, so did the archdeacon arrange his weapons
for the coming war, without misgiving and without fear. That

he was fully confident of the justice of his cause let no one
doubt. Many a man can fight his battle with good courage,

but with a doubting conscience. Such was not the case with
Dr Grantly. He did not believe in the Gospel with more

assurance than he did in the sacred justice of all ecclesiastical
revenues. When he put his shoulder to the wheel to defend

the income of the present and future precentors of Barchester,
he was animated" target="_blank" title="a.栩栩如生的;活跃的">animated by as strong a sense of a holy cause, as that

which gives courage to a missionary in Africa, or enables a
sister of mercy to give up the pleasures of the world for the

wards of a hospital. He was about to defend the holy of holies
from the touch of the profane; to guard the citadel of his

church from the most rampant of its enemies; to put on his
good armour in the best of fights; and secure, if possible, the

comforts of his creed for coming generations of ecclesiastical
dignitaries. Such a work required no ordinary vigour; and

the archdeacon was, therefore, extraordinarilyvigorous. It
demanded a buoyant courage, and a heart happy in its toil; and

the archdeacon's heart was happy, and his courage was buoyant.
He knew that he would not be able to animate his father-in-law

with feelings like his own, but this did not much disturb
him. He preferred to bear the brunt of the battle alone, and

did not doubt that the warden would resign himself into his
hands with passive submission.

'Well, Mr Chadwick,' he said, walking into the steward's
office a day or two after the signing of the petition as

commemorated in the last chapter: 'anything from Cox and
Cummins this morning?' Mr Chadwick handed him a letter;

which he read, stroking the tight-gaitered calf of his right leg
as he did so. Messrs Cox and Cummins merely said that they

had as yet received no notice from their adversaries; that they
could recommend no preliminary steps; but that should any

proceeding really be taken by the bedesmen, it would be
expedient to consult that very eminent Queen's Counsel, Sir

Abraham Haphazard.
'I quite agree with them,' said Dr Grantly, refolding the

letter. 'I perfectly agree with them. Haphazard is no doubt
the best man; a thoroughchurchman, a sound conservative,

and in every respect the best man we could get--he's in the
House, too, which is a great thing.'

Mr Chadwick quite agreed.
'You remember how completely he put down that scoundrel

Horseman about the Bishop of Beverley's income; how completely
he set them all adrift in the earl's case.' Since the question

of St Cross had been mooted by the public, one noble lord had
become 'the earl,' par excellence, in the doctor's estimation.

'How he silenced that fellow at Rochester. Of course
we must have Haphazard; and I'll tell you what, Mr Chadwick,



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