第18章

'When a woman is impertinent one must only put up with it, and keep out of her way in future; but I am not inclined to put up with Mr Slope. "Sabbath travelling!"' and the doctor attempted to imitate the peculiar drawl of the man he so much disliked: '"Sabbath travelling!" Those are the sort of men who will ruin the Church of England, and make the profession of clergyman disreputable. It is not the dissenters or the papists that we should fear, but the set of canting, low-bred hypocrites who are wriggling their way in among us; men who have no fixed principle, no standard ideas of religion or doctrine, but who take up some popular cry, as this fellow has done about "Sabbath travelling."'

Dr Grantly did not again repeat the question aloud, but he did so constantly to himself, 'What were they to do with Mr Slope?' How was he openly, before the world, to show that he utterly disapproved of and abhorred such a man?

Hitherto Barchester had escaped the taint of any extreme rigour of church doctrine. The clergymen of the city and the neighbourhood, though very well inclined to promote high-church principles, privileges, and prerogatives, had never committed themselves to tendencies, which are somewhat too loosely called Puseyite practices. They all preached in their black gowns, as their fathers had done before them; they wore ordinary black cloth waistcoats;they had not candles on their altars, either lighted or unlighted;they made no private genuflexions, and were contented to confine themselves to such ceremonial observances as had been in vogue for the last hundred years. The services were decently and demurely read in their parish churches, chanting was confined to the cathedral, and the science of intoning was unknown. One young man who had come direct from Oxford as a curate at Plumstead had, after the lapse of two or three Sundays, made a faint attempt, much to the bewilderment of the poorer part of the congregation. Dr Grantly had not been present on the occasion; but Mrs Grantly, who had her own opinion on the subject, immediately after the service expressed a hope that the young gentleman had not been taken ill, and offered to send him all kinds of condiments supposed to be good for a sore throat. After that there had been no more intoning at Plumstead Episcopi.

But now the archdeacon began to meditate on some strong measures of absolute opposition. Dr Proudie and his crew were of the lowest possible order of Church of England clergymen, and therefore it behoved him, Dr Grantly, to be of the very highest. Dr Proudie would abolish all forms and ceremonies, and therefore Dr Grantly felt the sudden necessity of multiplying them. Dr Proudie would consent to deprive the church of all collective authority and rule, and therefore Dr Grantly would stand up for the full power of convocation, and the renewal of its ancient privileges.

It was true that he could not himself intone the service, but he could pressure the co-operation of any number of gentlemanlike curates well trained in the mystery of doing so. He would not willingly alter his own fashion of dress, but he could people Barchester with young clergymen dressed in the longest frocks, and the highest breasted silk waistcoats. He certainly was not prepared to cross himself, or to advocate the real presence; but, without going this length, there were various observances, by adopting which he could plainly show his antipathy to such men as Dr Proudie and Mr Slope.

All these things passed through his mind as he paced up and down the close with Mr Harding. War, war, internecine war was in his heart. He felt that as regarded himself and Mr Slope, one of the two must be annihilated as far as the city of Barchester was concerned; and he did not intend to give way until there was not left to him an inch of ground on which he could stand. He still flattered himself that he could make Barchester too hot to hold Mr Slope, and he had no weakness of spirit to prevent his bringing about such consummation if it were in his power.

'I suppose Susan must call at the palace,' said Mr Harding.

'Yes, she shall call there; but it shall be once and once only. Idare say "the horses" won't find it convenient to come to Plumstead very soon, and when that once is done the matter may drop.'

'I don't suppose Eleanor need call. I don't think Eleanor would get on at all well with Mrs Proudie.'

'Not the least necessity in life,' replied the archdeacon, not without the reflection that a ceremony which was necessary for his wife, might not be at all binding on the widow of John Bold. 'Not the slightest reason on earth why she should do so, if she doesn't like it. For myself, I don't think that any decent young woman should be subjected to the nuisance of being in the same room with that man.'

And so the two clergymen parted. Mr Harding going to his daughter's house, and the archdeacon seeking the seclusion of his brougham.

The new inhabitants of the palace did not express any higher opinion of their visitors than their visitors had expressed of them. Though they did not use quite such strong language as Dr Grantly had done, they felt as much personal aversion, and were quite as well aware as he was that there would be a battle to be fought, and that there was hardly room for Proudieism in Barchester as long as Grantlyism was predominant.

Indeed, it may be doubted whether Mr Slope had not already within his breast a better prepared system of strategy, a more accurately-defined line of hostile conduct than the archdeacon. Dr Grantly was going to fight because he found that he hated the man.