Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 404, June, 1849

"Oh, we only want an answer to that question," said the young lady, interrupting; "for, allow me to tell you, we feel our devotion greatly excited by the noble solemnity of a service decently conducted with albe and chasuble, in a building fitted for its high destination by the richest combination of architecture and the arts."

Tinderella is nineteen years of age, and as decided in her manner as a field-marshal. "May I ask, my dear, who the 'we' are in whose name you speak?" inquired the rector.

"Not Mr Ruggles the grocer, nor Chipper the carpenter, but all who are qualified by their fortune, and position in life, to judge on the subject," was Tinderella's spirited rejoinder.

"Really," said the Doctor, "you young ladies are very much changed from what you were. Two years ago, I used to have great difficulty in keeping you from balls and archeries, and had frequent occasion to lecture you for inattention in church. What, in the name of wonder, has come over you all?"

"Do you find fault with us for having given up frivolities, and turned reverent and attentive during the service?" inquired his questioner with a sneer.

"Far from it, my dear, – very far from it; but I should like very much to know what is the cause of the change. I trust, my dear Tinderella, it isn't connected with the marriage of Lieutenant Polker, with whom I remember you danced every night last winter."

"Lieutenant Polker," replied Tinderella, "has married a dissenter, or a person of low church principles, and that is as bad, and he has nothing whatever to do with our duty to the Holy Catholic Church I assure you, sir."

"Then it must be that silly, ignorant coxcomb, Charles Fustian, my own godson, my favourite from his youth – an excellent fellow, but a conceited ass – I wish he had never gone into the diocese of Vexer."

This is the tender way in which you are spoken of, my dear Charles; and I feel sure you will appreciate the compliment paid to you by the Doctor, losing his temper, but retaining his affection.

There was a blush on Tinderella's cheek as she entered into a defence of "the Reverend Charles Fustian, a priest of our church;" and she almost curtsied in reverence for your name and office; and I advise Araminta to keep watch over her friend's proceedings, for I don't think Tinderella is so deeply attached to the doctrine of celibacy as she pretends. And I take this opportunity also, my dear Charles, to tell you that I shall keep watch over YOU; and if I find you casting your smiles at Tinderella, and holding her by the hand, and recommending her to enter into the privileges of confession, in the summer-house in her father's garden – and holding forth all the time on the blessings of a conventual life and penance, and hair shirts and a cat-o'-nine-tails – I shall be greatly inclined to recur to the discipline that used to improve your manners greatly when you were a little boy, and use the scourge with more effect than when you apply it to your shoulders with your own hand.

The Doctor has just been here, and as I know you will be rejoiced to hear the news he gave me, I will transmit it to you at once.

"Buddle," he said to me, "you have perhaps seen how vainly I have tried to resist the parish, at least the young ladies of the parish; for I am sorry to say, that, with the exception of yourself and two or three others of the seniors, the parish has left me to fight the battle alone."

"My dear Smiler," I replied, "what can we do? Surely, if we lie quiet on our oars, the fancy for that sort of thing will go off."

"Not at all; as they get older it will get worse. There is some hope for them when they are very young, but in a few years there is no chance of escaping a universal passing over to the Pope; and between ourselves," – and here the Doctor looked at the door, as if he wished to bolt it with a twist of his eye – "I am in great anxiety of mind lest they carry me with them. Yes, my good Buddle, it would not surprise me if I awoke some morning and found myself a monk."

"How? Haven't you signed the articles and repeated the creed, and the oath of abjuration, and all that?"

"That is no defence. Those girls go to work so scientifically, carrying one object first, and then another; and they are so good, and active, and amiable, and so useful in the parish, and so clever, and defer so respectfully to my judgment in all things, that I find there is not an alteration which has taken place in the parish that I did not at first oppose, and end in a very short time by ordering on my own authority. Yes, my dear friend, I feel that, if not supported by some person of stout uncompromising church principles, I shall probably find myself eating fish on Fridays, and administering castigation to myself in my old age, and listening to young ladies' confessions, and flogging Araminta or Tinderella in atonement for their tasting a mutton-chop on a fast-day."

"It would do them both a great deal of good."

"No doubt of it, my dear Buddle; and if they were five or six years younger, such things would soon be put out of their heads." And here he clenched his hand on his riding switch, and looked like the picture of Doctor Busby. "But, as it is, I think I have stolen a march on them. Look at that."

So saying, he pointed to an advertisement in the Record newspaper, which stated that "a curate was wanted for a country parish; he must be under thirty, an eloquent preacher and reader; and, finally, that no Tractarian need apply."

"And he's coming, sir; the Reverend Algernon Sidney Mount Huxtable; a man of good family, tolerable fortune, and highly orthodox principles, is coming! I expect him next week, and as he is only eight-and-twenty, and unmarried, I think he will be an excellent assistant in repelling these attacks on our admirable Establishment."

So, with this piece of information, my dear Charles, I conclude, as I am anxious to go through the houses in the village, and see the effect of the announcement on the charming little army which Major M'Turk irreverently calls St Ursula's dragoons.

LETTER SECOND

On Monday last, our new curate came; a most gentlemanly-mannered good-looking young man, with very dark eyes and very white teeth; and I was pleased to observe, when I dined with him the first day at the parsonage, that he did not consider these advantages as merely ornamental, but made excellent use of both. He did yeoman's service upon the fish and mutton, and cast glances on Miss Christina Smiler that made her at once give up the opposition she had made to her father's proposal of keeping a curate, and proved, to his entire satisfaction, that it was the best arrangement in the world. A pleasant good-humoured companion, a man of the world, and an unflinching son and servant of the Church, gaining the rector's confidence by an attack on Popery, and winning the ladies' affection by a spirited tirade on the vulgarity of dissent.

"The fact is," said the Doctor, after the ladies had withdrawn, and we had filled our glasses with the first bumper of port, – "the fact is, my dear Mount Huxtable, that our parish is in a very curious condition. We are all devoted members of the Church, and yet we are very suspicious of each other. The inhabitants, especially the young lady part of them, have taken such an interest lately in the affairs of the parish, and are so unanimous in enforcing their own wishes, both on me and the churchwardens – not to mention my stanch and kind friends Major M'Turk and Mr Buddle – that we feel as if the revolutionary spirit had extended to this village, and the regular authorities had been deposed by a Committee of Public Safety."

"Do they enforce their wishes?" inquired the new curate, with a frown, and laying great emphasis on the word enforce.

"Well," replied the Rector, a little puzzled, "that's rather a strong word. Do you think we can call it enforce, Major M'Turk?"

"They say they'll do it, and it's done," was the reply of the military commander.

"And you, Buddle?"

"No; you can't call it enforce," said I; "for they are the meekest, sweetest, and most submissive people I ever met with."

"That's right; I'm glad to hear it," said Mount Huxtable. "And do they really succeed in all the efforts they make?"

"Not a doubt of it," said the Rector, looking rather confused. "The church is entirely different from what it was a year ago; even the service, by some means or other, has got into quite a different order; I find myself walking about in my surplice, and standing up at doxologies, and sometimes attempting to sing the Jubilate after the second lesson, though I never had a voice, and it does not seem to be set to any particular tune. And, in confidence between ourselves, I think they could make me of any religion they chose."

"They're the fittest missionaries for the Mahommedan faith," said Major M'Turk; "such Houris may always count on me for a convert."

The Curate sank into silence.

"You're not afraid of such antagonists, Mount Huxtable?" inquired the Rector.

"I don't think they are at all to be feared as antagonists," he replied, with a smile, as if assured of the victory.

And when we looked at his handsome face, and the glow of true orthodox determination that brightened in his eyes, we were all of the same opinion.

"But we won't let them see the battery we have prepared against them," continued the jubilant Rector, "till we are in a position to take the field. I have applied to the bishop for a license for you for two years, so that, whatever complaints they make against your proceedings, nothing can get you removed from the parish; the whole onus of the fight will be thrown on your shoulders; and all I can say to them, when they come to me with their grievances, will be, my dear Araminta, my dear Sophronia, my charming little Anastasia, Mr Mount Huxtable is in the entire charge of the parish, and from his decision there is no appeal."

The happiest man in England that night was the Reverend Doctor Smiler of Great Yawnham, for he had now the assurance of preserving the orthodoxy of his parish, without the pain of quarrelling with his parishioners.

"Good night, good night," he said, as M'Turk and I walked away, while Mount Huxtable got into his phaeton and whisked his greys very showily down the avenue, "I think that ewe-necked donkey, Charles Fustian, won't be quite so popular with the Blazers at Hellebore Park, in spite of Araminta's admiration of his long back and white neckcloth."

"Mount Huxtable will cut him out in every house in the parish," replied Major M'Turk; and I said,

"I know Charles very well, and like him immensely; he won't yield without a struggle, and, in fact, I have no doubt he will proceed to excommunication."

Pardon us all, my dear Charles, for the free-and-easy way we speak of you. I don't believe three old fellows in England are fonder of you than we; and no wonder – for haven't we all known you from your cradle, and traced you through all your career since you were hopelessly the booby of the dame's school, till you were twice plucked at Oxford, and proved how absurdly the dons of that university behaved, by obtaining your degree from Dublin by a special favour. Would a learned body have treated a very decided fool with special favour? No; and therefore I think Dr Smiler and M'Turk are sometimes a great deal too strong in their language; but you must forgive them, for it proceeds from the fulness of their hearts.

The license arrived next day, and a mighty tea-drinking was held last night at the parsonage, to enable the Doctor to present his curate to the parish. The Blazers came in from Hellebore Park, Araminta looking beautiful in a plain nun-like white gown, with a cross and rosary of jet falling tastefully over her breast. The Swainloves came from the Lodge, the spirited Tinderella labouring under two prodigious folios of Gregorian chants. Sophronia and her grandmamma came up from the vale; and, in short, the whole rank and beauty of the village assembled. The manly dignity of that charming district was represented by myself and Major M'Turk; your father, who came down in his wheel-chair; Dr Pulser and his son Arthur, who has lately settled down here, with a brass plate on the surgery door, announcing that he is attorney-at-law. Arthur, you remember, has a beautiful voice, and he entones the responses like a nightingale.

We were all assembled before the guest of the evening arrived. For the thousandth time we admired the garden and lawn, and heard how the Doctor had altered the house, and levelled the grounds, and thrown out bow-windows, and made the whole thing the perfect bijou it is. The fuschias were in full bloom, the grass nicely mown, and the windows being open, we could sally forth on to the terrace walk, and admire the pleasure-grounds as we chose. But nobody moved. Christina Smiler sat at the piano, but did not play; she kept her eyes constantly fixed on the door, – as indeed did several of the other young ladies; and when at last wheels were heard rapidly approaching, and a loud knock resounded through the house, the amount of blushing was immense; the bloom of so many cheeks would have recalled to an original-minded poet a bed of roses, and old M'Turk kicked my shins unobserved, and whispered, "We shall get quit of the female parliament very soon: this is the Cromwell of the petticoats."

As he felt that he made his appearance, on this occasion, in his professional character, Mr Mount Huxtable was arrayed in strictly clerical costume. Your own tie, my dear Charles, could not have been more accurately starched, nor your coat more episcopally cut. There was the apostolic succession clearly defined on the buttons; and, between ourselves, we were enchanted with the fine taste that showed that a man might be a good stout high churchman without being altogether an adherent of the Patristics. His introduction was excellently got over, and the charming warmth with which he shook hands with the young people, after doing his salutation to us of the preterite generation, showed that his attention was not confined to the study of the fathers, but had a pretty considerable leaning to the daughters also.

"So much the better, my boy," said M'Turk, "he'll have them all back to the good old ways in a trice; we shall have picnics again on Fridays, and little dances every day in the week." Tea was soon finished, and Tinderella Swainlove, without being asked by anybody, as far as I could see, walked majestically to the piano, and laying open a huge book, gave voice with the greatest impetuosity to a Latin song, which she afterwards (turning round on the music-stool, and looking up in Mr Mount Huxtable's face) explained to be a hymn to the Virgin. But the gentleman did not observe that the explanation was addressed to him, and continued his conversation with Christina Smiler. In a few minutes he accompanied her out of the window into the garden, and the other young ladies caught occasional glimpses of the pair as they crossed the open spaces between the shrubs. The Doctor rubbed his hands with delight, and Mrs Smiler could scarcely conceal her gratification. But these feelings were not entertained by the Swainloves. Tinderella looked rather disappointed to her mother; and that lady addressed Major M'Turk in rather a bitter tone of voice, and said it was a pity the curate was so awkward, and asked how long he had been lame.

"He is by no means lame," replied the Major; "you'll learn that before long, by the dance he'll show you."

"Does he dance?" inquired Mrs Swainlove, anxiously. "As you're at the piano, my dear Tinderella, will you play us that charming polka you used to play last year?"

A polka! – it was the first that had been demanded for a long time; and, in the surprise and gratification of the moment, the Major took her affectionately by the hand. Tinderella played as required; and great was the effect of her notes: first one fair lady, and then another, found the room too hot; and before many minutes elapsed, we, who sat near the window, saw the whole assembly, except the performer on the piano, grouped round the new curate, who seemed giving them lectures on botany, for he held some flowers in his hand, and was evidently very communicative to them all. Mrs Swainlove, seeing her stratagem of no avail, told Tinderella to stop, and the conversation was entirely limited to the men who stayed behind. Young Pulser, the attorney, had joined the party in the garden, and the senior ladies, with the discomfited musician, soon also retired.

"He'll do," said the Major confidentially – "he's the very man for our money; and all things considered – not forgetting my friend Christina among the rest – you never did a wiser thing in your life, my dear Smiler."

"He seems a sure hand among the girls," said your father, "and I haven't had a chance of a minute's talk with him. I wanted to speak to him about my son Charles."

"He'll give you good advice about breaking in that stiff-necked young gentleman," said the Rector, "and we must contrive to get them acquainted."

"Bless ye," said your father, "they're very well acquainted already. He lived in Charles's parish in the diocese of Vexer, and was a great favourite, I'm told, of the bishop."

"Nonsense, my dear fellow," said the Doctor, taken a little aback, "he can't possibly be a favourite of such a firebrand – it must be some one else; and, besides, he never told me he was a friend of your son."

"You can ask him," replied your father, "for I'm quite sure I've often heard Charles talk of his friend Mount Huxtable."

A dead silence fell upon us all. Strange, we thought, that he should never have alluded to his acquaintance with you. Can he be ashamed of the way you have been going on? Is he afraid of being suspected of the same ludicrous feastings and fastings that have given you such a reputation here?

"Pray, my dear Mount Huxtable," said Dr Smiler, when the new curate, accompanied by the young ladies – like the proud-walking, long-necked leader of a tribe of beautiful snow-white geese – entered the room, "have you ever met our excellent friend, Charles Fustian?"

"Fustian – Fustian?" replied the Curate, trying to recollect. "There are so many of that name in the Church, I surely ought to have met with one of them."

The Doctor nodded his head, quite satisfied, to your father.

"You see, you see," he said, with a chuckle.

"I see nothing of the sort," said your progenitor; "for though Fustian is common enough in the Church, I'm sure Mount Huxtable isn't."

"That's true," said the Doctor. "Pray, how do you account for Charles Fustian happening to know YOU?"

"Ah, my dear sir," answered Mount Huxtable, with a smile to the ladies, "there is an old byword, which says more people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows."

A great laugh rewarded this sally, and the Doctor's triumph over his neighbours was complete.

"I told you what it would come to," he said; "no true orthodox churchman can have any acquaintance with such a semi-papist as poor Charles."

The conversation now went on in the usual channel – that is to say, we talked a little politics, which was very uninteresting, for we all agreed; and the young ones attacked the Curate on music and painting, and church architecture, on all which subjects he managed to give them great satisfaction, for he was an excellent musician, a tolerable artist, and might have passed anywhere for a professional builder. I suppose they were as much astonished as pleased to find that a man might be an opponent of the Tracts, and yet be as deep in church matters as themselves. Encouraged by this, they must have pushed their advances rather far for a first meeting; for, after an animated conversation in the bow-window, Araminta and two or three other young ladies came to the Doctor's chair.

"Only think, dear Doctor Smiler," she said, "how unkind Mr Mount Huxtable is. Next Thursday, our practising day in the church, is the Feast of holy St Ingulpus of Doncaster, and he won't give us leave to ornament the altar with flowers."

"And who in the world is St Ingulpus of Doncaster?" said the Doctor.

"A holy man, I don't in the least deny," said Mount Huxtable, kindly taking the answer on himself. "His acts and writings attest his virtues and power; but I merely mentioned to the young ladies, as the easiest way of settling the affair, that St Ingulpus, though most justly canonised by the holy father in the thirteenth century, was not elevated to the degree of worship or veneration by the succeeding councils."

"And you answered them very well, sir," said the Doctor. "And as to St Ingulpus of Doncaster, I never heard of him, and believe him to have been an impostor, like the holy father, as you ironically call him, who pretended to canonise him."

"Oh, papa!" said Christina, addressing her father, but looking all the time at the Curate, "Mr Mount Huxtable himself confesses he was a holy man."

"What? – do you join in such follies? Go to bed, or learn to behave less like a child. Mr Mount Huxtable accommodates his language to the weakness of his auditors; but in reality he has as great a contempt for this Ingulpus, or any other popish swindler, as I have."

The Doctor was now so secure of support from his curate, that he felt bold enough to get into a passion. If he had fired a pistol at his guests, he could scarcely have created a greater sensation. The effect on Christina was such that she clung for support to Mount Huxtable, and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Mr Mount Huxtable," continued the Rector, "has forbidden you to disfigure my church with flowers. Mr Mount Huxtable has the entire charge of this parish, and from his decision there is no appeal."

This knock-down blow he had kept for the last; and it had all the effect he expected. They were silent for a long time. "That has settled them, I think," he whispered to me; "they know me to be such a good-natured old fool, and so fond of them all, that in time they might have turned me round their thumbs; but Mount Huxtable is a different man. At the same time, I must'nt have the darlings too harshly used. I daresay I was a little too bitter in the way I spoke: I can't bear to see any of them unhappy, – something must be done to amuse them."

If the Doctor had done them all some serious injury, he could not have been more anxious to atone for it. He spoke to each of them, patted them on the head, told them they were good girls, and that he loved them all like his own children; and even went so far as to say that, if the matter was entirely in his hands, he didn't know but that he might have allowed them to make what wreaths and posies they liked on Thursday. "And as to your friend Ingulpus," he concluded, "I hope and trust he was a good man according to his lights, and probably had no intention to deceive. So, my dear Mount Huxtable, as your uncompromising Protestantism is the cause of disappointment to my young flock, I must punish you by insisting on your immediately singing them a song."

"The young ladies, sir, shall find I am not so uncompromising a Protestant as they fear, for you see I don't even protest against the justice of your sentence;" and with this he took his seat at the piano. "The song I shall attempt is not a very new one," he said, "for it was written in the year a thousand and forty by a monk of Cluny. The Benedictines, you will remember, have at all times been devoted to music." So saying, he threw his hand over the keys, and after a prelude, sang in a fine manly voice —

"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus! —Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus, —Imminet! imminet! ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet,Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustæ;Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque justè."

Astonishment and delight kept the company silent for a while after he had finished, and then the repressed feelings of the audience burst out with tenfold force. "Oh, Mr Mount Huxtable!" said they all, "you must attend our Thursday practising in the church. It will be so delightful now, for all we required was a fine man's voice. How beautiful the words are, and how well adapted for singing! And the music, how splendid! – pray whose is the music?"

"I am afraid I must confess myself the culprit in that respect," replied the Curate, very modestly. "I have been an enthusiast in music all my life, and have a peculiar delight in composing melodies to the old Catholic hymns."