I’ll let them know why they shouldn’t: by the bye, warden, I’d like to say a few words to them all together.’
The warden’s mind misgave him, and even for a moment he forgot to play. He by no means wished to delegate to his son-in-law his place and authority of warden; he had expressly determined not to interfere in any step which the men might wish to take in the matter under dispute; he was most anxious neither to accuse them nor to defend himself. All these things he was aware the archdeacon would do in his behalf, and that not in the mildest manner; and yet he knew not how to refuse the permission requested.
‘I’d so much sooner remain quiet in the matter,’ said he, in an apologetic voice.
Quiet!’ said the archdeacon, still speaking with his brazen trumpet; ‘do you wish to be ruined in quiet?’
‘Why, if I am to be ruined, certainly.’
‘Nonsense, warden; I tell you something must be done — we must act; just let me ring the bell, and send the men word that I’ll speak to them in the quad.’
Mr Harding knew not how to resist, and the disagreeable order was given. The quad, as it was familiarly called, was a small quadrangle, open on one side to the river, and surrounded on the others by the high wall of Mr Harding’s garden, by one gable end of Mr Harding’s house, and by the end of the row of buildings which formed the residences of the bedesmen. It was flagged all round, and the centre was stoned; small stone gutters ran from the four corners of the square to a grating in the centre; and attached to the end of Mr Harding’s house was a conduit with four cocks covered over from the weather, at which the old men got their water, and very generally performed their morning toilet. It was a quiet, sombre place, shaded over by the trees of the warden’s garden. On the side towards the river, there stood a row of stone seats, on which the old men would sit and gaze at the little fish, as they flitted by in the running stream. On the other side of the river was a rich, green meadow, running up to and joining the deanery, and as little open to the public as the garden of the dean itself. Nothing, therefore, could be more private than the quad of the hospital; and it was there that the archdeacon determined to convey to them his sense of their refractory proceedings.
The servant soon brought in word that the men were assembled in the quad, and the archdeacon, big with his purpose, rose to address them.
‘Well, warden, of course you’re coming,’ said he, seeing that Mr Harding did not prepare to follow him.
‘I wish you’d excuse me,’ said Mr Harding.
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t let us have division in the camp,’ replied the archdeacon: ‘let us have a long pull and a strong pull, but above all a pull all together; come warden, come; don’t be afraid of your duty.’
Mr Harding was afraid; he was afraid that he was being led to do that which was not his duty: he was not, however, strong enough to resist, so he got up and followed his son-in-law.
The old men were assembled in groups in the quadrangle — eleven of them at least, for poor old Johnny Bell was bed-ridden, and couldn’t come; he had, however, put his mark to the petition, as one of Handy’s earliest followers. ’Tis true he could not move from the bed where he lay; ’tis true he had no friend on earth, but those whom the hospital contained; and of those the warden and his daughter were the most constant and most appreciated; ’tis true that everything was administered to him which his failing body could require, or which his faint appetite could enjoy; but still his dull eye had glistened for a moment at the idea of possessing a hundred pounds a year ‘to his own cheek,’ as Abel Handy had eloquently expressed it; and poor old Johnny Bell had greedily put his mark to the petition.
When the two clergymen appeared, they all uncovered their heads. Handy was slow to do it, and hesitated; but the black coat and waistcoat of which he had spoken so irreverently in Skulpit’s room, had its effect even on him, and he too doffed his hat. Bunce, advancing before the others, bowed lowly to the archdeacon, and with affectionate reverence expressed his wish, that the warden and Miss Eleanor were quite well; ‘and the doctor’s lady,’ he added, turning to the archdeacon, ‘and the children at Plumstead, and my lord’; and having made his speech, he also retired among the others, and took his place with the rest upon the stone benches.
As the archdeacon stood up to make his speech, erect in the middle of that little square, he looked like an ecclesiastical statue placed there, as a fitting impersonation of the church militant here on earth; his shovel hat, large, new, and well- pronounced, a churchman’s hat in every inch, declared the profession as plainly as does the Quaker’s broad brim; his heavy eyebrows, large open eyes, and full mouth and chin expressed the solidity of his order; the broad chest, amply covered with fine cloth, told how well to do was its estate; one hand ensconced within his pocket, evinced the practical hold which our mother church keeps on her temporal possessions; and the other, loose for action, was ready to fight if need be in her defence; and, below these, the decorous breeches, and neat black gaiters showing so admirably that well-turned leg, betokened the decency, the outward beauty and grace of our church establishment.
‘Now, my men,’ he began, when he had settled himself well in his position, ‘I want to say a few words to you. Your good friend, the warden here, and myself, and my lord the bishop, on whose behalf I wish to speak to you, would all be very sorry, very sorry indeed, that you should have any just ground of complaint. Any just ground of complaint on your part would be removed at once by the warden, or by his lordship, or by me on his behalf, without the necessity of any petition on your part.’ Here the orator stopped for a moment, expecting that some little murmurs of applause would show that the weakest of the men were beginning to give way; but no such murmurs came. Bunce, himself, even sat with closed lips, mute and unsatisfactory. ‘Without the necessity of any petition at all,’ he repeated. ‘I’m told you have addressed a petition to my lord.’ He paused for a reply from the men, and after a while, Handy plucked up courage and said, ‘Yes, we has.’
‘ You have addressed a petition to my lord, in which, as I am informed, you express an opinion that you do not receive from Hiram’s estate all that is your due.’ Here most of the men expressed their assent. ‘Now what is it you ask for? What is it you want that you hav’n’t got here? What is it —’
‘A hundred a year,’ muttered old Moody, with a voice as if it came out of the ground.
‘A hundred a year!’ ejaculated the archdeacon militant, defying the impudence of these claimants with one hand stretched out and closed, while with the other he tightly grasped, and secured within his breeches pocket, that symbol of the church’s wealth which his own loose half-crowns not unaptly represented. ‘A hundred a year! Why, my men, you must be mad; and you talk about John Hiram’s will! When John Hiram built a hospital for worn-out old men, worn-out old labouring men, infirm old men past their work, cripples, blind, bed-ridden, and such like, do you think he meant to make gentlemen of them? Do you think John Hiram intended to give a hundred a year to old single men, who earned perhaps two shillings or half-a-crown a day for themselves and families in the best of their time? No, my men, I’ll tell you what John Hiram meant: he meant that twelve poor old worn-out labourers, men who could no longer support themselves, who had no friends to support them, who must starve and perish miserably if not protected by the hand of charity; he meant that twelve such men as these should come in here in their poverty and wretchedness, and find within these walls shelter and food before their death, and a little leisure to make their peace with God. That was what John Hiram meant: you have not read John Hiram’s will, and I doubt whether those wicked men who are advising you have done so. I have; I know what his will was; and I tell you that that was his will, and that that was his intention.’
Not a sound came from the eleven bedesmen, as they sat listening to what, according to the archdeacon, was their intended
