religionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there
was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness
would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. To
neither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess.
His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him,
on his own mare, a little way along the road. Having fairly well
advanced his own affairs, Angel listened in a willing silence, as
they jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his father's
account of his parish difficulties, and the coldness of brother
clergymen whom he loved, because of his strict interpretations of
the New Testament by the light of what they deemed a pernicious
Calvinistic doctrine.
'Pernicious!' said Mr Clare, with genial scorn; and he proceeded to
recount experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea.
He told of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which he had been
the instrument, not only amongst the poor, but amongst the rich and
well-to-do; and he also candidly admitted many failures.
As an instance of the latter, he mentioned the case of a young
upstart squire named d'Urberville, living some forty miles off, in
the neighbourhood of Trantridge.
'Not one of the ancient d'Urbervilles of Kingsbere and other places?'
asked his son. 'That curiously historic worn-out family with its
ghostly legend of the coach-and-four?'
'O no. The original d'Urbervilles decayed and disappeared sixty
or eighty years ago--at least, I believe so. This seems to be a
new family which had taken the name; for the credit of the former
knightly line I hope they are spurious, I'm sure. But it is odd
to hear you express interest in old families. I thought you set less
store by them even than I.'
'You misapprehend me, father; you often do,' said Angel with a
little impatience. 'Politically I am sceptical as to the virtue of
their being old. Some of the wise even among themselves 'exclaim
against their own succession,' as Hamlet puts it; but lyrically,
dramatically, and even historically, I am tenderly attached to them.'
This distinction, though by no means a subtle one, was yet too
subtle for Mr Clare the elder, and he went on with the story he had
been about to relate; which was that after the death of the senior
so-called d'Urberville, the young man developed the most culpable
passions, though he had a blind mother, whose condition should have
made him know better. A knowledge of his career having come to
the ears of Mr Clare, when he was in that part of the country
preaching missionary sermons, he boldly took occasion to speak to
the delinquent on his spiritual state. Though he was a stranger,
occupying another's pulpit, he had felt this to be his duty, and
took for his text the words from St Luke: 'Thou fool, this night thy
soul shall be required of thee!' The young man much resented this
directness of attack, and in the war of words which followed when
they met he did not scruple publicly to insult Mr Clare, without
respect for his gray hairs.
