But when men calling themselves Commissioners came actually upon him and his, and separated off from him a district of his own town, taking it away altogether from his authority, and giving it over to such inexperienced hands as chance might send thither—then Dr. Harford became a violent Tory. And my readers must not conceive that this was a question touching his pocket. One might presume that his pocket would be in some degree benefited, seeing that he was saved from the necessity of supplying the spiritual wants of a certain portion of his parish. No shilling was taken from his own income, which, indeed, was by no means excessive. His whole parish gave him barely six hundred a year, out of which he had kept always one, and latterly two curates. It was no question of money in any degree. Sooner than be invaded and mutilated he would have submitted to an order calling upon him to find a third curate—could any power have given such order. His parish had been invaded and his clerical authority mutilated. He was no longer totus teres atque rotundus. The beauty of his life was over, and the contentment of his mind was gone. He knew that it was only left for him to die, spending such days as remained to him in vague prophecies of evil against his devoted country—a country which had allowed its ancient parochial landmarks to be moved, and its ecclesiastical fastnesses to be invaded!
But perhaps hatred of Mr. Prong was the strongest passion of Dr. Harford’s heart at the present moment. He had ever hated the dissenting ministers by whom he was surrounded. In Devonshire dissent has waxed strong for many years, and the pastors of the dissenting flocks have been thorns in the side of the Church of England clergymen. Dr. Harford had undergone his full share of suffering from such thorns. But they had caused him no more than a pleasant irritation in comparison with what he endured from the presence of Mr. Prong in Baslehurst. He would sooner have entertained all the dissenting ministers of the South Hams together than have put his legs under the same mahogany with Mr. Prong. Mr. Prong was to him the evil thing! Anathema! He believed all bad things of Mr. Prong with an absolute faith, but without any ground on which such faith should have been formed. He thought that Mr. Prong drank spirits; that he robbed his parishioners;—Dr. Harford would sooner have lost his tongue than have used such a word with reference to those who attended Mr. Prong’s chapel;—that he had left a deserted wife on some parish; that he was probably not in truth ordained. There was nothing which Dr. Harford could not believe of Mr. Prong. Now all this was, to say the least of it, a pity, for it disfigured the close of a useful and conscientious life.
Dr. Harford of course intended to vote for Mr. Cornbury, but he would not join loudly in condemnation of Mr. Tappitt. Tappitt had stood stanchly by him in all parochial contests regarding the new district. Tappitt opposed the Prong faction at all points. Tappitt as churchwarden had been submissive to the doctor. Church of England principles had always been held at the brewery, and Bungall had been ever in favour with Dr. Harford’s predecessor.
“He calls himself a Liberal, and always has done,” said the doctor. “You can’t expect that he should desert his own party.”
“But a Jew!” said old Mr. Comfort.
“Well; why not a Jew?” said the doctor. Whereupon Mr. Comfort, and Butler Cornbury, and Dr. Harford’s own curate, young Mr. Calclough, and Captain Byng, an old bachelor, who lived in Baslehurst, all stared at him; as Dr. Harford had intended that they should. “Upon my word,” said he, “I don’t see the use for caring for that kind of thing any longer; I don’t indeed. In the way we are going on now, and for the sort of thing we do, I don’t see why Jews shouldn’t serve us as well in Parliament as Christians. If I am to have my brains knocked out, I’d sooner have it done by a declared enemy than by one who calls himself my friend.”
“But our brains are not knocked out yet,” said Butler Cornbury.
“I don’t know anything about yours, but mine are.”
“I don’t think the world’s coming to an end yet,” said the captain.
“Nor do I. I said nothing about the world coming to an end. But if you saw a part of your ship put under the command of a landlubber, who didn’t know one side of the vessel from the other, you’d think the world had better come to an end than be carried on in that way.”
“It’s not the same thing, you know,” said the captain. “You couldn’t divide a ship.”
“Oh, well; you’ll see.”
“I don’t think any Christian should vote for a Jew,” said the curate. “A verdict has gone out against them, and what is man that he should reverse it?”
“Are you quite sure that you are reversing it by putting them into Parliament?” said Dr. Harford. “May not that be a carrying on of the curse?”
“There’s consolation in that idea for Butler if he loses his election,” said Mr. Comfort.
“Parliament isn’t what it was,” said the doctor. “There’s no doubt about that.”
“And who is to blame?” said Mr. Comfort, who had never supported the Reform Bill as his neighbour had done.
“I say nothing about blame. It’s natural that things should get worse as they grow older.”
“Dr. Harford thinks Parliament is worn out,” said Butler Cornbury.
“And what if I do think so? Have not other things as great fallen and gone into decay? Did not the
