“The church is very full, sir,” said Elsworthy; “there’s a deal of people come, sir, after hearing the news. I don’t say I’ve always been as good a servant as I ought to have been; but it was all through being led away, and not knowing no better, and putting my trust where I shouldn’t have put it. I’ve had a hard lesson, sir, and I’ve learnt better,” he continued, with a sidelong glance at the Curate’s face; “it was all a mistake.”
“I was not finding fault with you, that I am aware of,” said Mr. Wentworth, with a little surprise.
“No, sir,” said Elsworthy, “I am aware as you wasn’t finding no fault; but there’s looks as speaks as strong as words, and I can feel as you haven’t the confidence in me as you once had. I aint ashamed to say it, sir,” continued the clerk of St. Roque’s. “I’m one as trusted in that girl’s innocent looks, and didn’t believe as she could do no harm. She’s led me into ill-feeling with my clergyman, sir, and done me a deal o’ damage in my trade, and now she’s gone off without as much as saying ‘Thank you for your kindness.’ It’s a hard blow upon a man as was fond of her, and I didn’t make no difference, no more than if she had been my own child.”
“Well, well,” said the Curate, “I daresay it was a trial to you; but you can’t expect me to take much interest in it after all that has passed. Let bygones be bygones,” said Mr. Wentworth, with a smile, “as indeed you once proposed.”
“Ah! sir, that was my mistake,” sighed the penitent. “I would have ’umbled myself more becoming, if I had known all as I know now. You’re a-going off to leave St. Roque’s, where we’ve all been so happy,” said Mr. Elsworthy, in pathetic tones. “I don’t know as I ever was as ’appy, sir, as here, a-listening to them beautiful sermons, and a-giving my best attention to see as the responses was well spoke out, and things done proper. Afore our troubles began, sir, I don’t know as I had a wish in the world, unless it was to see an ’andsome painted window in the chancel, which is all as is wanted to make the church perfect; and now you’re a-going to leave, and nobody knows what kind of a gentleman may be sent. If you wouldn’t think I was making too bold,” said Elsworthy, “it aint my opinion as you’ll ever put up with poor old Norris as is in the church. Men like Mr. Morgan and Mr. Proctor as had no cultivation doesn’t mind; but for a gentleman as goes through the service as you does it, Mr. Wentworth—”
Mr. Wentworth laughed, though he was fully robed and ready for the reading-desk, and knew that his congregation was waiting. He held his watch in his hand, though it already marked the half minute after eleven. “So you would like to be clerk in the parish church?” he said, with what seemed a quite unnecessary amount of amusement to the anxious functionary by his side.
“I think as you could never put up with old Norris, sir,” said Elsworthy; “as for leading of the responses, there aint such a thing done in Carlingford Church. I don’t speak for myself,” said the public-spirited clerk, “but it aint a right thing for the rising generation; and it aint everybody as would get into your way in a minute—for you have a way of your own, sir, in most things, and if you’ll excuse me for saying of it, you’re very particular. It aint every man, sir, as could carry on clear through the service along of you, Mr. Wentworth; and you wouldn’t put up with old Norris, not for a day.”
Such was the conversation which opened this memorable Sunday to Mr. Wentworth. Opposite to him, again occupying the seat where his wife should have been, had he possessed one, were the three Miss Wentworths, his respected aunts, to whose opinion, however, the Curate did not feel himself bound to defer very greatly in present circumstances; and a large and curious congregation ranged behind them, almost as much concerned to see how Mr. Wentworth would conduct himself in this moment of triumph, as they had been in the moment of his humiliation. It is, however, needless to inform the friends of the Perpetual Curate that the anxious community gained very little by their curiosity. It was not the custom of the young Anglican to carry his personal feelings, either of one kind or another, into the pulpit with him, much less into the reading-desk, where he was the interpreter not of his own sentiments or emotions, but of common prayer and universal worship. Mr. Wentworth did not even throw a little additional warmth into his utterance of the general thanksgiving, as he might have done had he been a more effusive man; but, on the contrary, read it with a more than ordinary calmness, and preached to the excited people one of those terse little unimpassioned sermons of his, from which it was utterly impossible to divine whether he was in the depths of despair or at the summit and crown of happiness. People who had been used to discover a great many of old Mr. Bury’s personal peculiarities in his sermons, and who, of recent days, had found many allusions which it was easy to interpret in the discourses of Mr. Morgan, retired altogether baffled from the clear and succinct brevity of the Curate of St. Roque’s. He was that day in particular so terse as to be almost epigrammatic, not using a word more than was necessary, and
