He Knew He Was Right

about the latter end of September. Mr. Outhouse was sitting alone, in the gloomy parlour of his parsonage⁠—for his own study had been given up to other things, since this great inroad had been made upon his family;⁠—he was sitting alone on one Saturday morning, preparing for the duties of the next day, with various manuscript sermons lying on the table around him, when he was told that a gentleman had called to see him. Had Mr. Outhouse been an incumbent at the West-end of London, or had his maid been a West-end servant, in all probability the gentleman’s name would have been demanded; but Mr. Outhouse was a man who was not very ready in foreseeing and preventing misfortunes, and the girl who opened the door was not trained to discreet usages in such matters. As she announced the fact that there was a gentleman, she pointed to the door, to show that the gentleman was there; and before Mr. Outhouse had been able to think whether it would be prudent for him to make some preliminary inquiry, Colonel Osborne was in the room. Now, as it happened, these two men had never hitherto met each other, though one was the brother-in-law of Sir Marmaduke Rowley, and the other had been his very old friend. “My name, Mr. Outhouse, is Colonel Osborne,” said the visitor, coming forward, with his hand out. The clergyman, of course, took his hand, and asked him to be seated. “We have known each other’s names very long,” continued the Colonel, “though I do not think we have ever yet had an opportunity of becoming acquainted.”

“No,” said Mr. Outhouse; “we have never been acquainted, I believe.” He might have added, that he had no desire whatever to make such acquaintance; and his manner, over which he himself had no control, did almost say as much. Indeed, this coming to his house of the suspected lover of his niece appeared to him to be a heavy addition to his troubles; for, although he was disposed to take his niece’s part against her husband to any possible length⁠—even to the locking up of the husband as a madman, if it were possible⁠—nevertheless, he had almost as great a horror of the Colonel, as though the husband’s allegation as to the lover had been true as gospel. Because Trevelyan had been wrong altogether, Colonel Osborne was not the less wrong. Because Trevelyan’s suspicions were to Mr. Outhouse wicked and groundless, he did not the less regard the presumed lover to be an iniquitous roaring lion, going about seeking whom he might devour. Elderly unmarried men of fashion generally, and especially colonels, and majors, and members of parliament, and suchlike, were to him as black sheep or roaring lions. They were “fruges consumere nati;” men who stood on club doorsteps talking naughtily and doing nothing, wearing sleek clothing, for which they very often did not pay, and never going to church. It seemed to him⁠—in his ignorance⁠—that such men had none of the burdens of this world upon their shoulders, and that, therefore, they stood in great peril of the burdens of the next. It was, doubtless, his special duty to deal with men in such peril;⁠—but those wicked ones with whom he was concerned were those whom he could reach. Now, the Colonel Osbornes of the earth were not to be got at by any clergyman, or, as far as Mr. Outhouse could see, by any means of grace. That story of the rich man and the camel seemed to him to be specially applicable to such people. How was such a one as Colonel Osborne to be shown the way through the eye of a needle? To Mr. Outhouse, his own brother-in-law, Sir Marmaduke, was almost of the same class⁠—for he frequented clubs when in London, and played whist, and talked of the things of the world⁠—such as the Derby, and the levées, and West-end dinner parties⁠—as though they were all in all to him. He, to be sure, was weighted with so large a family that there might be hope for him. The eye of the needle could not be closed against him as a rich man; but he savoured of the West-end, and was worldly, and consorted with such men as this Colonel Osborne. When Colonel Osborne introduced himself to Mr. Outhouse, it was almost as though Apollyon had made his way into the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s.

“Mr. Outhouse,” said the Colonel, “I have thought it best to come to you the very moment that I got back to town from Scotland.” Mr. Outhouse bowed, and was bethinking himself slowly what manner of speech he would adopt. “I leave town again tomorrow for Dorsetshire. I am going down to my friends, the Brambers, for partridge shooting.” Mr. Outhouse knitted his thick brows, in further inward condemnation. Partridge shooting! yes;⁠—this was September, and partridge shooting would be the probable care and occupation of such a man at such a time. A man without a duty in the world! Perhaps, added to this there was a feeling that, whereas Colonel Osborne could shoot Scotch grouse in August, and Dorsetshire partridges in September, and go about throughout the whole year like a roaring lion, he, Mr. Outhouse, was forced to remain at St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East, from January to December, with the exception of one small parson’s week spent at Margate, for the benefit of his wife’s health. If there was such a thought, or rather, such a feeling, who will say that it was not natural? “But I could not go through London without seeing you,” continued the Colonel. “This is a most frightful infatuation of Trevelyan!”

“Very frightful, indeed,” said Mr. Outhouse.

“And, on my honour as a gentleman, not the slightest cause in the world.”

“You are old enough to be the lady’s father,” said Mr. Outhouse, managing in that to get one blow at the gallant Colonel.

“Just so. God bless my soul!” Mr. Outhouse shrunk visibly at this profane