The news had reached Clavering on a Saturday. On the following Sunday everyone in the parish had no doubt heard of it, but nothing on the subject was said in church on that day. The rector remained at home during the morning, and the whole service was performed by Mr. Saul. But on the second Sunday Mr. Fielding had come over from Humbleton, and he preached a sermon on the loss which the parish had sustained in the sudden death of the two brothers. It is, perhaps, well that such sermons should be preached. The inhabitants of Clavering would have felt that their late lords had been treated like dogs, had no word been said of them in the house of God. The nature of their fate had forbidden even the common ceremony of a burial service. It is well that some respect should be maintained from the low in station towards those who are high, even when no respect has been deserved. And, for the widow’s sake, it was well that some notice should be taken in Clavering of this death of the head of the Claverings. But I should not myself have liked the duty of preaching an eulogistic sermon on the lives and death of Hugh Clavering and his brother Archie. What had either of them ever done to merit a good word from any man, or to earn the love of any woman? That Sir Hugh had been loved by his wife had come from the nature of the woman, not at all from the qualities of the man. Both of the brothers had lived on the unexpressed theory of consuming, for the benefit of their own backs and their own bellies, the greatest possible amount of those good things which fortune might put in their way. I doubt whether either of them had ever contributed anything willingly to the comfort or happiness of any human being. Hugh, being powerful by nature and having a strong will, had tyrannized over all those who were subject to him. Archie, not gifted as was his brother, had been milder, softer, and less actively hateful; but his principle of action had been the same. Everything for himself! Was it not well that two such men should be consigned to the fishes, and that the world—especially the Clavering world, and that poor widow, who now felt herself to be so inexpressibly wretched when her period of comfort was in truth only commencing—was it not well that the world and Clavering should be well quit of them? That idea is the one which one would naturally have felt inclined to put into one’s sermon on such an occasion; and then to sing some song of rejoicing;—either to do that, or to leave the matter alone.
But not so are such sermons preached; and not after that fashion did the young clergyman who had married the first-cousin of these Claverings buckle himself to the subject. He indeed had, I think, but little difficulty, either inwardly with his conscience, or outwardly with his subject. He possessed the power of a pleasant, easy flow of words, and of producing tears, if not from other eyes, at any rate from his own. He drew a picture of the little ship amidst the storm, and of God’s hand as it moved in its anger upon the waters; but of the cause of that divine wrath and its direction he said nothing. Then, of the suddenness of death and its awfulness he said much, not insisting as he did so on the necessity of repentance for salvation, as far as those two poor sinners were concerned. No, indeed;—how could any preacher have done that? But he improved the occasion by telling those around him that they should so live as to be ever ready for the hand of death. If that were possible, where then indeed would be the victory of the grave? And at last he came to the master and lord whom they had lost. Even here there was no difficulty for him. The heir had gone first, and then the father and his brother. Who among them would not pity the bereaved mother and the widow? Who among them would not remember with affection the babe whom they had seen at that font, and with respect the landlord under whose rule they had lived? How pleasant it must be to ask those questions which no one can rise to answer! Farmer Gubbins as he sat by, listening with what power of attention had been vouchsafed to him, felt himself to be somewhat moved, but soon released himself from the task, and allowed his mind to run away into other ideas. The rector
