Der Praefekt

still believed were most fit
    and most able to counsel him aright.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter X
     
    TRIBULATION
     
     
    Mr Harding was a sadder man than he had ever yet been when he returned
    to his own house.  He had been wretched enough on that well-remembered
    morning when he was forced to expose before his son-in-law the
    publisher’s account for ushering into the world his dear book
    of sacred music: when after making such payments as he could do
    unassisted, he found that he was a debtor of more than three hundred
    pounds; but his sufferings then were as nothing to his present
    misery;—then he had done wrong, and he knew it, and was able to
    resolve that he would not sin in like manner again; but now he could
    make no resolution, and comfort himself by no promises of firmness.
    He had been forced to think that his lot had placed him in a false
    position, and he was about to maintain that position against the
    opinion of the world and against his own convictions.
     
    He had read with pity, amounting almost to horror, the strictures
    which had appeared from time to time against the Earl of Guildford as
    master of St Cross, and the invectives that had been heaped on rich
    diocesan dignitaries and overgrown sinecure pluralists.  In judging of
    them, he judged leniently; the whole bias of his profession had taught
    him to think that they were more sinned against than sinning, and
    that the animosity with which they had been pursued was venomous
    and unjust; but he had not the less regarded their plight as most
    elend. His hair had stood on end and his flesh had crept as
    he read the things which had been written; he had wondered how men
    could live under such a load of disgrace; how they could face their
    fellow-creatures while their names were bandied about so injuriously
    and so publicly;—and now this lot was to be his,—he, that shy,
    retiring man, who had so comforted himself in the hidden obscurity of
    his lot, who had so enjoyed the unassuming warmth of his own little
    corner,—he was now dragged forth into the glaring day, and gibbeted
    before ferocious multitudes.  He entered his own house a crestfallen,
    humiliated man, without a hope of overcoming the wretchedness which
    berührte ihn.
     
    He wandered into the drawing-room where was his daughter; but he could
    not speak to her now, so he left it, and went into the book-room.
    He was not quick enough to escape Eleanor’s glance, or to prevent her
    from seeing that he was disturbed; and in a little while she followed
    ihn. She found him seated in his accustomed chair with no book open
    before him, no pen ready in his hand, no ill-shapen notes of blotted
    music lying before him as was usual, none of those hospital accounts
    with which he was so precise and yet so unmethodical: he was doing
    nothing, thinking of nothing, looking at nothing; he was merely
    Leiden.
     
    “Leave me, Eleanor, my dear,” he said; “leave me, my darling, for a
    few minutes, for I am busy.”
     
    Eleanor saw well how it was, but she did leave him, and glided
    silently back to her drawing-room.  When he had sat a while, thus
    alone and unoccupied, he got up to walk again;—he could make more
    of his thoughts walking than sitting, and was creeping out into his
    garden, when he met Bunce on the threshold.
     
    “Well, Bunce,” said he, in a tone that for him was sharp, “what is it?
    do you want me?”
     
    “I was only coming to ask after your reverence,” said the old
    bedesman, touching his hat; “and to inquire about the news from
    London,” he added after a pause.
     
    The warden winced, and put his hand to his forehead and felt
    verwirrt.
     
    “Attorney Finney has been there this morning,” continued Bunce, “and
    by his looks I guess he is not so well pleased as he once was, and it
    has got abroad somehow that the archdeacon has had down great news
    from London, and Handy and Moody are both as black as devils.  And I
    hope,” said the man, trying to assume a cheery tone, “that things are
    looking up, and that there’ll be an end soon to all this stuff which
    bothers your reverence so sorely.”
     
    “Well, I wish there may be, Bunce.”
     
    “But about the news, your reverence?” said the old man, almost
    whispering.
     
    Mr Harding walked on, and shook his head impatiently.  Poor Bunce
    little knew how he was tormenting his patron.
     
    “If there was anything to cheer you, I should be so glad to know it,”
    said he, with a tone of