Thomas Wingfold, Curate
Home - George MacDonald - Thomas Wingfold, CurateANYTHING.--I am astonished, Mr. Wingfold, at your allowing a member of your congregation to speak with so little regard for the feelings of the clergy.--You forget, sir, when you attribute what you call base motives to the cloth--you forget who said the labourer was worthy of his hire."
"I hope not, madam. I only venture to suggest that, though the labourer is worthy of his hire, not every man is worthy of the labour."
Wingfold was highly amused at the turn things had taken. Polwarth looked annoyed at having allowed himself to be beguiled into such an utterly useless beating of the air.
"My friend HAS some rather peculiar notions, Mrs. Ramshorn," said the curate;" but you must admit it was your approval that encouraged him to go on."
"It is quite as well to know what people think," answered Mrs. Ramshorn, pretending she had drawn him out from suspicion. "My husband used to say that very few of the clergy had any notion of the envy and opposition of the lower orders, both to them personally, and to the doctrines they taught. To low human nature the truth has always been unpalatable."
What precisely she meant by THE TRUTH it would be hard to say, but if the visual embodiment of it was not a departed dean, it was at least always associated in her mind with a cathedral choir, and a portly person in silk stockings.
Here happily Leopold woke, and his eyes fell upon the gate-keeper.
"Ah, Mr. Polwarth! I am so glad to see you!" he said." I am getting on, you see. It will be over soon."
"I see," replied Polwarth, going up to him, and taking his offered hand in both his. "I could almost envy you for having got so near the end of your troubles."
"Are you sure it will be the end of them, sir?"
"Of some of them at least, I hope, and those the worst. I cannot be sure of anything but that all things work together for good to them that love God."
"I don't know yet whether I do love God."
"Not the father of Jesus Christ?"
"If God is really just like him, I don't see how any man could help loving him. But, do you know? I am terrified sometimes at the thought of seeing MY father. He was such a severe man! I am afraid he will scorn me."
"Never--if he has got into heavenly ways. And you have your mother there too, have you not?"
"Oh! yes; I didn't think of that. I don't remember much of her."
"Anyhow, you have God there, and you must rest in him. He will not forget you, for that would be ceasing to be God. If God were to forget for one moment, the universe would grow black--vanish--rush out again from the realm of law and order into chaos and night."
"But I have been wicked."
"The more need you have, if possible, of your Father in heaven."
Here Mrs. Ramshorn beckoned the attendance of the curate where she sat a few yards off on the other side of Leopold. She was a little ashamed of having condescended to lose her temper, and when the curate went up to her, said, with an attempt at gaiety:
"Is your odd little friend, as you call him, all--?"
And she tapped her lace-cap carefully with her finger.
"Rather more so than most people," answered Wingfold. "He is a very remarkable man."
"He speaks as if he had seen better days--though where he can have gathered such detestable revolutionary notions, I can't think."
"He is a man of education, as you see," said the curate.
"You don't mean he has been to Oxford or Cambridge?"
"No. His education has been of a much higher sort than is generally found there. He knows ten times as much as most university men."
"Ah! yes; but that goes for nothing: he hasn't the standing. And if he had been to Oxford, he never could have imbibed such notions. Besides--his manners! To speak of the clergy as he did in the hearing of one whose whole history is bound up with the church!"
She meant herself, not Wingfold.
"But of course," she went on, "there must be something VERY wrong with him to know so much as you say, and occupy such a menial position! Nothing but a gate-keeper, and talk like that about bishops and what not! People that are crooked in body are always crooked in mind too. I dare say now he has quite a coterie of friends and followers amongst the lower orders in Glaston. He's just the sort of man to lead the working classes astray. No doubt he is a very interesting study for a young man like you, but you must take care; you may be misunderstood. A young clergyman CAN'T be too cautious--if he has any hope of rising in his profession.--A gate-keeper, indeed!"
"Wasn't it something like that David wanted to be?" said the curate.
"Mr. Wingfold, I never allow any such foolish jests in my hearing. It was a DOOR-keeper the Psalmist said--and to the house of God, not a nobleman's park."
"A verger, I suppose," thought Wingfold.--"Seriously, Mrs. Ramshorn, that poor little atom of a creature is the wisest man I know," he said.
"Likely enough, in YOUR judgment, Mr. Wingfold," said the dean's widow, and drew herself up.
The curate accepted his dismissal, and joined the little man by Leopold's chair.
"I wish you two could be with me when I am dying," said Leopold.
"If you will let your sister know your wish, you may easily have it," said the curate.
"It will be just like saying good-bye at the pier-head, and pushing off alone--you can't get more than one into the boat--out, out, alone, into the infinite ocean of--nobody knows what or where," said Leopold.
"Except those that are there already, and they will be waiting to receive you," said Polwarth. "You may well hope, if you have friends to see you off, you will have friends to welcome you too. But I think it's not so much like setting off from the pier-head, as getting down the side of the ocean-ship, to laud at the pier-head, where your friends are all standing looking out for you."
"Well! I don't know," said Leopold, with a sigh of weariness. "I'm thankful sometimes that I've grown stupid. I suppose it's with dying. I didn't use to feel so. Sometimes I seem not to know or care anything about anything. I only want to stop coughing and aching and go to sleep."
"Jesus was glad to give up his spirit into his Father's hands. He was very tired before he got away."
"Thank you. Thank you. I have him. He is somewhere. You can't mention his name but it brings me something to live and hope for. If he is there, all will be well. And if I do get too tired to care for anything, he won't mind; he will only let me go to sleep, and wake me up again by-and-by when I am rested."
He closed his eyes.
"I want to go to bed," he said.
They carried him into the house.