Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

14. CHAPTER XIV: THE NEW CAMPAIGN (continued)

'New duties!' said the archdeacon: 'don't I tell you there shall be no new duties?'

'Or, perhaps, old duties either,' said Mr Harding; 'I think I will remain content as I am.' The picture of Mr Slope carting away the rubbish was still present to his mind.

The archdeacon drank off his glass of claret, and prepared himself to be energetic. 'I do hope,' said he, 'that you are not going to be so weak as to allow such a man as Mr Slope to deter you from doing what you know is your duty to do. You know that it is your duty to resume your place at the hospital now that parliament has so settled the stipend as to remove those difficulties which induced you to resign it. You cannot deny this; and should your timidity now prevent you from doing so, your conscience will hereafter never forgive you;' and as he finished this clause of his speech, he pushed over the bottle to his companion.

'Your conscience will never forgive you,' he continued. 'You resigned the place from conscientious scruples, scruples which I greatly respected, though I did not share them. All your friends respected them, and you left your old house as rich in reputation as you were ruined in fortune. It is now expected that you will return. Dr Gwynne was saying only the other day--'

'Dr Gwynne does not reflect how much older a man I am now than when he last saw me.'

'Old--nonsense!' said the archdeacon; 'you never thought yourself old till you listened to the impudent trash of that coxcomb at the palace.'

'I shall be sixty-five if I live till November,' said Mr Harding.

'And seventy-five if you live till November ten years,' said the archdeacon. 'And you bid fair to be as efficient then as you were ten years ago. But for heaven's sake let us have no pretence in this matter. Your plea of old age is only a pretence. But you're not drinking your wine. It is only a pretence. The fact is, you are half afraid of this Slope, and would rather subject yourself to comparative poverty and discomfort, than come to blows with a man who will trample on you, if you let him.'