But
the question is avowedly difficult. In the end Theobald got his
fellowship by a stroke of luck very soon after taking his degree, and was
ordained in the autumn of the same year, 1825.
CHAPTER IX
Mr Allaby was rector of Crampsford, a village a few miles from Cambridge.
He, too, had taken a good degree, had got a fellowship, and in the course
of time had accepted a college living of about 400 pounds a year and a
house. His private income did not exceed 200 pounds a year. On
resigning his fellowship he married a woman a good deal younger than
himself who bore him eleven children, nine of whom--two sons and seven
daughters--were living. The two eldest daughters had married fairly
well, but at the time of which I am now writing there were still five
unmarried, of ages varying between thirty and twenty-two--and the sons
were neither of them yet off their father's hands. It was plain that if
anything were to happen to Mr Allaby the family would be left poorly off,
and this made both Mr and Mrs Allaby as unhappy as it ought to have made
them.
Reader, did you ever have an income at best none too large, which died
with you all except 200 pounds a year? Did you ever at the same time
have two sons who must be started in life somehow, and five daughters
still unmarried for whom you would only be too thankful to find
husbands--if you knew how to find them? If morality is that which, on
the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years--if, that is to say,
it is not an utter swindle, can you under these circumstances flatter
yourself that you have led a moral life?
And this, even though your wife has been so good a woman that you have
not grown tired of her, and has not fallen into such ill-health as lowers
your own health in sympathy; and though your family has grown up
vigorous, amiable, and blessed with common sense.
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