If it happened sometimes that the plague brought out the good in a
man, sometimes changed his life from one of covetous indifference or
grasping selfishness into a life of earnestness and devout
philanthropy, it happened at other times--and I fear it must be
confessed more frequently--that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones,
were made more brutal and callous by the demoralizing influences of
that frightful summer.
I am sure it will be very gratifying to some enlightened and
chivalrous people to learn that I have at least one bad story against
a parson.
Here it is!
The rolls of the manor of Waltham show that the plague lingered about
there till late in the spring of 1350. As elsewhere, there must needs
have been much change in the benefices of the neighbourhood. Of
course some of the new parsons were scamps, the laity who survived
being, equally of course, models of all that was lovely and
estimable. One of these clerical impostors had got a cure somewhere
in the neighbourhood--where is not stated, but, inasmuch as his
clerical income had not come up to his expectations or his
necessities, or his own estimate of his deserts, he found it
necessary to supplement that income by somewhat unprofessional
conduct. In fact, the Rev. William--that was his name--seems actually
to have thrown up his clerical avocations and by his flagrant
irregularities had got to himself the notorious sobriquet of William
the One-day priest.
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