George Robert Gleig (1796-1888) led a remarkable life which reads like the stuff of fiction. Born in Stirling, he was educated at the local Grammar School. In 1808, his father became Bishop of Brechin. George gave up a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford to join the Duke of Wellington's army as an Ensign in the 85th Light Infantry. He fought in southern France and then was sent to the war against the United States. He took part in five battles (including New Orleans and Washington) and was three times wounded. After peace was declared, Gleig resumed a scholarship at Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1816. He married Sarah Cameron in 1819, while still at Oxford. Having taken his B.A. and M.A., he took Holy Orders in 1820. He became curate of Westwell in Kent and later gained the curacy of Ash and the rectorship of Ivychurch.
By the early 1820s Gleig was already writing for Blackwood's Magazine on his Peninsular War exploits; these articles were collected and published as The Subaltern (probably his most famous work) in 1825. He wrote nearly a dozen other works of fiction, mostly two or three volumes in length and many more, often religious, non-fiction tomes. He was the author of Lives of Warren Hastings, Robert Clive and Wellington. He had time to become the Chaplain to the Chelsea (Pensioners) Hospital; and was also Chaplain-General of the Forces (1844-1875) and Inspector-General of Military Schools (1846-1857). He died at Stratfield Turgis, Hampshire in 1888.
What of The Country Curate? The tales were clearly based on his time as a curate/rector in Kent. In fact, he writes in the Advertisement at the start of Volume I: Of the following sketches there is not one which cannot lay claim to be founded upon fact, - whilst there are several which deserve to be received as little more than plain narratives of real occurrences.
The first story - The Pastor - relates the fifteen years spent by Abraham Williams ministering to his flock at St. Alphage (the real Westwell or Ash?) one of the most kind-hearted and pious individuals of whom the Church of England has cause to boast. Abraham entered Jesus College, and matriculated, at the same time as the principal narrator (the author?) and retained links through letter writing. Thus, not only did the narrator marry Abraham's younger sister, but he was bequeathed the former's 'papers'. The tragedy in Abraham's life is that unable to marry his childhood sweetheart Julia, as he was a Fellow of a College, he had to watch her pine away to die of consumption and a broken heart - Julia loved too warmly. For twelve long years Abraham devoted himself to his parishioners, to his garden and, to diversify that, he was in the habit of noting down all such events as appeared worthy of record within the circle of his little district. These 'papers' or 'notes, consist of - The Poacher, The Schoolmistress, The Shipwreck, The Fatalist, The Smugglers and The Suicide in Volume I; and The Miser, The Rose of East Kent and The Parish Apprentice in Volume II.
The more I read, the more I realised that the stories were suffused with melancholia. The Poacher told of Simon Lee, dweller in a miserable hovel in the distant part of the parish, and his eldest son Joe. He was the most skilful and the most determined poacher in all the country... the Lees were notorious. Not a gamekeeper round but knew them. Thrown off his family farm of some 30-40 acres, denied parish relief, one can sympathise with his nefarious dealings. Joe ends up killing a keeper in fisticuffs, but is found guilty of only manslaughter. In revenge, other keepers manage to track the Lees to their home and Joe is shot dead. Simon went downhill mentally from that day and he wandered forth one morning, unshod and bare-headed... He was never heard of again. His wife and four surviving children fell on the poor-rates.
More miserable a tale was The Schoolmistress. Dame Tapsal, early left a widow, ran a small school in the village. She had two sons and three daughters. Four of the five infected with sickness, exchanged the mortal for the immortal state. One daughter, Eleanor remained - the prettiest and most interesting girl in the parish. Alas, a rogue entered their lives - a Captain Morton, attached to a regiment based locally. They fall in love; but Morton, having promised a marriage, goes away for months and Eleanor' health declines into consumption. Morton finally returns, but the shock kills her.
The Shipwreck is merely an introit to The Fatalist. The only survivor of a local ship disaster is termed The Stranger throughout the first story. An unsettling character, he leaves a packet of papers with the curate, and the second tale relates his life story. This includes another melancholy section, where Charles St. Clair (the Fatalist) in uncontrolled anger strikes his girlfriend, Lucy, dead. Six years in a cell - mad, raving, outrageously mad - he is finally released and he goes to India. It is on his return journey that he is shipwrecked. Thus ended a tale as wild and extravagant as any which I ever perused. The Smugglers is a sorry story of the widow Brockman and her son Will, a 23 year-old apple of her eye. He does well in the navy, rising through able seaman, second and first mate to prospective command of his own brig, Britannia. Alas, he falls in with a scoundrel family, the Petleys - out and out smugglers. They inveigle Will into joining in their illegal activities and, worse, frame him for the murder of an excise officer. This unbalances the widow's mental state. Condemned to death, Will awaits his fate in Maidstone gaol. One of the Petleys confesses and Will is released at the last minute. A happy ending, for once, unlike the next story, The Suicide. It refers to a mother, Eliza Thornton, who lived for twenty-four years in a lonely cottage a quarter of an hour's walk from St Alphage's vicarage, Once beautiful and married to an upright gentleman, whom she did not love, she is seduced by her old lover, Captain Cecil - he was a villain and she ceased to be virtuous. Rather stupidly, she tells her husband Montague that her new-born child is not his but Cecil's. The latter is challenged to a duel, but flees. Eliza is placed in this lonely cottage by her unforgiving husband. Worse, her son is deaf and dumb, unable to walk without assistance and feeble minded. Finally, the idiot died. One year later, the widow followed him, found hung suspended by the neck from a beam in the roof of her apartment.
Volume II has the three stories mentioned above. The Miser is by far the longest (pages 1-185) and possibly the most interesting of all the tales. It concerns a fellow curate of Abraham Williams, one Llewellin Davies, whose local image is that of a penurious, niggardly man. An old Welshwoman, Margery Jones looks after him; both are from North Wales. After much urging (having taken Davies' services when ill and comforted him when the old woman dies), Williams gets Davies to narrate his story. His father was a spendthrift, who brought disaster on his family. The family home is to be taken from them, but young Davies gets a strange document drawn up by the local solicitors; he can repurchase the property if he can gather together enough finance. He has 30 years to do this. He is penniless. Moreover, two years after the disaster, both his brothers die, as does his mother; then his father degenerates into a paralytic and a driveller. He, too, then dies. After miseries in a small boys' school in London, Davies gains a curacy in Kent. From then on he hoards, scrimps and saves to reach the required amount to buy back the family holding. He achieves it; hence he can explain things to Abraham. He travels to North Wales to claim his land. Sleeping in his boyhood chamber, he does not surface the following morning. An old servant does to the bedchamber: he drew back the hangings, and beheld his master a corpse; and the stiffened condition of the limbs, with the cold and clammy state of the skin, gave proof that he must have been dead at least four hours. An uplifting ending; melancholia reigns again.
Worse is to follow. The Rose of East Kent tells the sad story of Rose, daughter of Captain Wilmot, a retired officer of the navy. A paragon of virtue, and worryingly innocent, she falls for an absolute bounder, the Hon. Major Elliot. His love-making is successful in both the Captain and his daughter's eyes. It would be difficult to meet a more agreeable or gentlemanly man. A wedding is planned: BUT someone knows something and spills the beans just prior to the wedding day. Elliot is already married! The rotter skips away to London and embarks for the East Indies and is heard of no more. Rose is not just shattered; she was stricken She takes to her bed - her life appeared to steal away, like the sands through an hour-glass... She dies and is followed by her broken-hearted father, six months later. The Parish Apprentice is of a different hue, but also ends in death. Once again, it has a story within a story. The curate is called to the dying John Bushell, late a parish apprentice, but now the richest man in the parish. Rumours abound of how he gained his wealth and he has a morbid dislike of his fellow-men and the church. It is clear that there is an enormous weight on his conscience; eventually he unburdens himself to Abraham. It is a sorry tale of two murders, including that of a pretty awful Jew. It is of note that the author has a very poor opinion of workhouse children...in nine cases out of ten, a child reared in a workhouse proves, when he attains to manhood, both idle and wicked.
I have not made up my mind about Gleig as a writer of fiction. There is a touch of the documentary about these stories. Perhaps he is correct when he terms his tales plain narratives. The author seems detached from his characters, his writing appears measured with almost a lack of warmth. There is no humour to lighten the melancholy. His framework of a story teller within storyteller - e.g. the narrator -> the curate -> the Fatalist, the Miser and the Parish Apprentice - pushes the author further away from his tale. Unlike several of his Scottish contemporaries, he does not drench his pages with religious (didactic?) platitudes, even though he is of the cloth. His style is urbane and it flows well, so I should admire it more than I do. If I can afford it, I might try and purchase The Subaltern, to see if I can be more positive.
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