The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XIII

THE BISH­OP’S AN­GEL

It was near­ly nine be­fore Mr Craw­ley got back to his house, and found his wife and daugh­ter wait­ing break­fast for him. ‘I should not won­der if Grace were over here to­day,’ said Mrs Craw­ley. ‘She’d bet­ter re­main where she is,’ said he. Af­ter this the meal passed al­most with­out a word. When it was over, Jane, at a sign from her moth­er, went up to her fa­ther and asked him whether she should read with him. ‘Not now,’ he said, ‘not just now. I must rest my brain be­fore it will be fit for any work.’ Then he got in­to the chair over the fire, and his wife be­gan to fear that he would re­main there all day.

But the day was not far ad­vanced, when there came a vis­itor who dis­turbed him, and by dis­turb­ing him did him a re­al ser­vice. Just at ten there ar­rived at the lit­tle gate be­fore the house a man on a pony, whom Jane es­pied, stand­ing there by the pony’s head and look­ing about for some­one to re­lieve him of the charge of the steed. This was Mr Thum­ble, who had rid­den over to Hog­gle­stock on a poor spavined brute be­long­ing to the bish­op’s sta­ble, and which had once been the bish­op’s cob. Now it was the ve­hi­cle by which Mrs Proudie’s epis­co­pal mes­sages were sent back­wards and for­wards through a twelve-​miles ride round Barch­ester; and so many were the la­dy’s re­quire­ments, that the poor an­imal by no means ate the hay of idle­ness. Mr Thum­ble had sug­gest­ed to Mrs Proudie, af­ter their in­ter­view with the bish­op and the giv­ing up of the let­ter to the cler­ical mes­sen­ger’s charge, that be­fore hir­ing a gig from the Drag­on of Want­ley, he should be glad to know–look­ing as he al­ways did to ‘Mary Anne and the chil­dren’–whence the price of the gig was to be re­turned to him. Mrs Proudie had frowned at him–not with all the aus­ter­ity of frown­ing which she could use when re­al­ly an­gered, but sim­ply with a frown which gave her some lit­tle time for thought, and would en­able her to con­tin­ue to re­buke if, af­ter think­ing, she should find that re­buke was need­ed. But ma­ture con­sid­er­ation showed her that Mr Thum­ble’s cau­tion was not with­out rea­son. Were the bish­op en­er­get­ic–or even the bish­op’s man­ag­ing chap­lain as en­er­get­ic as he should be, Mr Craw­ley might, as Mrs Proudie felt as­sured, be made in some way to pay for a con­veyance for Mr Thum­ble. But the en­er­gy was lack­ing, and the price of the gig, if the gig were or­dered, would cer­tain­ly fall ul­ti­mate­ly on the bish­op’s shoul­ders. This was very sad. Mrs Proudie had of­ten grieved over the nec­es­sary ex­pen­di­ture of epis­co­pal surveil­lance, and had been heard to de­clare her opin­ion that a lib­er­al al­lowance for se­cret ser­vice should be made in ev­ery dio­cese. What bet­ter could the Ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal Com­mis­sion do with all those rich rev­enues which they had stolen from the bish­ops? But there was no such lib­er­al al­lowance at present, and there­fore, Mrs Proudie, af­ter hav­ing frowned at Mr Thum­ble for some sec­onds, de­sired him to take the grey cob. Now, Mr Thum­ble had rid­den the grey cob be­fore, and would have much pre­ferred a gig. But even the grey cob was bet­ter than a gig at his own cost.

‘Mam­ma, there’s a man at the gate wait­ing to come in,’ said Jane. ‘I think he’s a cler­gy­man.’

Mr Craw­ley im­me­di­ate­ly raised his head, though he did not at once leave his chair. Mrs Craw­ley went to the win­dow, and recog­nised the rev­erend vis­itor. ‘My dear, it is that Mr Thum­ble, who is so much with the bish­op.’

‘What does Mr Thum­ble want with me.’

‘Nay, my dear; he will tell you that him­self.’ But Mrs Craw­ley, though she an­swered him with a voice in­tend­ed to be cheer­ful, great­ly feared the com­ing mes­sen­ger from the palace. She per­ceived at once that the bish­op was about to in­ter­fere with her hus­band in con­se­quence of that which the mag­is­trates had done yes­ter­day.

‘Mam­ma, he doesn’t know what to do with his pony,’ said Jane.

‘Tell him to tie it to the rail,’ said Mr Craw­ley. ‘If he has ex­pect­ed to find me­nials here, as he has them at the palace, he will be wrong. If he wants to come in here, let him tie the beast to the rail.’ So Jane went out and sent a mes­sage to Mr Thum­ble by the girl, and Mr Thum­ble did tie the pony to the rail, and fol­lowed the girl in­to the house. Jane in the mean­time had re­tired out by the back door to the school but Mrs Craw­ley kept her ground. She kept her ground al­though she be­lieved that her hus­band would have pre­ferred to have the field to him­self. As Mr Thum­ble did not at once en­ter the room, Mr Craw­ley stalked to the door, and stood with it open in his hand. Though he knew Mr Thum­ble’s per­son, he was not ac­quaint­ed with him, and there­fore sim­ply bowed to the vis­itor, bow­ing more than once or twice with a cold cour­tesy, which did not put Mr Thum­ble al­to­geth­er at his ease. ‘My name is Mr Thum­ble,’ said the vis­itor–’the Rev­erend Caleb Thum­ble,’ and he held the bish­op’s let­ter in his hand. Mr Craw­ley seemed to take no no­tice of the let­ter, but mo­tioned Mr Thum­ble with his hand in­to the room.

‘I sup­pose you have come from Barch­ester this morn­ing?’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘Yes, madam–from the palace.’ Mr Thum­ble, though a hum­ble man in po­si­tions in which he felt hu­mil­ity would be­come him–a hum­ble man to his bet­ters, as he him­self would have ex­pressed it–had still about him some­thing of that pride which nat­ural­ly be­longed to those cler­gy­men who were close­ly at­tached to the palace at Barch­ester. Had he been sent on a mes­sage to Plum­stead–could any such mes­sage from Barch­ester palace have been pos­si­ble–he would have been prop­er­ly hum­ble in his de­meanour to the archdea­con, or to Mrs Grant­ly had he been ad­mit­ted to the au­gust pres­ence of that la­dy; but he was aware that hu­mil­ity would not be­come him on this present mis­sion; he had been ex­press­ly or­dered to be firm by Mrs Proudie, and firm he meant to be; and there­fore, in com­mu­ni­cat­ing to Mrs Craw­ley the fact that he had come from the palace, he did load the tone of his voice with some­thing of the dig­ni­ty which Mr Craw­ley might per­haps be ex­cused for re­gard­ing as ar­ro­gance.

‘And what does the “palace” want with me?’ said Mr Craw­ley. Mrs Craw­ley knew at once there was to be a bat­tle. Nay, the bat­tle had be­gun. Nor was she al­to­geth­er sor­ry; for though she could not trust her hus­band to sit alone all day in his arm-​chair over the fire, she could trust him to car­ry on a dis­pu­ta­tion with any oth­er cler­gy­man on any sub­ject what­ev­er. ‘What does the palace want with me?’ And as Mr Craw­ley asked the ques­tion he stood erect, and looked Mr Thum­ble full in the face. Mr Thum­ble called to mind the fact, that Mr Craw­ley was a very poor man in­deed–so poor that he owed mon­ey all round the coun­try to butch­ers and bak­ers, and the oth­er fact that he, Mr Thum­ble him­self, did not owe any mon­ey to any­one, his wife luck­ily hav­ing a lit­tle in­come of her own; and, strength­ened by these re­mem­brances, he en­deav­oured to bear Mr Craw­ley’s at­tack with gal­lantry.

‘Of course, Mr Craw­ley, you are aware that this un­for­tu­nate af­fair at Sil­ver­bridge–’

‘I am not pre­pared to dis­cuss the un­for­tu­nate af­fair at Sil­ver­bridge with a stranger. If you are the bear­er of any mes­sage to me from the Bish­op of Barch­ester, per­haps you will de­liv­er it.’

‘I have brought a let­ter,’ said Mr Thum­ble. Then Mr Craw­ley stretched out his hand with­out a word, and tak­ing the let­ter with him to the win­dow, read it very slow­ly. When he had made him­self mas­ter of its con­tents, he re­fold­ed the let­ter, placed it again in the en­ve­lope, and re­turned to the spot where Mr Thum­ble was stand­ing. ‘I will an­swer the bish­op’s let­ter,’ he said; ‘I will an­swer it of course, as it is fit­ting that I should do so. Shall I ask you to wait for my re­ply, or shall I send it by course of post?’

‘I think, Mr Craw­ley, as the bish­op wish­es me to un­der­take the du­ty–’

‘You will not un­der­take the du­ty, Mr Thum­ble. You need not trou­ble your­self, for I shall not sur­ren­der my pul­pit to you.’

‘But the bish­op–’

‘I care noth­ing for the bish­op in this mat­ter.’ So much he spoke in anger, and then he cor­rect­ed him­self. ‘I crave the bish­op’s par­don, and yours as his mes­sen­ger, if in the heat oc­ca­sioned by my strong feel­ings I have said aught which may savour of ir­rev­er­ence to­wards his lord­ship’s of­fice. I re­spect his lord­ship’s high po­si­tion as bish­op of this dio­cese, and I bow to his com­mands in all things law­ful. But I must not bow to him in things un­law­ful, nor must I aban­don my du­ty be­fore God at his bid­ding, un­less his bid­ding be giv­en in ac­cor­dance with the canons of the Church and the laws of the land. It will be my du­ty, on the com­ing Sun­day, to lead the prayers of my peo­ple in the church of my parish, and to preach to them from my pul­pit; and that my du­ty, with God’s as­sis­tance, I will per­form. Nor will I al­low any cler­gy­man to in­ter­fere with me in the per­for­mance of those sa­cred of­fices–no, not though the bish­op him­self should be present with the ob­ject of en­forc­ing his il­le­gal com­mand.’ Mr Craw­ley spoke these words with­out hes­ita­tion, even with elo­quence, stand­ing up­right, and with some­thing of a no­ble anger gleam­ing over his poor wan face; and, I think, that while speak­ing them, he was hap­pi­er than he had been for many a long day.

Mr Thum­ble lis­tened to him pa­tient­ly, stand­ing with one foot a lit­tle in ad­vance of the oth­er, with one hand fold­ed over the oth­er, with his head rather on one side, and with his eyes fixed on the cor­ner where the wall and ceil­ing joined each oth­er. He had been told to be firm, and he was con­sid­er­ing how he might best dis­play firm­ness. He thought that he re­mem­bered some sto­ry of two par­sons fight­ing for one pul­pit, and he thought al­so that he should not him­self like to in­cur the scan­dal of such a pro­ceed­ing in the dio­cese. As to the law in the mat­ter he knew noth­ing him­self; but he pre­sumed that a bish­op would prob­ably know the let­ter bet­ter than a per­pet­ual cu­rate. That Mrs Proudie was in­tem­per­ate and im­pe­ri­ous, he was aware. Had the mes­sage come from her alone, he might have felt that even for her sake he had bet­ter give way. But as the despot­ic ar­ro­gance of the la­dy in this case had been backed by the timid pres­ence and hes­itat­ing words of her lord, Mr Thum­ble thought that he must have the law on his side. ‘I think you will find, Mr Craw­ley,’ said he, ‘that the bish­op’s in­hi­bi­tion is strict­ly le­gal.’ He had picked up the pow­er­ful word from Mrs Proudie and flat­tered him­self that it might be of use to him in car­ry­ing his pur­pose.

‘It is il­le­gal,’ said Mr Craw­ley, speak­ing some­what loud­er than be­fore, ‘and will be ab­so­lute­ly fu­tile. As you plead­ed to me that you your­self and your per­son­al con­ve­nience were con­cerned in this mat­ter, I have made known my in­ten­tions to you, which oth­er­wise I should have made known on­ly to the bish­op. If you please, we will dis­cuss the mat­ter no fur­ther.’

‘Am I to un­der­stand, Mr Craw­ley, that you refuse to obey the bish­op?’

‘The bish­op has writ­ten to me, sire, and I will make known my in­ten­tion to the bish­op by a writ­ten an­swer. As you have been the bear­er of the bish­op’s let­ter to me, I am bound to ask whether I shall be in­debt­ed to you for car­ry­ing back my re­ply, or whether I shall send it by course of post?’ Mr Thum­ble con­sid­ered for a mo­ment, and then made up his mind that he had bet­ter wait, and car­ry back the epis­tle. This was Fri­day, and the let­ter could not be de­liv­ered by post till the Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Mrs Proudie might be an­gry with him if he should be the cause of loss of time. He did not, how­ev­er, at all like wait­ing, hav­ing per­ceived that Mr Craw­ley, though with lan­guage cour­te­ous­ly word­ed, had spo­ken of him as a mere mes­sen­ger.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I may, per­haps, best fur­ther the ob­ject which we must all have in view, that name­ly of pro­vid­ing prop­er­ly for the Sun­day ser­vices in the church of Hog­gle­stock, by tak­ing your re­ply per­son­al­ly to the bish­op.’

‘That pro­vi­sion is my care and need trou­ble no one else,’ said Mr Craw­ley, in a loud voice. Then, be­fore seat­ing him­self at his old desk, he stood awhile, pon­der­ing with his back turned to his vis­itor. ‘I have to ask your par­don, sir,’ said he, look­ing round for a mo­ment, ‘be­cause by the rea­son of the ex­treme pover­ty of this house, my wife is un­able to of­fer you any hos­pi­tal­ity which is es­pe­cial­ly due from one cler­gy­man to an­oth­er.’

‘Oh, don’t men­tion it,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘If you will al­low me, sir, I would pre­fer that it should be men­tioned.’ Then he seat­ed him­self, and com­menced his let­ter.

Mr Thum­ble felt him­self to be awk­ward­ly placed. Had there been no third per­son in the room he could have sat down in Mr Craw­ley’s arm-​chair, and wait­ed pa­tient­ly till the let­ter should be fin­ished. But Mrs Craw­ley was there, and of course he was bound to speak to her. In what strain should he do so? Even he, as lit­tle as he was giv­en to in­dulge in sen­ti­ment, had been touched by the man’s ap­peal to his own pover­ty, and he felt, more­over, that Mrs Craw­ley must have been deeply moved by her hus­band’s po­si­tion with ref­er­ence to the bish­op’s or­der. It was quite out of the ques­tion that he should speak of that, as Mr Craw­ley would, he was well aware, would im­me­di­ate­ly turn up­on him. At last he thought of a sub­ject, and spoke with a voice in­tend­ed to be pleas­ant. ‘That was the school-​house I passed, prob­ably, as I came here?’ Mrs Craw­ley told him that it was the school-​house. ‘Ah, yes, I thought so. Have you a cer­ti­fied teach­er there?’ Mrs Craw­ley ex­plained that no Gov­ern­ment aid had ev­er reached Hog­gle­stock. Be­sides them­selves, they had on­ly a young wom­an whom they them­selves had in­struct­ed.

‘Ah, that is a pity,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘I–I am the cer­ti­fied teach­er,’ said Mr Craw­ley, turn­ing round up­on him from his chair.

‘Oh, ah, yes,’ said Mr Thum­ble; and af­ter that Mr Thum­ble asked no more ques­tions about the Hog­gle­stock school. Soon af­ter­wards Mrs Craw­ley left the room, see­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty un­der which Mr Thum­ble was labour­ing, and feel­ing sure that her pres­ence would not now be nec­es­sary. Mr Craw­ley’s let­ter was writ­ten quick­ly, though ev­ery now and then he would sit for a mo­ment with his pen poised in the air, search­ing his mem­ory for a word. But the words came to him eas­ily, and be­fore an hour was over he had hand­ed his let­ter to Mr Thum­ble. The let­ter was as fol­lows:–

‘THE PAR­SON­AGE, HOG­GLE­STOCK, De­cem­ber, 186-

‘RIGHT REV­EREND LORD,

‘I have re­ceived the let­ter of yes­ter­day’s date which your lord­ship has done me the hon­our of send­ing by the hands of the Rev­erend Mr Thum­ble, and I avail my­self of that gen­tle­man’s kind­ness to re­turn to you an an­swer by the same means, moved this to use his pa­tience chiefly by the con­sid­er­ation that in this way my re­ply to your lord­ship’s in­junc­tions may be in your hands with less de­lay than would at­tend the course of the mail-​post.

‘It is with deep re­gret that I feel my­self con­strained to in­form your lord­ship that I can­not obey the com­mand which you have laid up­on me with ref­er­ence to the ser­vices of my church in this parish. I can­not per­mit Mr Thum­ble, or any oth­er del­egate from your lord­ship, to usurp my place in the pul­pit. I would not have you think, if I can pos­si­bly dis­pel such thoughts from your mind, that I dis­re­gard your high of­fice, or that I am de­fi­cient in that re­spect­ful obe­di­ence to the bish­op set over me, which is due to the au­thor­ity of the Crown as the head of the church in these realms; but in this, as in all ques­tions of obe­di­ence, he who is re­quired to obey must ex­am­ine the ex­tent of the au­thor­ity ex­er­cised by him who de­mands obe­di­ence. Your lord­ship might pos­si­bly call up­on me, us­ing your voice as bish­op of the dio­cese, to aban­don al­to­geth­er the free­hold rights which are now mine in this per­pet­ual cu­ra­cy. The judge of as­size, be­fore whom I shall soon stand for my tri­al, might com­mand me to re­tire to prison with­out a ver­dict giv­en by a ju­ry. The mag­is­trates who com­mit­ted me so late­ly as yes­ter­day, up­on whose de­ci­sion in that re­spect your lord­ship has tak­en ac­tion against me so quick­ly, might have equal­ly strained their au­thor­ity. But in no case, in this land, is he that is sub­ject bound to obey, fur­ther than where the law gives au­thor­ity and ex­acts obe­di­ence. It is not in the pow­er of the Crown it­self to in­hib­it me from the per­for­mance of my or­di­nary du­ties in this parish by any such mis­sive as that sent to me by your lord­ship. If your lord­ship think right to stop my mouth as a cler­gy­man in your dio­cese, you must pro­ceed to do so in an ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court in ac­cor­dance with the laws, and will suc­ceed in your ob­ject, or fail, in ac­cor­dance with the ev­idences as to the min­is­te­ri­al fit­ness or un­fit­ness, which may be pro­duced re­spect­ing me be­fore the prop­er tri­bunal.

‘I will al­low that much at­ten­tion is due from a cler­gy­man to pas­toral ad­vice giv­en to him by his bish­op. On that head I must first ex­press to your lord­ship my full un­der­stand­ing that your let­ter has not been in­tend­ed to con­vey ad­vice, but an or­der;–an in­hi­bi­tion, as your mes­sen­ger, the Rev­erend Mr Thum­ble, has ex­pressed it. There might be a case cer­tain­ly in which I should sub­mit my­self to coun­sel, though I should re­sist com­mand. No coun­sel, how­ev­er, has been giv­en–ex­cept in­deed that I should re­ceive your mes­sen­ger in a prop­er spir­it, which I hope I have done. No oth­er ad­vice has been giv­en me, and there­fore there is now no such case as that I have imag­ined. But in this mat­ter, my lord, I could not have ac­cept­ed ad­vice from a liv­ing man, no, not though the hands of the apos­tles them­selves had made him bish­op who ten­dered it to me, and had set him over me for my guid­ance. I am in a ter­ri­ble strait. Trou­ble, and sor­row, and dan­ger are up­on me and mine. It may well be, as your lord­ship says, that the bit­ter wa­ters of the present hour may pass over my head and de­stroy me. I thank your lord­ship for telling me whith­er I am to look for as­sis­tance. Tru­ly I know not whether there is any to be found for me on earth. But the deep­er my trou­bles, the greater my sor­row, the more press­ing any dan­ger, the stronger is my need that I should car­ry my­self in these days with that out­ward re­spect of self which will teach those around me to know that, let who will con­demn me, I have not con­demned my­self. Were I to aban­don my pul­pit, un­less forced to do so by le­gal means, I should in do­ing so be putting a plea of guilty against my­self up­on the record. This, my lord, I will not do.

‘I have the hon­our to be, my lord,

‘Your lord­ship’s most obe­di­ent ser­vant, ‘JOSI­AH CRAW­LEY’

When he had fin­ished writ­ing his let­ter he read it over slow­ly, and then hand­ed it to Mr Thum­ble. The act of writ­ing, and the cur­rent of the thoughts through his brain, and the feel­ing that in ev­ery word writ­ten he was get­ting the bet­ter of the bish­op–all this joined to a cer­tain man­ly de­light in war­fare against au­thor­ity, light­ed up the man’s face and gave to his eyes an ex­pres­sion which had been long want­ing to them. His wife at that mo­ment came in­to the room and he looked at her with an air of tri­umph as he hand­ed the let­ter to Mr Thum­ble. ‘If you will give that to his lord­ship with an as­sur­ance of my du­ty to his lord­ship in all things prop­er, I will thank you kind­ly, crav­ing your par­don for the great de­lay to which you have been sub­ject­ed.’

‘As to the de­lay, it is noth­ing,’ said Mr Thum­ble.

‘It has been much; but you as a cler­gy­man will feel that it has been in­cum­bent up­on me to speak my mind ful­ly.’

‘Oh, yes; of course.’ Mr Craw­ley was stand­ing up, as al­so was Mrs Craw­ley. It was ev­ident to Mr Thum­ble that they both ex­pect­ed that he should go. But he had been es­pe­cial­ly en­joined to be firm, and he doubt­ed whether hith­er­to he had been firm enough. As far as this morn­ing’s work had as yet gone, it seemed to him that Mr Craw­ley had had the play to him­self, and that he, Mr Thum­ble, had not had his in­nings. He, from the palace, had been, as it were, cowed by this man, who had been forced to plead his own pover­ty. It was cer­tain­ly in­cum­bent up­on him, be­fore he went, to speak up, not on­ly for the bish­op, but for him­self al­so. ‘Mr Craw­ley,’ he said, ‘hith­er­to I have lis­tened to you pa­tient­ly.’

‘Nay,’ said Mr Craw­ley, smil­ing, ‘you have in­deed been pa­tient, and I thank you; but my words have been writ­ten, not spo­ken.’

‘You have told me that you in­tend to dis­obey the bish­op’s in­hi­bi­tion.’

‘I have told the bish­op so, cer­tain­ly.’

‘May I ask you now to lis­ten to me for a few min­utes?’

Mr Craw­ley, still smil­ing, still hav­ing in his eyes the un­wont­ed tri­umph which had light­ed them up, paused a mo­ment, and then an­swered him. ‘Rev­erend sir, you must ex­cuse me if I say no–not on this sub­ject.’

‘You will not let me speak?’

‘No; not on this mat­ter, which is very pri­vate to me. What should you think if I went in­to your house and in­quired of you as to those things which were par­tic­ular­ly near to you?’

‘But the bish­op sent me.’

‘Though ten bish­ops sent me–a coun­cil of arch­bish­ops if you will!’ Mr Thum­ble start­ed back, ap­palled by the en­er­gy of the words used to him. ‘Shall a man have noth­ing of his own;–no sor­row in his heart, no care in his fam­ily, no thought in his breast so pri­vate and spe­cial to him, but that, if he hap­pen to be a cler­gy­man, the bish­op may touch it with his thumb?’

‘I am not the bish­op’s thumb,’ said Mr Thum­ble, draw­ing him­self up.

‘I in­tend­ed not to hint any­thing per­son­al­ly ob­jec­tion­able to your­self. I will re­gard you as one of the an­gels of the church.’ Mr Thum­ble, when he heard this, be­gan to be sure that Mr Craw­ley was mad; he knew of no an­gels that could ride about the Barset­shire lanes on grey ponies. ‘And as much as I re­spect you; but I can­not dis­cuss with you the mat­ter of the bish­op’s mes­sage.’

‘Oh, very well. I will tell his lord­ship.’

‘I will pray you to do so.’

‘And his lord­ship, should he so de­cide, will arm me with such pow­er on my next com­ing as will en­able me to car­ry out his lord­ship’s wish­es.’

‘His lord­ship will abide by the law, as will you al­so.’ In speak­ing these last words he stood with the door in his hand, and Mr Thum­ble, not know­ing how to in­crease or even main­tain his firm­ness, thought it best to pass out, and mount his grey pony and ride away.

‘The poor man thought that you were laugh­ing at him when you called him an an­gel of the church,’ said Mrs Craw­ley, com­ing up to him and smil­ing on him.

‘Had I told him he was sim­ply a mes­sen­ger, he would have tak­en it worse;–poor fool! When they have rid them­selves of me they may put him here, in my church; but not yet–not yet. Where is Jane? Tell her that I am ready to com­mence the Sev­en against Thebes with her.’ Then Jane was im­me­di­ate­ly sent for out of the school, and the Sev­en against Thebes was com­menced with great en­er­gy. Of­ten dur­ing the next hour and a half Mrs Craw­ley from the kitchen would hear him read­ing out, or rather say­ing by rote, with sonorous rolling voice, great pas­sages from some cho­rus, and she was very thank­ful to the bish­op, who had sent over to them a mes­sage and mes­sen­ger which had been so salu­tary in their ef­fect up­on her hus­band. ‘In truth an an­gel of the church,’ she said to her­self as she chopped up the onions for the mut­ton-​broth; and ev­er af­ter­wards she re­gard­ed Mr Thum­ble as an ‘an­gel’.