The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXI

‘IT’S DOGGED AS DOES IT’

In ac­cor­dance with the res­olu­tion to which the cler­ical com­mis­sion had come on the first day of their sit­ting, Dr Tem­pest wrote the fol­low­ing let­ter to Mr Craw­ley:-

‘REC­TO­RY, SIL­VER­BRIDGE, April, 9, 186- ‘DEAR SIR,

‘I have been giv­en to un­der­stand that you have been in­formed that the Bish­op of Barch­ester has ap­point­ed a com­mis­sion of cler­gy­men of the dio­cese to make in­quiry re­spect­ing cer­tain ac­cu­sa­tions which, to the great re­gret of us all, have been made against you, in re­spect of a cheque for twen­ty pounds which was passed by you to a trades­man of the town. The cler­gy­men ap­point­ed to form this com­mis­sion are Mr Oriel, the rec­tor of Gre­shams­bury, Mr Ro­barts, the vicar of Fram­ley, Mr Quiv­er­ful, the war­den of Hi­ram’s Hos­pi­tal at Barch­ester, and Mr Thum­ble, a cler­gy­man es­tab­lished in that city, and my­self. We held our first meet­ing on last Mon­day, and I now write to you in com­pli­ance with a res­olu­tion to which we came. Be­fore tak­ing any oth­er steps we thought it best to ask you to at­tend us here on next Mon­day, at two o’clock, and I beg that you will ac­cept this let­ter as an in­vi­ta­tion to that ef­fect.

‘We are, of course, aware that you are about to stand your tri­al at the next as­sizes for the of­fence in ques­tion. I beg you to un­der­stand that I do not ex­press any opin­ion as to your guilt. But I think it right to point out to you that in the event of a ju­ry find­ing an ad­verse ver­dict, the bish­op will be placed in great dif­fi­cul­ty un­less he were for­ti­fied with the opin­ion of a com­mis­sion formed from your fel­low cler­ical labour­ers in the dio­cese. Should such ad­verse ver­dict un­for­tu­nate­ly be giv­en, the bish­op would hard­ly be jus­ti­fied in al­low­ing a cler­gy­man placed as you then would be placed, to re­turn to his cure af­ter the ex­pi­ra­tion of such pun­ish­ment as the judge might award, with­out a fur­ther de­ci­sion from an ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court. This de­ci­sion he could on­ly ob­tain by pro­ceed­ing against you un­der the Act in ref­er­ence to cler­ical of­fences, which em­pow­ers him as bish­op of the dio­cese to bring you be­fore the Court of Arch­es–un­less you would think well to sub­mit your­self en­tire­ly to his judg­ment. You will, I think, un­der­stand what I mean. The judge at as­sizes might find it his du­ty to im­prison a cler­gy­man for a month–re­gard­ing tat cler­gy­man sim­ply as he would re­gard any oth­er per­son found guilty by a ju­ry and thus made sub­ject to his judg­ment–and might do this for an of­fence which the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal judge would find him­self obliged to vis­it with the sev­er­er sen­tence of pro­longed sus­pen­sion, or even with de­pri­va­tion.

‘We are, how­ev­er, clear­ly of the opin­ion that should the ju­ry find them­selves able to ac­quit you, no fur­ther ac­tion what­so­ev­er should be tak­en. In such case we think that the bish­op may re­gard your in­no­cence to be ful­ly es­tab­lished, and in such case we shall rec­om­mend his lord­ship to look up­on the mat­ter as al­to­geth­er at an end. I can as­sure you that in such case I shall so re­gard it my­self.

‘You will per­ceive that, as a con­se­quence of this res­olu­tion, to which we have al­ready come, we are not mind­ed to take any in­quiries our­selves in­to the cir­cum­stances of your al­leged guilt, till the ver­dict of the ju­ry shall be giv­en. But should you be con­vict­ed, we must in that case ad­vise the bish­op to take the pro­ceed­ings to which I have al­lud­ed, or to ab­stain from tak­ing them. We wish to ask you whether, now that our opin­ion has been con­veyed to you, you will be will­ing to sub­mit the bish­op’s de­ci­sion, in the event of an ad­verse ver­dict be­ing giv­en by the ju­ry; and we think that it will be bet­ter for us all that you should meet us here at the hour I have named on Mon­day next, the fif­teenth in­stant. It is not our in­ten­tion to make any re­port to the bish­op un­til the tri­al shall be over.–I have the hon­our to be, my dear sir, your obe­di­ent ser­vant,

‘MOR­TIMER TEM­PEST ‘The Rev. Josi­ah Craw­ley, ‘Hog­gle­stock.’

In the same en­ve­lope Dr Tem­pest sent a short pri­vate note, in which he said that he should be very hap­py to see Mr Craw­ley at half-​past one on the Mon­day named, that lun­cheon would be ready at that hour, and that, as Mr Craw­ley’s at­ten­dance was re­quired on pub­lic grounds, he would take care that a car­riage was pro­vid­ed for the day.

Mr Craw­ley re­ceived this let­ter in his wife’s pres­ence, and read it in si­lence. Mrs Craw­ley saw that he paid close at­ten­tion to it, and was sure–she felt that she was sure–that it re­ferred in some way to the ter­ri­ble sub­ject of the cheque for twen­ty pounds. In­deed, ev­ery­thing that came in­to the house, al­most ev­ery word spo­ken there, and ev­ery thought that came in­to the breast of any of the fam­ily, had more or less ref­er­ence to the com­ing tri­al. How could it be oth­er­wise? There was ru­in com­ing on them all–ru­in and com­plete dis­grace com­ing on fa­ther, moth­er, and chil­dren! To have been ac­cused it­self was very bad; but now it seemed to be the opin­ion of ev­ery­one that the ver­dict must be against the man. Mrs Craw­ley her­self, who was per­fect­ly sure of her hus­band’s in­no­cence be­fore God, be­lieved that the ju­ry would find him guilty–and be­lieved al­so that he had be­come pos­sessed of the mon­ey in some man­ner that would have been dis­hon­est, had he not been so dif­fer­ent from oth­er peo­ple as to be en­ti­tled to be con­sid­ered in­no­cent where an­oth­er man would have been plain­ly guilty. She was full of the cheque for twen­ty pounds, and of its re­sults. When, there­fore, he had read the let­ter through a sec­ond time, and even then had spo­ken no word about it, of course she could not re­frain from ques­tion­ing him. ‘My love,’ she said, ‘what is the let­ter?’

‘It is on busi­ness,’ he an­swered.

She was silent for a mo­ment be­fore she spoke again. ‘May I not know the busi­ness?’

‘No,’ said he; ‘not at present.’

‘Is it from the bish­op?’

‘Have I not an­swered you? Have I not giv­en you to un­der­stand that, for a while at least, I would pre­fer to keep the con­tents of this epis­tle to my­self?’ Then he looked at her very stern­ly, and af­ter­wards turned his eyes up­on the fire­place and gazed at the fire, as though he were striv­ing to read there some­thing of his fu­ture fate. She did not much re­gard the sever­ity of his speech. That, too, like the tak­ing of the cheque it­self, was to be for­giv­en him, be­cause he was dif­fer­ent from oth­er men. His black mood had come up­on him, cut­ting his teeth. Let the poor way­ward suf­fer­er be ev­er so petu­lant, the moth­er sim­ply pities and loves him, and is nev­er an­gry. ‘I beg your par­don, Josi­ah,’ she said, ‘but I thought it would com­fort you to speak to me about it.’

‘It will not com­fort me,’ he said. ‘Noth­ing com­forts me. Noth­ing can com­fort me. Jane, give me my hat and my stick.’ His daugh­ter brought to him his hat and stick, and with­out an­oth­er word he went out and left them.

As a mat­ter of course he turned his steps to­wards Hog­gle End. When he de­sired to be long ab­sent from the house, he al­ways went among the brick­mak­ers. His wife, as she stood at the win­dow and watched the di­rec­tion in which he went, knew that he might be away for hours. The on­ly friends out of his own fam­ily with whom he ev­er spoke freely were some of those rough parish­ioners. But he was not think­ing of the brick­mak­ers when he start­ed. He was sim­ply de­sirous of read­ing again Dr Tem­pest’s let­ter, and of con­sid­er­ing it, in some spot where no eye could see him. He walked away with long steps, re­gard­ing noth­ing–nei­ther the ruts in the dirty lane, nor the young prim­ros­es which were fast show­ing them­selves on the banks, nor the gath­er­ing clouds which might have told him of the com­ing rain. He went on for a cou­ple of miles, till he had near­ly reached the out­skirts of the colony of Hog­gle End, and then he sat him­self down up­on a gate. He had not been there a minute be­fore a few slow drops be­gan to fall, but he was al­to­geth­er too much wrapped up in his thoughts to re­gard the rain. What an­swer should he make to this let­ter from the man from Sil­ver­bridge?

The po­si­tion of his own mind in ref­er­ence to his own guilt or his own in­no­cence was very sin­gu­lar. It was sim­ply the truth that he did not know how the cheque had come to him. He did know that he had blun­dered about it most egre­gious­ly, es­pe­cial­ly when he had averred that this cheque for twen­ty pounds had been iden­ti­cal with a cheque for an­oth­er sum which had been giv­en to him by Mr Soames. He had blun­dered since, in say­ing that the dean had giv­en it to him. There could be no doubt as to this, for the dean had de­nied that he had done so. And he had come to think it very pos­si­ble that he had in­deed picked the cheque up, and had af­ter­wards used it, hav­ing de­posit­ed it by some strange ac­ci­dent–not know­ing then what he was do­ing, or what was the na­ture of the bit of pa­per in his hand–with the notes which he had ac­cept­ed from the dean with so much re­luc­tance, and with such an agony of spir­it. In all these thoughts of his own do­ings, and his own po­si­tion, he al­most ad­mit­ted to him­self his own in­san­ity, his in­abil­ity to man­age his own af­fairs with that de­gree of ra­tio­nal se­quence which is tak­en for grant­ed as be­long­ing to a man when he is made sub­ject to crim­inal laws. As he puz­zled his brain in his ef­forts to cre­ate a mem­ory as to the cheque, and suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing to his mind a rec­ol­lec­tion that he had once known some­thing about the cheque–that the cheque had at one time been the sub­ject of a thought and a res­olu­tion–he ad­mit­ted to him­self that in ac­cor­dance with all law and all rea­son he must be re­gard­ed as a thief. He had tak­en and used and spent that which he ought to have known was not his own–which he would have known not to be his own but for some ter­ri­ble in­ca­pac­ity with which God had in­flict­ed him. What then must be the re­sult? His mind was clear enough about this. If the ju­ry should see ev­ery­thing and know ev­ery­thing–as he would wish that they should do; and if the bish­op’s com­mis­sion, and the bish­op him­self, and the Court of Arch­es with its judge, could see and know ev­ery­thing; and if so see­ing and so know­ing they could act with clear hon­esty and per­fect wis­dom–what would they do? They would de­clare of him that he was not a thief, on­ly be­cause he was so mud­dy-​mind­ed, so ad­dle-​pat­ed as not to know the dif­fer­ence be­tween meum and tu­um! There could be no oth­er end to it, let all the lawyers and all the cler­gy­men in Eng­land put their wits to it. Thought he knew him­self to be mud­dy-​mind­ed and ad­dle-​pat­ed, he could see that. And could any­one say of such a man that he was fit to be the act­ing-​cler­gy­man of a parish–to have free­hold pos­ses­sion in a parish as cur­er of men’s souls! The bish­op was in the right of it, let him be ten times as mean a fel­low as he was.

And yet as he sat there on the gate, while the rain came down heav­ily up­on him, even when ad­mit­ting the jus­tice of the bish­op, and the truth of the ver­dict which the ju­ry would no doubt give, and the pro­pri­ety of the ac­tion which that cold, rea­son­able, pros­per­ous man at Sil­ver­bridge would take, he pitied him­self with a ten­der­ness of com­mis­er­ation which knew no bounds. As for those be­long­ing to him, his wife and chil­dren, his pity for them was of a dif­fer­ent kind. He would have suf­fered any in­crease of suf­fer­ing, could he by such agony have re­leased them. Dear­ly as he loved them, he would have sev­ered him­self from them, had it been pos­si­ble. Ter­ri­ble thoughts as to their fate had come in­to his mind in the worst mo­ments of his mood­iness–thoughts which he had suf­fi­cient strength and man­li­ness to put away from him with a strong hand, lest they should drive him to crime in­deed; and these had come from the great pity he had felt for them. But the com­mis­er­ation which he had felt for him­self had been dif­fer­ent from this, and had most­ly vis­it­ed him at times when that oth­er pity was for the mo­ment in abeyance. What though he had tak­en the cheque, and spent the mon­ey though it was not his? He might be guilty be­fore the law, but he was not guilty be­fore God. There had nev­er been a thought of theft in his mind, or a de­sire to steal in his heart. He knew that well enough. No ju­ry could make him guilty of theft be­fore God. And what though this mix­ture of guilt and in­no­cence had come from mad­ness–from mad­ness which these courts must recog­nise if they chose to find him in­no­cent of the crime? In spite of his aber­ra­tions of in­tel­lect, if there were any such, his min­is­tra­tions in his parish were good. Had he not preached fer­vent­ly and well–preach­ing the true gospel? Had he not been very dili­gent among his peo­ple, striv­ing with all his might to lessen the ig­no­rance of the ig­no­rant, and to gild with god­li­ness the learn­ing of the in­struct­ed? Had he not been pa­tient, en­dur­ing, in­stant, and in all things amenable to the laws and reg­ula­tions laid down by the Church for his guid­ance in his du­ties as a parish cler­gy­man? Who could point out in what he had been astray, or where he had gone amiss? But for the work which he had done with so much zeal the Church which he served had paid him so mis­er­able a pit­tance that, though life and soul had been kept to­geth­er, the rea­son, or a frag­ment of the rea­son, had at mo­ments es­caped from his keep­ing in the scram­ble. Hence it was that this ter­ri­ble calami­ty had fall­en up­on him! Who had been tried as he had been tried, and had gone through such fire with less loss of in­tel­lec­tu­al pow­er than he had done? He was still a schol­ar, though no broth­er schol­ar ev­er came near him, and would make Greek iambics as he walked through the lanes. His mem­ory was stored with po­et­ry, though no book ev­er came in­to his hands, ex­cept those shorn and tat­tered vol­umes which lay up­on his ta­ble. Old prob­lems in trigonom­etry were the pleas­ing re­lax­ations of his mind, and com­pli­ca­tions of fig­ures were a de­light to him. There was not one of those pros­per­ous cler­gy­men around him, and who scorned him, whom he could not have in­struct­ed in He­brew. It was al­ways a grat­ifi­ca­tion to him to re­mem­ber that his old friend the dean was weak in his He­brew. He, with these ac­quire­ments, with these fit­ness­es, had been thrust down to the ground–to the very gran­ite–and be­cause in that harsh heart­less thrust­ing his in­tel­lect had for mo­ments wa­vered as to com­mon things, cleav­ing still to all its grander, no­bler pos­ses­sions, he was now to be rent in pieces and scat­tered to the winds, as be­ing al­to­geth­er vile, worth­less, and worse than worth­less. It was thus that he thought of him­self, pity­ing him­self, as he sat up­on the gate, while the rain fell ruth­less­ly on his shoul­ders.

He pitied him­self with a com­mis­er­ation that was sick­ly in spite of its truth. It was the fault of the man that he was im­bued too strong­ly with self-​con­scious­ness. He could do a great thing or two. He could keep up his courage in po­si­tions which would wash all the courage out of most men. He could tell the truth though truth should ru­in him. He could sac­ri­fice all that he had to du­ty. He could do jus­tice though the heav­en should fall. But he could not for­get to pay trib­ute to him­self for the great­ness of his own ac­tions; nor, when ac­cept­ing with an ef­fort of meek­ness the small pay­ment made by the world to him, in re­turn for his great works, could he for­get the great pay­ments made to oth­ers for small work. It was not suf­fi­cient for him to re­mem­ber that he knew He­brew, but he must re­mem­ber al­so that the dean did not.

Nev­er­the­less, as he sat there un­der the rain, he made up his mind with a clear­ness that cer­tain­ly had in it noth­ing of that mud­di­ness of mind of which he had of­ten ac­cused him­self. In­deed, the in­tel­lect of this man was es­sen­tial­ly clear. It was sim­ply that his mem­ory that would play him tricks–his mem­ory as to things which at the mo­ment were not im­por­tant to him. The fact that the dean had giv­en him mon­ey was very im­por­tant, and he re­mem­bered it well. But the amount of the mon­ey, and its form, at a mo­ment in which he had flat­tered him­self that he might have strength to leave it un­used, had not been im­por­tant to him. Now, he re­solved that he would go to Dr Tem­pest, and that he would tell Dr Tem­pest that there was not oc­ca­sion for any fur­ther in­quiry. He would sub­mit to the bish­op, let the bish­op’s de­ci­sion be what it might. Things were dif­fer­ent since the day on which he had re­fused Mr Thum­ble ad­mis­sion to his pul­pit. At that time peo­ple be­lieved him to be in­no­cent, and he so be­lieved of him­self. Now, peo­ple be­lieved him to be guilty, and it could not be right that a man held in such slight es­teem could ex­er­cise the func­tions of a parish priest, let his own opin­ion of him­self be what it might. He would sub­mit him­self, and go any­where–to the gal­leys or the work­house, if they wished it. As for his wife and chil­dren, they would, he said to him­self, be bet­ter with­out him than with him. The world would nev­er be so hard to a wom­an or to chil­dren as it had been to him.

He was sit­ting sat­urat­ed with rain–sat­urat­ed al­so with think­ing–and quite un­ob­ser­vant of any­thing around him, when he was ac­cost­ed by an old man from Hog­gle End, with whom he was well ac­quaint­ed. ‘Thee be wat, Mas­ter Craw­ley,’ said the old man.

‘Wet!’ said Craw­ley, re­called sud­den­ly back to the re­al­ities of life. ‘Well–yes. I am wet. That’s be­cause it’s rain­ing.’

‘Thee be teem­ing o’wat. Hadn’t thee bet­ter go home?’

‘And are you not wet al­so,’ said Mr Craw­ley, look­ing at the old man, who had been at work in the brick­field, and who was soaked with mire, and from whom there seemed to come a steam of mud­dy mist.

‘Is it me, yer rev­er­ence? I’m wat of course. The loikes of us is al­ways wat–that is bar­ring the in­sides of us. It comes to us nat­ural to have the rheumat­ics. How is one of us to help his­self against hav­ing on ‘em? But there ain’t no call for the loikes of you to have the rheumat­ics.’

‘My friend,’ said Craw­ley, who was now stand­ing on the road–and as he spoke he put out his arm and took the brick­mak­er by the hand, ‘there is a worse com­plaint than rheuma­tism–there is, in­deed.’

‘There’s what they calls the collerer,’ said Giles Hoggett, look­ing up in­to Craw­ley’s face. ‘That ain’t a-​got hold of yer?’

‘Ay, and worse than the cholera. A man is killed all over when he is struck with pride–and yet he lives.’

‘Maybe that’s bad enough too,’ said Giles, with his hand still held by the oth­er.

‘It is bad enough,’ said Craw­ley, strik­ing his breast with his left hand. ‘It is bad enough.’

‘Tell ‘ee what, Mas­ter Craw­ley;–and yer rev­er­ence mustn’t think as I means to be preach­ing; there ain’t nowt a man can’t bear if he’ll on­ly be dogged. You to whome, Mas­ter Craw­ley, and think o’ that, and maybe it’ll do ye a good yet. It’s dogged as does it. It ain’t think­ing about it.’ Then Giles Hoggett with­drew his hand from the cler­gy­man’s, and walked away to­wards his home at Hog­gle End. Mr Craw­ley al­so turned away home­wards, and as he made his way through the lanes, he re­peat­ed to him­self Giles Hoggett’s words. ‘It’s dogged as does it. It’s not think­ing about it.’

He did not say a word to his wife on that af­ter­noon about Dr Tem­pest; and she was so much tak­en up with his out­ward con­di­tion when he re­turned, as al­most to have for­got­ten the let­ter. He al­lowed him­self, but bare­ly al­lowed him­self, to be made dry, and then for the re­main­der of the day ap­plied him­self to learn the les­son which Hoggett had en­deav­oured to teach him. But the learn­ing of it was not easy, and hard­ly be­came more easy when he had worked the prob­lem out in his own mind, and dis­cov­ered that the brick­mak­er’s dogged­ness sim­ply meant self-​ab­ne­ga­tion–that a man should force him­self to en­dure any­thing that might be sent up­on him, not on­ly with­out out­ward grum­bling, but al­so with­out grum­bling in­ward­ly.

Ear­ly on the next morn­ing, he told his wife that he was go­ing in­to Sil­ver­bridge. ‘It is that let­ter–the let­ter which I got yes­ter­day that calls me,’ he said. And then he hand­ed her the let­ter as to which he had re­fused to speak to her on the pre­ced­ing day.

‘But this speaks of your go­ing next Mon­day, Josi­ah,’ said Mrs Craw­ley.

‘I find it more suit­able that I should go to­day,’ said he. ‘Some du­ty I do owe in this mat­ter, both to the bish­op, and to Dr Tem­pest, who, af­ter a fash­ion is, as re­gards my present busi­ness, the bish­op’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive. But I do not per­ceive that I owe it as a du­ty to ei­ther to obey im­plic­it­ly their in­junc­tions, and I will not sub­mit my­self to the cross-​ques­tion­ing of the man Thum­ble. As I am pur­posed at present I shall ex­press my will­ing­ness to give up the parish.’

‘Give up the parish al­to­geth­er?’

‘Yes, al­to­geth­er.’ As he spoke he clasped both his hands to­geth­er, and hav­ing held them for a mo­ment on high, al­lowed them to fall thus clasped be­fore him. ‘I can­not give it up in part; I can­not aban­don the du­ties and re­serve the hon­orar­ium. Nor would I if I could.’

‘I did not mean that, Josi­ah. But pray think of it be­fore you speak.’

‘I have thought of it, and I will think of it. Farewell, my dear.’ Then he came up to her and kissed her, and start­ed on his jour­ney on foot to Sil­ver­bridge.

It was about noon when he reached Sil­ver­bridge, and he was told that Doc­tor Tem­pest was at home. The ser­vant asked him for a card. ‘I have no card,’ said Mr Craw­ley, ‘but I will write my name for your be­hoof if your mas­ter’s hos­pi­tal­ity will al­low me pa­per and pen­cil.’ The name was writ­ten, and as Craw­ley wait­ed in the draw­ing-​room he spent his time in hat­ing Dr Tem­pest be­cause the door had been opened by a man-​ser­vant dressed in black. Had the man been in liv­ery he would have hat­ed Dr Tem­pest all the same. And he would have hat­ed him a lit­tle had the door been opened by a smart maid.

‘Your let­ter came to hand yes­ter­day morn­ing, Dr Tem­pest,’ said Mr Craw­ley, still stand­ing, though the doc­tor had point­ed to a chair for him af­ter shak­ing hands with him; ‘and hav­ing giv­en yes­ter­day to the con­sid­er­ation of it, with what judg­ment I have been able to ex­er­cise, I have felt it to be in­cum­bent up­on me to wait up­on you with­out fur­ther de­lay, as by do­ing so I may per­haps as­sist your views and save labour to those gen­tle­men who are joined with you in this com­mis­sion of which you have spo­ken. To some of them it may pos­si­bly be trou­ble­some that they should be brought here on next Mon­day.

Dr Tem­pest had been look­ing at him dur­ing this speech, and could see by his shoes and trousers that he had walked from Hog­gle­stock to Sil­ver­bridge. ‘Mr Craw­ley, will you not sit down?’ said he, and then he rang his bell. Mr Craw­ley sat down, not on the chair in­di­cat­ed, but on the fur­ther re­moved and at the oth­er side of the ta­ble. When the ser­vant came–the ob­jec­tion­able but­ler in black clothes that were so much smarter than Mr Craw­ley’s own–his mas­ter’s or­ders were com­mu­ni­cat­ed with­out any au­di­ble word, and the man re­turned with a de­canter and wine-​glass­es.

‘Af­ter your walk, Mr Craw­ley,’ said Dr Tem­pest, get­ting up from his seat to pour out wine.

‘None, I thank you.’

‘Pray let me per­suade you. I know the length of the miles so well.’

‘I will take none if you please, sir,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘Now, Mr Craw­ley,’ said Dr Tem­pest, ‘do let me speak to you as a friend. You have walked eight miles, and are go­ing to talk to me on a sub­ject which is of vi­tal im­por­tance to your­self. I won’t dis­cuss it un­less you’ll take a glass of wine and a bis­cuit.’

‘Dr Tem­pest!’

‘I’m quite in earnest. I won’t. If you do as I ask, you shall talk to me till din­ner-​time, if you like. There. Now you may be­gin.’

Mr Craw­ley did eat the bis­cuit and did drink the wine, and as he did so, he ac­knowl­edged to him­self that Dr Tem­pest was right. He felt that the wine had made him stronger to speak. ‘I hard­ly know why you have pre­ferred to­day to next Mon­day,’ said Dr Tem­pest; ‘but if any­thing can be done by your pres­ence here to­day, your time shall not be thrown away.’

‘I have pre­ferred to­day to Mon­day,’ said Craw­ley, ‘part­ly be­cause I would soon­er talk to one man than to five.’

‘There is some­thing in that, cer­tain­ly,’ said Dr Tem­pest.

‘And as I have made up my mind as to the course of ac­tion which it is my du­ty to take in the mat­ter to which your let­ter of the ninth of this month refers, there can be no rea­son why I should post­pone the dec­la­ra­tion of my pur­pose. Dr Tem­pest, I have de­ter­mined to re­sign my prefer­ment at Hog­gle­stock, and shall to­day write to the Dean of Barch­ester, who is the pa­tron, ac­quaint­ing him of my pur­pose.’

‘You mean in the event–in the event–’

‘I mean, sir, to do this with­out ref­er­ence to any event that is fu­ture. The bish­op, Dr Tem­pest, when I shall have been proved to be a thief, shall have no trou­ble ei­ther in caus­ing my sus­pen­sion or my de­pri­va­tion. The name and fame of a parish cler­gy­man should be un­stained. Mine have be­come foul with in­famy. I will not wait to be de­prived by any court, by any bish­op, or by any com­mis­sion. I will bow my head to that pub­lic opin­ion which has reached me, and I will de­prive my­self.’

He had got up from his chair, and was stand­ing as he pro­nounced the fi­nal sen­tence against him­self. Dr Tem­pest still re­mained seat­ed in his chair, look­ing at him, and for a few mo­ments there was si­lence. ‘You must not do that, Mr Craw­ley,’ said Dr Tem­pest, at last.

‘But I shall do it.’

‘Then the dean must not take your res­ig­na­tion. Speak­ing to you frankly, I tell you that there is no pre­vail­ing opin­ion as to the ver­dict which the ju­ry may give.’

‘My de­ci­sion has noth­ing to do with the ju­ry’s ver­dict. My de­ci­sion–’

‘Stop a mo­ment, Mr Craw­ley. It is pos­si­ble that you might say that which should not be said.’

‘There is noth­ing to be said–noth­ing which I could say, which I would not say at the Town Cross if it were pos­si­ble. As to this mon­ey, I do not know whether I stole it or whether I did not.’

‘That is just what I have thought.’

‘It is so.’

‘Then you did not steal it. There can be no doubt about that.’

‘Thank you, Dr Tem­pest. I thank you hearti­ly for say­ing so much. But, sir, you are not the ju­ry. Nor, if you were, could you white­wash me from the in­famy which has been cast up­on me. Against the opin­ion ex­pressed at the be­gin­ning of these pro­ceed­ings by the bish­op of this dio­cese–or rather against that ex­pressed by his wife–I did ven­ture to make a stand. Nei­ther the opin­ion which came from the palace, nor the ve­hi­cle by which it was ex­pressed, com­mand­ed my re­spect. Since that, oth­ers have spo­ken to whom I feel my­self bound to yield–your­self not the least among them, Dr Tem­pest–and to them I shall yield. You may tell the Bish­op of Barch­ester, that I shall at once re­sign the per­pet­ual cu­ra­cy of Hog­gle­stock in­to the hands of the Dean of Barch­ester, by whom I was ap­point­ed.’

‘No, Mr Craw­ley; I shall not do that. I can­not con­trol you, but think­ing you to be wrong, I shall not make that com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the bish­op.’

‘Then I shall do it my­self.’

‘And your wife, Mr Craw­ley, and your chil­dren?’

At that mo­ment Mr Craw­ley called to mind the ad­vice of his friend Giles Hoggett. ‘It’d dogged as does it.’ He cer­tain­ly want­ed some­thing very strong to sus­tain him in this dif­fi­cul­ty. He found that this ref­er­ence to his wife and chil­dren re­quired him to be dogged in a very marked man­ner. ‘I can on­ly trust that the wind may be tem­pered to them,’ he said. ‘They will, in­deed, be shorn lambs.’

Dr Tem­pest got up from his chair, and took a cou­ple of turns about the room be­fore he spoke again. ‘Man,’ he said, ad­dress­ing Mr Craw­ley with all his en­er­gy, ‘if you do this thing, you will then at least be very wicked. If the ju­ry find a ver­dict in your favour you are safe, and the chances are that the ver­dict will be in your favour.’

‘I care noth­ing now for the ver­dict,’ said Mr Craw­ley.

‘And you will turn your wife in­to the poor­house for an idea!’

‘It’s dogged as does it,’ said Mr Craw­ley to him­self. ‘I have thought of that,’ he said aloud. ‘That my wife is dear to me, and that my chil­dren are dear, I will not de­ny. She was soft­ly nur­tured, Dr Tem­pest, and came from a house in which want was nev­er known. Since she has shared my board she has had some ex­pe­ri­ence of that na­ture. That I should have brought her to all this is very ter­ri­ble to me–so ter­ri­ble, that I of­ten won­der how it is that I live. But, sir, you will agree with me, that my du­ty as a cler­gy­man is above ev­ery­thing. I do not dare, even for their sake, to re­main in the parish. Good morn­ing, Dr Tem­pest.’ Dr Tem­pest, find­ing that he could not pre­vail with him, bade him adieu, feel­ing that any ser­vice to the Craw­leys with­in in his pow­er might be best done by in­ter­ces­sion with the bish­op and with the dean.

Then Mr Craw­ley walked back to Hog­gle­stock, re­peat­ing to him­self Giles Hoggett’s words, ‘It’s dogged as does it.’