The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LXII

MR CRAW­LEY’S LET­TER TO THE DEAN

Mr Craw­ley, when he got home af­ter his walk to Sil­ver­bridge, de­nied that he was at all tired. ‘The man at Sil­ver­bridge, whom I went to see ad­min­is­tered re­fresh­ment to me;–nay, he ad­min­is­tered it with salu­tary vi­olence,’ he said, af­fect­ing even to laugh. ‘And I am bound to speak well of him on be­half of mer­cies over and be­yond that ex­hib­it­ed by the per­sis­tent ten­der of some wine. That I should find him ju­di­cious I had ex­pect­ed. What lit­tle I have known of him taught me so to think of him. But I found with him al­so a soft­ness of heart for which I had not looked.’

‘And you will not give up the liv­ing, Josi­ah?’

‘Most cer­tain­ly I will. A du­ty, when it is clear be­fore a man, should nev­er be made less so by any ten­der­ness in oth­ers.’ He was still think­ing of Giles Hoggett. ‘It’s dogged as does it.’ The poor wom­an could not an­swer him. She knew well that it was vain to ar­gue with him. She could on­ly hope that in the event of his be­ing ac­quit­ted at the tri­al, the dean, whose friend­ship she did not doubt, might re-​en­dow him with the small benefice which was their on­ly source of bread.

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing there came by post a short note from Dr Tem­pest. ‘My dear Mr Craw­ley,’ the note ran, ‘I im­plore you, if there be yet time, to do noth­ing rash­ly. And even though you should have writ­ten to the bish­op or to the dean, your let­ters need have no ef­fect, if you will al­low me to make them in­op­er­ative. Per­mit me to say that I am a man much old­er than you, and one who has mixed much both with cler­gy­men and with the world at large. I tell you with ab­so­lute con­fi­dence, that it is not your du­ty in your present po­si­tion to give up your liv­ing. Should your con­duct ev­er be called in ques­tion on this mat­ter you will be at per­fect lib­er­ty to say that you were guid­ed by my ad­vice. You should take no step till af­ter the tri­al. Then, if the ver­dict be against you, you should sub­mit to the bish­op’s judg­ment. If the ver­dict be in your favour, the bish­op’s in­ter­fer­ence will be over.’

‘And you must re­mem­ber that if it is not your du­ty as a cler­gy­man to give up your liv­ing, you can have no right, see­ing that you have a wife and fam­ily, to throw it away as an in­dul­gence to your pride. Con­sult any oth­er friend you please–Mr Ro­barts, or the dean him­self. I am quite sure that any friend who knows many of the cir­cum­stances as I know will ad­vise you to hold the liv­ing, at any rate till af­ter the tri­al. You can re­fer any such friend to me.–Be­lieve me, to be yours very tru­ly, MOR­TIMER TEM­PEST’

Mr Craw­ley walked about again with this let­ter in his pock­et, but on this oc­ca­sion he did not go in the di­rec­tion of Hog­gle End. From Hog­gle End he could hard­ly hope to pick up fur­ther lessons of wis­dom. What could any Giles Hoggett say to him be­yond what he had said to him al­ready? If he were to read the doc­tor’s let­ter to Hoggett, and to suc­ceed in mak­ing Hoggett un­der­stand it, Hoggett could on­ly cau­tion him to be dogged. But it seemed to him that Hoggett and his new friend at Sil­ver­bridge did not agree in their doc­trines, and it might be well that he should en­deav­our to find out which of them had most of jus­tice on his side. He was quite sure that Hoggett would ad­vise him to ad­here to his project of giv­ing up the liv­ing–if on­ly Hoggett could me made to un­der­stand the cir­cum­stances.

‘He had writ­ten, but had not as yet sent away his let­ter to the dean.

His let­ter to the bish­op would be but a note, and he had post­poned the writ­ing of that till the oth­er should be copied and made com­plete.

He had sat up late in­to the night com­pos­ing and al­ter­ing his let­ter to his old friend, and now that the com­po­si­tion was fin­ished he was loth to throw it away. Ear­ly in this morn­ing, be­fore the post­man had brought to him Dr Tem­pest’s ur­gent re­mon­strance, he had shown to his wife the draft of his let­ter to the dean. ‘I can­not say that it is not true,’ she had said.

‘It is cer­tain­ly true.’

‘But I wish, my dear, you would not send it. Why should you take any step till the tri­al be over?’

‘I shall as­sured­ly send it,’ he had replied. ‘If you will pe­ruse it again, you will see that the epis­tle would be fu­tile were it kept till I shall have been proved to be a thief.’

‘Oh, Josi­ah, such words kill me.’

‘They are not pleas­ant, but it will be well that you should be­come used to them. As for the let­ter, I have tak­en some trou­ble to ex­press my­self with per­spicu­ity, and I trust that I may have suc­ceed­ed.’ At that time Hoggett was al­to­geth­er in the as­cen­dant; but now, as he start­ed on his walk, his mind was some­what per­turbed by the con­trary ad­vice of one, who af­ter all, might be as wise as Hoggett. There would be noth­ing dogged in the con­duct rec­om­mend­ed to him by Dr Tem­pest. Were he to fol­low the doc­tor’s ad­vice, he would be trim­ming his sails, so as to catch any slant of a breeze that might be favourable to him. There could be no dogged­ness in a char­ac­ter that would sub­mit to such trim­ming.

The post­man came to Hog­gle­stock but once a day, so that he could not despatch his let­ter till the next morn­ing–un­less, in­deed, he chose to send it a dis­tance of four miles to the near­est post-​of­fice. As there was noth­ing to jus­ti­fy this, there was an­oth­er night for the copy­ing of his let­ter–should he at last de­ter­mine to send it. He had sworn to his wife that it should go. He had tak­en much trou­ble with it. He be­lieved in Hoggett. But, nev­er­the­less, this in­cum­ben­cy of Hog­gle­stock was his all in the world. It might be that he could still hold it, and have bread at least for his wife to eat. Dr Tem­pest had told him that he would be prob­ably ac­quit­ted. Dr Tem­pest knew as much of all the cir­cum­stances as he did him­self, and had told him that he was not guilty. Af­ter all, Dr Tem­pest knew more about it that Hoggett knew.

If he re­signed the liv­ing, what would be­come of him–of him–of him and his wife? Whith­er would they first go when they turned their back up­on the door in­side which there had at any rate been shel­ter for them for so many years? He cal­cu­lat­ed ev­ery­thing that he had, and found that at the end of April, even when he should have re­ceived his rent-​charge, there would not be five pounds in hand among them. As for his fur­ni­ture, he still owed enough to make it im­pos­si­ble that he should get any­thing out of that. And these thoughts all had ref­er­ence to his po­si­tion if he should be ac­quit­ted. What would be­come of his wife if he should be con­vict­ed? And as for him­self, whith­er would he go when he came out of prison?

He had com­plete­ly re­alised the idea that Hoggett’s coun­sel was op­posed to that giv­en to him by Dr Tem­pest; but then it might cer­tain­ly be the case that Hoggett had not known all the facts. A man should, no doubt, be dogged when the evils of life are in­su­per­able; but need he be so when the evils can be over­come? Would not Hoggett him­self un­der­go any treat­ment which he be­lieved to be spe­cif­ic for rheuma­tism? Yes; Hoggett would un­der­go any treat­ment that was not in it­self op­posed to his du­ty. The best treat­ment for rheuma­tism might be to stay away from the brick- field on a rainy day; but if so, there would be no mon­ey to keep the pot boil­ing, and Hoggett would cer­tain­ly go to the brick-​field, rheuma­tism and all, as long as his limbs would car­ry him there. Yes; he would send his let­ter. It was his du­ty, and he would do it. Men looked askance at him, and point­ed at him as a thief. He would send the let­ter, in spite of Dr Tem­pest. Let jus­tice be done, though the heav­en may fall.

He had heard of La­dy Lufton’s to his wife. The of­fers of the La­dy Luftons of the world had been sore­ly dis­tress­ing to his spir­it, since it had first come to pass that such of­fers had reached him in con­se­quence of his pover­ty. But now there was some­thing al­most of re­lief to him in the thought that the La­dy Luftons would, af­ter some fash­ion, save his wife and chil­dren from star­va­tion–would save his wife from the poor­house, and en­able his chil­dren to have a start in the world. For one of his chil­dren a bril­liant mar­riage might be pro­vid­ed–if on­ly he him­self were out of the way. How could he take him­self out of the way? It had been whis­pered to him that he might be im­pris­oned for two months–or for two years. Would it not be a grand thing if the judge would con­demn him to be im­pris­oned for life? Was thee ev­er a man whose ex­is­tence was so pur­pose­less, so use­less, so dele­te­ri­ous, as his own? And yet he knew He­brew well, where­as the dean knew but very lit­tle He­brew. He could make Greek iambics, and doubt­ed whether the bish­op knew the dif­fer­ence be­tween an iambus and a trochee. He could dis­port him­self with trigonom­etry, feel­ing con­fi­dent that Dr Tem­pest had for­got­ten his way over the ass­es’ bridge. He knew ‘Ly­ci­das’ by heart; and as for Thum­ble, he felt quite sure that Thum­ble was in­com­pe­tent of un­der­stand­ing a sin­gle al­lu­sion in that di­vine po­em. Nev­er­the­less, though all his wealth of ac­quire­ment was his, it would be bet­ter for him­self, bet­ter for those who be­longed to him, bet­ter for the world at large, that he should be put an end to. A sen­tence of pe­nal servi­tude for life, with­out any tri­al, would be of all things the most de­sir­able. Then there would be am­ple room for the prac­tice of the virtue that Hoggett had taught him.

When he re­turned home the Hoggeth­an doc­trine pre­vailed, and he pre­pared to copy his let­ter. But be­fore he com­menced his task, he sat down with his youngest daugh­ter, and read–or made her read to him–a pas­sage of a Greek po­em, in which are de­scribed the trou­bles and ag­onies of a blind gi­ant. No gi­ant would have been more pow­er­ful–on­ly that he was blind, and could not see to avenge him­self on those who had in­jured him. ‘The same sto­ry is al­ways com­ing up,’ he said, stop­ping the girl in her read­ing. ‘We have it in var­ious ver­sions, be­cause it is true to life.

“Ask for this great de­liv­er­er now, and find him Eye­less in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.”

It is the same sto­ry. Great pow­er re­duced to im­po­tence, great glo­ry to mis­ery, by the hand of Fate–Ne­ces­si­ty, as the Greeks called her; to god­dess that will not be shunned. At the mill with slaves! Peo­ple, when they read it, do not ap­pre­ci­ate the hor­ror of the pic­ture. Go on my dear. It may be a ques­tion whether Polyphe­mus had mind enough to suf­fer; but, from the de­scrip­tion of his pow­er, I should think he had. “At the mill with slaves!” Can any pic­ture be more dread­ful than that? Go on, my dear. Of course you re­mem­ber Mil­ton’s Sam­son Ag­onistes. Ag­onistes in­deed!’ His wife was sit­ting stitch­ing at the oth­er side of the room; but she heard his words–heard and un­der­stood them; and be­fore Jane could again get her­self in­to the swing of the Greek verse, she was over at her hus­band’s side, with her arms round his neck. ‘My love!’ she said. ‘My love!’

He turned to her, and smiled as he spoke to her. ‘These are old thoughts with me. Polyphe­mus and Belis­ar­ius, and Sam­son and Mil­ton, have al­ways been pets of mine. The mind of the strong blind crea­ture must be sen­si­ble of the in­jury that he has been done to him! The im­po­ten­cy, com­bined with the strength, or rather the im­po­ten­cy with the mis­ery of for­mer strength and for­mer as­pi­ra­tions, is so es­sen­tial­ly trag­ic!’

She looked in­to his eyes as he spoke, and there was some­thing of the flash of old days, when the world was young to them, and when he would tell her of his hopes, and re­peat to her long pas­sages of po­et­ry, and would crit­icise for her ad­van­tage the works of the old writ­ers. ‘Thank God,’ she said, ‘that you are not blind. It may yet be all right with you.’

‘Yes–it may be,’ he said.

‘And you shall not be at the mill with slaves.’

‘Or, at any rate, not eye­less in Gaza, if the Lord is good to me. Come, Jane, we will go on.’ Then he took up the pas­sage him­self, and read it on with clear, sonorous voice, ev­ery now and then ex­plain­ing some pas­sage or ex­press­ing his own ideas up­on it, as though he were re­al­ly hap­py with his po­et­ry.

It was late in the evening be­fore he got out his small stock of best let­ter-​pa­per, and sat down to work at his let­ter. He first ad­dressed him­self to the bish­op; and what he wrote down to the bish­op was as fol­lows:-

‘HOG­GLE­STOCK PAR­SON­AGE, April 11, 186-

‘MY LORD BISH­OP,

‘I have been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Dr Tem­pest, of Sil­ver­bridge, from whom I have learned that your lord­ship has been pleased to ap­point a com­mis­sion of in­quiry–of which com­mis­sion he is the chair­man–with ref­er­ence to the pro­ceed­ings which it may be nec­es­sary that you should take, as bish­op of the dio­cese, af­ter my forth­com­ing tri­al at the ap­proach­ing Barch­ester as­sizes. My lord, I think it right to in­form you, part­ly with a view to the com­fort of the gen­tle­men named on that com­mis­sion, and part­ly with the pur­port of giv­ing you the in­for­ma­tion which I think that a bish­op should pos­sess in re­gard to the cler­ical af­fairs of his own dio­cese, that I have by this post re­signed my prefer­ment at Hog­gle­stock in­to the hands of the Dean of Barch­ester, by whom it was giv­en to me. In these cir­cum­stances, it will, I sup­pose, be un­nec­es­sary for you to con­tin­ue the com­mis­sion which you have set in force; but as to that, your lord­ship will, of course, be the on­ly judge.–I have the hon­our to be, my Lord Bish­op, your most obe­di­ent and very hum­ble ser­vant,

‘JOSI­AH CRAW­LEY Per­pet­ual Cu­rate of Hog­gle­stock ‘The Right Rev­erend ‘The Bish­op of Barch­ester, ‘&c, &c, &c The Palace, Barch­ester’

But the let­ter which was of re­al im­por­tance–which was in­tend­ed to say some­thing–was that to the dean, and that al­so shall be giv­en to the read­er. Mr Craw­ley had been for a while in doubt how he should ad­dress his old friend in com­menc­ing this let­ter, un­der­stand­ing that its tone through­out must be, in a great de­gree, be mad con­formable with its first words. He would fain, in his pride, have be­gun ‘Sir’. The ques­tion was be­tween that and ‘My dear Ara­bin’. It had once be­tween them al­ways been ‘Dear Frank,’ and Dear Joe” but the oc­ca­sions for ‘Dear Frank’ and ‘Dear Joe’ be­tween them had long been past. Craw­ley would have been very an­gry had he now been called Joe by the dean, and would have bit­ten his tongue out be­fore he would have called the dean Frank. His bet­ter na­ture, how­ev­er, now pre­vailed, and he be­gan his let­ter, and com­plet­ed it as fol­lows:-

‘MY DEAR ARA­BIN,

‘Cir­cum­stances, of which you have prob­ably heard some­thing, com­pel me to write to you, as I fear, at some length. I am sor­ry that the trou­ble of such a let­ter should be forced up­on you dur­ing your hol­idays’;–Mr Craw­ley, as he wrote this, did not for­get to re­mind him­self that he nev­er had any hol­idays;–’but I think you will ad­mit, if you will bear with me to the end, that I have no al­ter­na­tive.

‘I have been ac­cused of steal­ing a cheque for twen­ty pounds, which cheque was drawn by Lord Lufton on his Lon­don bankers, and was lost out of his pock­et by Mr Soames, his lord­ship’s agent, and was so lost, as Mr Soames states–but with an ab­so­lute as­ser­tion–dur­ing a vis­it which he made to my par­son­age here at Hog­gle­stock. Of the fact that I paid the cheque to a trades­man in Sil­ver­bridge there is no doubt. When ques­tioned about it, I first gave an an­swer which was so man­ifest­ly in­cor­rect that it has seemed odd to me that I should not have had cred­it for a mis­take from those who must have seen that de­tec­tion was so ev­ident. The blun­der was un­doubt­ed­ly stupid, and it now bears heav­ily on me. I then, as I have learned, made an­oth­er er­ror–of which I am aware that you have been in­formed. I said that the cheque had come from you, and in say­ing so, I thought that it had formed a por­tion of that alms which your open-​hand­ed benev­olence be­stowed up­on me when I at­tend­ed on you, not long be­fore your de­par­ture, in your li­brary. I have striv­en to re­mem­ber the facts. It may be–nay, it prob­ably is the case–that such strug­gles to catch some ac­cu­rate glimpse of by­gone things do not trou­ble you. You mind is, no doubt, clear­er and stronger than mine, hav­ing been kept to its prop­er tune by greater and fit­ter work. With me, mem­ory is all but gone, and the pow­er of think­ing is on the wane! I strug­gled to re­mem­ber, and I thought that the cheque had been in an en­ve­lope which you hand­ed to me–and I said so. I have since learned, from tid­ings re­ceived, as I am told, di­rect from your­self, that I was wrong in the sec­ond state­ment as I had been in the first. The dou­ble blun­der has, of course, been very heavy on me.

‘I was tak­en be­fore the mag­is­trates at Sil­ver­bridge, and was by them com­mit­ted to stand my tri­al at the as­sizes to be hold­en in Barch­ester on the twen­ty-​eighth of this month. With­out doubt, the mag­is­trates had not al­ter­na­tive but to com­mit me, and I am in­debt­ed to them that they have al­lowed me my present lib­er­ty up­on bail. That my suf­fer­ings in all this should have been grievous, you will un­der­stand. But on that head I shall not touch, were it not that I am bound to ex­plain to you that my trou­bles with ref­er­ence to this parish of Hog­gle­stock, to which I was ap­point­ed by you, have not been the slight­est of those suf­fer­ings. I felt at first, be­liev­ing then that the world around me would think it un­like­ly that such a one as I had wil­ful­ly stolen a sum of mon­ey, that it was my du­ty to main­tain my­self in my church. I did so main­tain my­self against an at­tack made up­on me by the bish­op, who sent over to Hog­gle­stock one Mr Thum­ble, a gen­tle­man doubt­less in holy or­ders, though I know noth­ing and can learn noth­ing of the place of his cure, to dis­pos­sess me of my pul­pit and to re­move me from my min­is­tra­tions among my peo­ple. To Mr Thum­ble I turned a deaf ear, and would not let him so much as open his mouth in­side the porch of my church. Up to this time I my­self have read the ser­vices, and have preached to the peo­ple, and have con­tin­ued, as best I could, my vis­its to the poor and my labours in the school, though I know–no one knows as well–how un­fit­ted I am for such work by the grief which has fall­en up­on me.

‘Then the bish­op sent for me, and I thought it be­com­ing on my part to go to him. I pre­sent­ed my­self to his lord­ship at his palace, and was mind­ed to be much gov­erned in my con­duct by what he might say to me, re­mem­ber­ing that I am bound to re­spect the of­fice, even though I may not ap­prove of the man; and I hum­bled my­self be­fore his lord­ship, wait­ing pa­tient­ly for any di­rec­tions which he in his dis­cre­tion might think it prop­er to be­stow on me. But there arose up be­tween us that very pesti­lent wom­an, his wife–to his dis­may, seem­ing­ly, as much as to mine–and she would let there place for no speech but her own. If there be aught clear to me in ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal mat­ters, it is this–that no au­thor­ity can be del­egat­ed to a fe­male. The spe­cial laws of this and of some oth­er coun­tries do al­low that wom­en shall sit up­on the tem­po­ral thrones of the earth, but on the low­est step of the throne of the Church no wom­an has been al­lowed to sit as bear­ing au­thor­ity, the ro­man­tic tale of the wom­an Pope notwith­stand­ing. There­upon, I left the palace in wrath, feel­ing my­self ag­grieved that a wom­an should have at­tempt­ed to dic­tate to me, and find­ing it hope­less to get a clear in­struc­tion from his lord­ship–the wom­an tak­ing up the word when­ev­er I put a ques­tion to my lord the bish­op. Noth­ing, there­fore, came of that in­ter­view but fruit­less labour to my­self, and anger, of which I have since been ashamed.

‘Since that time I have con­tin­ued in my parish–work­ing, not with­out zeal, though, in truth, al­most with­out hope–and learn­ing even from day to day that the opin­ion of men around me have de­clared me to be guilty of the crime im­put­ed to me. And now the bish­op has is­sued a com­mis­sion as prepara­to­ry to pro­ceed­ings against me un­der the Act for the pun­ish­ment for cler­ical of­fences. In do­ing this, I can­not say that the bish­op has been ill-​ad­vised, even though the ad­vice may have come from that evil-​tongued la­dy, his wife. And I hold that a wom­an may be called up­on for ad­vice, with most salu­tary ef­fect, in af­fairs as to which any show of fe­male au­thor­ity should be equal­ly false and per­ni­cious. With me it has ev­er been so, and I have had a coun­sel­lor by me as wise as she has been de­vot­ed.’ It must be no­ticed that in the draft copy of his let­ter which Mr Craw­ley gave to his wife to read this last sen­tence was not in­sert­ed. In­tend­ing that she should read his let­ter, he omit­ted it till he made the fair copy. ‘Over this com­mis­sion his lord­ship has ap­point­ed Dr Tem­pest of Sil­ver­bridge to pre­side, and with him I have been in com­mu­ni­ca­tion. I trust that the labours of the gen­tle­men of whom it is com­posed may be brought to a speedy close; and, hav­ing re­gard to their trou­ble, I have in­formed Dr Tem­pest that I should write this let­ter to you with the in­tent and as­sured pur­pose of re­sign­ing the per­pet­ual cu­ra­cy of Hog­gle­stock in your hands.

‘You will be good enough, there­fore, to un­der­stand that I do so re­sign the liv­ing, and that I shall con­tin­ue to ad­min­is­ter the ser­vices of the Church on­ly till some cler­gy­man, cer­ti­fied to me as com­ing from you or from the bish­op, may present him­self in the parish, and shall de­clare him­self pre­pared to un­der­take the cure. Should it be so that Mr Thum­ble be sent hith­er again, I will sit un­der him, en­deav­our­ing to catch im­prove­ment from his teach­ing, and striv­ing to over­come the con­tempt which I felt for him when he be­fore vis­it­ed this parish. I an­nex be­neath my sig­na­ture a copy of the let­ter which I have writ­ten to the bish­op on this sub­ject.

‘And now it be­hoves me, as the guardian­ship of the souls of those was placed in my hands by you, to ex­plain to you as short­ly as may be pos­si­ble the rea­sons which had in­duced me to aban­don my work. One or two whose judg­ment I do not dis­cred­it–and I am al­lowed to name Dr Tem­pest of Sil­ver­bridge as one–have sug­gest­ed to me that I should take no step till af­ter my tri­al. They think that I should have re­gard to the chance of the ver­dict, so that the prefer­ment may still be mine should I be ac­quit­ted; and they say, that should I be ac­quit­ted, the bish­op’s ac­tion against me must of ne­ces­si­ty cease. That they are right in these facts I do not doubt; but in giv­ing such ad­vice they look on­ly to the facts, hav­ing no re­gard to the con­science. I do not blame them. I should give such ad­vice my­self, know­ing that a friend may give coun­sel as to out­er things, but that a man must sat­is­fy his in­ner con­science by his own per­cep­tions of what is right and what is wrong.

‘I find my­self to be ill-​spo­ken of, to be re­gard­ed with hard eyes by those around me, my peo­ple think­ing that I have stolen this mon­ey. Two farm­ers in this parish, have, as I am aware, ex­pressed opin­ions that no ju­ry could ac­quit me hon­est­ly, and nei­ther of these men have ap­peared in my church since the ex­pres­sion of that opin­ion. I doubt whether they have gone to oth­er church­es; and if not they have been de­terred from all pub­lic wor­ship by my pres­ence. If this be so, how can I with a clear con­science re­main among these men? Shall I take from their hands wages for those ad­min­is­tra­tions, which their de­lib­er­ate­ly formed opin­ions will not al­low them to ac­cept from my hands?’ And yet, though he thus plead­ed against him­self, he knew that the two men of whom he was speak­ing were thick-​head­ed dolts who were al­ways tip­sy in Sat­ur­day nights, and who came to church per­haps once in three weeks.

‘Your kind heart will doubt­less prompt you to tell me that no cler­gy­man could be safe in his parish if he were to al­low the opin­ion of chance parish­ioners to pre­vail against him; and you would prob­ably lay down for my guid­ance the grand old doc­trine “Nil con­scire sibi; nul­la pallescere cul­pa.” Pre­sum­ing that you may do so, I will ac­knowl­edge such guid­ance to be good. If my mind were clear in this mat­ter, I would not budge an inch for any farmer–no, nor for any bish­op, fur­ther than he might by law com­pel me! But my mind is not clear. I do grow pale, and my hairs stands on end with hor­ror, as I con­fess to my­self that I do not know whether I stole this mon­ey or no! Such is the fact. In all sin­cer­ity I tell you that I know not whether I be guilty or in­no­cent. It may be that I picked up the cheque from the floor of my room, and af­ter­wards took it out and used it, not know­ing whence it had come to me. If it be so, I stole it, and am guilty be­fore the laws of my coun­try. If it be so, I am not fit to ad­min­is­ter the Lord’s sacra­ments to these peo­ple. When the cup was last in my hand and I was bless­ing them, I felt that I was not fit, and I al­most dropped the chal­ice. That God will know my weak­ness and par­don me the per­plex­ity of my mind–that is be­tween Him and His crea­ture.

‘As I read my let­ter over to my­self I feel how weak are my words, and how in­ef­fi­cient to ex­plain to you the ex­act po­si­tion in which I stand; but they will suf­fice to con­vince you that I am as­sured­ly pur­posed to re­sign this parish of Hog­gle­stock, and that it is there­fore in­cum­bent on you, as pa­tron of the liv­ing, to nom­inate my suc­ces­sor to the benefice. I have on­ly fur­ther to ask your par­don for this long let­ter, and to thank you again for the many and great marks of friend­ship which you have con­ferred on me. Alas, could you have fore­seen in those old days how bar­ren of all good would have been the life of him you then es­teemed, you might per­haps have es­caped the dis­grace of be­ing called the friend of one whom no one now re­gards with es­teem.– Nev­er­the­less, I may still say that I am, with all af­fec­tion, yours tru­ly, ‘JOSI­AH CRAW­LEY’

The last para­graph of the let­ter was al­so added, since his wife had read it. When he had first com­posed the let­ter, he had been some­what proud of his words, think­ing that he had clear­ly told his sto­ry. But, when sit­ting alone at his desk, he read it again, fill­ing his mind as he went on with ideas which he would fain have ex­pressed to his old friend, were it not that he feared to in­dulge him­self with too many words, he be­gan to tell him­self that his sto­ry was any­thing but well told. There was no ex­pres­sion there of the Hoggeth­an doc­trine. In an­swer to such a let­ter as that the dean might well say, ‘Think again of it. Try yet to save your­self. Nev­er mind the two farm­ers, or Mr Thum­ble, or the bish­op. Stick to the ship while there is a plank above the wa­ter.’ Where­as it had been his de­sire to use words that should make the dean clear­ly un­der­stand that the thing was de­cid­ed. He had failed–as he had failed in ev­ery­thing through­out his life; but nev­er­the­less the let­ter must go. Were he to be­gin again he would not do it bet­ter. So he added to what he had writ­ten a copy of his note to the bish­op, and the let­ter was fas­tened and sent.

Mrs Craw­ley might prob­ably have been more in­stant in her ef­forts to stop the let­ter, had she not felt that it would not de­cide ev­ery­thing. In the first place it was im­prob­able that the let­ter might not reach the dean till af­ter his re­turn home–and Mrs Craw­ley had long since made up her mind that she would see the dean as soon as pos­si­ble af­ter his re­turn. She had heard from La­dy Lufton that it was not doubt­ed in Barch­ester that he would be back at any rate be­fore the judges came in­to the city. And then, in the next place, was it prob­able that the dean would act up­on such a let­ter by fill­ing up the va­can­cy, even if he did get it? She trust­ed in the dean, and knew that he would help them, if any help were pos­si­ble. Should the ver­dict go against her hus­band, then in­deed it might be that no help would be pos­si­ble. In such case she thought that the bish­op with his com­mis­sion might pre­vail. But she still be­lieved that the ver­dict would be favourable, if not with an as­sured be­lief, still with a hope that was suf­fi­cient to stand in lieu of a be­lief. No sin­gle man, let alone no twelve men, could think that her hus­band had in­tend­ed to ap­pro­pri­ate the mon­ey dis­hon­est­ly. That he had tak­en it im­prop­er­ly–with­out re­al pos­ses­sion–she her­self be­lieved; but he had not tak­en it as a thief, and could not mer­it a thief’s pun­ish­ment. Af­ter two days he got a re­ply from the bish­op’s chap­lain, in which the chap­lain ex­pressed the bish­op’s com­men­da­tion of Mr Craw­ley’s present con­duct. ‘Mr Thum­ble shall pro­ceed from hence to Hog­gle­stock on next Sun­day,’ said the chap­lain, ‘and shall re­lieve you for the present from the bur­den of your du­ties. As to the fu­ture sta­tus of the parish, it will per­haps be best that noth­ing shall be done till the dean re­turns –or per­haps till the as­sizes shall be over. This is the bish­op’s opin­ion.’ It need hard­ly be ex­plained that the promised vis­it of Mr Thum­ble to Hog­gle­stock was gall and worm­wood to Mr Craw­ley. He had told the dean that should Mr Thum­ble come, he would en­deav­our to learn some­thing even from him. But it may be doubt­ed whether Mr Craw­ley in his present mood could learn any­thing use­ful from Mr Thum­ble. Giles Hoggett was a much more ef­fec­tive teach­er.

‘I will en­dure even that,’ he said to his wife, as she hand­ed to him back the let­ter from the bish­op’s chap­lain.