MR. TOOGOOD TRAVELS PROFESSIONALLY.
[Illustration]
Mr. Toogood paid another visit to Barsetshire, in order that he might
get a little further information which he thought would be necessary
before despatching his nephew upon the traces of Dean Arabin and
his wife. He went down to Barchester after his work was over by
an evening train, and put himself up at "The Dragon of Wantly,"
intending to have the whole of the next day for his work. Mr. Walker
had asked him to come and take a return pot-luck dinner with Mrs.
Walker at Silverbridge; and this he had said that he would do. After
having "rummaged about for tidings" in Barchester, as he called it,
he would take the train for Silverbridge, and would get back to
town in time for business on the third day. "One day won't be much,
you know," he said to his partner, as he made half an apology for
absenting himself on business which was not to be in any degree
remunerative. "That sort of thing is very well when one does it
without any expense," said Crump. "So it is," said Toogood; "and the
expense won't make it any worse." He had made up his mind, and it was
not probable that anything Mr. Crump might say would deter him.
He saw John Eames before he started. "You'll be ready this day week,
will you?" John Eames promised that he would. "It will cost you some
forty pounds, I should say. By George,--if you have to go on to
Jerusalem, it will cost you more." In answer to this, Johnny pleaded
that it would be as good as any other tour to him. He would see the
world. "I'll tell you what," said Toogood; "I'll pay half. Only you
mustn't tell Crump. And it will be quite as well not to tell Maria."
But Johnny would hear nothing of this scheme. He would pay the entire
cost of his own journey. He had lots of money, he said, and would
like nothing better. "Then I'll run down," said Toogood, "and rummage
up what tidings I can. As for writing to the dean, what's the good of
writing to a man when you don't know where he is? Business letters
always lie at hotels for two months, and then come back with double
postage. From all I can hear, you'll stumble on her before you find
him. If we do nothing else but bring him back, it will be a great
thing to have the support of such a friend in the court. A Barchester
jury won't like to find a man guilty who is hand-and-glove with the
dean."
Mr. Toogood reached the "Dragon" about eleven o'clock, and allowed
the boots to give him a pair of slippers and a candlestick. But
he would not go to bed just at that moment. He would go into the
coffee-room first, and have a glass of hot brandy-and-water. So the
hot brandy-and-water was brought to him, and a cigar, and as he
smoked and drank he conversed with the waiter. The man was a waiter
of the ancient class, a gray-haired waiter, with seedy clothes, and
a dirty towel under his arm; not a dapper waiter, with black shiny
hair, and dressed like a guest for a dinner-party. There are two
distinct classes of waiters, and as far as I have been able to
perceive, the special status of the waiter in question cannot be
decided by observation of the class of waiter to which he belongs. In
such a town as Barchester you may find the old waiter with the dirty
towel in the head inn, or in the second-class inn, and so you may
the dapper waiter. Or you may find both in each, and not know which
is senior waiter and which junior waiter. But for service I always
prefer the old waiter with the dirty towel, and I find it more easy
to satisfy him in the matter of sixpences when my relations with the
inn come to an end.
"Have you been here long, John?" said Mr. Toogood.
"A goodish many years, sir."
"So I thought, by the look of you. One can see that you belong in a
way to the place. You do a good deal of business here, I suppose, at
this time of the year?"
"Well, sir, pretty fair. The house ain't what it used to be, sir."
"Times are bad at Barchester,--are they?"
"I don't know much about the times. It's the people is worse than the
times, I think. They used to like to have a little bit of dinner now
and again at a hotel;--and a drop of something to drink after it."
"And don't they like it now?"
"I think they like it well enough, but they don't do it. I suppose
it's their wives as don't let 'em come out and enjoy theirselves.
There used to be the Goose and Glee club;--that was once a month.
They've gone and clean done away with themselves,--that club has.
There's old Bumpter in the High Street,--he's the last of the old
Geese. They died off, you see, and when Mr. Biddle died they wouldn't
choose another president. A club for having dinner, sir, ain't
nothing without a president."
"I suppose not."
"And there's the Freemasons. They must meet, you know, sir, in
course, because of the dooties. But if you'll believe me, sir, they
don't so much as wet their whistles. They don't indeed. It always
used to be a supper, and that was once a month. Now they pays a
rent for the use of the room! Who is to get a living out of that,
sir?--not in the way of a waiter, that is."
"If that's the way things are going on I suppose the servants leave
their places pretty often?"
"I don't know about that, sir. A man may do a deal worse than 'The
Dragon of Wantly.' Them as goes away to better themselves, often
worses themselves, as I call it. I've seen a good deal of that."
"And you stick to the old shop?"
"Yes, sir; I've been here fifteen year, I think it is. There's a many
goes away, as doesn't go out of their own heads, you know, sir."
"They get the sack, you mean?"
"There's words between them and master,--or more likely, missus.
That's where it is. Servants is so foolish. I often tell 'em how
wrong folks are to say that soft words butter no parsnips, and hard
words break no bones."
"I think you've lost some of the old hands here since this time last
year, John?"
"You knows the house then, sir?"
"Well;--I've been here before."
"There was four of them went, I think it's just about twelve months
back, sir."
"There was a man in the yard I used to know, and last time I was down
here, I found that he was gone."
"There was one of 'em out of the yard, and two out of the house.
Master and them had got to very high words. There was poor Scuttle,
who had been post-boy at 'The Compasses' before he came here."
"He went away to New Zealand, didn't he?"
"B'leve he did, sir; or to some foreign parts. And Anne, as was
under-chambermaid here; she went with him, fool as she was. They got
theirselves married and went off, and he was well nigh as old as me.
But seems he'd saved a little money, and that goes a long way with
any girl."
"Was he the man who drove Mr. Soames that day the cheque was lost?"
Mr. Toogood asked this question perhaps a little too abruptly. At any
rate he obtained no answer to it. The waiter said he knew nothing
about Mr. Soames, or the cheque, and the lawyer suspecting that the
waiter was suspecting him, finished his brandy-and-water and went to
bed.
[Illustration: Mr. Toogood and the old Waiter.]
Early on the following morning he observed that he was specially
regarded by a shabby-looking man, dressed in black, but in a black
suit that was very old, with a red nose, whom he had seen in the
hotel on the preceding day; and he learned that this man was a cousin
of the landlord,--one Dan Stringer,--who acted as a clerk in the
hotel bar. He took an opportunity also of saying a word to Mr.
Stringer the landlord,--whom he found to be a somewhat forlorn and
gouty individual, seated on cushions in a little parlour behind the
bar. After breakfast he went out, and having twice walked round the
Cathedral close and inspected the front of the palace and looked up
at the windows of the prebendaries' houses, he knocked at the door of
the deanery. The dean and Mrs. Arabin were on the Continent, he was
told. Then he asked for Mr. Harding, having learned that Mr. Harding
was Mrs. Arabin's father, and that he lived at the deanery. Mr.
Harding was at home, but was not very well, the servant said. Mr.
Toogood, however, persevered, sending up his card, and saying that he
wished to have a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Harding on very
particular business. He wrote a word upon his card before giving it
to the servant,--"about Mr. Crawley." In a few minutes he was shown
into the library, and had hardly time, while looking at the shelves,
to remember what Mr. Crawley had said of his anger at the beautiful
bindings, before an old man, very thin and very pale, shuffled into
the room. He stooped a good deal, and his black clothes were very
loose about his shrunken limbs. He was not decrepit, nor did he seem
to be one who had advanced to extreme old age; but yet he shuffled
rather than walked, hardly raising his feet from the ground. Mr.
Toogood, as he came forward to meet him, thought that he had never
seen a sweeter face. There was very much of melancholy in it, of that
soft sadness of age which seems to acknowledge, and in some sort to
regret, the waning oil of life; but the regret to be read in such
faces has in it nothing of the bitterness of grief; there is no
repining that the end has come, but simply a touch of sorrow that so
much that is dear must be left behind. Mr. Harding shook hands with
his visitor, and invited him to sit down, and then seated himself,
folding his hands together over his knees, and he said a few words in
a very low voice as to the absence of his daughter and of the dean.
"I hope you will excuse my troubling you," said Mr. Toogood.
"It is no trouble at all,--if I could be of any use. I don't know
whether it is proper, but may I ask whether you call as,--as,--as a
friend of Mr. Crawley's?"
"Altogether as a friend, Mr. Harding."
"I'm glad of that; though of course I am well aware that the
gentlemen engaged on the prosecution must do their duty. Still,--I
don't know,--somehow I would rather not hear them speak of this poor
gentleman before the trial."
"You know Mr. Crawley, then?"
"Very slightly,--very slightly indeed. He is a gentleman not much
given to social habits, and has been but seldom here. But he is an
old friend whom my son-in-law loves dearly."
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Mr. Harding. Perhaps before I go any
further I ought to tell you that Mrs. Crawley and I are
first-cousins."
"Oh, indeed. Then you are a friend."
"I never saw him in my life till a few days ago. He is very queer
you know,--very queer indeed. I'm a lawyer, Mr. Harding, practising
in London;--an attorney, that is." At each separate announcement
Mr. Harding bowed, and when Toogood named his special branch of his
profession Mr. Harding bowed lower than before, as though desirous of
showing that he had great respect for attorneys. "And of course I'm
anxious, if only out of respect for the family, that my wife's cousin
should pull through this little difficulty, if possible."
"And for the sake of the poor man himself too, and for his wife, and
his children;--and for the sake of the cloth."
"Exactly; taking it all together it's such a pity, you know. I think,
Mr. Harding, he can hardly have intended to steal the money."
"I'm sure he did not."
"It's very hard to be sure of anybody, Mr. Harding;--very hard."
"I feel quite sure that he did not. He has been a most pious,
hard-working clergyman. I cannot bring myself to think that he is
guilty. What does the Latin proverb say? 'No one of a sudden becomes
most base.'"
"But the temptation, Mr. Harding, was very strong. He was awfully
badgered about his debts. That butcher in Silverbridge was playing
the mischief with him."
"All the butchers in Barsetshire could not make an honest man steal
money, and I think that Mr. Crawley is an honest man. You'll excuse
me for being a little hot about one of my own order."
"Why; he's my cousin,--or rather, my wife's. But the fact is, Mr.
Harding, we must get hold of the dean as soon as possible; and I'm
going to send a gentleman after him."
"To send a gentleman after him?" said Mr. Harding, almost in dismay.
"Yes; I think that will be best."
"I'm afraid he'll have to go a long way, Mr. Toogood."
"The dean, I'm told, is in Jerusalem."
"I'm afraid he is,--or on his journey there. He's to be there for the
Easter week, and Sunday week will be Easter Sunday. But why should
the gentleman want to go to Jerusalem after the dean?"
Then Mr. Toogood explained as well as he was able that the dean might
have something to say on the subject which would serve Mr. Crawley's
defence. "We shouldn't leave any stone unturned," said Mr. Toogood.
"As far as I can judge, Crawley still thinks,--or half thinks,--that
he got the cheque from your son-in-law." Mr. Harding shook his
head sorrowfully. "I'm not saying he did, you know," continued Mr.
Toogood. "I can't see myself how it is possible;--but still, we ought
not to leave any stone unturned. And Mrs. Arabin,--can you tell me at
all where we shall find her?"
"Has she anything to do with it, Mr. Toogood?"
"I can't quite say that she has, but it's just possible. As I said
before, Mr. Harding, we mustn't leave a stone unturned. They're not
expected here till the end of April?"
"About the 25th or 26th, I think."
"And the assizes are the 28th. The judges come into the city on that
day. It will be too late to wait till then. We must have our defence
ready you know. Can you say where my friend will find Mrs. Arabin?"
Mr. Harding began nursing his knee, patting it and being very tender
to it, as he sat meditating with his head on one side,--meditating
not so much as to the nature of his answer as to that of the
question. Could it be necessary that any emissary from a lawyer's
office should be sent after his daughter? He did not like the idea of
his Eleanor being disturbed by questions as to a theft. Though she
had been twice married and had a son who was now nearly a man, still
she was his Eleanor. But if it was necessary on Mr. Crawley's behalf,
of course it must be done. "Her last address was at Paris, sir; but
I think she has gone on to Florence. She has friends there, and she
purposes to meet the dean at Venice on his return." Then Mr. Harding
turned the table and wrote on a card his daughter's address.
"I suppose Mrs. Arabin must have heard of the affair?" said Mr.
Toogood.
"She had not done so when she last wrote. I mentioned it to her the
other day, before I knew that she had left Paris. If my letters and
her sister's letters have been sent on to her, she must know it now."
Then Mr. Toogood got up to take his leave. "You will excuse me for
troubling you, I hope, Mr. Harding."
"Oh, sir, pray do not mention that. It is no trouble, if one could
only be of any service."
"One can always try to be of service. In these affairs so much is to
be done by rummaging about, as I always call it. There have been many
theatrical managers, you know, Mr. Harding, who have usually made up
their pieces according to the dresses they have happened to have in
their wardrobes."
"Have there, indeed, now? I never should have thought of that."
"And we lawyers have to do the same thing."
"Not with your clothes, Mr. Toogood?"
"Not exactly with our clothes;--but with our information."
"I do not quite understand you, Mr. Toogood."
"In preparing a defence we have to rummage about and get up what we
can. If we can't find anything that suits us exactly, we are obliged
to use what we do find as well as we can. I remember, when I was a
young man, an ostler was to be tried for stealing some oats in the
Borough; and he did steal them too, and sold them at a rag-shop
regularly. The evidence against him was as plain as a pike-staff. All
I could find out was that on a certain day a horse had trod on the
fellow's foot. So we put it to the jury whether the man could walk as
far as the rag-shop with a bag of oats when he was dead lame;--and we
got him off."
"Did you though?" said Mr. Harding.
"Yes, we did."
"And he was guilty?"
"He had been at it regularly for months."
"Dear, dear, dear! Wouldn't it have been better to have had
him punished for the fault,--gently; so as to warn him of the
consequences of such doings?"
"Our business was to get him off,--and we got him off. It's my
business to get my cousin's husband off, if I can, and we must do it,
by hook or crook. It's a very difficult piece of work, because he
won't let us employ a barrister. However, I shall have one in the
court and say nothing to him about it at all. Good-by, Mr. Harding.
As you say, it would be a thousand pities that a clergyman should be
convicted of a theft;--and one so well connected too."
Mr. Harding, when he was left alone, began to turn the matter over
in his mind and to reflect whether the thousand pities of which Mr.
Toogood had spoken appertained to the conviction of the criminal,
or the doing of the crime. "If he did steal the money I suppose he
ought to be punished, let him be ever so much a clergyman," said Mr.
Harding to himself. But yet,--how terrible it would be! Of clergymen
convicted of fraud in London he had often heard; but nothing of the
kind had ever disgraced the diocese to which he belonged since he had
known it. He could not teach himself to hope that Mr. Crawley should
be acquitted if Mr. Crawley were guilty;--but he could teach himself
to believe that Mr. Crawley was innocent. Something of a doubt had
crept across his mind as he talked to the lawyer. Mr. Toogood, though
Mrs. Crawley was his cousin, seemed to believe that the money had
been stolen; and Mr. Toogood as a lawyer ought to understand such
matters better than an old secluded clergyman in Barchester. But,
nevertheless, Mr. Toogood might be wrong; and Mr. Harding succeeded
in satisfying himself at last that he could not be doing harm in
thinking that Mr. Toogood was wrong. When he had made up his mind
on this matter he sat down and wrote the following letter, which he
addressed to his daughter at the post-office in Florence:--
Deanery, March --, 186--.
DEAREST NELLY,--
When I wrote on Tuesday I told you about poor Mr.
Crawley, that he was the clergyman in Barsetshire of
whose misfortune you read an account in Galignani's
Messenger,--and I think Susan must have written about it
also, because everybody here is talking of nothing else,
and because, of course, we know how strong a regard the
dean has for Mr. Crawley. But since that something has
occurred which makes me write to you again,--at once. A
gentleman has just been here, and has indeed only this
moment left me, who tells me that he is an attorney in
London, and that he is nearly related to Mrs. Crawley.
He seems to be a very good-natured man, and I daresay he
understands his business as a lawyer. His name is Toogood,
and he has come down as he says to get evidence to help
the poor gentleman on his trial. I cannot understand how
this should be necessary, because it seems to me that the
evidence should all be wanted on the other side. I cannot
for a moment suppose that a clergyman and a gentleman such
as Mr. Crawley should have stolen money, and if he is
innocent I cannot understand why all this trouble should
be necessary to prevent a jury finding him guilty.
Mr. Toogood came here because he wanted to see the
dean,--and you also. He did not explain, as far as I
can remember, why he wanted to see you; but he said it
would be necessary, and that he was going to send off a
messenger to find you first, and the dean afterwards. It
has something to do with the money which was given to
Mr. Crawley last year, and which, if I remember right,
was your present. But of course Mr. Toogood could not
have known anything about that. However, I gave him the
address,--poste restante, Florence,--and I daresay that
somebody will make you out before long, if you are still
stopping at Florence. I did not like letting him go
without telling you about it, as I thought that a lawyer's
coming to you would startle you.
The bairns are quite well, as I told you in my other
letter, and Miss Jones says that little Elly is as good
as gold. They are with me every morning and evening, and
behave like darling angels, as they are. Posy is my own
little jewel always. You may be quite sure I do nothing to
spoil them.
God bless you, dearest Nelly,
Your most affectionate father,
SEPTIMUS HARDING.
After this he wrote another letter to his other daughter, Mrs.
Grantly, telling her also of Mr. Toogood's visit; and then he spent
the remainder of the day thinking over the gravity of the occurrence.
How terrible would it be if a beneficed clergyman in the diocese
should really be found guilty of theft by a jury from the city! And
then he had always heard so high a character of this man from his
son-in-law. No,--it was impossible to believe that Mr. Crawley had in
truth stolen a cheque for twenty pounds!
Mr. Toogood could get no other information in Barchester, and went on
to Silverbridge early in the afternoon. He was half disposed to go
by Hogglestock and look up his cousin, whom he had never seen, and
his cousin's husband, upon whose business he was now intent; but on
reflection he feared that he might do more harm than good. He had
quite appreciated the fact that Mr. Crawley was not like other men.
"The man's not above half-saved," he had said to his wife,--meaning
thereby to insinuate that the poor clergyman was not in full
possession of his wits. And, to tell the truth of Mr. Toogood, he
was a little afraid of his relative. There was a something in Mr.
Crawley's manner, in spite of his declared poverty, and in spite also
of his extreme humility, which seemed to announce that he expected to
be obeyed when he spoke on any point with authority. Mr. Toogood had
not forgotten the tone in which Mr. Crawley had said to him, "Sir,
this thing you cannot do." And he thought that, upon the whole, he
had better not go to Hogglestock on this occasion.
When at Silverbridge, he began at once to "rummage about." His chief
rummaging was to be done at Mr. Walker's table; but before dinner he
had time to call upon the magistrate's clerk, and ask a few questions
as to the proceedings at the sitting from which Mr. Crawley was
committed. He found a very taciturn old man, who was nearly as
difficult to deal with in any rummaging process as a porcupine. But,
nevertheless, at last he reached a state of conversation which was
not absolutely hostile. Mr. Toogood pleaded that he was the poor
man's cousin,--pleaded that, as the family lawyer, he was naturally
the poor man's protector at such a time as the present,--pleaded also
that as the poor man was so very poor, no one else could come forward
on his behalf,--and in this way somewhat softened the hard sharpness
of the old porcupine's quills. But after all this, there was very
little to be learned from the old porcupine. "There was not a
magistrate on the bench," he said, "who had any doubt that the
evidence was sufficient to justify them in sending the case to the
assizes. They had all regretted,"--the porcupine said in his softest
moment,--"that the gentleman had come there without a legal adviser."
"Ah, that's been the mischief of it all!" said Mr. Toogood, dashing
his hand against the porcupine's mahogany table. "But the facts were
so strong, Mr. Toogood!" "Nobody there to soften 'em down, you know,"
said Mr. Toogood, shaking his head. Very little more than this was
learned from the porcupine; and then Mr. Toogood went away, and
prepared for Mr. Walker's dinner.
Mr. Walker had invited Dr. Tempest and Miss Anne Prettyman and Major
Grantly to meet Mr. Toogood, and had explained, in a manner intended
to be half earnest and half jocose, that though Mr. Toogood was an
attorney, like himself, and was at this moment engaged in a noble
way on behalf of his cousin's husband, without any idea of receiving
back even the money which he would be out of pocket; still he wasn't
quite,--not quite, you know--"not quite so much of a gentleman as
I am,"--Mr. Walker would have said, had he spoken out freely that
which he insinuated. But he contented himself with the emphasis he
put upon the "not quite," which expressed his meaning fully. And Mr.
Walker was correct in his opinion of Mr. Toogood. As regards the two
attorneys I will not venture to say that either of them was not a
"perfect gentleman." A perfect gentleman is a thing which I cannot
define. But undoubtedly Mr. Walker was a bigger man in his way than
was Mr. Toogood in his, and did habitually consort in the county
of Barsetshire with men of higher standing than those with whom Mr.
Toogood associated in London.
It seemed to be understood that Mr. Crawley was to be the general
subject of conversation, and no one attempted to talk about anything
else. Indeed, at this time, very little else was talked about in
that part of the county;--not only because of the interest naturally
attaching to the question of the suspected guilt of a parish
clergyman, but because much had become lately known of Mr. Crawley's
character, and because it was known also that an internecine feud
had arisen between him and the bishop. It had undoubtedly become the
general opinion that Mr. Crawley had picked up and used a cheque
which was not his own;--that he had, in fact, stolen it; but there
was, in spite of that belief, a general wish that he might be
acquitted and left in his living. And when the tidings of Mr.
Crawley's victory over the bishop at the palace had become bruited
about, popular sympathy went with the victor. The theft was, as
it were, condoned, and people made excuses which were not always
rational, but which were founded on the instincts of true humanity.
And now the tidings of another stage in the battle, as fought against
Mr. Crawley by the bishop, had gone forth through the county, and men
had heard that the rural dean was to be instructed to make inquiries
which should be preliminary to proceedings against Mr. Crawley in
an ecclesiastical court. Dr. Tempest, who was now about to meet Mr.
Toogood at Mr. Walker's, was the rural dean to whom Mr. Crawley would
have to submit himself in any such inquiry; but Dr. Tempest had not
as yet received from the bishop any official order on the subject.
"We are so delighted to think that you have taken up your cousin's
case," said Mrs. Walker to Mr. Toogood, almost in a whisper.
"He is not just my cousin, himself," said Mr. Toogood, "but of course
it's all the same thing. And as to taking up his case, you see, my
dear madam, he won't let me take it up."
"I thought you had. I thought you were down here about it?"
"Only on the sly, Mrs. Walker. He has such queer ideas that he will
not allow a lawyer to be properly employed; and you can't conceive
how hard that makes it. Do you know him, Mrs. Walker?"
"We know his daughter Grace." And then Mrs. Walker whispered
something further, which we may presume to have been an intimation
that the gentleman opposite,--Major Grantly,--was supposed by some
people to be very fond of Miss Grace Crawley.
"Quite a child, isn't she?" said Toogood, whose own daughter, now
about to be married, was three or four years older than Grace.
"She's beyond being a child, I think. Of course she is young."
"But I suppose this affair will knock all that on the head," said the
lawyer.
"I do not know how that may be; but they do say he is very much
attached to her. The major is a man of family, and of course it would
be very disagreeable if Mr. Crawley were found guilty."
"Very disagreeable, indeed; but, upon my word, Mrs. Walker, I don't
know what to say about it."
"You think it will go against him, Mr. Toogood?" Mr. Toogood shook
his head, and on seeing this, Mrs. Walker sighed deeply.
"I can only say that I have heard nothing from the bishop as yet,"
said Dr. Tempest, after the ladies had left the room. "Of course, if
he thinks well to order it, the inquiry must be made."
"But how long would it take?" asked Mr. Walker.
"Three months, I should think,--or perhaps more. Of course Crawley
would do all that he could to delay us, and I am not at all sure that
we should be in any very great hurry ourselves."
"Who are the 'we,' doctor?" said Mr. Walker.
"I cannot make such an inquiry by myself, you know. I suppose the
bishop would ask me to select two or four other clergymen to act with
me. That's the usual way of doing it. But you may be quite sure of
this, Walker; the assizes will be over, and the jury have found their
verdict long before we have settled our preliminaries."
"And what will be the good of your going on after that?"
"Only this good:--if the unfortunate man be convicted--"
"Which he won't," said Mr. Toogood, who thought it expedient to put
on a bolder front in talking of the matter to the rural dean, than he
had assumed in his whispered conversation with Mrs. Walker.
"I hope not, with all my heart," said the doctor. "But, perhaps, for
the sake of the argument, the supposition may be allowed to pass."
"Certainly, sir," said Mr. Toogood. "For the sake of the argument, it
may pass."
"If he be convicted, then, I suppose, there will be an end of the
question. He would be sentenced for not less, I should say, than
twelve months; and after that--"
"And would be as good a parson of Hogglestock when he came out of
prison as when he went in," said Mr. Walker. "The conviction and
judgment in a civil court would not touch his temporality."
"Certainly not," said Mr. Toogood.
"Of course not," said the doctor. "We all know that; and in the event
of Mr. Crawley coming back to his parish it would be open to the
bishop to raise the question as to his fitness for the duties."
"Why shouldn't he be as fit as any one else?" said Mr. Toogood.
"Simply because he would have been found to be a thief," said the
doctor. "You must excuse me, Mr. Toogood, but it's only for the sake
of the argument."
"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Mr. Toogood. "He
would have undergone his penalty."
"It is preferable that a man who preaches from a pulpit should not
have undergone such a penalty," said the doctor. "But in practice,
under such circumstances,--which we none of us anticipate, Mr.
Toogood,--the living should no doubt be vacated. Mr. Crawley would
probably hardly wish to come back. The jury will do their work before
we can do ours,--will do it on a much better base than any we can
have; and, when they have done it, the thing ought to be finished. If
the jury acquit him, the bishop cannot proceed any further. If he be
found guilty I think that the resignation of the living must follow."
"It is all spite, then, on the bishop's part?" said the major.
"Not at all," said the doctor. "The poor man is weak; that is all. He
is driven to persecute because he cannot escape persecution himself.
But it may really be a question whether his present proceeding is not
right. If I were bishop I should wait till the trial was over; that
is all."
From this and from much more that was said during the evening on the
same subject Mr. Toogood gradually learned the position which Mr.
Crawley and the question of Mr. Crawley's guilt really held in the
county, and he returned to town resolved to go on with the case.
"I'll have a barrister down express, and I'll defend him in his
own teeth," he said to his wife. "There'll be a scene in court,
I daresay, and the man will call upon his own counsel to hold his
tongue and shut up his brief; and, as far as I can see, counsel
in such a case would have no alternative. But there would come an
explanation,--how Crawley was too honourable to employ a man whom
he could not pay, and there would be a romance, and it would all go
down with the jury. One wants sympathy in such a case as that--not
evidence."
"And how much will it cost, Tom?" said Maria, dolefully.
"Only a trifle. We won't think of that yet. There's John Eames is
going all the way to Jerusalem, out of his pocket."
"But Johnny hasn't got twelve children, Tom."
"One doesn't have a cousin in trouble every day," said Toogood. "And
then you see there's something very pretty in the case. It's quite a
pleasure getting it up."