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as soon as she came home, and she told her neighbour the same night. The Ready family were not slow in spreading the news wherever they went in the town: and of course Mr. Bounce left no stone unturned to clear the way of the circulation of the fact. So that by these means it was known in most families of the town by the evening of the next day.

      It created no little excitement. The minister and elders of the Church heard it with serious concern, and considered that a Church meeting should be called without delay before the thing grew worse. It would be disastrous to permit such a scandal to go unexamined and unpunished if true.

      Elder Wiseman thought that before a Church meeting was called, it would be well for their pastor and Elder Judge to wait upon Mr. and Mrs. Proctor and inquire into the facts of the case. To this it was agreed.

      The pastor and Elder Judge took the first opportunity and waited upon the Proctors.

      The Proctors, seated in their room with their pastor and Elder Judge, seemed very much pleased to see them, and, with their usual blandness of manner, spoke about their respective families while their pastor and Elder Judge looked so grave as to make the Proctors think there was really something very depressing on their minds.

      At last the pastor said in a most solemn manner, “Mr. and Mrs. Proctor, I and Elder Judge have called to see you this morning on a matter that is far from agreeable to us and may be to you – a matter that affects the interests of our Church, the interests of Christianity, and the interests of your family. It is indeed a most grave matter. It was thought that we had better call a Church meeting to look into it; but before doing so we decided that you should be seen about it.”

      “Pray, Mr. Baker,” said Mr. Proctor, cutting him short, “pray, what is the matter! Do let us know without any ceremony.”

      “It is a matter which I am deeply pained to name. It concerns you and your wife. The fact is simply this. It is reported throughout the town that a certain gentleman, whose name I need not state, was passing your house the night before last, when he saw you chasing your wife round the room in a most furious manner, with a fire-shovel in your hand, meaning to inflict bodily harm upon her.”

      The words had barely escaped the lips of the pastor ere the Proctors, both together, burst into a loud laugh, which even shocked the gravity for a moment of the pastor and Elder Judge.

      “But Mr. and Mrs. Proctor,” said Elder Judge, “I hope you will look upon this affair in a different way to that.”

      “We cannot,” said Mr. Proctor; “the thing to which you refer is so perfectly ludicrous. Let me tell you the fact in a word. That night Mrs. Proctor came into the sitting-room from the shop terribly frightened with what she said was a mouse under her dress. In her fright she ran round the room thinking to shake the vermin from her clothes, and I took the fire-shovel and ran after her with a view to kill the mouse. So that is the sum of the matter.”

      The pastor and Elder Judge here looked each other in the face and laughed heartily; and seemed relieved of a great burden. Instead of seeking to do his wife bodily harm, Mr. Proctor was only in pursuit of a mouse which had overreached its legitimate boundaries and found its way into a foreign territory.

      Although the facts as thus discovered were ludicrous, the results might have been serious. For while the pastor and the elder were thus ascertaining the facts, the Readys, and Smiths, and a whole clique of kindred spirits with Mr. Bounce, were keeping up the circulation of the scandal; and notwithstanding the pastor and his elder instantly began to correct the mischief, it was a long time before the general impression died out that Proctor was chasing his wife with the intention of beating her. In fact, Mr. Bounce himself, and Mrs. Bounce, his wife, with several others, always believed it to the day of their death; and ever and anon tried to do a little business in it by whisperings; but they found no custom, unless with an occasional new-comer into the neighbourhood, or with some one who owed the Proctors a little spite.

      Mr. Webster, of Necham, was much given to the habit of making mischief by his talk. At one time he did great damage to a Church and its minister, of which the following may be taken as an illustration: —

      “You have had a new minister come among you lately, I understand,” said Mr. Webster one day to Mr. Watson.

      “Yes, we have.”

      “What is his name?”

      “His name is Mr. Good.”

      “Did not he come from Stukely to your place?”

      “I believe he did,” replied Mr. Watson.

      “I thought it was the same man.”

      “Do you know him, Mr. Webster?”

      “I cannot say that I do, but I have heard of him. I know some of the members of his former Church. In fact, I have just come from the neighbourhood in which he laboured before he came to you.”

      It may be well to say here, that Mr. Watson had never heard, as yet, anything prejudicial to his Minister. He, with the whole Church, seemed to think highly of him, and to be satisfied with him in all respects.

      “How is he liked?” inquired Mr. Webster.

      “I, for one, like him very much,” said Mr. Watson; “and I think all that have heard him do.”

      “I hope you may always like him; but if all that is said about him be true, I think you won’t like him long. In fact, I should not like him at all.”

      “Mr. Webster, what have you to say against Mr. Good?”

      “I have nothing to say, but others have. My information has come from other people, and people, too, on whom I can rely.”

      Mr. Watson very naturally began to feel rather curious to learn the meaning of these innuendoes. He did not know but all that Mr. Webster had heard was perfectly correct; because he thought it quite possible for Mr. Good to satisfy them for a few weeks and not for years. He was a stranger among them, and when he should be more fully known it may be that he would not prove to be what he now seemed. He began to reason, and then to doubt and suspect.

      “What have you heard of Mr. Good?” asked Mr. Watson.

      “I will tell you. I am told that he was at Stukely only a few months, when the people resolved to dismiss him from their Church.”

      “Indeed!” said Mr. Watson, with astonishment.

      “I have heard,” said Mr. Webster, “that he is a quarrelsome kind of man, and always dunning for money; that he didn’t preach well enough for them. In fact there is no end to the stories which they have to say about him.”

      “But it may be,” said Watson, “that the fault was not in Mr. Good. There are faulty people, you know, as well as faulty ministers.”

      “But from what I hear the fault was all in Mr. Good. I am pretty well acquainted with the folk at Stukely.”

      “So you may be, and yet in this instance they may be more blamable than he. I have seen nothing as yet to create suspicion in respect to him. I think he is a good man and a good preacher. And if he continue as he has begun, there is the promise of great prosperity from his labours. We must take men as we find them, Mr. Webster; and whatever we might hear against them, we should believe them innocent until they are proved guilty. I have no doubt that a great proportion of your intelligence is scandal, created and set afloat by some person or persons with whom, perhaps, he had been more faithful than their sins would allow.”

      “I hope it may turn out so,” said Mr. Webster; “but from all that I have heard I think you are mistaken in your view of him.”

      Mr. Watson would not listen any longer to Webster, but bid him “good morning.” He could not, however, help thinking about what he had said: and although it did not affect his conduct towards his new minister, he could scarcely refrain an occasional thought that possibly there might be some truth in it. But he did not encourage it. Mr. Watson cherished the charity which “thinketh no evil.”

      But while Mr. Watson was incredulous of the stories of Webster, there were others belonging to the congregation whose minds were always open to receive ill rumours derogatory to others.

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