LITMIR.BIZ

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But Mr. Crawley did not please to answer her question. “The man is obstinate,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “I had better proceed,” said the bishop. “Mr. Thumble brought me back your reply, which grieved me greatly.”

      “It was contumacious and indecent,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      The bishop again shook his head and looked so unutterly miserable that a smile came across Mr. Crawley’s face. After all, others besides himself had their troubles and trials. Mrs. Proudie saw and understood the smile, and became more angry than ever. She drew her chair close to the table, and began to fidget with her fingers among the papers. She had never before encountered a clergyman so contumacious, so indecent, so unreverend,—so upsetting. She had had to do with men difficult to manage;—the archdeacon for instance; but the archdeacon had never been so impertinent to her as this man. She had quarrelled once openly with a chaplain of her husband’s, a clergyman whom she herself had introduced to her husband, and who had treated her very badly;—but not so badly, not with such unscrupulous violence, as she was now encountering from this ill-clothed beggarly man, this perpetual curate, with his dirty broken boots, this already half-convicted thief! Such was her idea of Mr. Crawley’s conduct to her, while she was fingering the papers,—simply because Mr. Crawley would not speak to her.

      “I forget where I was,” said the bishop. “Oh. Mr. Thumble came back, and I received your letter;—of course I received it. And I was surprised to learn from that, that in spite of what had occurred at Silverbridge, you were still anxious to continue the usual Sunday ministrations in your church.”

      “I was determined that I would do my duty at Hogglestock, as long as I might be left there to do it,” said Mr. Crawley.

      “Duty!” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “Just a moment, my dear,” said the bishop. “When Sunday came, I had no alternative but to send Mr. Thumble over again to Hogglestock. It occurred to us,—to me and Mrs. Proudie,—”

      “I will tell Mr. Crawley just now what has occurred to me,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “Yes;—just so. And I am sure that he will take it in good part. It occurred to me, Mr. Crawley, that your first letter might have been written in haste.”

      “It was written in haste, my lord; your messenger was waiting.”

      “Yes;—just so. Well; so I sent him again, hoping that he might be accepted as a messenger of peace. It was a most disagreeable mission for any gentleman, Mr. Crawley.”

      “Most disagreeable, my lord.”

      “And you refused him permission to obey the instructions which I had given him! You would not let him read from your desk, or preach from your pulpit.”

      “Had I been Mr. Thumble,” said Mrs. Proudie, “I would have read from that desk and I would have preached from that pulpit.”

      Mr. Crawley waited a moment, thinking that the bishop might perhaps speak again; but as he did not, but sat expectant as though he had finished his discourse, and now expected a reply, Mr. Crawley got up from his seat and drew near to the table. “My lord,” he began, “it has all been just as you have said. I did answer your first letter in haste.”

      “The more shame for you,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “And therefore, for aught I know, my letter to your lordship may be so worded as to need some apology.”

      “Of course it needs an apology,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “But for the matter of it, my lord, no apology can be made, nor is any needed. I did refuse to your messenger permission to perform the services of my church, and if you send twenty more, I shall refuse them all,—till the time may come when it will be your lordship’s duty, in accordance with the laws of the Church,—as borne out and backed by the laws of the land, to provide during my constrained absence for the spiritual wants of those poor people at Hogglestock.”

      “Poor people, indeed,” said Mrs. Proudie. “Poor wretches!”

      “And, my lord, it may well be, that it shall soon be your lordship’s duty to take due and legal steps for depriving me of my benefice at Hogglestock;—nay, probably, for silencing me altogether as to the exercise of my sacred profession!”

      “Of course it will, sir. Your gown will be taken from you,” said Mrs. Proudie. The bishop was looking with all his eyes up at the great forehead and great eyebrows of the man, and was so fascinated by the power that was exercised over him by the other man’s strength that he hardly now noticed his wife.

      “It may well be so,” continued Mr. Crawley. “The circumstances are strong against me; and, though your lordship has altogether misunderstood the nature of the duty performed by the magistrates in sending my case for trial,—although, as it seems to me, you have come to conclusions in this matter in ignorance of the very theory of our laws,—”

      “Sir!” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “Yet I can foresee the probability that a jury may discover me to have been guilty of theft.”

      “Of course the jury will do so,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “Should such verdict be given, then, my lord, your interference will be legal, proper, and necessary. And you will find that, even if it be within my power to oppose obstacles to your lordship’s authority, I will oppose no such obstacle. There is, I believe, no appeal in criminal cases.”

      “None at all,” said Mrs. Proudie. “There is no appeal against your bishop. You should have learned that before.”

      “But till that time shall come, my lord, I shall hold my own at Hogglestock as you hold your own here at Barchester. Nor have you more power to turn me out of my pulpit by your mere voice, than I have to turn you out of your throne by mine. If you doubt me, my lord, your lordship’s ecclesiastical court is open to you. Try it there.”

      “You defy us, then?” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “My lord, I grant your authority as bishop to be great, but even a bishop can only act as the law allows him.”

      “God forbid that I should do more,” said the bishop.

      “Sir, you will find that your wicked threats will fall back upon your own head,” said Mrs. Proudie.

      “Peace, woman,” Mr. Crawley said, addressing her at last. The bishop jumped out of his chair at hearing the wife of his bosom called a woman. But he jumped rather in admiration than in anger. He had already begun to perceive that Mr. Crawley was a man who had better be left to take care of the souls at Hogglestock, at any rate till the trial should come on.

      “Woman!” said Mrs. Proudie, rising to her feet as though she really intended some personal encounter.

      “Madam,” said Mr. Crawley, “you should not interfere in these matters. You simply debase your husband’s high office. The distaff were more fitting for you. My lord, good morning.” And before either of them could speak again, he was out of the room, and through the hall, and beyond the gate, and standing beneath the towers of the cathedral. Yes, he had, he thought, in truth crushed the bishop. He had succeeded in crumpling the bishop up within the clutch of his fist.

      He started in a spirit of triumph to walk back on his road towards Hogglestock. He did not think of the long distance before him for the first hour of his journey. He had had his victory, and the remembrance of that braced his nerves and gave elasticity to his sinews, and he went stalking along the road with rapid strides, muttering to himself from time to time as he went along some word about Mrs. Proudie and her distaff. Mr. Thumble would not, he thought, come to him again,—not, at any rate, till the assizes were drawing near. And he had resolved what he would do then. When the day of his trial was near, he would himself write to the bishop, and beg that provision might be made for his church, in the event of the verdict going against him. His friend, Dean Arabin, was to be home before that time, and the idea had occurred to him of asking the dean to see to this; but now the other would be the more independent course,

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