The Last Chronicle of Barset. Anthony Trollope
my heart,” said Crawley.
“We knows that,” said the woman from the bed. “We is sure of that, your reverence.”
“Sixpence!” said the man, scornfully. “If they’d have guv me nothing at all but the run of my teeth at the public-house, I’d ’ve taken it better. But sixpence!”
Then there was a pause. “And what have they given to me?” said Mr. Crawley, when the man’s ill-humour about his sixpence had so far subsided as to allow of his busying himself again about the premises.
“Yes, indeed;—yes, indeed,” said the woman. “Yes, yes, we feel that; we do indeed, Mr. Crawley.”
“I tell you what, sir; for another sixpence I’d ’ve sworn you’d never guv’ me the paper at all; and so I will now, if it bean’t too late;—sixpence or no sixpence. What do I care? d–––– them.”
“Dan!”
“And why shouldn’t I? They hain’t got brains enough among them to winny the truth from the lies,—not among the lot of ‘em. I’ll swear afore the judge that you didn’t give it me at all, if that’ll do any good.”
“Man, do you think I would have you perjure yourself, even if that would do me a service? And do you think that any man was ever served by a lie?”
“Faix, among them chaps it don’t do to tell them too much of the truth. Look at that!” And he brought out the sixpence again from his breeches’-pocket. “And look at your reverence. Only that they’ve let you out for a while, they’ve been nigh as hard on you as though you were one of us.”
“If they think that I stole it, they have been right,” said Mr. Crawley.
“It’s been along of that chap, Soames,” said the woman. “The lord would ’ve paid the money out of his own pocket and never said not a word.”
“If they think that I’ve been a thief, they’ve done right,” repeated Mr. Crawley. “But how can they think so? How can they think so? Have I lived like a thief among them?”
“For the matter o’ that, if a man ain’t paid for his work by them as is his employers, he must pay hisself. Them’s my notions. Look at that!” Whereupon he again pulled out the sixpence, and held it forth in the palm of his hand.
“You believe, then,” said Mr. Crawley, speaking very slowly, “that I did steal the money. Speak out, Dan; I shall not be angry. As you go you are honest men, and I want to know what such of you think about it.”
“He don’t think nothing of the kind,” said the woman, almost getting out of bed in her energy. “If he’d athought the like o’ that in his head, I’d read ‘un such a lesson he’d never think again the longest day he had to live.”
“Speak out, Dan,” said the clergyman, not attending to the woman. “You can understand that no good can come of a lie.” Dan Morris scratched his head. “Speak out, man, when I tell you,” said Crawley.
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“Drat it all,” said Dan, “where’s the use of so much jaw about it?”
“Say you know his reverence is as innocent as the babe as isn’t born,” said the woman.
“No; I won’t,—say nothing of the kind,” said Dan.
“Speak out the truth,” said Crawley.
“They do say, among ‘em,” said Dan, “that you picked it up, and then got a woolgathering in your head till you didn’t rightly know where it come from.” Then he paused. “And after a bit you guv’ it me to get the money. Didn’t you, now?”
“I did.”
“And they do say if a poor man had done it, it’d been stealing, for sartain.”
“And I’m a poor man,—the poorest in all Hogglestock; and, therefore, of course, it is stealing. Of course I am a thief. Yes; of course I am a thief. When did not the world believe the worst of the poor?” Having so spoken, Mr. Crawley rose from his chair and hurried out of the cottage, waiting no further reply from Dan Morris or his wife. And as he made his way slowly home, not going there by the direct road, but by a long circuit, he told himself that there could be no sympathy for him anywhere. Even Dan Morris, the brickmaker, thought that he was a thief.
“And am I a thief?” he said to himself, standing in the middle of the road, with his hands up to his forehead.
Chapter XIII.
The Bishop’s Angel.
It was nearly nine before Mr. Crawley got back to his house, and found his wife and daughter waiting breakfast for him. “I should not wonder if Grace were over here to-day,” said Mrs. Crawley. “She’d better remain where she is,” said he. After this the meal passed almost without a word. When it was over, Jane, at a sign from her mother, went up to her father and asked him whether she should read with him. “Not now,” he said, “not just now. I must rest my brain before it will be fit for any work.” Then he got into the chair over the fire, and his wife began to fear that he would remain there all the day.
But the morning was not far advanced, when there came a visitor who disturbed him, and by disturbing him did him real service. Just at ten there arrived at the little gate before the house a man on a pony, whom Jane espied, standing there by the pony’s head and looking about for some one to relieve him from the charge of his steed. This was Mr. Thumble, who had ridden over to Hogglestock on a poor spavined brute belonging to the bishop’s stable, and which had once been the bishop’s cob. Now it was the vehicle by which Mrs. Proudie’s episcopal messages were sent backwards and forwards through a twelve-miles ride round Barchester; and so many were the lady’s requirements, that the poor animal by no means eat the hay of idleness. Mr. Thumble had suggested to Mrs. Proudie, after their interview with the bishop and the giving up of the letter to the clerical messenger’s charge, that before hiring a gig from the “Dragon of Wantley,” he should be glad to know,—looking as he always did to “Mary Anne and the children,”—whence the price of the gig was to be returned to him. Mrs. Proudie had frowned at him,—not with all the austerity of frowning which she could use when really angered, but simply with a frown which gave her some little time for thought, and would enable her to continue the rebuke if, after thinking, she should find that rebuke was needed. But mature consideration showed her that Mr. Thumble’s caution was not without reason. Were the bishop energetic,—or even the bishop’s managing chaplain as energetic as he should be, Mr. Crawley might, as Mrs. Proudie felt assured, be made in some way to pay for a conveyance for Mr. Thumble. But the energy was lacking, and the price of the gig, if the gig were ordered, would certainly fall ultimately upon the bishop’s shoulders. This was very sad. Mrs. Proudie had often grieved over the necessary expenditure of episcopal surveillance, and had been heard to declare her opinion that a liberal allowance for secret service should be made in every diocese. What better could the Ecclesiastical Commissioners do with all those rich revenues which they had stolen from the bishops? But there was no such liberal allowance at present, and, therefore, Mrs. Proudie, after having frowned at Mr. Thumble for some seconds, desired him to take the grey cob. Now, Mr. Thumble had ridden the grey cob before, and would much have preferred a gig. But even the grey cob was better than a gig at his own cost.
“Mamma, there’s a man at the gate wanting to come in,” said Jane. “I think he’s a clergyman.”
Mr. Crawley immediately raised his head, though he did not at once leave his chair. Mrs. Crawley went to the window, and recognized the reverend visitor. “My dear, it is that Mr. Thumble, who is so much with the bishop.”
“What does Mr. Thumble want with me?”
“Nay, my