第74章

'I was most unwilling, my lord. Submission to authority is at time a duty;--and at times opposition to authority is a duty also.'

'Opposition to just authority cannot be a duty, Mr Crawley.'

'Opposition to usurped authority is an imperative duty,' said Mr Crawley.

'And who is to be the judge?' demanded Mrs Proudie. Then there was silence for a while; when, as Mr Crawley made no reply, the lady repeated her question. 'Will you be pleased to answer my question, sir?

Who, in such case, is to be the judge?' But Mr Crawley did not please to answer the 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 utterly miserable that a smile came across Mr Crawley's face. After all, others beside 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 deal 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 Imight 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 to 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 for 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 the table. 'My lord,' he began, 'it has all been just as you 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 of the matter of it, my lord, no apology can be made, nor is any needed. I did refuse 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 contstrained 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 on 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 may 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 will may discover me to have been guilty of theft.'

'Of course the jury will do,' said Mrs Proudie.