第80章

Mr Walker returned to his work, either to some private den within his house, or to his office, and Mr Robarts was taken upstairs to the drawing-room. There he found Mrs Walker and her daughter, and Miss Anne Prettyman, who had just looked in, full of the story of Mr Crawley's walk to Barchester. Mr Thumble had seen one of Dr Tempest's curates, and had told the whole story--he, Mr Thumble, having heard Mrs Proudie's version of what had occurred, and having, of course, drawn his own deductions from her premises. And it seemed that Mr Crawley had been watched as he passed through the close out of Barchester. A minor canon had seen him, and had declared that he was going at the rate of a hunt, swinging his arms on high and speaking very loud, though--as the minor canon said with regret--the words were hardly audible. But there had been no doubt as to the man. Mr Crawley's old hat, and short rusty cloak, and dirty boots, had been duly observed and chronicled by the minor canon; and Mr Thumble had been enabled to put together a not altogether false picture of what had occurred. As soon as the greetings between Mr Robarts and the ladies had been made, Miss Anne Prettyman broke out again, just where she had left off when Mr Robarts came in.

'They say that Mrs Proudie declared that she will have him sent to Botany Bay!'

'Luckily Mrs Proudie won't have much to do in the matter,' said Miss Walker, who ranged herself, as to church matters, in the ranks altogether opposed to those commanded by Mrs Proudie.

'She will have nothing to do with it, my dear,' said Mrs Walker; 'and Idaresay Mrs Proudie was not foolish enough to say anything of the kind.'

'Mamma, she would be foolish enough to say anything. Would she not Mr Robarts?'

'You forget, Miss Walker, that Mrs Proudie is in authority over me.'

'So she is, for the matter of that,' said the young lady; 'but I know very well what you all think of her, and say of her too, at Framley.

Your friend, Lady Lufton, loves her dearly. I wish I could have been behind a curtain in the palace, to hear what Mr Crawley said to her.'

'Mr Smilie declares,' said Miss Prettyman, 'that the bishop has been ill ever since. Mr Smilie went over to his mother's at Barchester for Christmas, and took part of the cathedral duty, and we had Mr Spooner over her in his place. So Mr Smilie of course heard all about it. Only fancy, poor Mr Crawley walking all the way from Hogglestock to Barchester and back;--and I am told he hardly had a shoe to his foot! Is it not a shame, Mr Robarts?'

'I don't think it was quite as bad as you say, Miss Prettyman; but, upon the whole, I do think it is a shame. But what can we do?'

'I suppose there are tithes at Hogglestock? Why are they not given up to the church, as they ought to be?'

'My dear, Miss Prettyman, that is a very long subject, and I am afraid it cannot be settled in time to relieve our poor friend from his distress.' Then Mr Robarts escaped from the ladies in Mr Walker's house, who, as it seemed to him, were touching upon dangerous ground, and went back to the yard of the George Inn for his gig--the George and Vulture it was properly called, and was the house in which the magistrates had sat when they committed Mr Crawley for trial.

'Footed it every inch of the way, blowed if he didn't,' the ostler was saying to a gentleman's groom, whom Mr Robarts recognised to be the servant of his friend Major Grantly; and Mr Robarts knew that they also were talking about Mr Crawley. Everybody in the county was talking about Mr Crawley. At home, at Framley, there was no other subject of discourse. Lady Lufton, the dowager, was full of it, being firmly convinced that Mr Crawley was innocent, because the bishop was supposed to regard him as guilty. There had been a family conclave held at Framley Court over that basked of provisions which had been sent for the Christmas cheer of the Hogglestock parsonage, each of the three ladies, the two Lady Luftons and Mrs Robarts, having special views of their own.

How the pork had been substituted for the beef by old Lady Lufton, young Lady Lufton thinking that after all the beef might be dangerous, and how a small turkey had been rashly suggested by Mrs Robarts, and how certain small articles had been inserted in the bottom of the basket which Mrs Crawley had never shown to her husband, need not here be told at length.

But Mr Robarts, as he heard the two grooms talking about Mr Crawley, began that Mr Crawley had achieved at least celebrity.

The groom touched his hat as Mr Robarts walked up. 'Has the major returned home yet?' Mr Robarts asked. The groom said that his master was still at Plumstead, and that he was to go over to fetch the major and Miss Edith in a day or two. Then Mr Robarts got into his gig, and as he drove out of the yard he heard the words of the men as they returned to the same subject. 'Footed it all the way,' said one. 'And yet he's a gen'leman, too,' said the other. Mr Robarts thought of this as he drove on, intending to call at Hogglestock on that very day on his way home.

It was undoubtedly the fact that Mr Crawley was recognised to be a gentleman by all who knew him, high or low, rich or poor, by those who thought well of him and by those who thought ill. These grooms, who had been telling each other that this parson, who was to be tried as a thief, had been constrained to walk from Hogglestock to Barchester and back, because he could not afford to travel any other way, and that his boots were cracked and his clothes ragged, had still known him to be a gentleman! Nobody doubted it; not even they who thought he had stolen the money. Mr Robarts himself was certain of it, and told himself that he knew it by the evidences which his own education made clear to him.

But how was it that the grooms knew it? For my part I think that there are no better judges of the article than the grooms.

Thinking of all which he had heard, Mr Robarts found himself at Mr Crawley's gate at Hogglestock.