The Last Chronicle of Barset

iage. The tidings she brought home with her to her husband were very grievous. The magistrates would sit on the next Thursday,-it was then Friday,-and Mr. Crawley had better appear before the

awyer might use what gentle means he could for ensuring the clergyman's attendance. Could Mrs. Crawley undertake to say that he would appear? Mrs. Crawley did undertake either that her husband should appear on the Thursday, or else that she would send over in the early part of the week and declare her inability to ensure his appearance. In that case it was understood the policeman must come. Then Mr. Walker had suggested that Mr. Crawley had better employ a lawyer. Upon this Mrs. Crawley had looked beseechingly up into Mr. Walker's f

hem all from illness to herself, she could not pass through to her room till she had spoken to her husband. He was sitting in the one sitting-room on the left side of the passage as the house was entered, and with him was their daughter Jane, a girl now nearly sixteen years of age. There was no light in the room, and hardly more than a spark of fire showed itself in the grate. The father was sitting on one side of the hearth, in an old arm-chair, and there he had sat for

d Jane, rising to her feet as

s. Crawley, striving to speak in a

e dark. Papa is here. Oh,

in two minutes." Then, when Jane was gone, the wife made her way in the dark over to her

peak about? Wher

I have been to Mr. Walker. H

no man's kindness. Mr. Walker is th

do the best we can in this trouble.

t to be a locked guardian for domestic documents, and the receptacle for all that was most private in the house of some paterfamilias. But beneath the hands of Mr. Crawley it always stood open; and with the exception of the small space at which he wrote, was covered with dog's-eared books, from nearly all of which the covers had disappeared. There were there two odd volumes of Euripides, a Greek Testament, an Odyssey, a duodecimo Pindar, and a miniature Anacreon. There was half a Horace,-the two first books of the Odes at the beginning, and the De Arte Poetica at the end having disappeared. There was a little bit of a volume of Cicero, and there were C?sar's Commentaries, in two volumes, so stoutly bound that they had defied the combined ill-usage of time and the Crawley family. All these were piled upon the secretary, with many others,-odd volumes of sermons and the like; but the Greek and Latin lay at the top, and showed signs of most frequent use. There was one arm-chair in the room,-a Windsor-chair, as such used to be called, made soft by an old cushion in the back, in which Mr. Crawley sat when both he and his wife were in the room, and Mrs. Crawley

oom. "Jane, dear," she said, "bring my things down to the kitchen and I will change them by the fire. I will be there in two minutes, when I have had a word

here w

re the magistrates at Silverbridge on Thursda

o say that I must go there. Is

go; will you not?" She stood leaning over him, half embracing him, waiting for an answer; but for

t they fetched me. I think

sh! Mr. Walker has promised that he will send

s the distance, and though I had not a shoe left to my feet I woul

ou wil

ers it who sees me now? I cannot be degra

race without guil

ren know of it, and I hear their whispers in the school, 'Mr.

rs what the

as though to a wedding. If I am wanted there let them take me as

ter to the kitchen. The one red-armed young girl who was their only servant was sent away, and then the mother and ch

ink it will. But I can

have done any

o make people understand that he has not intentionally spoken untruths. He is ever th

how poor we

ll in the memory with other people. He said that he had got this

did he get

seen every shilling that came into the house; bu

not papa

he knew. He thinks it

ou sure it

me he would give him fifty pounds, and the fifty pounds came. I h

is be part of th

dear,

it? Perhaps he picked i

culpation of her husband easier to herself. If villany on the part of Soames was needful to her theory, Soames would become to her a villain at once,-of the blackest dye. Might it not be possible that the cheque having thus fallen into her husband's hands, he had come, after a while, to think that it had been sent to him by his friend, the dean? And if it were so, would it be possible to make others so believe? That there was some mistake which would be easily explained were her husband's mind lucid at all points, but which she could not explain because of the darkness of his mind, she was thoroughly convinced. But were she herself to put forward such a defence on her husband's part, she would in doing so be driven to say that he was a lunatic,-that he was incapable of managing the affairs of himself or his family. It seemed to her that she would be compelled to have him proved to be either a thief or a madman. And yet she knew that he was neither. That he was not a thief was as clear to her as the sun at noonday. Could she have lain on the man's bosom for twenty years, and not yet have learned the secrets of the heart beneath? The whole mind of the man was, as she told herself, within her grasp. He might have taken the twenty pounds; he might have taken it and spent it, though it was not his own; but yet he was no thief. Nor was he a madman. No man more sane in preaching the gospel of his Lord, in making intelligible to the ignorant the promises of his Saviour, ever got into a parish pulpit, or taught in a parish school. The intellect of the man was as clear as running water in all things not appertaining to his daily life and its difficulties. He could be logica

will be unravelled. Of one thing we at least may be sur

are sure of

his congregation consisted only of farmers, brickmakers, and agricultural labourers, who would willingly have dispensed with the second. Mrs. Crawley proposed to send over to Mr. Robarts, a neighbouring clergyman, for the loan of a curate. Mr. Robarts was a warm friend to the Crawleys, and in such an emergency would probably have come himself; but Mr.

hese absent ones he sent in great anger. The poor bairns came creeping in, for he was a man who by his manners had been able to secure their obedience in spite of his poverty. And he preached to the people of his parish on that Sunday, as he had always preached; eagerly, clearly, with an eloquence fitted for the hearts

were over, he sank again and never rouse