The Last Chronicle of Barset

soon be deaf to the harsh noises of the world⁠—but yet knowing, or thinking that he knows, that he never will kill himself. So it was with Mr. Crawley. Though his imagination pictured to himself the whole scene⁠—how he would humble himself to the ground as he acknowledged his unfitness, how he would endure the small-voiced triumph of the little bishop, how, from the abjectness of his own humility, even from the ground on which he would be crouching, he would rebuke the loud-mouthed triumph of the bishop’s wife; though there was no touch wanting to the picture which he thus drew⁠—he did not really propose to himself to commit this professional suicide. His wife, too, had considered whether it might be in truth becoming that he should give up his clerical duties, at any rate for a while; but she had never thought that the idea was present to his mind also.

Mr. Toogood had told him that people would say that he was mad; and Mr. Toogood had looked at him, when he declared for the second time that he had no knowledge whence the cheque had come to him, as though his words were to be regarded as the words of some sick child. “Mad!” he said to himself, as he walked home from the station that night. “Well; yes; and what if I am mad? When I think of all that I have endured my wonder is that I should not have been mad sooner.” And then he prayed⁠—yes, prayed, that in his madness the Devil might not be too strong for him, and that he might be preserved from some terrible sin of murder or violence. What, if the idea should come to him in his madness that it would be well for him to slay his wife and his children? Only that was wanting to make him of all men the most unfortunate.

He went down among the brickmakers on the following morning, leaving the house almost without a morsel of food, and he remained at Hoggle End for the greater part of the day. There were sick persons there with whom he prayed, and then he sat talking with rough men while they ate their dinners, and he read passages from the Bible to women while they washed their husbands’ clothes. And for a while he sat with a little girl in his lap teaching the child her alphabet. If it were possible for him he would do his duty. He would spare himself in nothing, though he might suffer even to fainting. And on this occasion he did suffer⁠—almost to fainting, for as he returned home in the afternoon he was forced to lean from time to time against the banks on the roadside, while the cold sweat of weakness trickled down his face, in order that he might recover strength to go on a few yards. But he would persevere. If God would but leave to him mind enough for his work, he would go on. No personal suffering should deter him. He told himself that there had been men in the world whose sufferings were sharper even than his own. Of what sort had been the life of the man who had stood for years on the top of a pillar? But then the man on the pillar had been honoured by all around him. And thus, though he had thought of the man on the pillar to encourage himself by remembering how lamentable had been that man’s suffering, he came to reflect that after all his own sufferings were perhaps keener than those of the man on the pillar.

When he reached home, he was very ill. There was no doubt about it then. He staggered to his armchair, and stared at his wife first, then smiled at her with a ghastly smile. He trembled all over, and when food was brought to him he could not eat it. Early on the next morning the doctor was by his bedside, and before that evening came he was delirious. He had been at intervals in this state for nearly two days, when Mrs. Crawley wrote to Grace, and though she had restrained herself from telling everything, she had written with sufficient strength to bring Grace at once to her father’s bedside.

He was not so ill when Grace arrived but that he knew her, and he seemed to receive some comfort from her coming. Before she had been in the house an hour she was reading Greek to him, and there was no wandering in his mind as to the due emphasis to be given to the plaints of the injured heroines, or as to the proper meaning of the choruses. And as he lay with his head half buried in the pillows, he shouted out long passages, lines from tragic plays by the score, and for a while seemed to have all the enjoyment of a dear old pleasure placed newly within his reach. But he tired of this after a while, and then, having looked round to see that his wife was not in the room, he began to talk of himself.

“So you have been at Allington, my dear?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Is it a pretty place?”

“Yes, papa;⁠—very pretty.”

“And they were good to you?”

“Yes, papa;⁠—very good.”

“Had they heard anything there about⁠—me; of this trial that is to come on?”

“Yes, papa; they had heard of it.”

“And what did they say? You need not think that you will shock me by telling me. They cannot say worse there than people have said here⁠—or think worse.”

“They don’t think at all badly of you at Allington, papa.”

“But they must think badly of me if the magistrates were right?”

“They suppose that there has been a mistake;⁠—as we all think.”

“They do not try men at the assizes for mistakes.”

“That you have been mistaken, I mean;⁠—and the magistrates mistaken.”

“Both cannot have been mistaken, Grace.”

“I don’t know how to explain myself, papa; but we all know that it is very sad, and are