“But Parson Smallbones was a bit of a farmer?”
“Ay, ay. Parsons in them days warn’t above a bit of farming. I warn’t much more than a scrap of a boy, but I remember him. He wore a wig, and old black gaiters; and knew as well what was his’n and what wasn’t as any parson in Wiltshire. Tithes was tithes then; and parson was cute enough in taking on ’em.”
“But these sheep of his were his own, I suppose?”
“Whose else would they be, sir?”
“And did he fence them in on that bit of ground?”
“There’d be a boy with ’em, I’m thinking, sir. There wasn’t so much fencing of sheep then as there be now. Boys was cheaper in them days.”
“Just so; and the parson wouldn’t allow other sheep there?”
“Muster Smallbones mostly took all he could get, sir.”
“Exactly. The parsons generally did, I believe. It was the way in which they followed most accurately the excellent examples set them by the bishops. But, Mr. Brattle, it wasn’t in the way of tithes that he had this grass for his sheep?”
“I can’t say how he had it, nor yet how Muster Fenwick has the meadows t’other side of the river, which he lets to farmer Pierce; but he do have ’em, and farmer Pierce do pay him the rent.”
“Glebe land, you know,” said Mr. Quickenham.
“That’s what they calls it,” said the miller.
“And none of the vicars that came after old Smallbones have ever done anything with that bit of ground?”
“Ne’er a one on’em. Mr. Brandon, as I tell ’ee, never come nigh the place. I don’t know as ever I see’d him. It was him as they made bishop afterwards, some’eres away in Ireland. He had a lord to his uncle. Then Muster Threepaway, he was here ever so long.”
“But he didn’t mind such things.”
“He never owned no sheep; and the old ’oomen’s cows was let to go on the land, as was best, and then the boys took to playing hopskotch there, with a horse or two over it at times, and now Mr. Puddleham has it for his preaching. Maybe, sir, the lawyers might have a turn at it yet;” and the miller laughed at his own wit.
“And get more out of it than any former occupant,” said Mr. Quickenham, who would indeed have been very loth to allow his wife’s brother-in-law to go into a lawsuit, but still felt that a very pretty piece of litigation was about to be thrown away in this matter of Mr. Puddleham’s chapel.
Mr. Quickenham bade farewell to the miller, and thought that he saw a way to a case. But he was a man very strongly given to accuracy, and on his return to the Vicarage said no word of his conversation with the miller. It would have been natural that Fenwick should have interrogated him as to his morning’s work; but the Vicar had determined to trouble himself no further about his grievance, to say nothing further respecting it to any man, not even to allow the remembrance of Mr. Puddleham and his chapel to dwell in his mind; and consequently held his peace. Mrs. Fenwick was curious enough on the subject, but she had made a promise to her husband, and would at least endeavour to keep it. If her sister should tell her anything unasked, that would not be her fault.
XLIII
Easter at Turnover Castle
It was not only at Bullhampton that this affair of the Methodist chapel demanded and received attention. At Turnover also a good deal was being said about it, and the mind of the Marquis was not easy. As has been already told, the bishop had written to him on the subject, remonstrating with him as to the injury he was doing to the present vicar, and to future vicars, of the parish which he, as landlord, was bound to treat with beneficent consideration. The Marquis had replied to the bishop with a tone of stern resolve. The Vicar of Bullhampton had treated him with scorn, nay, as he thought, with most unpardonable insolence, and he would not spare the Vicar. It was proper that the dissenters at Bullhampton should have a chapel, and he had a right to do what he liked with his own. So arguing with himself, he had written to the bishop very firmly; but his own mind had not been firm within him as he did so. There were misgivings at his heart. He was a Churchman himself, and he was pricked with remorse as he remembered that he was spiting the Church which was connected with the state, of which he was so eminent a supporter. His own chief agent, too, had hesitated, and had suggested that perhaps the matter might be postponed. His august daughters, though they had learned to hold the name of Fenwick in proper abhorrence, nevertheless were grieved about the chapel. Men and women were talking about it, and the words of the common people found their way to the august daughters of the house of Stowte.
“Papa,” said Lady Carolina; “wouldn’t it, perhaps, be better to build the Bullhampton chapel a little farther off from the Vicarage?”
“The next vicar might be a different sort of person,” said the Lady Sophie.
“No; it wouldn’t,” said the Earl, who was apt to be very imperious with his own daughters, although he was of opinion that they should be held in great awe by all the world—excepting only himself and their eldest brother.
That eldest brother, Lord Saint George, was in truth regarded at Turnover as being, of all persons in the world, the most august. The Marquis himself was afraid of his son, and held him in extreme veneration. To the mind of the Marquis the heir expectant of all the dignities of the House of Stowte was almost a greater man
