Mr. Fenwick, according to his habit, went into his own study when the ladies went to the school, and there, according to custom also on Sunday mornings, his letters were brought to him, some few minutes before he started on his walk through the garden to the church. On this morning there were a couple of letters for himself, and he opened them both. One was from a tradesman in Salisbury, and the other was from his wife’s brother-in-law, Mr. Quickenham. Before he started he read Mr. Quickenham’s letter, and then did his best to forget it and put it out of his mind till the morning service should be over. The letter was as follows:—
Pump Court, .
Dear Fenwick,
I have found, as I thought I should, that Lord Trowbridge has no property in, or right whatever to, the bit of ground on which your enemies have been building their new Ebenezer. The spot is a part of the glebe, and as such seems to have been first abandoned by a certain parson named Brandon, who was your predecessor’s predecessor. There can, however, be no doubt that the ground is glebe, and that you are bound to protect it as such, on behalf of your successors, and of the patrons of the living.
I found some difficulty in getting at the terrier of the parish—which you, who consider yourself to be a model parson, I dare say, have never seen. I have, however, found it in duplicate. The clerk of the Board of Guardians, who should, I believe, have a copy of it, knew nothing about it; and had never heard of such a document. Your bishop’s registrar was not much more learned—but I did find it in the bishop’s chancery; and there is a copy of it also at Saint John’s, which seems to imply that great attention has been paid by the college as patron to the interests of the parish priest. This is more than has been done by the incumbent, who seems to be an ignorant fellow in such matters. I wonder how many parsons there are in the Church who would let a Marquis and a Methodist minister between them build a chapel on the parish glebe?
Here was information! This detestable combination of dissenting and tyrannically territorial influences had been used to build a Methodist Chapel upon land of which he, during his incumbency in the parish, was the freehold possessor! What an ass he must have been not to know his own possessions! How ridiculous would he appear when he should come forward to claim as a part of the glebe a morsel of land to which he had paid no special attention whatever since he had been in the parish! And then, what would it be his duty to do? Mr. Quickenham had clearly stated that on behalf of the college, which was the patron of the living, and on behalf of his successors, it was his duty to claim the land. And was it possible that he should not do so after such usage as he had received from Lord Trowbridge? So meditating—but grieving that he should be driven at such a moment to have his mind forcibly filled with such matters—still hearing the chapel bell, which in his ears drowned the sound from his own modest belfry, and altogether doubtful as to what step he would take, he entered his own church. It was manifest to him that of the poorer part of his usual audience, and of the smaller farmers, one half were in attendance upon Mr. Puddleham’s triumph.
During the whole of that afternoon he said not a word of the barrister’s letter to anyone. He struggled to banish the subject from his thoughts. Failing to do that, he did banish it from his tongue. The letter was in the pocket of his coat; but he showed it to no one. Gilmore dined at the vicarage; but even to him he was silent. Of course the conversation at dinner turned upon the chapel. It was impossible that on such a day they should speak of anything else. Even as they sat at their early dinner Mr. Puddleham’s bell was ringing, and no doubt there was a vigour in the pulling of it which would not be maintained when the pulling of it should have become a thing of every week. There had been a compact made, in accordance with which the Vicar’s wife was to be debarred from saying anything against the chapel, and, no doubt, when the compact was made, the understanding was that she should give over hating the chapel. This had, of course, been found to be impossible, but in a certain way she had complied with the compact. The noise of the bell however, was considered to be beyond the compact, and on this occasion she was almost violent in the expression of her wrath. Her husband listened to her, and sat without rebuking her, silent, with the lawyer’s letter in his pocket. This bell had been put up on his own land, and he could pull it down tomorrow. It had been put up by the express agency of Lord Trowbridge, and with the direct view
