“Now let us go and see the corpus delicti,” said the Vicar as soon as they had drawn their chairs from the table.
The two men went out and walked round the chapel, and, finding it open, walked into it. Of course there were remarks made by both of them. It was acknowledged that it was ugly, misplaced, uncomfortable, detestable to the eye, and ear, and general feeling—except in so far as it might suit the wants of people who were not sufficiently educated to enjoy the higher tone, and more elaborate language of the Church of England services. It was thus that they spoke to each other, quite in an aesthetic manner.
Lord St. George had said as he entered the chapel, that it must come down as a matter of course; and the Vicar had suggested that there need be no hurry.
“They tell me that it must be removed some day,” said the Vicar, “but as I am not likely to leave the parish, nobody need start the matter for a year or two.” Lord St. George was declaring that advantage could not be taken of such a concession on Mr. Fenwick’s part, when a third person entered the building, and walked towards them with a quick step.
“Here is Mr. Puddleham, the minister,” said Mr. Fenwick; and the future lord of Bullhampton was introduced to the present owner of the pulpit under which they were standing.
“My lord,” said the minister, “I am proud, indeed, to have the honour of meeting your lordship in our new chapel, and of expressing to your lordship the high sense entertained by me and my congregation of your noble father’s munificent liberality to us in the matter of the land.”
In saying this Mr. Puddleham never once turned his face upon the Vicar. He presumed himself at the present moment to be at feud with the Vicar in most deadly degree. Though the Vicar would occasionally accost him in the village, he always answered the Vicar as though they two were enemies. He had bowed when he came up the chapel, but he had bowed to the stranger. If the Vicar took any of that courtesy to himself, that was not his fault.
“I’m afraid we were a little too quick there,” said Lord St. George.
“I hope not, my lord; I hope not. I have heard a rumour; but I have inquired. I have inquired, and—”
“The truth is, Mr. Puddleham, that we are standing on Mr. Fenwick’s private ground this moment.”
“You are quite welcome to the use of it, Mr. Puddleham,” said the Vicar. Mr. Puddleham assumed a look of dignity, and frowned. He could not even yet believe that his friend the Marquis had made so fatal a mistake.
“We must build you another chapel—that will be about the long and short of it, Mr. Puddleham.”
“My lord, I should think there must be some—mistake. Some error must have crept in somewhere, my lord. I have made inquiry—”
“It has been a very big error,” said Lord St. George, “and it has crept into Mr. Fenwick’s glebe in a very palpable form. There is no use in discussing it, Mr. Puddleham.”
“And why didn’t the reverend gentleman claim the ground when the works were commenced?” demanded the indignant minister, turning now for the first time to the Vicar, and doing so with a visage full of wrath, and a graceful uplifting of his right hand.
“The reverend gentleman was very ignorant of matters with which he ought to have been better acquainted,” said Mr. Fenwick himself.
“Very ignorant, indeed,” said Mr. Puddleham. “My lord, I am inclined to think that we can assert our right to this chapel and maintain it. My lord, I am of opinion that the whole hierarchy of the Episcopal Established Church in England cannot expel us. My lord, who will be the man to move the first brick from this sacred edifice?” And Mr. Puddleham pointed up to the pulpit as though he knew well where that brick was ever to be found when duty required its presence. “My lord, I would propose that nothing should be done; and then let us see who will attempt to close this chapel door against the lambs of the Lord who come here for pasture in their need.”
“The lambs shall have pasture and shall have their pastor,” said St. George, laughing. “We’ll move this chapel to ground that is our own, and make everything as right as a trivet for you. You don’t want to intrude, I’m sure.”
Mr. Puddleham’s eloquence was by no means exhausted; but at last, when they had left the chapel, and the ground immediately around the chapel which Mr. Puddleham would insist upon regarding as his own, they did manage to shake him off.
“And now, Mr. Fenwick,” said Lord St. George, in his determined purpose to throw oil upon the waters, “what is this unfortunate quarrel between you and my father?”
“You had better ask him that, my lord.”
“I have asked him, of course—and of course he has no answer to make. No doubt you intended to enrage him when you wrote him that letter which he showed me.”
“Certainly I did.”
“I hardly see how good is to be done by angering an old man who stands high in the world’s esteem.”
“Had he not stood high, my lord, I should probably have passed him by.”
“I can understand all that—that one man should be a mark for another’s scorn because he is a Marquis, and wealthy. But what I can’t understand is, that such a one as you should think that good can come from it.”
“Do you know what your father has said of me?”
“I’ve no doubt you both say very hard things of each other.”
“I never said an evil thing of him behind his back that I have not said as strongly to his face,” said Mr. Fenwick, with much of indignation in his tone.
“Do you really think that that mitigates the injury done to my father?” said
