Dr. Wortle’s School

were crushing the editor himself⁠—“such a fellow as that knows nothing of morality, nothing of honour, nothing of tenderness. What he did I would have done, and I’ll stick to him through it all in spite of the Bishop, in spite of the newspapers, and in spite of all the rancour of all my enemies.” Then he got up and walked about the room in such a fury that his wife did not dare to speak to him. Should he or should he not answer the newspaper? That was a question which for the first two days after he had read the article greatly perplexed him. He would have been very ready to advise any other man what to do in such a case. “Never notice what may be written about you in a newspaper,” he would have said. Such is the advice which a man always gives to his friend. But when the case comes to himself he finds it sometimes almost impossible to follow it. “What’s the use? Who cares what the Broughton Gazette says? let it pass, and it will be forgotten in three days. If you stir the mud yourself, it will hang about you for months. It is just what they want you to do. They cannot go on by themselves, and so the subject dies away from them; but if you write rejoinders they have a contributor working for them for nothing, and one whose writing will be much more acceptable to their readers than any that comes from their own anonymous scribes. It is very disagreeable to be worried like a rat by a dog; but why should you go into the kennel and unnecessarily put yourself in the way of it?” The Doctor had said this more than once to clerical friends who were burning with indignation at something that had been written about them. But now he was burning himself, and could hardly keep his fingers from pen and ink.

In this emergency he went to Mr. Puddicombe, not, as he said to himself, for advice, but in order that he might hear what Mr. Puddicombe would have to say about it. He did not like Mr. Puddicombe, but he believed in him⁠—which was more than he quite did with the Bishop. Mr. Puddicombe would tell him his true thoughts. Mr. Puddicombe would be unpleasant very likely; but he would be sincere and friendly. So he went to Mr. Puddicombe. “It seems to me,” he said, “almost necessary that I should answer such allegations as these for the sake of truth.”

“You are not responsible for the truth of the Broughton Gazette,” said Mr. Puddicombe.

“But I am responsible to a certain degree that false reports shall not be spread abroad as to what is done in my church.”

“You can contradict nothing that the newspaper has said.”

“It is implied,” said the Doctor, “that I allowed Mr. Peacocke to preach in my church after I knew his marriage was informal.”

“There is no such statement in the paragraph,” said Mr. Puddicombe, after attentive reperusal of the article. “The writer has written in a hurry, as such writers generally do, but has made no statement such as you presume. Were you to answer him, you could only do so by an elaborate statement of the exact facts of the case. It can hardly be worth your while, in defending yourself against the Broughton Gazette, to tell the whole story in public of Mr. Peacocke’s life and fortunes.”

“You would pass it over altogether?”

“Certainly I would.”

“And so acknowledge the truth of all that the newspaper says.”

“I do not know that the paper says anything untrue,” said Mr. Puddicombe, not looking the Doctor in the face, with his eyes turned to the ground, but evidently with the determination to say what he thought, however unpleasant it might be. “The fact is that you have fallen into a⁠—misfortune.”

“I don’t acknowledge it at all,” said the Doctor.

“All your friends at any rate will think so, let the story be told as it may. It was a misfortune that this lady whom you had taken into your establishment should have proved not to be the gentleman’s wife. When I am taking a walk through the fields and get one of my feet deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me rather than make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as though nothing had happened. The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged and scraped is more palpably dirt than the honest mud.”

“I will not admit that I am dirty at all,” said the Doctor.

“Nor do I, in the case which I describe. I admit nothing; but I let those who see me form their own opinion. If anyone asks me about my boot I tell him that it is a matter of no consequence. I advise you to do the same. You will only make the smudges more palpable if you write to the Broughton Gazette.”

“Would you say nothing to the boys’ parents?” asked the Doctor.

“There, perhaps, I am not a judge, as I never kept a school;⁠—but I think not. If any father writes to you, then tell him the truth.”

If the matter had gone no farther than this, the Doctor might probably have left Mr. Puddicombe’s house with a sense of thankfulness for the kindness rendered to him; but he did go farther, and endeavoured to extract from his friend some sense of the injustice shown by the Bishop, the Stantiloups, the newspaper, and his enemies in general through the diocese. But here he failed signally. “I really think, Dr. Wortle, that you could not have expected it otherwise.”

“Expect that people should lie?”

“I don’t know about lies. If people have told lies I have not seen them or heard them. I don’t think the Bishop has lied.”

“I don’t mean the Bishop; though I do think that