Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 1.djvu/197

Rh "I suppose there are tithes at Hogglestock. Why are they not given up to the church, as they ought to be?"

"My dear Miss Prettyman, that is a very large subject, and I am afraid it cannot be settled in time to relieve our poor friend from his distress." Then Mr. Robarts escaped from the ladies in Mr. Walker's house, who, as it seemed to him, were touching upon dangerous ground, and went back to the yard of the George Inn for his gig,—the George and Vulture it was properly called, and was the house in which the magistrates had sat when they committed Mr. Crawley for trial.

"Footed it every inch of the way, blowed if he didn't," the ostler was saying to a gentleman's groom, whom Mr. Robarts recognized to be the servant of his friend, Major Grantly; and Mr. Robarts knew that they also were talking about Mr. Crawley. Everybody in the county was talking about Mr. Crawley. At home, at Framley, there was no other subject of discourse. Lady Lufton, the dowager, was full of it, being firmly convinced that Mr. Crawley was innocent, because the bishop was supposed to regard him as guilty. There had been a family conclave held at Framley Court over that basket of provisions which had been sent for the Christmas cheer of the Hogglestock parsonage, each of the three ladies, the two Lady Luftons and Mrs. Robarts, having special views of their own. How the pork had been substituted for the beef by old Lady Lufton, young Lady Lufton thinking that after all the beef would be less dangerous, and how a small turkey had been rashly suggested by Mrs. Robarts, and how certain small articles had been inserted in the bottom of the basket which Mrs. Crawley had never shewn to her husband, need not here be told at length. But Mr. Robarts, as he heard the two grooms talking about Mr. Crawley, began to feel that Mr. Crawley had achieved at least celebrity.

The groom touched his hat as Mr. Robarts walked up. "Has the major returned home yet?" Mr. Robarts asked. The groom said that his master was still at Plumstead, and that he was to go over to Plumstead to fetch the major and Miss Edith in a day or two. Then Mr. Robarts got into his gig, and as he drove out of the yard he heard the words of the men as they returned to the same subject. "Footed it all the way," said one. "And yet he's a gen'leman, too," said the other. Mr. Robarts thought of this as he drove on, intending to call at Hogglestock on that very day on his way home. It was undoubtedly the fact that Mr. Crawley was recognized to be a gentleman by all who knew him, high or low, rich or poor, by those who thought well of him