After that, after those church services were over,
he sank again and never roused himself till the dreaded
day had come.
WHAT THE WORLD THOUGHT OF IT
Opinion at Silverbridge, at Barchester, and throughout
the county, was very much divided as to the guilt
or innocence of Mr Crawley. Up to the time of
Mrs Crawley’s visit to Silverbridge, the affair
had not been much discussed. To give Mr Soames
his due he had be no means been anxious to press the
matter against the clergyman; but he had been forced
to go on with it. While the first cheque was missing,
Lord Lufton had sent him a second cheque for the money,
and the loss had thus fallen upon his lordship.
The cheque had of course been traced, and inquiry had
of course been made as to Mr Crawley’s possession
of it. When that gentleman declared that he had
received it from Mr Soames, Mr Soames had been forced
to contradict and to resent such assertion. When
Mr Crawley had afterwards said that the money had
come to him from the dean, and when the dean had shown
that this was also untrue, Mr Soames, confident as
he was that he had dropped the pocket-book at Mr Crawley’s
house, could not but continue the investigation.
He had done so with as much silence as the nature
of the work admitted. But by the day of the magistrate’s
meeting at Silverbridge, the subject had become common
through the county, and men’s minds were much
divided.
All Hogglestock believed their parson to be innocent;
but then all Hogglestock believed him to be mad.
At Silverbridge the tradesmen with whom he had dealt,
and to whom he had owed, and still owed, money, all
declared him to be innocent. They knew something
of the man personally, and could not believe him to
be a thief. All the ladies at Silverbridge, too,
were sure of his innocence. It was to them impossible
that such a man should have stolen twenty pounds.
‘My dear,’ said the eldest Miss Prettyman
to poor Grace Crawley, ’in England, where the
laws are good, no gentleman is ever made out to be
guilty when he is innocent; and your papa, of course,
is innocent. Therefore you should not trouble
yourself.’ ‘It will break papa’s
heart,’ Grace had said, and she did trouble
herself. But the gentlemen in Silverbridge were
made of sterner stuff, and believed the man to be
guilty, clergyman and gentleman though he was.
Mr Walker, who among the lights in Silverbridge was
the leading light, would not speak a word upon the
subject to anybody; and then everybody, who was anybody,
knew that Mr Walker was convinced of the man’s
guilt. Had Mr Walker believed him to be innocent,
his tongue would have been ready enough. John
Walker, who was in the habit of laughing at his father’s
good nature, had no doubt upon the subject. Mr
Winthrop, Mr Walker’s partner, shook his head.
People did not think much of Mr Winthrop, excepting
certain unmarried ladies; for Mr Winthrop was a bachelor,
