Thumble shall proceed from hence to Hogglestock
on next Sunday," said the chaplain, "and shall relieve you for the
present from the burden of your duties. As to the future status of
the parish, it will perhaps be best that nothing shall be done till
the dean returns,--or perhaps till the assizes shall be over. This is
the bishop's opinion." It need hardly be explained that the promised
visit of Mr. Thumble to Hogglestock was gall and wormwood to Mr
Crawley. He had told the dean that should Mr. Thumble come, he would
endeavour to learn something even from him. But it may be doubted
whether Mr. Crawley in his present mood could learn anything useful
from Mr. Thumble. Giles Hoggett was a much more effective teacher.

"I will endure even that," he said to his wife, as she handed to him
back the letter from the bishop's chaplain.

CHAPTER LXIII

Two Visitors to Hogglestock

The cross-grainedness of men is so great that things will often
be forced to go wrong, even when they have the strongest possible
natural tendency of their own to go right. It was so now in these
affairs between the archdeacon and his son. The original difficulty
was solved by the good feeling of the young lady,--by that and by
the real kindness of the archdeacon's nature. They had come to terms
which were satisfactory to both of them, and those terms admitted of
perfect reconciliation between the father and his son. Whether the
major did marry the lady or whether he did not, his allowance was to
be continued to him, the archdeacon being perfectly willing to trust
himself in the matter to the pledge which he had received from Miss
Crawley. All that he had required from his son was simply this,--that
he should pull down the bills advertising the sale of his effects.
Was any desire more rational? The sale had been advertised for a day
just one week in advance of the assizes, and the time must have been
selected,--so thought the archdeacon,--with a malicious intention.
Why, at any rate, should the things be sold before any one knew
whether the father of the young lady was or was not to be regarded
as a thief? And why should the things be sold at all, when the
archdeacon had tacitly withdrawn his threats,--when he had given his
son to understand that the allowance would still be paid quarterly
with the customary archidiaconal regularity, and that no alteration
was intended in those settlements under which the Plumstead foxes
would, in the ripene