s head. "Whether we were wise or unwise, we were discussing
this affair."

"Whether I stole Mr. Soames's money?"

"No; nobody supposed for a moment you had stolen it."

"I cannot understand how they should suppose anything else, knowing,
as they do, that the magistrates have committed me for the theft.
This took place at Framley, you say, and probably in Lord Lufton's
presence."

"Exactly."

"And Lord Lufton was chairman at the sitting of the magistrates at
which I was committed. How can it be that he should think otherwise?"

"I am sure that he has not an idea that you were guilty. Nor yet has
Dr. Thorne, who was also one of the magistrates. I don't suppose one
of them then thought so."

"Then their action, to say the least of it, was very strange."

"It was all because you had nobody to manage it for you. I thoroughly
believe that if you had placed the matter in the hands of a good
lawyer, you would never have heard a word more about it. That seems
to be the opinion of everybody I speak to on the subject."

"Then in this country a man is to be punished or not, according to
ability to fee a lawyer!"

"I am not talking about punishment."

"And presuming an innocent man to have the ability and not the will
to do so, he is to be punished, to be ruined root and branch, self
and family, character and pocket, simply because, knowing his own
innocence, he does not choose to depend on the mercenary skill of a
man whose trade he abhors for the establishment of that which should
be clear as sun at noon-day! You say I am innocent, and yet you tell
me I am to be condemned as a guilty man, have my gown taken from me,
be torn from my wife and children, be disgraced before the eyes of
all men, and be made a byword and a thing horrible to be mentioned,
because I will not fee an attorney to fee another man to come and
lie on my behalf, to browbeat witnesses, to make false appeals, and
perhaps shed false tears in defending me. You have come to me asking
me to do this, if I understand you, telling me that the archdeacon
would so advise me."

"That is my object." Mr. Crawley, as he had spoken, had in his
vehemence risen from his seat, and Mr. Robarts was also standing.

"Then tell the archdeacon," said Mr. Crawley, "that I will have none
of his advice. I will have no one there paid by me to obstruct the
course of justice or to hoodwink a jury. I have been in courts of
law, and know what is the work for which these gentlem