em English poetry, lines after lines, stanzas upon stanzas, in a
sweet low melancholy voice, on long winter evenings when occasionally
the burden of his troubles would be lighter to him than was usual.
Books in Latin and in French he read with as much ease as in English,
and took delight in such as came to him, when he would condescend
to accept such loans from the deanery. And there was at times a
lightness of heart about the man. In the course of the last winter he
had translated into Greek irregular verse the very noble ballad of
Lord Bateman, maintaining the rhythm and the rhyme, and had repeated
it with uncouth glee till his daughter knew it all by heart. And when
there had come to him a five-pound note from some admiring magazine
editor as the price of the same,--still through the dean's hands,--he
had brightened up his heart and had thought for an hour or two that
even yet the world would smile upon him. His wife knew well that he
was not mad; but yet she knew that there were dark moments with him,
in which his mind was so much astray that he could not justly be
called to account as to what he might remember and what he might
forget. How would it be possible to explain all this to a judge and
jury, so that they might neither say that he was dishonest, nor yet
that he was mad? "Perhaps he picked it up, and had forgotten," her
daughter said to her. Perhaps it was so, but she might not as yet
admit as much even to her child.

"It is a mystery, dear, as yet, which, with God's aid, will be
unravelled. Of one thing we at least may be sure; that your papa has
not wilfully done anything wrong."

"Of course we are sure of that, mamma."

Mrs. Crawley had many troubles during the next four or five days, of
which the worst, perhaps, had reference to the services of the Sunday
which intervened between the day of her visit to Silverbridge, and
the sitting of the magistrates. On the Saturday it was necessary
that he should prepare his sermons, of which he preached two on
every Sunday, though his congregation consisted only of farmers,
brickmakers, and agricultural labourers, who would willingly have
dispensed with the second. Mrs. Crawley proposed to send over to Mr
Robarts, a neighbouring clergyman, for the loan of a curate. Mr
Robarts was a warm friend to the Crawleys, and in such an emergency
would probably have come himself; but Mr. Crawley would not hear of
it. The discussion took place early on the Saturday morning, be