obeyed him, loved him, and believed in him.

So, upon the whole, at the time with which we are dealing, did the
diocese, the county, and that world of parents by whom the boys were sent
to his school. But this had not come about without some hard fighting.
He was over fifty years of age, and had been Rector of Bowick for nearly
twenty. During that time there had been a succession of three bishops,
and he had quarrelled more or less with all of them. It might be juster
to say that they had all of them had more or less of occasion to find
fault with him. Now Dr. Wortle,--or Mr. Wortle, as he should be called in
reference to that period,--was a man who would bear censure from no human
being. He had left his position at Eton because the Head-master had
required from him some slight change of practice. There had been no
quarrel on that occasion, but Mr. Wortle had gone. He at once commenced
his school at Bowick, taking half-a-dozen pupils into his own house. The
bishop of that day suggested that the cure of the souls of the
parishioners of Bowick was being subordinated to the Latin and Greek of
the sons of the nobility. The bishop got a response which gave an
additional satisfaction to his speedy translation to a more comfortable
diocese. Between the next bishop and Mr. Wortle there was, unfortunately,
misunderstanding, and almost feud for the entire ten years during which
his lordship reigned in the Palace of Broughton. This Bishop of Broughton
had been one of that large batch of Low Church prelates who were brought
forward under Lord Palmerston. Among them there was none more low, more
pious, more sincere, or more given to interference. To teach Mr. Wortle
his duty as a parish clergyman was evidently a necessity to such a bishop.
To repudiate any such teaching was evidently a necessity to Mr. Wortle.
Consequently there were differences, in all of which Mr. Wortle carried
his own. What the good bishop suffered no one probably knew except his
wife and his domestic chaplain. What Mr. Wortle enjoyed,--or Dr. Wortle,
as he came to be called about this time,--was patent to all the county and
all the diocese. The sufferer died, not, let us hope, by means of the
Doctor; and then came the third bishop. He, too, had found himself
obliged to say a word. He was a man of the world,--wise, prudent, not
given to interference or fault-finding, friendly by nature, one who
altogether hated a quarrel, a bishop beyond all thin