The poor bishop knew that it was useless to explain to her the various mistakes which she made—­which she was ever making—­as to the extent of his powers and the modes of procedure which were open to him.  When he would do so she would only rail at him for being lukewarm in his office, poor in spirit, and afraid of dealing roundly with those below him.  On the present occasion he did say a word, but she would not even hear him to the end.  ’Don’t tell me about rural deans, as if I didn’t know.  The rural dean has nothing to do with such a case.  The man has been committed for trial.  Send for Mr Chadwick at once, and let steps be taken before you are an hour older.’

‘But, my dear, Mr Chadwick can do nothing.’

‘Then I will see Mr Chadwick.’  And in her anger she did sit down and write a note to Mr Chadwick, begging him to come over to her at the palace.

Mr Chadwick was a lawyer, living in Barchester, who earned his bread from ecclesiastical business.  His father, and his uncle, and his grandfather and granduncles, had all been concerned in the affairs of the diocese of Barchester.  His uncle had been bailiff to the episcopal estates, or steward as he had been called, in Bishop Grantly’s time, and still contrived to draw his income in some shape from the property of the see.  The nephew had also been the legal assistant of the bishop in his latter days, and had been continued in that position by Bishop Proudie, not from love, but from expediency.  Mr John Chadwick was one of those gentlemen, two or three of whom are to be seen in connexion with every see—­who seem to be hybrids—­half-lay, half-cleric.  They dress like clergymen, and affect that mixture of clerical solemnity and clerical waggishness which is generally to be found among minor canons and vicars choral of a cathedral.  They live, or at least have their offices, half in the Close and half out of it—­dwelling as it were just on the borders of holy orders.  They always wear white neck-handkerchiefs and black gloves; and would be altogether clerical in their appearance, were it not that as regards the outward man they impinge somewhat on the characteristics of the undertaker.  They savour of the church but the savour is of the church’s exterior.  Any stranger thrown into chance contact with one of them would, from instinct, begin to talk about things ecclesiastical without any reference to things theological or things religious.  They are always most worthy men, much respected in the society of the Close, and I never heard of one of them whose wife was not comfortable or whose children were left without provision.

Such a one was Mr John Chadwick, and as it was a portion of his duties to accompany the bishop to consecrations and ordinations, he knew Dr Proudie very well.  Having been brought up, as it were, under the very wing of Bishop Grantly, it could not well be that he should love Bishop Grantly’s successor.  The old bishop and the new bishop had been so different that no man could like, or even esteem, them both.  But Mr Chadwick was a prudent man, who knew well the source from which he earned his bread, and he had never quarrelled with Bishop Proudie.  He knew Mrs Proudie also—­of necessity—­and when I say of him that he had hitherto avoided any open quarrel with her, it will I think be allowed that he was a man of prudence and sagacity.