‘A very queer case this is of my cousin Crawley’s,’ said Toogood to Walker, when the ladies had left the dining-room.

’A most distressing case.  I never knew anything so much talked of in our part of the country.’

‘He can’t have been a popular man, I should say.’

’No; not popular—­not in the ordinary way;—­anything but that.  Nobody knew him personally before this matter came up.’

’But a good clergyman, probably?  I’m interested in the case, of course as his wife is my first-cousin.  You will understand, however, that I know nothing of him.  My father tried to be civil to him once, but Crawley wouldn’t have it at all.  We all thought he was mad then.  I suppose he has done his duty in his parish?’

‘He has quarrelled with the bishop, you know,—­out and out.’

’Has he, indeed?  But I’m not sure that I think very much about bishops, Walker.’

’That depends very much on the particular bishop.  Some people say ours isn’t all that a bishop ought to be, while others are very fond of him.’

‘And Mr Crawley belongs to the former set, that’s all?’ said Mr Toogood.

’No, Mr Toogood; that isn’t all.  The worst of your cousin is that he has an aptitude to quarrel with everybody.  He is one of those men who always think themselves to be ill-used.  Now our dean, Dr Arabin, has been his very old friend—­and as far as I can learn, a very good friend; but it seems that Mr Crawley has done his best to quarrel with him too.’

‘He spoke of the dean in the highest terms to me.’

’He may do that—­and yet quarrel with him.  He’d quarrel with his own right hand, if he nothing else to quarrel with.  That makes the difficulty, you see.  He’ll take nobody’s advice.  He thinks we’re all against him.’

‘I suppose the world has been heavy on him, Mr Walker?’

‘The world has been very heavy on him,’ said John Eames, who had now been left free to join the conversation, Mr Summerkin having gone away to his lady-love.  ‘You must not judge him as you do other men.’

‘That is just it,’ said Mr Walker.  ’And to what result will that bring us?’

‘That we ought to stretch a point in his favour,’ said Toogood.

‘But why?’ asked the attorney from Silverbridge.  ’What do we mean when we say that one man isn’t to be trusted as another?  We simply imply that he is not what we call responsible.’

‘And I don’t think Mr Crawley is responsible,’ said Johnny.

‘Then how can he be fit to have charge of a parish?’ said Mr Walker.  ’You see where the difficulty is.  How it embarrasses one all round.  The amount of evidence as to the cheque is, I think, sufficient to get a verdict in an ordinary case, and the Crown has no alternative but so to treat it.  Then his friends come forward—­and from sympathy with his sufferings, I desire to be ranked among the number—­and say, ’Ah, but you should spare this man, because he is not responsible.’