’And you must remember that if it is not your duty as a clergyman to give up your living, you can have no right, seeing that you have a wife and family, to throw it away as an indulgence to your pride.  Consult any other friend you please—­Mr Robarts, or the dean himself.  I am quite sure that any friend who knows many of the circumstances as I know will advise you to hold the living, at any rate till after the trial.  You can refer any such friend to me.—­Believe me, to be yours very truly, Mortimer Tempest’

Mr Crawley walked about again with this letter in his pocket, but on this occasion he did not go in the direction of Hoggle End.  From Hoggle End he could hardly hope to pick up further lessons of wisdom.  What could any Giles Hoggett say to him beyond what he had said to him already?  If he were to read the doctor’s letter to Hoggett, and to succeed in making Hoggett understand it, Hoggett could only caution him to be dogged.  But it seemed to him that Hoggett and his new friend at Silverbridge did not agree in their doctrines, and it might be well that he should endeavour to find out which of them had most of justice on his side.  He was quite sure that Hoggett would advise him to adhere to his project of giving up the living—­if only Hoggett could me made to understand the circumstances.

’He had written, but had not as yet sent away his letter to the dean.

His letter to the bishop would be but a note, and he had postponed the writing of that till the other should be copied and made complete.

He had sat up late into the night composing and altering his letter to his old friend, and now that the composition was finished he was loth to throw it away.  Early in this morning, before the postman had brought to him Dr Tempest’s urgent remonstrance, he had shown to his wife the draft of his letter to the dean.  ‘I cannot say that it is not true,’ she had said.

‘It is certainly true.’

’But I wish, my dear, you would not send it.  Why should you take any step till the trial be over?’

‘I shall assuredly send it,’ he had replied.  ’If you will peruse it again, you will see that the epistle would be futile were it kept till I shall have been proved to be a thief.’

‘Oh, Josiah, such words kill me.’

’They are not pleasant, but it will be well that you should become used to them.  As for the letter, I have taken some trouble to express myself with perspicuity, and I trust that I may have succeeded.’  At that time Hoggett was altogether in the ascendant; but now, as he started on his walk, his mind was somewhat perturbed by the contrary advice of one, who after all, might be as wise as Hoggett.  There would be nothing dogged in the conduct recommended to him by Dr Tempest.  Were he to follow the doctor’s advice, he would be trimming his sails, so as to catch any slant of a breeze that might be favourable to him.  There could be no doggedness in a character that would submit to such trimming.