When at Silverbridge, he began at once to 'rummage about'. His chief rummaging was to be done at Mr Walker's table; but before dinner he had time to call upon the magistrate's clerk, and ask a few questions as to the proceedings at the sitting from which Mr Crawley was committed. He found a very taciturn old man, who was nearly as difficult to deal with in any rummaging process as a porcupine. But, nevertheless, at last he reached a state of conversation which was not absolutely hostile. Mr Toogood pleaded that he was the poor man's cousin--pleaded that, as the family lawyer, he was naturally the poor man's protector at such a time as the present--pleaded also that as the poor man was so very poor, no one else could come forward on his behalf--and in this way somewhat softened the hard sharpness of the old porcupine's quills. But after all this, there was very little to be learned from the old porcupine. 'There was not a magistrate on the bench,' he said, 'who had any doubt that the evidence was sufficient to justify them in sending the case to the assizes. They had all regretted,'--and the porcupine said in his softest moment--'that the gentleman had come there without a legal adviser.'
'Ah, that's been the mischief of it all!' said Mr Toogood, dashing his hand against the porcupine's mahogany table. 'But the facts are so strong, Mr Toogood!' 'Nobody there to soften 'em down, you know,' said Mr Toogood, shaking his head. Very little more than this was learned from the porcupine; and then Mr Toogood went away, and prepared for Mr Walker's dinner.
Mr Walker had invited Dr Tempest and Miss Anne Prettyman and Major Grantly to meet Mr Toogood, and had explained, in a manner intended to be half earnest and half jocose, that though Mr Toogood was an attorney, like himself, and was at this moment engaged in a noble way on behalf of his cousin's husband, without any idea of receiving back even the money which he would be out of pocket, still he wasn't quite--not quite, you know--'not quite so much of a gentleman as I am'--Mr Walker would have said, had he spoken out freely that which he insinuated. But he contented himself with the emphasis he put upon the 'not quite', which expressed his meaning fully. And Mr Walker was correct in his opinion of Mr Toogood. As regards the two attorneys I will not venture to say that either of them was not a 'perfect gentleman'. A perfect gentleman is a thing which I cannot define. But undoubtedly Mr Walker was a bigger man in his way that was Mr Toogood in his, and did habitually consort in the county of Barsetshire with men of higher standing than those with whom Mr Toogood associated in London.
It seemed to be understood that Mr Crawley was to be the general subject of conversation, and no one attempted to talk about anything else.
Indeed, at this time, very little else was talked about in that part of the county;--not only because of the interest naturally attaching to the question of the suspected guilt of a parish clergyman, but because much had become lately known of Mr Crawley's character, and because it was known also that an internecine feud had arisen between him and the bishop. It had undoubtedly become the general opinion that Mr Crawley had picked up and had used a cheque which was not his own;--that he had, in fact, stolen it; but there was, in spite of that belief, a general wish that he might be acquitted and left in his living. And when the tidings of Mr Crawley's victory over the bishop at the palace had become bruited about, popular sympathy went with the victor. The theft was, as it were, condoned, and people made excuses which were not always rational, but which were founded on the instincts of true humanity. And now the tidings of another stage in the battle, as fought against Mr Crawley by the bishop, had gone forth through the county, and men had heard that the rural dean was to be instructed to make inquiries which should be preliminary to proceedings against Mr Crawley in an ecclesiastical court. Dr Tempest, who was now about to meet Mr Toogood at Mr Walker's, was the rural dean to whom Mr Crawley would have to submit himself in any such inquiry; but Dr Tempest had not as yet received from the bishop any official order on the subject.
'We are so delighted to think that you have taken up your cousin's case,' said Mrs Walker to Mr Toogood in almost a whisper.
'He is not just my cousin, himself,' said Mr Toogood, 'but of course it's all the same thing. And as to taking up his case, you see, my dear madam, he won't let me take it up.'
'I thought you had. I thought you were down here about it.'
'Only on the sly, Mrs Walker. He has such queer ideas that he will not allow a lawyer to be properly employed; and you can't conceive how hard that makes it. Do you know him, Mrs Walker?'
