It was late in the evening before he got out his small stock of best letter-paper, and sat down to work at his letter. He first addressed himself to the bishop; and what he wrote down to the bishop was as follows:-'HOGGLESTOCK PARSONAGE, April 11, 186-'MY LORD BISHOP, 'I have been in communication with Dr Tempest, of Silverbridge, from whom I have learned that your lordship has been pleased to appoint a commission of inquiry--of which commission he is the chairman--with reference to the proceedings which it may be necessary that you should take, as bishop of the diocese, after my forthcoming trial at the approaching Barchester assizes. My lord, I think it right to inform you, partly with a view to the comfort of the gentlemen named on that commission, and partly with the purport of giving you the information which I think that a bishop should possess in regard to the clerical affairs of his own diocese, that I have by this post resigned my preferment at Hogglestock into the hands of the Dean of Barchester, by whom it was given to me. In these circumstances, it will, I suppose, be unnecessary for you to continue the commission which you have set in force; but as to that, your lordship will, of course, be the only judge.--I have the honour to be, my Lord Bishop, your most obedient and very humble servant, 'JOSIAH CRAWLEYPerpetual Curate of Hogglestock 'The Right Reverend 'The Bishop of Barchester, '&c, &c, &c The Palace, Barchester' But the letter which was of real importance--which was intended to say something--was that to the dean, and that also shall be given to the reader. Mr Crawley had been for a while in doubt how he should address his old friend in commencing this letter, understanding that its tone throughout must be, in a great degree, be mad conformable with its first words. He would fain, in his pride, have begun 'Sir'. The question was between that and 'My dear Arabin'. It had once between them always been 'Dear Frank,' and Dear Joe'' but the occasions for 'Dear Frank' and 'Dear Joe' between them had long been past. Crawley would have been very angry had he now been called Joe by the dean, and would have bitten his tongue out before he would have called the dean Frank. His better nature, however, now prevailed, and he began his letter, and completed it as follows:-'MY DEAR ARABIN, 'Circumstances, of which you have probably heard something, compel me to write to you, as I fear, at some length. I am sorry that the trouble of such a letter should be forced upon you during your holidays';--Mr Crawley, as he wrote this, did not forget to remind himself that he never had any holidays;--'but I think you will admit, if you will bear with me to the end, that I have no alternative.
'I have been accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds, which cheque was drawn by Lord Lufton on his London bankers, and was lost out of his pocket by Mr Soames, his lordship's agent, and was so lost, as Mr Soames states--but with an absolute assertion--during a visit which he made to my parsonage here at Hogglestock. Of the fact that I paid the cheque to a tradesman in Silverbridge there is no doubt.
When questioned about it, I first gave an answer which was so manifestly incorrect that it has seemed odd to me that Ishould not have had credit for a mistake from those who must have seen that detection was so evident. The blunder was undoubtedly stupid, and it now bears heavily on me. I then, as I have learned, made another error--of which I am aware that you have been informed. I said that the cheque had come from you, and in saying so, I thought that it had formed a portion of that alms which your open-handed benevolence bestowed upon me when I attended on you, not long before your departure, in your library. I have striven to remember the facts. It may be--nay, it probably is the case--that such struggles to catch some accurate glimpse of bygone things do not trouble you. You mind is, no doubt, clearer and stronger than mine, having been kept to its proper tune by greater and fitter work. With me, memory is all but gone, and the power of thinking is on the wane! I struggled to remember, and I thought that the cheque had been in an envelope which you handed to me--and I said so. I have since learned, from tidings received, as I am told, direct from yourself, that I was wrong in the second statement as I had been in the first. The double blunder has, of course, been very heavy on me.
'I was taken before the magistrates at Silverbridge, and was by them committed to stand my trial at the assizes to be holden in Barchester on the twenty-eighth of this month.
Without doubt, the magistrates had not alternative but to commit me, and I am indebted to them that they have allowed me my present liberty upon bail. That my sufferings in all this should have been grievous, you will understand. But on that head I shall not touch, were it not that I am bound to explain to you that my troubles with reference to this parish of Hogglestock, to which I was appointed by you, have not been the slightest of those sufferings. I felt at first, believing then that the world around me would think it unlikely that such a one as I had wilfully stolen a sum of money, that it was my duty to maintain myself in my church.
I did so maintain myself against an attack made upon me by the bishop, who sent over to Hogglestock one Mr Thumble, a gentleman doubtless in holy orders, though I know nothing and can learn nothing of the place of his cure, to dispossess me of my pulpit and to remove me from my ministrations among my people. To Mr Thumble I turned a deaf ear, and would not let him so much as open his mouth inside the porch of my church. Up to this time I myself have read the services, and have preached to the people, and have continued, as best I could, my visits to the poor and my labours in the school, though I know --no one knows as well--how unfitted I am for such work by the grief which has fallen upon me.
