But just as he was about to start he heard the clatter of a gig. Up came Mr Thumble to the door of the parsonage, and having come down from his gig was about to enter the house as though it were his own. Mr Crawley greeted him in the pathway, raising his hat from his head, and expressing a wish that Mr Thumble might not feel himself fatigued with his drive. 'I will not ask you into my poor house,' he said, standing in the middle of the pathway; 'for that my wife is ill.'
'Nothing catching, I hope?' said Mr Thumble.
'Her malady is of the spirit rather than of the flesh,' said Mr Crawley.
'Shall we go to the church?'
'Certainly--by all means. How about the surplice?'
'You will find, I trust, that the churchwarden has everything in readiness. I have notified him expressly your coming, with the purport that it may be so.'
'You'll take part in the service, I suppose?' said Mr Thumble.
'No part--no part whatever,' said Mr Crawley, standing still for a moment as he spoke, and showing plainly by the tone of his voice how dismayed he was, how indignant he had been made, by so indecent a proposition. Was he giving up his pulpit to a stranger for any reason less cogent than one which made it absolutely imperative of him to be silent in that church which had so long been his own?
'Just as you please,' said Mr Thumble. 'Only it's rather hard lines to have to do it all myself after coming all the way from Barchester this morning.' To this Mr Crawley condescended to make no reply whatever.
In the porch of the church, which was the only entrance, Mr Crawley introduced Mr Thumble to the churchwarden, simply by a wave of the hand, and then passed on with his daughter to a seat which opened upon the aisle. Jane was going on to that which she had hitherto always occupied with her mother in the little chancel; but Mr Crawley would not allow this. Neither to him nor to any of his family was there attached any longer the privilege of using the chancel of the church of Hogglestock.
Mr Thumble scrambled into the reading-desk some ten minutes after the proper time, and went through the morning service under, what must be admitted to be, serious difficulties. There were the eyes of Mr Crawley fixed upon him throughout the work, and a feeling pervaded him that everybody there regarded him as an intruder. At first this was so strong upon him that Mr Crawley pitied him, and would have encouraged him had it been possible. But as the work progressed, and as custom and the sound of his own voice emboldened him, there came to the man some touches of the arrogance which so generally accompanies cowardice, and Mr Crawley's acute ear detected the moment when it was so. An observer might have seen that the motion of his hands was altered as they were lifted in prayer. Though he was praying, even in prayer he could not forget the man who was occupying the desk.
Then came the sermon, preached very often before, lasting exactly half-an-hour, and then Mr Thumble's work was done. Itinerant clergymen, who preach now here and now there, as it had been the lot of Mr Thumble to do, have at any rate this relief--that they can preach their sermons often. From the communion-table Mr Thumble had stated that, in the present peculiar circumstances of the parish, there would be no second service at Hogglestock for the present; and this was all he said or did peculiar to the occasion. The moment of the service was over and he got into his gig, and was driven back to Barchester.
'Mamma,' said Jane, as they sat at dinner, 'such a sermon I am sure was never heard in Hogglestock before. Indeed, you can hardly call it a sermon. It was downright nonsense.'
'My dear,' said Mr Crawley energetically, 'keep your criticisms for matters that are profane; then, though they be childish and silly, they may at least be innocent. Be critical of Eurypides, if you must be critical.' But when Jane kissed her father after dinner, she, knowing his humour well, felt assured that her remarks had not been taken altogether in ill part.
Mr Thumble was neither seen nor heard of again in the parish during the entire week.