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If you please, sir, let there be an end of it;" and Mr Crawley waved his hand. I hope the reader will conceive the tone of Mr Crawley's voice, and will appreciate the aspect of his face, and will see the motion of his hand, as he spoke these latter words. Mr Thumble felt the power of the man so sensibly that he was unable to carry on the contest.
The bishop had hardly finished his letter when Mrs Proudie returned to the study, followed by the Rev Caleb Thumble. Mr Thumble was a little man, about forty years of age, who had a wife and children living in Barchester, and who existed on such chance clerical crumbs as might fall from the table of the bishop's patronage.
"My dear," she said, "I have arranged with Mr Thumble." She found him on this occasion sitting at his desk with papers before him, with a pen in his hand; and she could see at a glance that nothing had been written on the paper. What would she have thought had she known that when he placed the sheet before him he was proposing to consult the archbishop as to the propriety of his resignation!
Mr Thumble had suggested to Mrs Proudie, after their interview with the bishop and the giving up of the letter to the clerical messenger's charge, that before hiring a gig from the Dragon of Wantly, he should be glad to know, looking as he always did to "Mary Anne and the children", whence the price of the gig was to be returned to him.
But had he meant to be inconstant, surely he would never have come to Hogglestock! "I remember you well, sir," said Mr Crawley. "I am under no common obligation to you. You are at present one of my bailsmen." "There's nothing in that," said the major. Mr Thumble, who had caught the name of Grantly, took off his hat, which he had put on his head.
"I cannot say, Mr Robarts, that the Reverend Mr Thumble has recommended himself to me strongly either by his outward symbols of manhood or by such manifestation of his inward mental gifts as I have succeeded in obtaining.
Then Mr Robarts gave a look at Mr Thumble, and Mr Thumble retired into his shoes. "That is the question as to which we are called upon to advise the bishop," continued Dr Tempest. "And I must say that I think the bishop is right.
I think, you know, I don't mind saying this to you, that the palace should have provided us with a chaise and pair." This was ungrateful on the part of Mr Thumble, who had been permitted to ride miles upon miles to various outlying clerical duties upon the bishop's worn-out cob. "You see," continued Mr Thumble, "you and I go specially to represent the palace, and the palace ought to remember that.
Should it be so that Mr Thumble be sent hither again, I will sit under him, endeavouring to catch improvement from his teaching, and striving to overcome the contempt which I felt for him when he before visited this parish. I annex beneath my signature a copy of the letter which I have written to the bishop on this subject.
Mr Thumble was a poor creature, so poor a creature that, in spite of a small restless ambition to be doing something, he was almost cowed by the hard lines of Dr Tempest's brow.
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