Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXI.

The quiet little town of Tarningham was more quiet than ever about the hour of twelve each day; for, according to good old primeval habits, noon was the period for feeding. Men ate, beasts ate, and birds ate, and we all know that eating is a silent process. It is the greatest mistake in the world for doctors to tell you to talk while you are eating, or else it is the bitterest sarcasm. They must either mean that your digestion should be spoiled, or else that you are in the habit of talking without thinking. But we, will make a sort of corollary of it. "Man should not think when he is eating, man should not talk without thinking; ergo, man should not talk at his dinner." Therefore the people of Tarningham were wise; for never was there such a silent town at the hour of twelve o'clock, when they were eating. Doctor Miles could hear his own footfall with the most perfect distinctness, as he walked along the High-street; and a good broad foot it was, with a square-toed shoe and a buckle in it.

But Doctor Miles did not attend to the sound of his footfall; he was, indeed, busily thinking of something else, with his eyes bent down--but not his head--he rarely bent his head--holding it upright and straight, and a little stiff, by the natural effect of mind on body. His meditations were very deep, so much so, that it required an extraordinary apparition to rouse him from his reverie. The sight, however, of a human being in the streets of Tarningham a little after twelve, was quite enough to produce that effect; and at the distance of about two hundred yards from the door of the White Hart, he was startled by beholding the diminutive form and somewhat contorted person, of the poor little pot-boy, Billy Lamb, coming towards him with an empty jug in his hand. Nobody attended to Billy's meals. He got them how he could, where he could, and when he could. When all the rest were eating, he was sent with a jug of beer here, or a pint of gin there, and came back to feed upon the cold remnants of what the rest had eaten warm, if, indeed, they left him anything; but yet the fat landlord, ostlers, stable-boys, and barmaids, all thought that Billy was very well off. The landlord thought so, because he declared he had taken the boy in from charity; and the ostlers, and the post-boys, and the barmaids believed it. O, charity! charity! thou perverted and misused term. Since the first words that were uttered by Adam in his garden, down to the moment when one of the world's great men declared that language was intended to conceal men's thoughts, no word in the whole dictionary has ever been applied to cover so many sins as thou hast. Thou art the robe of vanity every day; tricking it out in subscription lists, almshouses, hospitals; thou art the cloak of pride and haughtiness, the pretext of every petty tyrant who seeks a slave, the excuse of avarice, and greed, and narrow-mindedness--ever, ever coupled with a lie! In what human heart art thou ever found pure and unadulterated? The foul-mouthed slanderer of a neighbour's fame, who gives a sixpence to a beggar or a pound to an infirmary, is a charitable person. The scoffing sneerer at virtue he cannot imitate, who flings away money profusely for the sole gratification of a loose habit, is called charitable. The hard-hearted man who denies others their rights, or he who cheats his followers of their due reward, or he who grinds the faces of his workmen with excessive toil, or he who is harsh and stern in his own household, fierce and censorious to others, a despot with his wife, a tyrant with his children, dies, and, in a pompous will, bequeaths a portion of his ill-gotten wealth to build an asylum, and perpetuate his name, and is praised and honoured as a charitable man.

That boy, forced to labour day and night, without consideration, without comfort, without a kind word, fed upon refuse, palleted on straw, yet doing more than the whole household altogether, was taken in from charity! Believe it, reader, if you can. For my part, I don't believe a word of it. I am quite sure that worthy Mr. Groomber wanted somebody particularly, of an active and willing disposition, to carry out the beer, and to attend to all those little matters which Mr. Groomber could not do himself, and which his servants did not choose to do, and that in taking in Billy Lamb for his own convenience, he persuaded himself, and tried to persuade the public too, that he was doing an act of charity. It is an extraordinary thing to consider how often in the great tragic farce of the world we are our own spectators; or, in other words, how continually, when we act a part, we consider ourselves one of the audience, and strive to deceive that individual the very first.

However that might be, there was Billy Lamb, the pot-boy, just before Doctor Miles, with an empty tankard in his hand; and the good doctor no sooner beheld him, than he stopped, and, in a kindly tone, asked him how the world went with him. Now Doctor Miles was a great man in the neighbourhood; he had property of his own of not very great extent, but which rendered the living that he held but an accessory to his principal means of subsistence. He did not live by the altar, but for the altar; and there are no such keen drawers of distinctions as the lower classes. Of this thing all clergymen may be sure, that he who makes a trade of his profession, who exacts the uttermost penny which he has a right to, and something more, who increases burial fees, and makes broad the borders of all his dues, will always be held in contempt. Of the butcher, the baker, and the grocer, the lower orders expect such things. The exaction of a farthing on half-a-pound, more than is really just, they know is a part of the privileges of the knife, the oven, and the scales and weights. But with the ministers of a pure and holy religion, whose grand and fundamental principle is charity and abnegation of self, they expect a higher and a wider sense of benevolence, a more large and disinterested view of the relations of a pastor and flock. Thick must be the veil that covers from the eyes of the humble and the needy that greedy and grasping spirit which too frequently, like the ghoul of Eastern fable, preys among the sepulchres of the dead, and takes advantage of the moment of overwhelming distress and agony of mind, to urge the coarse claims of priestly avarice; claims, but too frequently, untenable in law and always barbarous, even when not illegal--dues which should be swept away for ever, which should no longer exist as a constant source of heart-burning and complaint between pastor and people, making the one derive a portion of his living by laying a tax most onerous and hard to be borne, either upon the joys or the sorrows of his parishioners, and the others to look upon their teacher as one who sets at defiance the first principles of the Gospel that he preaches, following "avarice which is idolatry," and forgetting charity, "which covers a multitude of sins."

Luckily, both by position and inclination, Doctor Miles was exempt from all such reproaches. His necessities did not force him into meannesses, and his natural disposition would never have suffered him to fall into them, whatever his circumstances might have been. One heard nothing in his parish of enormous charges for a brick grave, swollen surplice-fees, that would make a cholera, a plague, or a pestilence so rich a harvest, that the minister who would pray in his desk against plague, pestilence, and famine, would be the grossest of hypocrites. He did not look upon his churchyard as the most valuable and productive part of his glebe, to be manured by the corpses of his parishioners, and bear a cent-per-cent crop in monuments and grave-stones. The consecration of the bishop he did not look upon as fertilising the land for his own enrichment, but contented himself with the bare amount of the moderate fee awarded by the law, and neither asked nor received a penny more. Many of the neighbouring clergy called him a weak and prejudiced man, and exclaimed loudly against him for neglecting the interests, or, as they called them, "the rights of the church." But, somehow, his parishioners loved him, though he was rather an austere man, too, and never spared invective or exhortation in case of error and misconduct. The secret, perhaps, was, that they were convinced of his disinterestedness. He took from no man more than was his due; he required of no man more than he had the warrant of Scripture for requiring. His private fortune gave him the means of charity, and to that object all his private fortune was devoted. Every one in the neighbourhood knew that Doctor Miles could have a finer house, could keep a better table, could maintain a smarter equipage; but, at the same time, they were aware of two things, first, that his income was not as large as it might have been had he chosen to exact the uttermost farthing; and, secondly, that it was not for the purpose of hoarding his money that he did not spend it upon himself.

Thus Doctor Miles, as well may be conceived, was very much reverenced in the neighbourhood; his rebukes were listened to, and sometimes taken to heart; his advice was sought, and sometimes followed; his opinions were always respected, if his injunctions were not always obeyed; and his severity of manner was very well understood not to imply any real harshness of heart.

The cap was off Billy Lamb's head in a moment, when he approached Dr. Miles; but he did not venture to speak to him till the doctor, after gazing at him for a moment in a fit of absence, exclaimed, "Ah, William, how goes it with you? and how is your poor mother?"

"Oh, quite well," replied the youth, in his peculiarly sweet, low voice; "mother's better than she was, though she has never been so well since poor Mary's death."

"How should she? how should she?" exclaimed Doctor Miles; "these things, my man, affect young people but little, old people but little; for young people are full of their own life, and with them that consideration supersedes all thoughts connected with death; and old people are so full of the conviction of life's brevity, that the matter of a few years more or less is to them insignificant. It is to the middle-aged that the death of the young is terrible; it clouds the past with regrets, and the future with apprehensions. But I want to speak to your mother, Bill; she must forgive Stephen Gimlet, and try and help him, and be a comfort to him."

"I wish she would," said the boy, looking down; "I am sure Stephen is not so bad as people call him, and never would have taken poor Mary away, if mother had not been so strict."

"I must talk to her," answered Doctor Miles; "but you may tell her, if you see her before I do, that Stephen is a changed man, and Sir John Slingsby has taken him for a gamekeeper.--Tell her, will you," he continued, after a moment's thought, "that the cottage on the moor has been burned down, and the poor little boy, Charley, would have been burnt in it, because there was no mother, nor other relation of any kind to help him, had it not been for a gentleman who is staying up at the hall coming by at the time and rescuing the boy from the flames."

"Ah, I am sure that was the gentleman that was down here," exclaimed the pot-boy; "Captain Hayward they called him; for he was a kind, good gentleman as ever lived, and gave me enough for mother to put something by against the winter."

"That is no reason why he should be walking on the moor," said Doctor Miles, quickly. "However, I must talk to her, for the boy must not be left alone any more; and we must see what can be done. But now tell me, Bill, what wages do you get?"

"A shilling a week and my victuals," replied the boy, in an unrepining tone; "it is very kind of Mr. Groomber, I am sure; and I do what I can but that's not much."

"Humph!" said Doctor Miles, with not the most affirmative tone in the world; "well, I'll come by and by, and see your mother; can you go down and tell her that I am coming?"

"Oh yes, Sir," replied the boy; "they give me a quarter of an hour to eat my dinner, so I can go very well; but I must go first to Mr. Slattery's, the doctor; for Mrs. Billiter told me to bid him come up quietly to Mr. Wittingham, as if just for a call; for the old gentleman came home ill last night, and has taken to his bed."

"Mr. Slattery is out," replied Doctor Miles. "I met him on the road; but leave the message, Bill, leave the message, and I will go up and see Mr. Wittingham myself."

Thus saying, he bade the boy adieu, and walked on to the smart white gates of Mr. Wittingham's highly-cultivated place, and, passing through the garden, rang the bell at the door, which was opened to him by a servant in a straight-cut blue coat, black and yellow striped waistcoat, and black plush breeches, with drab gaiters.

In answer to Doctor Miles's inquiry, the servant informed him that Mr. Wittingham was in bed, and could see no one; but the worthy clergyman pressed for admission, saying that his business was of importance. A consultation then took place between the man-servant and the housekeeper, and, after some hesitation, Mrs. Billiter went up to her master to inform him of Doctor Miles's visit, with a particular injunction to impress upon the mind of the sick man that the clergyman's business was of moment. She came down the next minute and begged the visitor to walk up, with as low a curtsey as her long stiff stays would permit her to make; and, she leading the way, Doctor Miles followed with a slow and meditative step.

The room-door was gently unclosed, and the clergyman, entering, fixed his eyes upon the figure of Mr. Wittingham as he lay in the bed, and a sad sight it was. Terrible was the effect that one night of sickness had wrought upon him. The long, thin, bony limbs were plainly visible through the bed-clothes, and so far, Mr. Wittingham well, or Mr. Wittingham ill, showed no difference; but there was the face upon the pillow, and there were to be seen traces enough, more of suffering than sickness. The features had suddenly grown sharp, and the cheeks hollow; the eye was bright and wandering, the brow furrowed, and the hue of the complexion, partly from the light-brown moreen curtain of the bed--the most detestable curtains in the world--partly from a sleepless, anxious, suffering night, had grown yellow, if not cadaverous. Patches of short-cut gray hair, usually concealed by the wig, were now suffered, by the nightcap, to show themselves upon the temples. The large front teeth, the high nose and the protuberant chin, were all more prominent than usual; and certainly Mr. Wittingham, in cotton nightcap and clean linen sheets, was not the most prepossessing person that ever the eye rested upon.

Doctor Miles, however, advanced quietly to his bedside, and, sitting down in a chair, opened the conversation in a kindly tone.

"I am sorry to find you ill, my good friend," he said; "you seemed well enough last night."

"Ay, ay, that's another thing, doctor," replied the invalid; "but I got a terrible fright after that, and that has given me quite a turn."

"As to the way you will direct that turn," answered the clergyman, "you will need some good advice, Mr. Wittingham."

"Ay, ay," said the magistrate, somewhat impatiently. "Billiter there has been boring me for an hour to send for that fellow Slattery; but I don't think he could do me any good. He is a humbug, as well as the most of those doctors."

"But not more than most," answered Doctor Miles, "which is a great thing in this part of the country. You may go, Mrs. Billiter; I wish to be alone with Mr. Wittingham."

Mrs. Billiter, who had remained upon the best, the oldest, and most invariable excuse, that of putting the room in order, for the purpose of gaining an insight into all that took place, dropped a curtsey, and withdrew unwillingly.

Mr. Wittingham eyed Doctor Miles with a shrewd, inquiring, but timid glance. It was evident that he would have dispensed, with the doctor's coming, that he did not half like it, that he wished to know what he could want, why he came, what was his business, what could be his object, and why his manner was so grave and cautious. Heaven knows that Mr. Wittingham was not an imaginative man; that he was not subject to the sports of fancy, and seldom or ever presented to his mind any image of things, past or future, unless it were in a large parchment-covered volume, in which was inscribed in large letters, upon the last page: "Balance, in favour of Mr. Wittingham, sixty-nine thousand odd hundred pounds." Nevertheless, on this occasion the worthy gentleman's imagination ran restive; for, as a weedy old horse, when people endeavour to whip it into any thing; more than its ordinary pace, turns up its heels, and flings them, into the face of its driver; so did Mr. Wittingham's fancy at once assert its predominance over reason, by presenting to him for his choice every possible sort of business upon which Doctor Miles might, could, would, should, or ought, have come to Tarningham Lodge. He, therefore, sat in his bed with his nightcap on his head, grinning at him, like Yorick's skull, with a ghastly smile. Courtesy has its agonies, as well as other things; and the politeness of Mr. Wittingham was agonising. Speak he could not, that was out of the question; but, with a grim contortion of countenance, he motioned the worthy doctor to a chair, and the other took it with provoking deliberation, concealing, under an air of imperturbable coolness, a certain degree of embarrassment, and a considerable degree of feeling.

To tell the truth, he much desired that Mr. Wittingham would begin first; but he soon saw that there was no hope of such being the case, and his profession had accustomed him to the initiative. Wherefore, after three preliminary hums, he went on to say, "My dear Sir, I thought it better to come down to you to-day, to speak to you on a somewhat painful subject, but one which had better be grappled with at once; and that rather in conversation with me, a minister of peace and goodwill towards men, than with others, who, though equally bound by the injunctions of the religion which I unworthily teach and they believe, have what they consider duties apart, which might interfere with an unlimited exercise of Christian charity."

Excellent, Doctor Miles; you are keeping the poor man in a state of torture. Why will you preach, when you are not in the pulpit. But Doctor Miles was not a prosy man by nature; he was short, brief, and terse in his general conversation, and only preached when he was in embarrassment. That such was evidently the case at present greatly increased the evils of Mr. Wittingham's position; and when the doctor was talking of Christian charity, the sick magistrate was mentally sending him to a place where very little charity of any kind is supposed to be practised--not that we know any thing of the matter; for even in the present day, with steamboats, railroads, and all the appliances of human ingenuity to boot, tourists and travellers have not pushed their researches quite as far as the place alluded to; or, at all events, have not favoured the world with an account of their discoveries.

After the above proem, Dr. Miles stumbled for a moment or two, and then recovering himself, continued thus:

"The unfortunate affair which took place last night must doubtless give rise to legal inquiries, which will, depend upon it, be pursued with great energy and determination; for Captain Hayward, I find, followed the unhappy young man at once; and, if I judge rightly, he is not one to abandon his object when it is but half-attained."

"Oh, that Captain Hayward, that Captain Hayward!" cried Wittingham, angrily, "he is always meddling with other people's affairs."

"Nay, my dear Sir," answered Dr. Miles; "this was his affair, and the affair of every body in the room. The ball passed within an inch of his friend Mr. Beauchamp's head, and might have been intended for him--at least, so Captain Hayward might have supposed, had not your own exclamation at the moment--"

"My exclamation!" cried Mr. Wittingham, with a look of horror, "what did I exclaim?"

Doctor Miles did not answer him directly at first, replying merely, "you said enough, Mr. Wittingham, to show who it was, in your opinion, that had fired the shot."

Mr. Wittingham clasped his hands together in an agony of despair and sunk with his head upon the pillow, as if he would fain have hid his face in the bed-clothes, but Dr. Miles went on kindly to say,

"Moreover, my dear Sir, your exclamation was sufficient to make me feel for you deeply--to feel for you with sincere compassion, and to desire anxiously to serve and assist you."

Now Mr. Wittingham was not accustomed to be compassionated; he did not like the thing and he did not like the word; he was a vain man and a proud man, and compassion was a humiliation which he did not like to undergo; but still anxiety and trouble were the strongest, and he repeated two or three times in a quick, sharp voice,

"What did I say? What did I say?"

"You said that it was your son," answered the clergyman, "and various corroborative circumstances have transpired which--"

But by this time Mr. Wittingham was in such a state of agitation that it was evident he would hear nothing further that was said to him at the moment, and therefore the good doctor stopped short. The magistrate covered his eyes; he wrung his hands hard together; he gazed forth at the sky; he even wept.

"Then it is all over, all over," he cried, at length, "it is all over," by which he meant that all his dreams of importance, his plans of rural grandeur and justice-of-the-peaceism, his "reverence" on the bench and at the quarter-sessions, his elevation as a country gentleman, and his oblivion as a small trader, were all frustrated, gone, lost, smothered and destroyed by his son's violent conduct and his own indiscreet babbling in the moment of fear and grief.

"Ah, Doctor Miles," he said, "it's a sad business, a sad business. As you know it all, there is no use of my holding my tongue. Harry did do it; and, indeed, he told me before that he would do it, or something like it; for he came here--here, down into Tarningham, and told me on the very bench, that if I pushed that business about Mrs. Clifford's carriage any further it should go worse with me. It was a threat, my dear doctor, and I was not to be deterred from doing my duty by a threat, and so I told him, and immediately took up the man they call Wolf, on suspicion--for Sir John had been down here, swearing at my door, and what could I do, you know."

Now Doctor Miles had seen a great deal of the world, and, though a good and benevolent man, and one not at all inclined to think the worst of one of his fellow-creatures, yet he could not help seeing that there was a great deal of weakness and eagerness to shuffle any burden from himself in Mr. Wittingham's reply. There are certain sorts of knowledge which force themselves upon our understanding, whether we will or not, and amongst these is discrimination of human character. People, long accustomed to the world, find great difficulty even in believing a practised liar, however much they may wish to do so on certain points. They see through, in spite of themselves, all the little petty artifices with which self hides itself from self, and still more clearly through the mean policy by which the mean man strives to conceal his meanness from the eyes of his fellow-creatures. Whether it be the pitiful man, in any of the common walks of life, exacting more than his due, and striving to hide his greed under the veil of liberality and disinterestedness, whether it be the candidate, on the canvass or on the hustings, escaping from the explanation of his intentions upon the plea of independence and free judgment, or whether it be the minister of the crown evading the fulfilment of obligations, or shrinking from the recognition of support by all the thousand subterfuges in the vast dictionary of political dishonesty, the man learned in the world's ways, however willing to be duped, cannot believe and confide, cannot admire and respect. The case with Mr. Wittingham was a very simple one. Doctor Miles saw and understood the whole process of his mind in a moment; but he was sorry for the man; he felt what agony it must be to have such a son, and he hastened as far as possible to relieve him.

"I think, my dear Sir," he said, "that you have made some mistakes in this matter; I do not presume to interfere with any man's domestic arrangements, but I will candidly acknowledge that I have thought, in watching the progress of your son's education, that it was not likely to result in good to his character--nay, hear me out, for I am only making this observation as a sort of excuse, not so much for him, as for the advice I am going to give you, which can only be justified by a belief that the young man is not so depraved by nature as by circumstances."

They were hard words, very hard words, that Doctor Miles uttered, but there was a stern impressiveness in his manner which overawed Mr. Wittingham, kept down his vanity from revolting against the implied accusation, and prevented him from even writhing openly at the plain terms in which his son's conduct was stigmatised.

"Under these circumstances," continued Doctor Miles, "I think it much better that you send your son out of the country as fast as possible, afford him such means as will enable him to live in respectability, without indulging in vice; warn him seriously of the end to which his present courses will lead him, and give him to understand that if he abandons them, and shows an inclination to become a good and useful member of society, the faults of his youth may be forgotten, and their punishment be remitted. On the latter point, I think I may say that, should he at once quit the country, no further steps against him will be taken. You know very well that Sir John Slingsby, though hot and irascible, is a kind and good-natured man at heart."

"Sir John Slingsby! Sir John Slingsby!" exclaimed Mr. Wittingham, bustling up with an air of relief, as if something had suddenly turned a screw or opened a safety-valve, and delivered him from the high pressure of Doctor Miles's grave and weighty manner, "Sir John Slingsby, Sir, dare do nothing against me or mine; for there is a balance against him. He may talk, and he may bully and crack his jokes.--I have submitted to all that a great deal too long, without requiring a settlement of the account; and there's five thousand pounds against him I can tell you, which he will find it a difficult matter to pay, I have a notion--ah, ah, Doctor Miles, I know what I am about. Five thousand pounds are five thousand pounds, Doctor Miles, and I know all the situation of Sir John's affairs, too; so he had better not meddle with me, he had better not enrage me; for he will risk less in letting all this foolish business pass off quietly without inquiry, than producing inquiry into his own affairs in the county. A good jolly gentleman I don't mean to say he is not; but I can tell you he is tottering on the verge of ruin, and I don't want to force him over unless he drives me: and so he had better not, that's all."

Doctor Miles had gazed at him as he spoke with a keen, subacid look, and in some degree even of amusement, and this calm, supercilious look greatly annoyed and embarrassed Mr. Wittingham towards the end of his tirade. It was evident that Doctor Miles was not in the least taken unprepared, that the intimation of Sir John Slingsby's position in worldly affairs neither surprised nor disappointed him in the least; and when Mr. Wittingham at length stopped in some embarrassment, his reply tended still further to puzzle and confound the worthy magistrate for he merely said,

"Perhaps so, Mr. Wittingham, but I do not think Sir John Slingsby's pecuniary circumstances will at all prevent him from performing his public duties. If he has reason to believe that your son is in the road to amendment, he is very likely to look over his present offences, as they are, in some degree, personal to himself and his family. If he imagines that he will go on from one crime to another, depend upon it he will think it only right to cut his career short at once. The only fear is, that if this debt which you speak of ever crosses his mind, it will only serve as a bar to his lenity; for no man is so likely to be seized with a sudden determination to punish with the utmost rigour, if he were to suspect for one moment that his debt to you, whatever might be the amount, might be assigned as the motive by any one for his forbearance. I would not advise you to urge such a plea, Mr. Wittingham; but, depend upon it, if this debt is considered at all, it will be considered to your disadvantage. Besides all this, you must recollect that other persons were present; therefore Sir John has not the whole matter in his own hands. However, I have given you the best advice in my power; you can take it, if you like; if not, the consequences be upon your own head; and you must not blame any one for any thing that may occur in the due course of law."

And rising from the bedside, he was about to depart, when Mr. Wittingham stopped him.

"Stay, stay, my dear Sir," said the magistrate, eagerly; "let us discuss this question a little further; I wish no harm to Sir John Slingsby, and I trust he wishes none to me. But are you sure there were other persons who heard the words I spoke? Very unfortunate, very unfortunate, indeed."

Now the truth was, that Mr. Wittingham was in a state of high irritation. The comments which Doctor Miles had made, or rather the hints which he had thrown out in regard to the education of his son, had greatly exasperated him. He never liked it to be even hinted that he was wrong; it was a sort of accusation which he never could bear; and the worthy doctor would have been permitted in patience to proceed with any other of Mr. Wittingham's friends or enemies without the least interruption; but it was natural that he should take fire in regard to his son. Why natural? it may be asked. For this reason, that the education of his son was associated intimately with Mr. Wittingham's own vanity; and the idea of his faults being owing to education, was a direct reflection upon Mr. Wittingham himself.

Doctor Miles, however, regarded none of these things; and though the worthy magistrate desired him to stay, he declared he had no time, saying,

"Further discussion is out of the question. I have given you advice that I know to be kind, that I believe to be good. Take it, if you judge so; leave it, if you judge otherwise. Pursue what course you think best in regard to Sir John Slingsby; but, at all events, do not attempt to influence him, by pecuniary considerations; for be assured that, although he may, by imprudence, have embarrassed his property, he has not arrived at that pitch of degradation which is only brought on step by step from the pressure of narrow circumstances, and which induces men to forget, great principles in order to escape from small difficulties. Good morning, Mr. Wittingham;" and, without further pause, Doctor Miles quitted the room, and walked down stairs. In the hall he met Mr. Wharton, the attorney, going up, with a somewhat sour and discontented face; but all that passed between the two gentlemen was a cold bow, and the clergyman left the house in possession of the lawyer.