The Case of Richard Meynell

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"Decide it for yourselves!" he said with his familiar smile. "It is your right."

And in another moment, the door had opened and shut, and he was gone.

* * * * *

He had no sooner disappeared than a tumultuous scene developed in the
Church room.

Beswick, the sub-agent and local preacher, a sandy-haired, spectacled, and powerfully built man, sprang on to the platform, to the right hand of Dawes, and at last secured silence by a passionate speech in defence of Meynell and in denunciation of the men who in order to ruin him ecclesiastically were spreading these vile tales about him "and a poor lady that has done many a good turn to the folk of this village, and nothing said about it too!"

"Don't you, sir"—he said, addressing Barron with a threatening finger—"don't you come here, telling us what to think about the man we've known for twenty years in this parish! The people that don't know Richard Meynell may believe these things if they please—it'll be the worse for them! But we've seen this man comforting and uplifting our old people in their last hours—we've seen him teaching our children—and giving just a kind funny word now an' again to keep a boy or a girl straight—aye, an' he did it too—they knew he had his eye on 'em! We've seen him go down these pits, when only a handful would risk their lives with him, to help them as was perhaps past hope. We've seen him skin himself to the bone that other men might have plenty—we've heard him Sunday after Sunday. We know him!" The speaker brought one massive hand down on the other with an emphasis that shook the room. "Don't you go talking to us! If Richard Meynell won't go to law with you and the likes of you, sir, he's got his reasons, and his good ones, I'll be bound. And don't you, my friends"—he turned to the room—"don't you be turned back from this furrow you've begun to plough. You stick to your man! If you don't, you're fools, aye, and ungrateful fools too! You know well enough that Albert Beswick isn't a parson's man! You know that I don't hold with Mr. Meynell in many of his views. There's his views about 'election,' and the like o' that—quite wrong, in my 'umble opinion. But what does that matter? You know that I never set foot in Upcote Church till three years ago—that bishops and ceremonies are nought to me—that I came to God, as many of you did, by the Bible class and the penitent form. But I declare to you that Richard Meynell, and the men with him, are out for a big thing! They're out for breaking down barriers and letting in light. They're out for bringing Christian men together and letting them worship freely in the old churches that our fathers built. They're out for giving men and women new thoughts about God and Christ, and for letting them put them into new words, if they want to. Well, I say again, it's a big thing! And Satan's out, too, for stopping it! Don't you make any mistake about it! This bad business—of these libels that are about—is one of the obstacles in our race he'll trip us up on, if he can. Now I put it to you—let us clear it out o' the way this very night, as far as we're concerned! Let us send the Rector such a vote of confidence from this meeting as'll show him fast enough where he stands in Upcote—aye, and show others too! And as for these vile letters that are going round—I'd give my right hand to know the man who wrote them!—and the story that you, sir"—he pointed again to Barron—"say you took from poor Judith Sabin when her mind was clouded and she near her end—why, it's base minds that harbour base thoughts about their betters! He shall be no friend of mine—that I know—that spreads these tales. Friends and neighbours, let us keep our tongues from them—and our children's tongues! Let us show that we can trust a man that deserves our trust. Let us stand by a good man that's stood by us; and let us pray God to show the right!"

The greater part of the audience, sincerely moved, rose to their feet and cheered. Barron endeavoured to reply, but was scarcely listened to. The publican East sat twirling his hat in his hands, sarcastic smiles going out and in upon his fat cheeks, his furtive eyes every now and then consulting the tall spinster who sat beside him, grimly immovable, her spectacled eyes fixed apparently on the lamp above the platform.

Flaxman wished to speak, but was deterred by the reflection that as a newcomer in the district he had scarcely a valid right to interfere. He and Rose stayed till the vote of confidence had been passed by a large majority—though not so large as that which had accepted the new Liturgy—after which they drove home rather depressed and ill at ease. For in truth the plague of anonymous letters was rather increasing than abating. Flaxman had had news that day of the arrival of two more among their own country-house acquaintance of the neighbourhood. He sat down, in obedience to a letter from Dornal, to write a doleful report of the meeting to the Bishop.

* * * * *

Meynell received the vote of confidence very calmly, and wrote a short note of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion of his case in its various aspects, old and new, ran raging through England, he went about his work as usual, calm in the centre of the whirlwind, though the earth he trod seemed to him very often a strange one. He prepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the Modernist; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to the unravelling of Philip Meryon's history.