Meanwhile the lawyer, left alone with his client, seemed as much averse as before to speaking out. Lord Dynmore had again to take the initiative. “Well, it is good enough, sir, is it not?” he said, frowning impatiently on his new adviser. “There is a clear case, I suppose!”
“I think your lordship had better hear first,” Mr. Bonamy answered, “how your late servant came to bring his story to me.” He proceeded to explain the course which the young clergyman had pursued in the parish from the first, and the opposition and ill-will it had provoked. He told the story from his own point of view, but with more fairness than might have been expected, although, as was natural, when he came to the matter of the sheep-grazing and the writ he took care to make his own case good. The earl listened and chuckled, and at last interrupted him.
“So you have been at him already?” he said, grinning.
“Yes,” the lawyer answered slowly. “I may say, indeed, that I have been in constant opposition to him since his arrival. Felton (the man who has just left us) knew that, and it led him to bring his tale to me this evening.”
“When he could get no more money out of the parson!” the earl replied with a sneer. “But, now, what is to be done, Mr. Bonamy?”
Mr. Bonamy did not at once answer, but stood looking much disturbed. His doubt and uneasiness, in fact, visibly increased as the seconds flew by, and still Lord Dynmore’s gaze, bent on him at first in impatience and later in surprise, seemed to be striving to probe his thoughts. He looked down at the table and frowned, as if displeased by the scrutiny; and when he at length spoke, his voice was harsher than usual. “I do not think, my lord,” he said, “that I can answer that question.”
“Do you want to take counsel’s opinion?”
“No, my lord,” Mr. Bonamy answered curtly. “I mean something different. I do not think, in fact, that I can act for your lordship in this matter.”
“Cannot act for me?” the earl gasped.
“That is what I mean,” Mr. Bonamy answered doggedly, a slight flush as of shame on his sallow cheek. “I have explained, my lord, that I have been constantly opposed to this young man, but my opposition has been of a public nature and upon principle. I have no doubt that he and others consider me his chief enemy in the place, and to that I have no objection. But I am unwilling that he or others should think that private interest has had any part in my opposition, and therefore, being churchwarden, I would prefer, though I must necessarily offend your lordship, to decline undertaking the business.”