“Not so,” replied the Bishop, rather more impatiently; “you well know there is a difference between granting a lease of our own, and confirming the lease of another; between a presentative benefice and an impropriation; between a public usage and a private one: still you refuse to note these distinctions, and exclaim that I have confirmed the lease, and will not, according to my promise, confirm yours.”
The last remark of the Bishop’s appeared to be unanswerable, and Sir John seemed to think so too, as, instead of replying to the argument directly, he began to beg the question, and give way to the overbearing petulance of a spoiled child of fortune.
“It is not,” replied he, “the loss of the thing that I regard a dobkin, but your unkind dealing; it shall lessen me hereafter to expect no sweet fruit from so sour a stock. But my lord of St. Asaph, you know my stand in the world. I never have been a man to make requests and be denied; therefore having never failed before in my requests, my grief is the greater.”
“Pray Heaven, Sir John, that your grief of missing be not like Ahab’s grief for Naboth’s vineyard,” was the Bishop’s pithy and characteristic reply.
Here Sir John sprang to his feet, exclaiming almost fiercely, “My lord, my lord, I am not of a nature to put up with wrongs; for as I have studied for your good, and wrought the same, so be assured of me as bitter an enemy as ever I was a steadfast friend!”
“A fiery little father have I found to-day,” thought Twm, as he noticed the vehemence of the baronet.
“I am ashamed of you,” continued he, “almost forgetting the courtesy of a gentleman, and the firm, but mild and patriachal character of the Bishop. I am ashamed for you, that you have hereby given cause to your enemies and mine to descant on the ingrate disposition. You have made use of gentlemen when they serve you, and afterwards discard them, on the pretence of conscience, forsooth! I laboured in your cause, my lord, as if it had been to save the life of one of my children.”
These hard uncompromising words did not exasperate the venerable prelate, whose command of temper under trying circumstances, and unjust aspersions, was worthy of his reputation. He rose with dignified demeanour, and said, “Amongst other kindnesses, Sir John you gave good testimony of me; I pray you let me continue worthy of it; so many chips have been already hewed from the church, that it is ready to fall; you ought rather to help than to despoil it. Thus it stands with us, Sir John, which I pray you Mr. Martyn note. You ask of me certain leases—you ask me to injure my successor in my diocese, to benefit you! you urge the favours I have received at your hands, and claim from me rewards that are not mine to give. Were I to grant your desires I should prove myself a dishonest, unconscionable, irreligious man, a sacrilegious robber of the church, a perfidious spoiler of my diocese, and an unnatural foe to preachers and scholars. I do verily think it were better to rob on the highway than to do the thing you request. However hard you may take my denial, be it known to you, if the father and mother whom I loved and honoured were alive and made such requests, I should have the grace to say nay.”
The Bishop took his seat, and began to repeat his regrets, when the Baronet started from the table, and in a furious mood began to pace the saloon to and fro; but stopping suddenly he exclaimed, “Your verbal love I esteem as nothing! I have ten sons—(eleven interrupted the Bishop, with quite jocoseness;) I say I have ten sons,” repeated the Baronet; and “if ever they forget this,”—“Eleven sons and the last as good as the best;” interrupted the Bishop again. “But where is this gallant deliverer?”
Mr. Martyn beckoned our hero down, while Sir John suddenly resumed his seat at the table. On the good Prelate’s pressing Twm to name in what manner he could reward his services, he at last replied, “By yielding to Sir John’s request as far as your Lordship sees right.”