Der Praefekt

his youngest
    brother.
     
    Samuel stayed till the servant came, chatting and patting the horse;
    but as soon as Bold had disappeared through the front door, he stuck
    a switch under the animal’s tail to make him kick if possible.
     
    The church reformer soon found himself _tête-à-tête_ with the
    archdeacon in that same room, in that sanctum sanctorum of the
    rectory, to which we have already been introduced.  As he entered he
    heard the click of a certain patent lock, but it struck him with no
    surprise; the worthy clergyman was no doubt hiding from eyes profane
    his last much-studied sermon; for the archdeacon, though he preached
    but seldom, was famous for his sermons.  No room, Bold thought, could
    have been more becoming for a dignitary of the church; each wall was
    loaded with theology; over each separate bookcase was printed in small
    gold letters the names of those great divines whose works were ranged
    beneath: beginning from the early fathers in due chronological order,
    there were to be found the precious labours of the chosen servants
    of the church down to the last pamphlet written in opposition to the
    consecration of Dr Hampden; and raised above this were to be seen
    the busts of the greatest among the great: Chrysostom, St Augustine,
    Thomas à Becket, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Laud, and Dr Philpotts.
     
    Every appliance that could make study pleasant and give ease to the
    overtoiled brain was there; chairs made to relieve each limb and
    muscle; reading-desks and writing-desks to suit every attitude;
    lamps and candles mechanically contrived to throw their light on any
    favoured spot, as the student might desire; a shoal of newspapers to
    amuse the few leisure moments which might be stolen from the labours
    of the day; and then from the window a view right through a bosky
    vista along which ran a broad green path from the rectory to the
    church,—at the end of which the tawny-tinted fine old tower was seen
    with all its variegated pinnacles and parapets.  Few parish churches
    in England are in better repair, or better worth keeping so, than that
    at Plumstead Episcopi; and yet it is built in a faulty style: the body
    of the church is low,—so low, that the nearly flat leaden roof would
    be visible from the churchyard, were it not for the carved parapet
    with which it is surrounded.  It is cruciform, though the transepts
    are irregular, one being larger than the other; and the tower is much
    too high in proportion to the church.  But the colour of the building
    is perfect; it is that rich yellow gray which one finds nowhere but in
    the south and west of England, and which is so strong a characteristic
    of most of our old houses of Tudor architecture.  The stone work also
    is beautiful; the mullions of the windows and the thick tracery of
    the Gothic workmanship is as rich as fancy can desire; and though in
    gazing on such a structure one knows by rule that the old priests who
    built it, built it wrong, one cannot bring oneself to wish that they
    should have made it other than it is.
     
    When Bold was ushered into the book-room, he found its owner standing
    with his back to the empty fire-place ready to receive him, and he
    could not but perceive that that expansive brow was elated with
    triumph, and that those full heavy lips bore more prominently than
    usual an appearance of arrogant success.
     
    “Well, Mr Bold,” said he;—“well, what can I do for you?
    Very happy, I can assure you, to do anything for such a friend
    of my father-in-law.”
     
    “I hope you’ll excuse my calling, Dr Grantly.”
     
    “Certainly, certainly,” said the archdeacon; “I can assure you, no
    apology is necessary from Mr Bold;—only let me know what I can do for
    ihm. “
     
    Dr Grantly was standing himself, and he did not ask Bold to sit, and
    therefore he had to tell his tale standing, leaning on the table, with
    his hat in his hand.  He did, however, manage to tell it; and as the
    archdeacon never once interrupted him, or even encouraged him by a
    single word, he was not long in coming to the end of it.
     
    “And so, Mr Bold, I’m to understand, I believe, that you are desirous
    of abandoning this attack upon Mr Harding.”
     
    “Oh, Dr Grantly, there has been no attack, I can assure you—”
     
    “Well, well, we won’t quarrel about words; I should call it an
    attack;—most men would so call an endeavour to take away from a man
    every shilling of income that he has to live