Bulstrode became every day more disgusted. Work on the great book had come to a standstill. Skelton still got piles of books every month from Europe, and stacks of letters from literary and scientific men, but his heart and soul apparently were in the Campdown course. The whole neighbourhood was arrayed in hostile camps on the question. Some of the women, like Mrs. Shapleigh, openly, and Elizabeth Blair, secretly, opposed it; but among the men, only Mr. Conyers and Bulstrode were not enthusiastically in favour of it. Skelton persistently described Blair’s horses as “the Newington stable,” although Blair himself continued to allude to them deprecatingly as his “horse or two.” And Skelton was always making inquiries into the pedigree of Blair’s horses, which rather staggered Blair, who knew that they were not above reproach, and that an occasional strain of good blood did not entitle him to call them thoroughbreds. Nevertheless, this could not cure him of his delusion that his “horse or two” would one day beat Skelton’s very best blood and brawn. CHAPTER XI. In the course of time the bishop arrived upon his yearly visitation. He was a large, handsome man, with an apostolic manner. He never condemned; he only remonstrated, and was in himself a harmless and well-meaning person. But he found a most unsatisfactory state of affairs in Abingdon parish. The breach between the pastor and the flock was so wide that, had they not been the slowest and least aggressive people in the world, they would have long since parted company. The bishop spent one night at the rectory, and thereafter accepted very thankfully the lavish hospitality of the laity. The rain leaked into the bishop’s room at the rectory, and its steady drip, drip, drip kept him awake. The bed upon which his episcopal form reposed was very hard, and next morning, when he peered out of his curtainless window, he saw Mr. Conyers chopping up wood for the black cook. That was enough for the bishop. The next day he went to Belfield, preferring Mrs. Shapleigh’s company to the discomforts of Conyers’s meagre home. Of course, bishop and pastor had talked about the Campdown race course, and Mr. Conyers had been gently chided for excessive zeal. Mr. Conyers thereupon said his conscience would not let him remain silent when he saw the evil the matter was doing. He knew at least a dozen members of his congregation who had become bankrupt through frequenting the course, and he knew another one--he meant Blair, but did not speak the name--who was on the highway to ruin. He had been grieved to see Mr. Skelton’s immense fortune and great personal influence thrown in the scale in favour of racing, and it was from the sincerest sense of duty that he had preached in season and out of season against what had become a public shame and scandal.