Meanwhile, Mr. Pell had left behind no small excitement at Nowelhurst. For a rumour took wing after morning service—when the wings of fame are briskest in all country parishes—that parson John was gone to London to complain to the Queen that Sir Cradock Nowell never came to church now, nor even sent his agent thither, to manage matters for him. For Mr. Garnet still retained his stewardship among them, though longing to be quit of it, and discharging his duties silently, and not with his old pronouncement, because his health was weaker. The vivid power of vital force seemed to be failing the man who had stamped his character upon all people around him; because he never said a thing which he did not think, and scarcely ever thought a thing with any fear of saying it. Hitherto we have had of Bull Garnet by far the worse side uppermost. I will offer no excuses now for his too ready indulgence of his far too savage temper. In sooth, we meet with scarce any case in which excuses are undiscoverable. God and the angels find them always; our best earthly friends can see them, when properly pointed out; our enemies, when they want to make accusation of them. All I will say for Bull Garnet is (to invert the historianʼs sentence) “Hæc tanta viri vitia ingentes virtutes exæquabant”—“These blemishes, however dark, had grand qualities to redress them.” Strong affection, great scorn of falsehood, tenderness almost too womanly, liberality both of mind and heart, a real depth of sympathy—would all these co–exist with, or be lost in, one great vice? It appears to me that we are so toothed in, spliced and mortised, dovetailed, double–budded, and inarched, both of good and evil, that the wrong, instead of poisoning the right, often serves as guano to it. Nevertheless we had better be perfect—when we have found the way out. CHAPTER XVII.