Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
“We have found the chaplain all you described him. Discipline is
impossible with such a man; here is an order for his suspension.”
Hawes's eyes sparkled. “We will enter it into the book, meantime you are
to see it executed.” Hawes went out, but presently returned.
“He won't go, gentlemen.”
“What do you mean by he won't go?” said Williams.
“I told him your orders; and he said, 'Tell their worships they are
exceeding their authority, and I won't go.' Then I said, 'They give you
half an hour to pack up and then you must pack off.'”
“He! he! he! and what did he say?”
“'Oh, they give me half an hour, do they?' says he--'you take them
this'--and he wrote this on a slip of paper--here it is.”
The slip contained these words--
[Greek letters]
While the justices were puzzling over this, Hawes added, “Gentlemen, he
said in his polite way, 'If it is like the prison rules and beats their
comprehension, you may tell them it means--
“'There is many a slip
'Twixt the cup and the lip.'”
“Well, Mr. Hawes--what next?”
“'I am victualed for a siege,' says he, and he goes into his own room,
and I heard him shoot the bolt.”
“What does that mean?” inquired Mr. Palmer.
“It means, sir, that you won't get him out except by kicking him out.”
Hawes had been irritating their wounded vanity in order to get them up
to this mark.
“Then turn him out by force,” said Williams. But the other two were
wiser. “No, we must not do that--we can keep him out if once he crosses
the door.”
“I will manage it for you, gentlemen,” said Mr. Hawes.
“Do.”
Mr. Hawes went out and primed Fry with a message to Mr. Eden that a
gentleman had ridden over from Oxford to see him, and was at his house.
Mr. Eden was in his room busy collecting and arranging several papers.
He had just tied them up in a little portfolio when he heard Fry's voice
at the door. When that worthy delivered his message his lip curled with
scorn. But he said, “Very well.” I will disappoint the sly boobies,
thought he. But the next moment, looking out of his window, he saw a
fly with a gray horse coming along the road. “At last,” he cried, and
instantly unbolted his door, and issued forth with his little portfolio
under his arm. He had scarce taken ten steps when a turnkey popped out
from a corner and stood sentinel over his room-door, barring all return.
Mr. Eden smiled and passed on along the corridor. He descended from the
first floor to the basement. Here he found Hawes affecting business, but
not skillfully enough to hide that he was watching Mr. Eden out.
In the yard leading to the great door he found the injustices. Aha!
thought he--waiting to see me out. He raised his hat politely. Williams
took no notice. The others slight.
“There is many a slip
'Twixt the cup and the lip,”
said he to them, looking them calmly over, then sauntered toward the
gate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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