That was a sore shake for poor Clerk William! Excommunicated! Why, the thought of such a fate to one who had been brought up in a veneration of the church, whose father was a clerk, and thought himself as fully consecrated as a bishop!--it was no joke to such a one to hear there was a chance of his being excommunicated. Yet he would not "give it up!" No, that he wouldn't: his father had said, "Nobody could turn the parish clerk out of his office so long as he had morality on his side: his office was his freehold:" so his father, Clerk Gervase, of pious memory, had said; and he, Clerk William, would abide by it. So he took the desk on the following Sunday, and kept up the war as usual. Yet he often pondered on "definitive sentences" and "interlocutory decrees,"--when he had learnt the words by heart,--wondering what kind of awful things they were. The effect of issuing this writ, however, so completely astounded the parishioners that they thenceforth only whispered where they had shouted, and were silent where they had whispered, in all matters relating to the parson: true, whenever a paper for convening any particular parochial meeting was attached to the church door, bearing the usual signature of ---- ----, Incumbent Minister, some wag would be sure to scratch out one of the words, so as to make it read "Incumbrance" Minister, instead: but beyond that there was, now, no further daring. And, at last, the summons came, and no less than a score of witnesses were taken to the Consistory in Lincoln Cathedral, to be sworn that they would give evidence on the case. And week by week--week by week--the prosing "examinations" were proceeded with, on a certain day of the week, until _a thousand folios_ of "examination" were counted; and when a parishioner asked how much he must pay for a copy of the depositions for Clerk William, the reckoning was made by the "registrar" of the court, at the usual sum per folio--and he was told it would merely be such a trifle as _five-and-twenty pounds_! And then the calculations, and the wonders, and wishes that were expressed, night by night, and day by day, in every cottage at Stow,--nay, in all the villages round, and the wagers that were laid in every village ale-house on a Saturday night, what would be the cost of the whole trial, and how long Clerk William would be imprisoned, and _where_ they would imprison him,--for nobody was so slow of heart or understanding, as not to know beforehand that the "Vicar-General in Spirituals" would give judgment _against_ the poor "parish clerk," as a matter of course, whenever the trial should come to an end.