There was a rustling demonstration of surprise in the company, such as you may have observed in a country congregation when they hear an allusion to their week-day affairs from the pulpit. It was equally astonishing to the aunts and uncles to find a parson introduced into Mr Tulliver’s family arrangements. As for uncle Pullet, he could hardly have been more thoroughly obfuscated if Mr Tulliver had said that he was going to send Tom to the Lord Chancellor; for uncle Pullet belonged to that extinct class of British yeoman who, dressed in good broadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to church, and ate a particularly good dinner on Sunday, without dreaming that the British constitution in Church and State had a traceable origin any more than the solar system and the fixed stars. It is melancholy, but true, that Mr Pullet had the most confused idea of a bishop as a sort of a baronet, who might or might not be a clergyman; and as the rector of his own parish was a man of high family and fortune, the idea that a clergyman could be a schoolmaster was too remote from Mr Pullet’s experience to be readily conceivable. I know it is difficult for people in these instructed times to believe in uncle Pullet’s ignorance; but let them reflect on the remarkable results of a great natural faculty under favouring circumstances. And uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for ignorance. He was the first to give utterance to his astonishment. “Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for?” he said, with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr Glegg and Mr Deane, to see if they showed any signs of comprehension. “Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by what I can make out,” said poor Mr Tulliver, who, in the maze of this puzzling world, laid hold of any clue with great readiness and tenacity. “Jacobs at th’ academy’s no parson, and he’s done very bad by the boy; and I made up my mind, if I send him to school again, it should be to somebody different to Jacobs. And this Mr Stelling, by what I can make out, is the sort o’ man I want. And I mean my boy to go to him at Midsummer,” he concluded, in a tone of decision, tapping his snuff-box and taking a pinch. “You’ll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh, Tulliver? The clergymen have highish notions, in general,” said Mr Deane, taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when wishing to maintain a neutral position. “What! do you think the parson’ll teach him to know a good sample o’ wheat when he sees it, neighbour Tulliver?” said Mr Glegg, who was fond of his jest, and having retired from business, felt that it was not only allowable but becoming in him to take a playful view of things. “Why, you see, I’ve got a plan i’ my head about Tom,” said Mr Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his glass.