but he could sympathise with his friend, and he did so; and
Mr Harding felt that he had received that for which he came.

There was another period of silence, after which the bishop
asked, with a degree of irritableenergy very unusual with him,

whether this 'pestilent intruder' (meaning John Bold) had
any friends in Barchester.

Mr Harding had fully made up his mind to tell the bishop
everything; to speak of his daughter's love, as well as his own

troubles; to talk of John Bold in his double capacity of future
son-in-law and present enemy; and though he felt it to be

sufficiently disagreeable, now was his time to do it.
'He is very intimate at my own house, bishop.' The bishop

stared. He was not so far gone in orthodoxy and church
militancy as his son, but still he could not bring himself to

understand how so declared an enemy of the establishment
could be admitted on terms of intimacy into the house, not

only of so firm a pillar as Mr Harding, but one so much injured
as the warden of the hospital.

'Indeed, I like Mr Bold much, personally,' continued the
disinterested victim; 'and to tell you the "truth"'--he hesitated

as he brought out the dreadful tidings--'I have sometimes
thought it not improbable that he would be my second son-in-law.'

The bishop did not whistle: we believe that they lose the power of
doing so on being consecrated; and that in these days one might

as easily meet a corrupt judge as a whistling bishop; but he
looked as though he would have done so, but for his apron.

What a brother-in-law for the archdeacon! what an alliance
for Barchester close! what a connection for even the episcopal

palace! The bishop, in his simple mind, felt no doubt that
John Bold, had he so much power, would shut up all cathedrals,

and probably all parish churches; distribute all tithes
among Methodists, Baptists, and other savage tribes; utterly

annihilate the sacred bench, and make shovel hats and lawn
sleeves as illegal as cowls, sandals, and sackcloth! Here was

a nice man to be initiated into the comfortable arcana of
ecclesiastical snuggeries; one who doubted the integrity of

parsons, and probably disbelieved the Trinity!
Mr Harding saw what an effect his communication had

made, and almost repented the openness of his disclosure; he,
however, did what he could to moderate the grief of his friend

and patron. 'I do not say that there is any engagement between
them. Had there been, Eleanor would have told me; I know her

well enough to be assured that she would have done so; but I see
that they are fond of each other; and as a man and a father, I

have had no objection to urge against their intimacy.'
'But, Mr Harding,' said the bishop, 'how are you to oppose

him, if he is your son-in-law?'
'I don't mean to oppose him; it is he who opposes me; if

anything is to be done in defence, I suppose Chadwick will do
it. I suppose--'

'Oh, the archdeacon will see to that: were the young man
twice his brother-in-law, the archdeacon will never be deterred

from doing what he feels to be right.'
Mr Harding reminded the bishop that the archdeacon and

the reformer were not yet brothers, and very probably never
would be; exacted from him a promise that Eleanor's name

should not be mentioned in any discussion between the father
bishop and son archdeacon respecting the hospital; and then

took his departure, leaving his poor old friend bewildered,
amazed, and confounded.

CHAPTER IV
Hiram's Bedesmen

The parties most interested in the movement which is about
to set Barchester by the ears were not the foremost to

discuss the merit of the question, as is often the case; but
when the bishop, the archdeacon, the warden, the steward,

and Messrs Cox and Cummins, were all busy with the matter,
each in his own way, it is not to be supposed that Hiram's

bedesmen themselves were altogetherpassive spectators.
Finney, the attorney, had been among them, asking sly questions,

and raising immoderate hopes, creating a party hostile to
the warden, and establishing a corps in the enemy's camp, as

he figuratively calls it to himself. Poor old men: whoever
may be righted or wronged by this inquiry, they at any rate

will assuredly be only injured: to them it can only be an
unmixed evil. How can their lot be improved? all their wants

are supplied; every comfort is administered; they have
warm houses, good clothes, plentiful diet, and rest after a life

of labour; and above all, that treasure so inestimable in
declining years, a true and kind friend to listen to their

sorrows, watch over their sickness, and administer comfort
as regards this world, and the world to come!

John Bold sometimes thinks of this, when he is talking loudly
of the rights of the bedesmen, whom he has taken under his

protection; but he quiets the suggestion within his breast
with the high-sounding name of justice: 'Fiat justitia ruat

coelum.' These old men should, by rights, have one hundred
pounds a year instead of one shilling and sixpence a day, and

the warden should have two hundred or three hundred pounds
instead of eight hundred pounds. What is unjust must be

wrong; what is wrong should be righted; and if he declined
the task, who else would do it?

'Each one of you is clearly entitled to one hundred pounds
a year by common law': such had been the important whisper

made by Finney into the ears of Abel Handy, and by him retailed
to his eleven brethren.

Too much must not be expected from the flesh and blood
even of John Hiram's bedesmen, and the positive promise of

one hundred a year to each of the twelve old men had its way
with most of them. The great Bunce was not to be wiled away,

and was upheld in his orthodoxy by two adherents. Abel
Handy, who was the leader of the aspirants after wealth, had,

alas, a stronger following. No less than five of the twelve soon
believed that his views were just, making with their leader a

moiety of the hospital. The other three, volatile unstable
minds, vacillated between the two chieftains, now led away by

the hope of gold, now anxious to propitiate the powers that
still existed.

It had been proposed to address a petition to the bishop
as visitor, praying his lordship to see justice done to the legal

recipients of John Hiram's Charity, and to send copies of this
petition and of the reply it would elicit to all the leading London

papers, and thereby to obtain notoriety for the subject. This
it was thought would pave the way for ulterior legal proceedings.

It would have been a great thing to have had the signatures
and marks of all the twelve injured legatees; but this

was impossible: Bunce would have cut his hand off sooner
than have signed it. It was then suggested by Finney that if

even eleven could be induced to sanction the document, the
one obstinate recusant might have been represented as unfit to

judge on such a question--in fact, as being non compos mentis--
and the petition would have been taken as representing the

feeling of the men. But this could not be done: Bunce's
friends were as firm as himself, and as yet only six crosses

adorned the document. It was the more provoking, as Bunce
himself could write his name legibly, and one of those three

doubting souls had for years boasted of like power, and
possessed, indeed, a Bible, in which he was proud to show his

name written by himself some thirty years ago--'Job Skulpit';
but it was thought that job Skulpit, having forgotten his

scholarship, on that account recoiled from the petition, and