The somewhat awkward silence was broken by Canon Gorse.
"Well, was Boulter troublesome?"
The Dean laid the bag in front of him upon the table.
"He was." The Dean carefully wiped his glasses. There was a suggestion of curious expectation in the eyes which were fixed upon him. Their owners already perceived that there was something in the air. Was it possible that the landlord of "The Rose and Crown" had behaved in the manner which, in the estimation of some persons, is a natural characteristic of individuals of his class, and had been guilty of actual violence in the sacred precincts of the Deanery? "He was troublesome in a sense for which, on this occasion, I will simply say that I was unprepared; and to such a degree that I have given him what amounts to a virtual undertaking that his lease shall be renewed."
This was evidently not the sort of thing for which his listeners had been waiting--one could see it by their faces. Some of them changed colour, and some of their jaws dropped open. Canon Gorse stared at the speaker, as if he found it difficult to believe that his own ears were capable of fulfilling their normal functions.
"Pettifer, impossible!" Perceiving that the word might seem too strong, he amended it. "That is to say, how do you mean?"
The Dean leaned over the table. His attitude, indeed his whole manner, suggested severity tempered by sorrow.
"Before I say anything further I wish to have an understanding with all of you that not one word of what I am about to utter will be breathed by any one of you to any creature living--and by that I mean neither to your wives, nor to your daughters, nor to any member of your households--that it will be received as though it came to you under the seal of the confessional." There was silence. "If anyone feels himself, for any cause whatever, unable to give such a pledge, then I must respectfully ask that person at once to withdraw."
No one did withdraw. No one said either Ay or Nay. So it may be supposed that the pledge which the Dean required was unanimously given. That the Dean understood that to be the case was evident. He held up the little leather bag in front of him as if it were some dreadful thing.
"This bag is the Bishop's--our beloved Bishop's bag. I know it, of my own knowledge, to be the bag which he had with him in the cathedral yesterday afternoon. It still contains the MS. of the sermon which the Bishop preached, and which we all rejoiced to hear. This bag has just been brought to me by the landlord of 'The Rose and Crown.' It was left, unintentionally left, on his premises by a person who, at the close of yesterday afternoon's service, went out of the Dean's door of the cathedral into one of Mr Boulter's private bars, and there and then consumed a bottle of port wine."