But there arose a trouble greater than that occasioned by the “Broughton Gazette.” There came out an article in a London weekly newspaper, called “Everybody’s Business,” which nearly drove the Doctor mad. This was on the last Saturday of the holidays. The holidays had been commenced in the middle of July, and went on till the end of August. Things had not gone well at Bowick during these weeks. The parents of all the four newly-expected boys had — changed their minds. One father had discovered that he could not afford it. Another declared that the mother could not be got to part with her darling quite so soon as he had expected. A third had found that a private tutor at home would best suit his purposes. While the fourth boldly said that he did not like to send his boy because of the “fuss” which had been made about Mr and Mrs Peacocke. Had this last come alone, the Doctor would probably have resented such a communication; but following the others as it did, he preferred the fourth man to any of the other three. “Miserable cowards,” he said to himself, as he docketed the letters and put them away. But the greatest blow of all — of all blows of this sort — came to him from poor Lady Anne Clifford. She wrote a piteous letter to him, in which she implored him to allow her to take her two boys away.

“My dear Doctor Wortle,” she said, so many people have been telling so many dreadful things about this horrible affair, that I do not dare to send my darling boys back to Bowick again. Uncle Clifford and Lord Robert both say that I should be very wrong. The Marchioness has said so much about it that I dare not go against her. You know what my own feelings are about you and dear Mrs Wortle; but I am not my own mistress. They all tell me that it is my first duty to think about the dear boys’ welfare; and of course that is true. I hope you won’t be very angry with me, and will write one line to say that you forgive me.

Yours most sincerely, ANNE CLIFFORD

In answer to this the Doctor did write as follows —

MY DEAR LADY ANNE

Of course your duty is very plain — to do what you think best for the boys; and it is natural enough that you should follow the advice of your relatives and theirs.

Faithfully yours, JEFFREY WORTLE

He could not bring himself to write in a more friendly tone, or to tell her that he forgave her. His sympathies were not with her. His sympathies at the present moment were only with Mrs Peacocke. But then Lady Anne Clifford was not a beautiful woman, as was Mrs Peacocke.

This was a great blow. Two other boys had also been summoned away, making five in all, whose premature departure was owing altogether to the virulent tongue of that wretched old Mother Shipton. And there had been four who were to come in the place of four others, who, in the course of nature, were going to carry on their more advanced studies elsewhere. Vacancies such as these had always been pre-occupied long beforehand by ambitious parents. These very four places had been pre-occupied, but now they were all vacant. There would be nine empty beds in the school when it met again after the holidays; and the Doctor well understood that nine beds remaining empty would soon cause others to be emptied. It is success that creates success, and decay that produces decay. Gradual decay he knew that he could not endure. He must shut up his school — give up his employment — and retire altogether from the activity of life. He felt that if it came to this with him he must in very truth turn his face to the wall and die. Would it — would it really come to that, that Mrs Stantiloup should have altogether conquered him in the combat that had sprung up between them?

But yet he would not give up Mrs Peacocke. Indeed, circumstanced as he was, he could not give her up. He had promised not only her, but her absent husband, that until his return there should be a home for her in the school-house. There would be a cowardice in going back from his word which was altogether foreign to his nature. He could not bring himself to retire from the fight, even though by doing so he might save himself from the actual final slaughter which seemed to be imminent. He thought only of making fresh attacks upon his enemy, instead of meditating flight from those which were made upon him. As a dog, when another dog has got him well by the ear, thinks not at all of his own wound, but only how he may catch his enemy by the lip, so was the Doctor in regard to Mrs Stantiloup. When the two Clifford boys were taken away, he took some joy to himself in remembering that Mr Stantiloup could not pay his butcher’s bill.

Then, just at the end of the holidays, some good-natured friend sent to him a copy of “Everybody’s Business.” There is no duty which a man owes to himself more clearly than that of throwing into the waste-paper basket, unsearched and even unopened, all newspapers sent to him without a previously-declared purpose. The sender has either written something himself which he wishes to force you to read, or else he has been desirous of wounding you by some ill-natured criticism upon yourself. “Everybody’s Business” was a paper which, in the natural course of things, did not find its way into the Bowick rectory; and the Doctor, though he was no doubt acquainted with the title, had never even looked at its columns. It was the purpose of the periodical to amuse its readers, as its name declared, with the private affairs of their neighbours. It went boldly about its work, excusing itself by the assertion that Jones was just as well inclined to be talked about as Smith was to hear whatever could be said about Jones. As both parties were served, what could be the objection? It was in the main good-natured, and probably did most frequently gratify the Joneses, while it afforded considerable amusement to the listless and numerous Smiths of the world. If you can’t read and understand Jones’s speech in Parliament, you may at any rate have mind enough to interest yourself with the fact that he never composed a word of it in his own room without a ring on his finger and a flower in his buttonhole. It may also be agreeable to know that Walker the poet always takes a mutton chop and two glasses of sherry at half past one. “Everybody’s Business” did this for everybody to whom such excitement was agreeable. But in managing everybody’s business in that fashion, let a writer be as good-natured as he may and let the principle be ever so well-founded that nobody is to be hurt, still there are dangers. It is not always easy to know what will hurt and what will not. And then sometimes there will come a temptation to be, not spiteful, but specially amusing. There must be danger, and a writer will sometimes be indiscreet. Personalities will lead to libels even when the libeller has been most innocent. It may be that after all the poor poet never drank a glass of sherry before dinner in his life — it may be that a little toast-and-water, even with his dinner, gives him all the refreshment that he wants, and that two glasses of alcoholic mixture in the middle of the day shall seem, when imputed to him, to convey a charge of downright inebriety. But the writer has perhaps learned to regard two glasses of meridian wine as but a moderate amount of sustentation. This man is much flattered if it be given to be understood of him that he falls in love with every pretty woman that he sees — whereas another will think that he has been made subject to a foul calumny by such insinuation.

“Everybody’s Business” fell into some such mistake as this, in that very amusing article which was written for the delectation of its readers in reference to Dr Wortle and Mrs Peacocke. The “Broughton Gazette” no doubt confined itself to the clerical and highly moral views of the case, and, having dealt with the subject chiefly on behalf of the Close and the admirers of the Close, had made no allusion to the fact that Mrs Peacocke was a very pretty woman. One or two other local papers had been more scurrilous, and had, with ambiguous and timid words, alluded to the Doctor’s personal admiration for the lady. These, or the rumours created by them, had reached one of the funniest and lightest-handed of the contributors to “Everybody’s Business,” and he had concocted an amusing article — which he had not intended to be at all libellous, which he had thought to be only funny. He had not appreciated, probably, the tragedy of the lady’s position, or the sanctity of that of the gentleman. There was comedy in the idea of the Doctor having sent one husband away to America to look after the other while he consoled the wife in England. “It must be admitted”, said the writer, “that the Doctor has the best of it. While one gentleman is gouging the other — as cannot but be expected — the Doctor will be at any rate in security, enjoying the smiles of beauty under his own fig-tree at Bowick. After a hot morning with “tyrtw“ in the school, there will be “amo” in the cool of the evening.” And this was absolutely sent to him by some good-natured friend!

The funny writer obtained a popularity wider probably than he had expected. His words reached Mrs Stantiloup, as well as the Doctor, and were read even in the Bishop’s palace. They were quoted even in the “Broughton Gazette,&rdq............