will in the world, with
all the desire to interpret brotherly love in its most liberal sense,
the Beorminster Levites found it impossible to like Mr Cargrim. Hence he
was a kind of clerical Ishmael, and as dangerous within as he looked
harmless without.

How such a viper came to warm itself on the bishop's hearth no one could
say. Mrs Pansey herself did not know in what particular way Mr Cargrim
had wriggled himself--so she expressed it--into his present snug
position. But, to speak frankly, there was no wriggling in the matter,
and had the bishop felt himself called upon to explain his business to
anyone, he could have given a very reasonable account of the election of
Cargrim to the post of chaplain. The young man was the son of an old
schoolfellow, to whom Pendle had been much attached, and from whom, in
the earlier part of his career, he had received many kindnesses. This
schoolfellow--he was a banker--had become a bankrupt, a beggar, finally
a suicide, through no fault of his own, and when dying, had commended
his wife and son to the bishop's care. Cargrim was then fifteen years of
age, and being clever and calculating, even as a youth, had determined
to utilise the bishop's affection for his father to its fullest extent.
He was clever, as has been stated; he was also ambitious and
unscrupulous; therefore he resolved to enter the profession in which Dr
Pendle's influence would be of most value. For this reason, and not
because he felt a call to the work, he entered holy orders. The result
of his wisdom was soon apparent, for after a short career as a curate in
London, he was appointed chaplain to the Bishop of Beorminster.

So far, so good. The position, for a young man of twenty-eight, was by
no means a bad one; the more so as it gave him a capital opportunity of
gaining a better one by watching for the vacancy of a rich preferment
and getting it from his patron by asking directly and immediately for
it. Cargrim had in his eye the rectorship of a wealthy, easy-going
parish, not far from Beorminster, which was in the gift of the bishop.
The present holder was aged and infirm, and given so much to indulgence
in port wine, that the chances were he might expire within a few months,
and then, as the chaplain hoped, the next rector would be the Reverend
Michael Cargrim. Once that firm position was obtained, he could bend
his energies to developing into an archdeacon, a dean, even into a
bishop, should his craft and for