Mr.Crawley must be provided with legal assistance, and this must be furnished to him whether he should be willing or unwilling to receive it.

That there would be a difficulty was acknowledged.

Mr.Crawley was known to be a man not easy of persuasion, with a will of his own, with a great energy of obstinacy on points which he chose to take up as being of importance to his calling, or to his own professional status.

He had pleaded his own cause before the magistrates, and it might be that he would insist on doing the same thing before the judge.

At last Mr.Robarts, the clergyman of Framley, was deputed from the knot of Crawleian advocates assembled in Lady Lufton's drawing-room, to undertake the duty of seeing Mr.Crawley, and of explaining to him that his proper defence was regarded as a matter appertaining to the clergy and gentry generally of that part of the country, and that for the sake of the clergy and gentry the defence must of course be properly conducted.