Principal Trenholme, he asserted, wasn't a man to put his faith in anything without proofs.
Chellaston was not a very gossiping place.

For the most part the people had too much to do, and were too intent upon their own business, to take much trouble to retail what they chanced to hear; but there are some things which, as the facetious man observed, the dead in their graves would gossip about if they could; and one of these themes, according to him, was that Principal Trenholme believed there had been something supernatural about the previous life of the old preacher.

The story went about, impressing more particularly the female portion of the community, but certainly not without influence upon the males also.

Portly men, who a week before would have thought themselves compromised by giving a serious thought to the narrative, now stood still in the street to get the chance of hearing the preacher, and felt that in doing so they were wrapped in all the respectability of the cloth of Trenholme's coats, and standing firm on the letters of his Oxford degree and upon all the learning of the New College.
They did not believe the story themselves.

No, there was a screw loose somewhere; but Principal Trenholme had some definite knowledge of the matter.