CHAPTER 13.
The loss of Mr.Jerome as a client proved only the beginning of annoyances to Dempster.

That old gentleman had in him the vigorous remnant of an energy and perseverance which had created his own fortune; and being, as I have hinted, given to chewing the cud of a righteous indignation with considerable relish, he was determined to carry on his retributive war against the persecuting attorney.

Having some influence with Mr.Pryme, who was one of the most substantial rate-payers in the neighbouring parish of Dingley, and who had himself a complex and long-standing private account with Dempster, Mr.Jerome stirred up this gentleman to an investigation of some suspicious points in the attorney's conduct of the parish affairs.

The natural consequence was a personal quarrel between Dempster and Mr.Pryme; the client demanded his account, and then followed the old story of an exorbitant lawyer's bill, with the unpleasant anti-climax of taxing.
These disagreeables, extending over many months, ran along side by side with the pressing business of Mr.Armstrong's lawsuit, which was threatening to take a turn rather depreciatory of Dempster's professional prevision; and it is not surprising that, being thus kept in a constant state of irritated excitement about his own affairs, he had little time for the further exhibition of his public spirit, or for rallying the forlorn hope of sound churchmanship against cant and hypocrisy.

Not a few persons who had a grudge against him, began to remark, with satisfaction, that 'Dempster's luck was forsaking him'; particularly Mrs.Linnet, who thought she saw distinctly the gradual ripening of a providential scheme, whereby a just retribution would be wrought on the man who had deprived her of Pye's Croft.