King Pepin and Sweet Clive by Stanley J. Weyman

Upon arriving at the middle of the Close the Dean stopped. He had been walking briskly, his chin from custom a little tilted, but his eyes beaming with condescension and goodwill, while an indulgent smile playing about the lower part of his face relieved its massive character. His walking-stick swung to and fro in a loose grasp, his feet trod the pavement of the precincts with the step of an owner, he felt the warmth of the sun, the balminess of the spring air, and somewhere at the back of his mind he was conscious of a vacant bishopric, and that he was the husband of one wife. In fine he presented the appearance of a contented, placid, unruffled dignitary, until he reached the middle of the Close. There, alas! the ferrel of his stick came to the ground with a thud, and the sweetness and light faded from his eyes as they rested upon Mr. Swainson's plot. The condescension and goodwill became conspicuous only by their absence. The Dean was undisguisedly angry; he disliked opposition as much as lesser men, and met with it more rarely. For Bicester is old-fashioned, and loves both Church and State, but especially the former, and looks up to principalities and powers, and even now, on account of a mistake he made, execrates the memory of a recreant Bicestrian, otherwise reputable. It was at a public dinner. "I remember," said this misguided man, "going in my young days to the old and beautiful cathedral of this city. (Great applause.) I was only a child then, and my head hardly rose above the top of the seat, but I remember I thought the Dean the greatest of living men. (Whirlwinds of applause.) Well (smiling), perhaps, I do not think quite that now. " (Dead silence.) And so dull at bottom may a man be whose name is known in half the capitals of Europe, that this degenerate fellow never guessed why the friends of his youth during the rest of the day turned their backs upon him.

Such is the faith of Bicester, but even in Bicester there are heretics. To say that the Dean rarely met with opposition is to say that he rarely met with Mr. Swainson, and that he seldom saw Mr. Swainson's plot. As a rule, when he crossed the Close he averted his eyes by a happy impulse of custom, for he did not like Mr. Swainson, and as for the latter's plot, it was _anathema maranatha_ to him. The Dean was tall, Mr. Swainson was taller; the Dean was stubborn, Mr. Swainson was obstinate; so that there arose between them the antagonism that is born of similarity. On the other hand the Dean was stout and Mr. Swainson a scarecrow; the Dean was comely and clerical, but not over-rich, Mr. Swainson was pallid, lantern-jawed, wealthy, and a lawyer, and hence the dislike born of difference. Moreover, years ago, when Mr. Swainson had been Mayor of Bicester, there had been a little dispute between the Chapter and the Bishop, and he had shown so much energy upon the one side as to earn the nickname of the "Mayor of the Palace. " Finally Mr. Swainson delighted in opposition as a cat in milk, and cared as little to have a good reason for his antagonism as puss in the dairy about a sixty years' title to the cream-pan.