wed him to do no good to the parish, whether in work, trade, or
charity; and thus he had no moral weight with the parishioners beyond
the example of his sinless life, and such negative effect as might be
produced by his slumberous exhortations.

Therefore his parishioners troubled him very little; and but for the
influence which in hours of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised
over the most tractable--that is, the children and the aged--not
half-a-dozen persons would have known or cared whether he shut up his
church or not.

But our family were seated in state in their old seignorial pew, and Mr.
Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubriously through the prayers; and
the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet
learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the
choral frogs in Aristophanes. And there was a long sermon _apropos_ to
nothing which could possibly interest the congregation, being, in fact,
some controversial homily, which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached
years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud
universal grunt, as if of release and thanksgiving, and a great clatter
of shoes--and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled to the church
door.

Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and, as soon as
dinner was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall.

Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and
quickness of movement which belongs to nervous temperaments; and he
tasked the slow stride of a peasant, whom he took to serve him as a
guide for the first two or three miles. Though Randal had not the
gracious, open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his
father, he was still (despite many a secret, hypocritical vice, at war
with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough to have no churlish
pride to his inferiors. He talked little, but he suffered his guide to
talk; and the boor, who was the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged
in eulogistic comments on that young gentleman's pony, from which he
diverged into some compliments on the young gentleman himself. Randal
drew his hat over his brows. There is a wonderful tact and fine breeding
in your agricultural peasant; and though Tom Stowell was but a brutish
specimen of the class, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain. He
paused, scratched his head, and glancing affectionately toward his
companion, exclaimed,

"Bu