o
the theory of possession by evil spirits. Since his rejection of
science, he had lapsed into certain forms of mediaevalism, and he now
began to dally with the theory of a malign incarnation which he
elaborated until it became an article of his faith.

To his poorer parishioners he spoke in vague terms, but he changed their
attitude; he filled them with overawed terror. They were intensely
curious still, but, now, when the gate was slammed, one saw a face
pressed to the window, the door remained fast; and the children no
longer clustered round that gate, but dared each other to run past it;
which they did, the girls with a scream, the boys with a jeering
"Yah--ah!" a boast of intrepidity.

This change of temper was soon understood by the persons most concerned.
Stott grumbled and grew more morose. He had never been intimate with the
villagers, and now he avoided any intercourse with them. His wife kept
herself aloof, and her child sheltered from profane observation.
Naturally, this attitude of the Stotts fostered suspicion. Even the
hardiest sceptic in the taproom of the Challis Arms began to shake his
head, to concede that there "moight be soomething in it."

Yet the departure from Stoke might have been postponed indefinitely, if
it had not been for another intrusion. Both Stott and his wife were
ready to take up a new idea, but they were slow to conceive it.

II

The intruder was the local magnate, the landlord of Stoke, Wenderby,
Chilborough, a greater part of Ailesworth, two or three minor parishes,
and, incidentally, of Pym.

This magnate, Henry Challis, was a man of some scholarship, whose
ambition had been crushed by the weight of his possessions. He had a
remarkably fine library at Challis Court, but he made little use of it,
for he spent the greater part of his time in travel. In appearance he
was rather an ungainly man; his great head and the bulk of his big
shoulders were something too heavy for his legs.

Crashaw regarded his patron with mixed feelings. For Challis, the man of
property, the man of high connections, of intimate associations with the
world of science and letters, Crashaw had a feeling of awed respect; but
in private he inveighed against the wickedness of Challis, the agnostic,
the decadent.

When Victor Stott was nearly three months old, the rector met his patron
one day on the road between Chilborough and Stoke. It was three years
since their last meeting, and Crashaw noticed tha