lash. The curate waded slowly to the middle, getting deeper and deeper,
and then suddenly found firmer footing, and walked the rest of the way
with the water barely over his boots. After he was through he cleansed his
boots on a wisp of grass and set off at a good pace, for the ground past
the pool began to rise, and the lane was consequently drier. The women
turned again to their acorns, remarking, in a tone with something like
respect in it, 'He didn't stop for the mud, you: did a'?'

Presently the curate reached the highway with its hard surface, and again
increased his pace. The hedges here were cut each side, and as he walked
rapidly, leaning forward, his shovel-hat and shoulders were visible above
them, and his coat tails floated in the breeze of his own progress. His
heavy boots--they were extremely thick and heavy, though without
nails--tramped, tramped, on the hard road. With a stout walking-stick in
one hand, and in the other a book, he strode forward, still more swiftly
as it seemed at every stride. A tall young man, his features seemed thin
and almost haggard; out of correspondence with a large frame, they looked
as if asceticism had drawn and sharpened them. There was earnestness and
eagerness--almost feverish eagerness--in the expression of his face. He
passed the meadows, the stubble fields, the green root crops, the men at
plough, who noticed his swift walk, contrasting with their own slow
motion; and as he went his way now and then consulted a little slip of
paper, upon which he had jotted memoranda of his engagements. Work, work,
work--ceaseless work. How came this? What could there be to do in a
sparely-populated agricultural district with, to appearance, hardly a
cottage to a mile?

After nearly an hour's walking he entered the outskirts of a little
country town, slumbering outside the railway system, and, turning aside
from the street, stopped at the door of the ancient vicarage. The resident
within is the ecclesiastical head of two separate hamlets lying at some
miles' distance from his own parish. Each of these hamlets possesses a
church, though the population is of the very sparsest, and in each he
maintains a resident curate. A third curate assists him in the duties of
the home parish, which is a large one, that is, in extent. From one of
these distant hamlets the curate, who struggled so bravely through the
mire, has walked in to consult with his superior. He is shown into the
library, and sink