oor yonder bears the marks of feet that
have walked monotonously to and fro in hours of thought. When the eye has
taken in these things, as the rustle of the brown leaves blown against the
pane without in the silence is plainly audible, the mind seems in an
instant to slip back four hundred years.

The weary curate has closed his eyes, and starts as a servant enters
bringing him wine, for the vicar, utterly oblivious of his own comfort, is
ever on the watch for that of others. His predecessor, a portly man, happy
in his home alone, and, as report said, loving his ease and his palate,
before he was preferred to a richer living, called in the advice of
architects as to converting the ancient refectory to some use. In his time
it was a mere lumber-room, into which all the odds and ends of the house
were thrown. Plans were accordingly prepared for turning one part of it
into a cosy breakfast parlour, and the other into a conservatory. Before
any steps, however, were taken he received his preferment--good things
flow to the rich--and departed, leaving behind him a favourable memory. If
any inhabitant were asked what the old vicar did, or said, and what work
he accomplished, the reply invariably was, 'Oh! hum! he was a very good
sort of man: he never interfered with anybody or anything!'

Accustomed to such an even tenour of things, all the _vis inertiae_ of the
parish revolted when the new vicar immediately evinced a determination to
do his work thoroughly. The restless energy of the man alone set the
stolid old folk at once against him. They could not 'a-bear to see he
a-flying all over the parish: why couldn't he bide at home?' No one is so
rigidly opposed to the least alteration in the conduct of the service as
the old farmer or farmer's wife, who for forty years and more has listened
to the same old hymn, the same sing-song response, the same style of
sermon. It is vain to say that the change is still no more than what
was--contemplated by the Book of Common Prayer. They naturally interpret
that book by what they have been accustomed to from childhood. The vicar's
innovations were really most inoffensive, and well within even a narrow
reading of the rubric. The fault lay in the fact that they were
innovations, so far as the practice of that parish was concerned. So the
old folk raised their voices in a chorus of horror, and when they met
gossiped over the awful downfall of the faith. All that the vicar had yet
done was t