eally done nothing at all
and that probably in any case Emmett would have been the chosen scholar.

If Mark had still any doubts of his behaviour, they would have vanished
when on getting into the train for Shipcot he found himself in an
otherwise empty third-class smoking carriage opposite Father Rowley
himself, who with a small black bag beside him, so small that Mark
wondered how it could possibly contain the night attire of so fat a man,
was sitting back in the corner with a large pipe in his mouth. He was
wearing one of those square felt hats sometimes seen on the heads of
farmers, and if one had only seen his head and hat without the grubby
clerical attire beneath one might have guessed him to be a farmer. Mark
noticed now that his eyes of a limpid blue were like a child's, and he
realized that in his voice while he was preaching there had been the
same sweet gravity of childhood. Just at this moment Father Rowley
caught sight of someone he knew on the platform and shouting from the
window of the compartment he attracted the attention of a young man
wearing an Old Siltonian tie.

"My dear man," he cried, "how are you? I've just made a most idiotic
mistake. I got it into my head that I should be preaching here on the
first Sunday in term and was looking forward to seeing so many
Silchester men. I can't think how I came to make such a muddle."

Father Rowley's shoulders filled up all the space of the window, so that
Mark only heard scattered fragments of the conversation, which was
mostly about Silchester and the Siltonians he had hoped to see at
Oxford.

"Good-bye, my dear man, good-bye," the Missioner shouted, as the train
moved out of the station. "Come down and see us soon at Chatsea. The
more of you men who come, the more we shall be pleased."

Mark's heart leapt at these words, which seemed of good omen to his own
suit. When Father Rowley was ensconced in his corner and once more
puffing away at his pipe, Mark thought how ridiculous it would sound to
say that he had heard him preach last night at St. Barnabas' and that,
having been much moved by the sermon, he was anxious to be taken on at
St. Agnes' as a lay helper. He wished that Father Rowley would make some
remark to him that would lead up to his request, but all that Father
Rowley said was:

"This is a slow train to Birmingham, isn't it?"

This led to a long conversation about trains, and slow though this one
might be it was going much too fast fo