Beechhurst Rectory was the most charming rectory-house on the Forest. It
would be delightful to add that the rector was as charming as his abode;
but Beechhurst did not call itself happy in its pastor at this
moment--the Rev. Askew Wiley. Mr. Wiley's immediate predecessor--the
Rev. John Hutton--had been a pattern for country parsons. Hale, hearty,
honest as the daylight; knowing in sport, in farming, in gardening; bred
at Westminster and Oxford; the third son of a family distinguished in
the Church; happily married, having sons of his own, and sufficient
private fortune to make life easy both in the present and the future.
Unluckily for Beechhurst, he preferred the north to the south country,
and, after holding the benefice a little over one year, he exchanged it
against Otterburn, a moorland border parish of Cumberland, whence Mr.
Wiley had for some time past been making strenuous efforts to escape.
Both were crown livings, but Otterburn stood for twice as much in the
king's books as Beechhurst. Mr. Wiley was, however, willing to pay the
forfeiture of half his income to get away from it. He had failed to make
friends with the farmers, his principal parishioners, and the vulgar
squabbles of Otterburn had grown into such a notorious scandal that the
bishop was only too thankful to promote his removal. Mrs. Wiley's health
was the ostensible reason, and though Otterburn knew better, Beechhurst
accepted it in good faith, and gave its new rector a cordial
welcome--none the less cordial that his wife came on the scene a robust
and capable woman, ready and fit for parish work, and with no air of the
fragile invalid it had been led to expect.

But men are shrewd on the Forest as on the Border, and the Rev. Askew
Wiley was soon at a discount. His appearance was eminently clerical, but
no two of his congregation formed the same opinion of what he was
besides, unless the opinion that they did not like him. It was a clear
case of Dr. Fell; for there was nothing in his life to except to, and
in his character only a deficiency of courage. _Only?_ But
stay--consider what a crop of servile faults spring from a deficiency of
courage.

"He do so beat the devil about the bush that there is no knowing where
to have him," was the dictum early enunciated by a village Solomon,
which went on to be verified more and more, until the new rector was as
much despised on the Forest as on the Border. But he had a different
race to deal with. At Ott