aid it
was a mere waste of money, as nobody in his senses would look at
this parish. Then came the wonderful thing. After the very first
advertisement--yes, the very first--arrived a letter from Mr. Tomley,
rector of Monksland, where the stipend is 100 pounds a year better
than this, saying that he would wish to inquire into the matter. He has
inquired, he has been, a pompous old gentleman with a slow voice and
a single lock of white hair above his forehead; he says that it is
satisfactory, and that, subject to the consent of the bishop, etc., he
thinks that he will be glad to effect the exchange. Afterwards I found
him in front of the house staring at the moorland behind, the sea in
front, and the church in the middle, and looking very wretched. I asked
him why he wanted to do it--the words popped out of my mouth, I couldn't
help them; it was all so odd.

"Then I found out the reason. Mr. Tomley has a wife who is, or thinks
she is--I am not sure which--an invalid, and who, I gather, speaks to
Mr. Tomley with no uncertain sound. Mr. Tomley's wife was the niece of
a long-departed rector who was inducted in 1815, and reigned here for
forty-five years. He was rich, a bachelor, and rebuilt the church. (Is
it not all written in the fly-leaf of the last register?) Mrs. Tomley
inherited her uncle's landed property in this neighbourhood, and says
that she is only well in the air of Northumberland. So Mr. Tomley has to
come up here, which he doesn't at all like, although I gather that he is
glad to escape from his present squire, who seems to be a distinguished
but arbitrary old gentleman, an ex-Colonel of the Guards; rather
quarrelsome, too, with a habit of making fun of Mrs. Tomley. There's the
explanation.

"So just because of the silly criticism of 'Our Musical Man' we are
going to move several hundred miles. But is that really the cause? Are
these things done of our own desire, or do we do them because we must,
as our forefathers believed? Beneath our shouts and chattering they have
always heard the slow thunder of the waves of Fate. Through the flare of
our straw fires and the dust of our hurrying feet, they could always see
the shadow of his black banners and the sheen of his advancing spears,
and for them every wayside sign-post was painted with his finger.

"I think like that, too, perhaps because I am all, nearly all, Norse,
and we do not shake off the strong and ancient shackle of our blood in
the space of a few ge