dea
at the time. Yet it became engrained in me, as do such aspirations of
our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried
it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to
bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an
ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the
bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him
kindly now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many a day's
shooting and leave to fish for trout in the river.

By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the parish
itself is very small, my father was much beloved, although he did
practise confession, wear vestments and set lighted candles on the
altar, and was even said to have openly expressed the wish, to which
however he never attained, that he could see a censer swinging in the
chancel. Indeed the church which, as monks built it, is very large and
fine, was always full on Sundays, though many of the worshippers came
from far away, some of them doubtless out of curiosity because of its
papistical repute, also because, in a learned fashion, my father's
preaching was very good indeed.

For my part I feel that I owe much to these High-Church views. They
opened certain doors to me and taught me something of the mysteries
which lie at the back of all religions and therefore have their home
in the inspired soul of man whence religions are born. Only the pity
is that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he never discovers, never
even guesses at that entombed aspiration, never sinks a shaft down on to
this secret but most precious vein of ore.

I have said that my father was learned; but this is a mild description,
for never did I know anyone quite so learned. He was one of those
men who is so good all round that he became pre-eminent in nothing. A
classic of the first water, a very respectable mathematician, an expert
in theology, a student of sundry foreign languages and literature in
his lighter moments, an inquirer into sociology, a theoretical musician
though his playing of the organ excruciated most people because it was
too correct, a really first-class authority upon flint instruments and
the best grower of garden vegetables in the county, also of apples--such
were some of his attainments. That was what made his sermons so popular,
since at times one or the other of these subjects would break out into
them, his theory being th