gossiping with the woman who kept the shop, and he dearly loved
meeting the village children. On one of these occasions, when Johnny
was engaged in making peace between two little girls--little girls
were his specialty--the rector met him and it was then it occurred to
him that Mr. Gillat might help in the school. It was not much of an
honour, the school was in rather a bad way just now, and boasted no
other teachers than the rector and a raspy-tempered girl of sixteen,
but Johnny was much flattered. He thought he ought to refuse; he was
quite sure he could not teach; the idea of his doing so was certainly
new and strange; he was also sure he was not virtuous enough. But in
the end he was persuaded to try; Julia told him that he might hear the
catechism with an open book, choose the Bible tales he was surest of,
to read and explain, and have his class of little girls to tea very
often. So it came about that Mr. Gillat set out Sunday after Sunday to
school, and if his reading and expounding of the Scriptures was less
in accord with modern light than the traditions that held in the
childhood of the nation, no one minded; the children at Halgrave were
not painfully sharp, and they soon got to love Mr. Gillat with a
friendly lemon-droppish love which was not critical.

Captain Polkington did not approve of the Sunday-school teaching,
especially on those days when he had to clean the knives. The Sunday
when Joost Van Heigen came was one of these. The Captain watched Mr.
Gillat's preparations with a disgusted face; at last he remarked, "I
wonder if you think you do any good by this nonsense?"

Johnny, who had got as far as the doorstep, stopped and considered
rather as if the idea had just occurred to him.

"There must be teachers," he said at length, looking round at the open
landscape; "and there aren't many about."

"You are a fine teacher!" the Captain sneered.

Mr. Gillat rubbed his finger along the edge of the Bible he carried.
"I was wild," he confessed; "yes, I was, I don't think--but then the
rector said--and Julia--"

His meaning was rather obscure, but possibly the Captain followed it
although he did cut him short by saying, "I should never have expected
it of you; if any one had told me that you, one of us, would take to
this sort of thing, I would not have believed it. I mean, if they had
told me in the old days, before things were changed and broken up,
when we were still alive and things moved at a pace--