high and dry on the standing-ground
which he had chosen for himself in the early days of his manhood. And
then had come that pestilent act of the legislature under which his
parish had been divided. Not that the Act of Parliament itself had
been violently condemned by the doctor on its becoming law. I doubt
whether he had then thought much of it.

But when men calling themselves Commissioners came actually upon
him and his, and separated off from him a district of his own town,
taking it away altogether from his authority, and giving it over to
such inexperienced hands as chance might send thither,--then Dr.
Harford became a violent Tory. And my readers must not conceive that
this was a question touching his pocket. One might presume that his
pocket would be in some degree benefited, seeing that he was saved
from the necessity of supplying the spiritual wants of a certain
portion of his parish. No shilling was taken from his own income,
which, indeed, was by no means excessive. His whole parish gave him
barely six hundred a year, out of which he had kept always one, and
latterly two curates. It was no question of money in any degree.
Sooner than be invaded and mutilated he would have submitted to an
order calling upon him to find a third curate,--could any power
have given such order. His parish had been invaded and his clerical
authority mutilated. He was no longer _totus teres atque rotundus_.
The beauty of his life was over, and the contentment of his mind
was gone. He knew that it was only left for him to die, spending
such days as remained to him in vague prophecies of evil against his
devoted country,--a country which had allowed its ancient parochial
landmarks to be moved, and its ecclesiastical fastnesses to be
invaded!

But perhaps hatred of Mr. Prong was the strongest passion of Dr.
Harford's heart at the present moment. He had ever hated the
dissenting ministers by whom he was surrounded. In Devonshire dissent
has waxed strong for many years, and the pastors of the dissenting
flocks have been thorns in the side of the Church of England
clergymen. Dr. Harford had undergone his full share of suffering
from such thorns. But they had caused him no more than a pleasant
irritation in comparison with what he endured from the presence of
Mr. Prong in Baslehurst. He would sooner have entertained all the
dissenting ministers of the South Hams together than have put his
legs under the same mahogany with Mr. Prong. M