flock accepted his spirituality as matter of course, and of the insignificant minority there were few who did not make allowance for the fact that he was their pastor by virtue of necessity, by virtue of a system which had placed him there almost mechanically, whether he would or no.  Indeed, they respected him the more that he was their Rector, and could not be removed, and were glad that theirs was no common Vicar like that of Coldingham, dependent on the caprices of others.  For, with the exception of two bad characters and one atheist, the whole village, Conservatives or Liberals (there were Liberals now that they were beginning to believe that the ballot was really secret), were believers in the hereditary system.

Insensibly the Rector directed himself towards Bletchingham, where there was a temperance house.  At heart he loathed lemonade and gingerbeer in the middle of the day, both of which made his economy cold and uneasy, but he felt he could go nowhere else.  And his spirits rose at the sight of Bletchingham spire.

‘Bread and cheese,’ he thought.  ’What’s better than bread and cheese?  And they shall make me a cup of coffee.’

In that cup of coffee there was something symbolic and fitting to his mental state.  It was agitated and thick, and impregnated with the peculiar flavour of country coffee.  He swallowed but little, and resumed his march.  At the first turning he passed the village school, whence issued a rhythmic but discordant hum, suggestive of some dull machine that had served its time.  The Rector paused to listen.  Leaning on the wall of the little play-yard, he tried to make out the words that, like a religious chant, were being intoned within.  It sounded like, “Twice two’s four, twice four’s six, twice six’s eight,” and he passed on, thinking, ’A fine thing; but if we don’t take care we shall go too far; we shall unfit them for their stations,’ and he frowned.  Crossing a stile, he took a footpath.  The air was full of the singing of larks, and the bees were pulling down the clover-stalks.  At the bottom of the field was a little pond overhung with willows.  On a bare strip of pasture, within thirty yards, in the full sun, an old horse was tethered to a peg.  It stood with its face towards the pond, baring its yellow teeth, and stretching out its head, all bone and hollows, to the water which it could not reach.  The Rector stopped.  He did not know the horse personally, for it was three fields short of his parish, but he saw that the poor beast wanted water.  He went up, and finding that the knot of the halter hurt his fingers, stooped down and wrenched at the peg.  While he was thus straining and tugging, crimson in the face, the old horse stood still, gazing at him out of his bleary eyes.  Mr. Barter sprang upright with a jerk, the peg in his hand, and the old horse started back.

“So ho, boy!” said the Rector, and angrily he muttered:  “A shame to tie the poor beast up here in the sun.  I should like to give his owner a bit of my mind!”