he deuce can we do?
Kick him out?--not so easy; and, besides, he'd die under a hedge.
You're hard on him, Clem. He has his notions of duty. Why"--the
Baronet laughed--"I've seen him on the roof with a tar-bucket, caulking
the leaks for dear life. He's a gentleman, too."

Clement Vyell tightened his lips and rode on in silence.

Left alone, Parson Jack stared around his church. His repairs, in which
he had taken pride before now, seemed nakedly, hideously mean at this
moment. But a new sense fought with his dejection--a sense altogether
new to him--that his church had a history, a meaning into which he had
never penetrated. The aisles seemed to expand, the chancel to reach up
into a distance in which space and time were confused; and, following
it, his eye rested on a patch of colour in the east window between the
wooden tablets of the Law--a cluster of fragments of stained glass,
rescued by some former vicar and set amid the clear panes--the legs and
scarlet robe of a saint, an angel's wing, a broken legend on a scroll,
part of a coat-of-arms, azure with a fesse,--wavy of gold--all thrown
together as by a kaleidoscope gone mad. Each of these scraps had once a
meaning: so this church held meanings, too long ignored by him, partly
intelligible yet, soon to be mixed inextricably in a common downfall.
For Clement Vyell might be wise in the history of architecture, but his
eye had not read the one plain warning which stared a common workman in
the face--that the days of this building were surely numbered, and were
probably few.

Parson Jack had a mind to run after him. He must learn, and speedily,
all about the church, its builders, this old colony of monks.
But where? In books doubtless. Where could those books be found?

He had almost reached the door, when his eye fell on the two
collecting-boxes. With a sudden thought he paused, drew a key from the
pocket of his corduroys, and unlocked his own--the Parson's box.
A sovereign lay within.

He picked up the coin and considered it, a dark flush growing on his
face. Parson Jack had a temper, though few guessed it. With an effort
he controlled it now, dropped the sovereign into the box labelled
"Church Repairs," and walked slowly out.

He had no longer a mind to run after Clement Vyell. Instead, he bent
his steps towards the four-roomed cottage which he called the Parsonage
and found too large for his needs.

On the sitting-room table lay a letter, in a