the three
coaches off the road, and opened a branch to Noxby; and though the
tradesfolk contrived to keep their shops open they did a very quiet
business indeed. There was nothing actively speculative about the place,
and the motto of the town was "Slow and sure." From the two maiden
ladies--the Misses Twitwold--who kept the circulating library, and sold
stationery and Berlin wool--to the brewer who owned half the beer-shops,
or the landlord of the "George and Gate," who kept a select stud of
saddle-horses, and had promoted the tradesmen's club--nobody was ever
seen in a hurry, not even the doctor who had come to take old Mr.
Varico's practice, and was quite a young man from the hospitals. He
began by bustling about, and walking as though he was out for a wager,
and speaking as though he expected people to do things in a minute; but
he soon got over that. Folks at Chewton Cudley had a way of looking with
a slow, placid, immovable stare at anybody who showed unseemly haste. If
they were told to "be quick" or to "look sharp," they would leave what
they were about to gaze with a cow-like serenity at the disturber. It
was quite a lesson in placidity even to watch a farm-labourer or a
workman sit on a gate or a cart-shaft to eat a slice of bread and
cheese. Each bite was only taken after a deliberate investigation of the
sides and edges of the hunch, and was slowly masticated during a
peculiar ruminating survey of surrounding objects. The possessor of a
clasp-knife never closed it with a click; and if any adult person had
been seen to run along the High-street public attention would have been
aroused by the event.

The vicar was really the most active person in the town; and though he
had lived there in the quaint, ivy-covered parsonage house for twenty
years, and had been constantly among his parishioners, he had the same
bright, pleasant, and yet grave smile, the same quick, easy step, the
same lively way with children and old women, the same impatient
toleration of "dawdlers," as had distinguished him on his first coming.
He had been a famous cricketer at college, and one of the first things
he did was to form a cricket club; but he always said the batsman waited
to watch the ball knock down the wicket, and the fielders stood staring
into space when they ought to have made a catch. This was his fun, of
course, and the cricket club flourished in a sedate, slow-bowling sort
of way. So did the penny bank, and the evening sch