for learning into profitable channels, lent him
books, explained to him what he failed to understand, incited him to
thoroughness, and generally constituted himself his kind and helpful
adviser.

The consequence of this timely tuition had been that George had grown
up, not a boisterous, over bearing prig, showing off his learning at
every available chance, and making himself detestable, and everybody
else miserable, by his conceited air, but a modest, quiet scholar, with
plenty of hidden fire and ambition, and not presuming on his talents to
scorn his humble origin, or be ashamed of his home and parents--on the
contrary, connecting them with all his dearest hopes of success and
advancement in the world.

They, good souls, were quite bewildered by the sudden blaze of their
son's celebrity. They hardly seemed to understand what it all meant,
but had a vague sort of idea that they were implicated in "Garge's"
achievements. They would sit and listen to him as he read to them, as
if they were at an exhibition at which they had paid for admission, and
it is not too much to say "Garge" was, in their eyes, almost as dreadful
a personage as the lord of the manor himself.

Among his fellow-villagers George was, as the reader will have gathered,
somewhat of a hero, and not a little of a favourite. This distinction
he owed to a talent for music, which had at a very early age displayed
itself, and had been heartily encouraged by the rector. In this
pursuit, which he followed as his only recreation, he had made such
progress that, while yet a boy, he became voluntary organist at the
church, and as such had won the hearts of the neighbours.

They didn't know much about music, but they knew the organ sounded
beautiful on Sundays, and that "Garge" played it. And so it was a real
trouble to them now that he was about to leave Muggerbridge.

You may imagine the state of excitement into which this unexpected visit
threw simple Mr and Mrs Reader. The good lady was too much taken
aback even to offer her customary welcome, and as for the gamekeeper, he
sat stock still in his chair, with his eyes on his son, like a hound
that waits the signal for action.

"We are rather an invasion, I'm afraid," said the curate, squeezing
himself into the little kitchen between a clothes-horse and a dresser.

"Not at all," said George, looking very bewildered.

"Perhaps you'll wonder why we've come?" added the curate, turning to the
gamekeeper.