Two years before, Allan Telford, fresh from college and full of
vigorous enthusiasm and high ideas, would have said:

"No, that is not for me. My work must lie among the poor and lowly of
earth as did my Master's. Shall I shrink from it because, to worldly
eyes, the way looks dreary and uninviting?"

Now, looking back on his two years' ministry, he said wearily:

"I can remain here no longer. If I do, I fear I shall sink down into
something almost as pitiful as one of these canting, gossiping people
myself. I can do them no good--they do not like or trust me. I will
accept this call and go back to my own world."

Perhaps the keynote of his failure was sounded in his last words, "my
own world." He had never felt, or tried to feel, that this narrow
sphere was his own world. It was some lower level to which he had come
with good tidings and honest intentions but, unconsciously, he had
held himself above it, and his people felt and resented this. They
expressed it by saying he was "stuck-up."

Rykman's Corner came into view as he drove over the brow of a long
hill. He hated the place, knowing it well for what it was--a festering
hotbed of gossip and malice, the habitat of all the slanderous rumours
and innuendoes that permeated the social tissue of the community. The
newest scandal, the worst-flavoured joke, the latest details of the
most recent quarrel, were always to be had at Rykman's store.

As the minister drove down the hill, a man came out of a small house
at the foot and waited on the road. Had it been possible Telford would
have pretended not to see him, but it was not possible, for Isaac
Galletly meant to be seen and hailed the minister cheerfully.

"Good mornin', Mr. Telford. Ye won't mind giving me a lift down to the
Corner, I dessay?"

Telford checked his horse reluctantly and Galletly crawled into the
cutter. He was that most despicable of created beings, a male gossip,
and he spent most of his time travelling from house to house in the
village, smoking his pipe in neighbourly kitchens and fanning into an
active blaze all the smouldering feuds of the place. He had been
nicknamed "The Morning Chronicle" by a sarcastic schoolteacher who had
sojourned a winter at the Corner. The name was an apt one and clung.
Telford had heard it.

I suppose he is starting out on his rounds now, he thought.

Galletly plunged undauntedly into the conversational gap.

"Quite a fall of snow last night. Reckon we'll hav