Kencote, to
which preferment the Squire had appointed him nearly thirty years
before, when he was only just of canonical age to receive it. And in the
comfortable Rectory of Kencote, except for a year's curacy to his
father, he had lived all his clerical life.

The Squire and the Rector were not altogether unlike in appearance. They
were both tall and well covered with flesh, and there was a family
resemblance in their features. But the Squire's bigness and ruddiness
were those of a man who took much exercise in the open air, the Rector's
of a man physically indolent, who lived too much indoors, and lived too
well.

But if they were not unlike in appearance, they were as dissimilar as
possible in character. The Squire's well-carried, massive frame
betokened a man who considered himself to have a right to hold his head
high and plant his footsteps firmly; the Rector's big body disguised a
sensitive, timorous character, and a soul never quite at ease in its
comfortable surroundings. That ponderous weight of soft flesh, insistent
on warmth and good food and much rest, had a deal to answer for. Spare
and active, with adventures of the spirit not discouraged by the
indolence of the flesh, the Rector of Kencote might have been anything
in the way of a saint that his Church encourages. He would certainly not
have been Rector of Kencote for thirty years, with the prospect of being
Rector of Kencote for thirty years more if he lived so long. He had a
simple, lovable soul. It told him that he did nothing to speak of in
return for his good income and the fine house in which he lived in such
comfort, and troubled him on this score more than it would have troubled
a man with less aptitude for goodness; and it omitted to tell him that
he had more direct influence for righteousness than many a man who would
have consciously exercised all the gifts with which he might have been
endowed. He simply could not bring himself to visit his parish
regularly, two or three afternoons a week, as he had made up his mind to
do when he was first ordained. The afternoons always slipped away
somehow, and there were so many of them. The next would always do. So it
had been for the first years of his pastorate, and he had long since
given way altogether to his indolence and shyness in respect of visiting
his flock; but his conscience still troubled him about it. He was a
great reader, but his reading had become quite desultory, and he now
read only f