.'

'And when?'

'Always, sir.'

Lancelot burst out laughing. The man looked up at him slowly and
seriously.

'You wouldn't laugh, sir, if you'd seen much of the inside of these
cottages round.'

'Really,' said Lancelot, 'I was only laughing at our making such
very short work of such a long and serious story. Do you mean that
the unhealthiness of this country is wholly caused by the river?'

'No, sir. The river-damps are God's sending; and so they are not
too bad to bear. But there's more of man's sending, that is too bad
to bear.'

'What do you mean?'

'Are men likely to be healthy when they are worse housed than a
pig?'

'No.'

'And worse fed than a hound?'

'Good heavens! No!'

'Or packed together to sleep, like pilchards in a barrel?'

'But, my good fellow, do you mean that the labourers here are in
that state?'

'It isn't far to walk, sir. Perhaps some day, when the May-fly is
gone off, and the fish won't rise awhile, you could walk down and
see. I beg your pardon, sir, though, for thinking of such a thing.
They are not places fit for gentlemen, that's certain.' There was a
staid irony in his tone, which Lancelot felt.

'But the clergyman goes?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And Miss Honoria goes?'

'Yes, God Almighty bless her!'

'And do not they see that all goes right?'

The giant twisted his huge limbs, as if trying to avoid an answer,
and yet not daring to do so.

'Do clergymen go about among the poor much, sir, at college, before
they are ordained?'

Lancelot smiled, and shook his head.

'I thought so, sir. Our good vicar is like the rest hereabouts.
God knows, he stints neither time nor money--the souls of the poor
are well looked after, and their bodies too--as far as his purse
will go; but that's not far.'

'Is he ill-off, then?'

'The living's worth some forty pounds a year. The great tithes,
they say, are worth better than twelve hundred; but Squire Lavington
has them.'

'Oh, I see!' said Lancelot.

'I'm glad you do, sir, for I don't,' meekly answered Tregarva. 'But
the vicar, sir, he is a kind man, and a good; but the poor don't
understand him, nor he them. He is too learned, sir, and, saving
your presence, too fond of his prayer-book.'

'One can't be too fond of a good thing.'

'Not unless you make an idol of it, sir, and fancy that men's souls
were made for the prayer-book, and not the prayer-book for them.'

'But cannot he expose and