y more rent. I'm sure the poor fellow will pay when he's
able."

Some rents were to be raised; others lowered; and some half dozen of the
poorer cottages were to be forthwith put into good repair, at Mr.
Aubrey's expense. The two oxen had been sent, on the preceding
afternoon, from the home farm to the butcher's, to be distributed on
Christmas eve among the poorer villagers, according to orders brought
down from town by Sam the day before. Thus was Mr. Aubrey engaged for an
hour or two, till luncheon time, when good Dr. Tatham made his welcome
appearance, having been engaged most of the morning in touching up an
old Christmas sermon.

He had been vicar of Yatton for about thirty years, having been
presented to it by the late Mr. Aubrey, with whom he had been intimate
at college. He was a delightful specimen of a country parson. Cheerful,
unaffected, and good-natured, there was a dash of quaintness or
roughness about his manners, that reminded you of the crust in very fine
old port. He had been a widower, and childless, for fifteen years. His
parish had been ever since his family, whom he still watched over with
an affectionate vigilance. He was respected and beloved by all. Almost
every man, woman, and child that had died in Yatton, during nearly
thirty years, had departed with the sound of his kind and solemn voice
in their ears. He claimed a sort of personal acquaintance with almost
all the gravestones in his little churchyard; he knew the names of all
who slept beneath them; and when he looked at those gravestones, his
conscience bore him witness, that he had done his duty by the dust of
whom they spoke. He was at the bedside of a sick person almost as soon,
and as often, as the doctor--no matter what sort of weather, or at what
hour of the day or night. Methinks I see him now, bustling about the
village, with healthy ruddy cheek, a clear, cheerful eye, hair white as
snow! with a small stout figure, clothed in a suit of somewhat rusty
black, (knee-breeches and gaiters all round the year,) and with a small
shovel-hat. No one lives in the vicarage with him but an elderly woman,
his housekeeper, and her husband, whose chief business is to look after
the doctor's old mare and the little garden; in which I have often seen
him and his master, with his coat off, digging for an hour or two
together. He rises at five in the winter, and four in the summer, being
occupied till breakfast with his studies; for he was an excellen