dropped four thousand over the
Thursday race.

"He was pretty well dipped before, I know. Poor old George! such an
awfully good chap!"

"Ah," repeated Mr. Barter, "I'm very sorry--very sorry indeed. Things
were bad enough as it was."

A ray of interest illumined the leisureliness of the Hon. Geoffrey's
eyes.

"You mean about Mrs.----H'm, yes?" he said. "People are talking; you
can't stop that. I'm so sorry for the poor Squire, and Mrs. Pendyce. I
hope something'll be done."

The Rector frowned.

"I've done my best," he said. "Well hit, sir! I've always said that
anyone with a little pluck can knock off that lefthand man you think so
much of. He 'comes in' a bit, but he bowls a shocking bad length. Here I
am dawdling. I must get back!"

And once more that real solemnity came over Mr. Barter's face.

"I suppose you'll be playing for Coldingham against us on Thursday?
Good-bye!"

Nodding in response to Winlow's salute, he walked away.

He avoided the churchyard, and took a path across the fields. He was
hungry and thirsty. In one of his sermons there occurred this passage:
"We should habituate ourselves to hold our appetites in check. By
constantly accustoming our selves to abstinence little abstinences in
our daily life--we alone can attain to that true spirituality without
which we cannot hope to know God." And it was well known throughout
his household and the village that the Rector's temper was almost
dangerously spiritual if anything detained him from his meals. For he
was a man physiologically sane and healthy to the core, whose digestion
and functions, strong, regular, and straightforward as the day,
made calls upon him which would not be denied. After preaching that
particular sermon, he frequently for a week or more denied himself a
second glass of ale at lunch, or his after-dinner cigar, smoking a pipe
instead. And he was perfectly honest in his belief that he attained a
greater spirituality thereby, and perhaps indeed he did. But even if he
did not, there was no one to notice this, for the majority of his flock
accepted his spirituality as matter of course, and of the insignificant
minority there were few who did not make allowance for the fact that he
was their pastor by virtue of necessity, by virtue of a system which had
placed him there almost mechanically, whether he would or no. Indeed,
they respected him the more that he was their Rector, and could not
be removed, and were glad that theirs