was no common Vicar like that of
Coldingham, dependent on the caprices of others. For, with the exception
of two bad characters and one atheist, the whole village, Conservatives
or Liberals (there were Liberals now that they were beginning to believe
that the ballot was really secret), were believers in the hereditary
system.

Insensibly the Rector directed himself towards Bletchingham, where there
was a temperance house. At heart he loathed lemonade and gingerbeer in
the middle of the day, both of which made his economy cold and uneasy,
but he felt he could go nowhere else. And his spirits rose at the sight
of Bletchingham spire.

'Bread and cheese,' he thought. 'What's better than bread and cheese?
And they shall make me a cup of coffee.'

In that cup of coffee there was something symbolic and fitting to
his mental state. It was agitated and thick, and impregnated with the
peculiar flavour of country coffee. He swallowed but little, and resumed
his march. At the first turning he passed the village school, whence
issued a rhythmic but discordant hum, suggestive of some dull machine
that had served its time. The Rector paused to listen. Leaning on the
wall of the little play-yard, he tried to make out the words that, like
a religious chant, were being intoned within. It sounded like, "Twice
two's four, twice four's six, twice six's eight," and he passed on,
thinking, 'A fine thing; but if we don't take care we shall go too far;
we shall unfit them for their stations,' and he frowned. Crossing a
stile, he took a footpath. The air was full of the singing of larks, and
the bees were pulling down the clover-stalks. At the bottom of the field
was a little pond overhung with willows. On a bare strip of pasture,
within thirty yards, in the full sun, an old horse was tethered to a
peg. It stood with its face towards the pond, baring its yellow teeth,
and stretching out its head, all bone and hollows, to the water which
it could not reach. The Rector stopped. He did not know the horse
personally, for it was three fields short of his parish, but he saw that
the poor beast wanted water. He went up, and finding that the knot of
the halter hurt his fingers, stooped down and wrenched at the peg. While
he was thus straining and tugging, crimson in the face, the old horse
stood still, gazing at him out of his bleary eyes. Mr. Barter sprang
upright with a jerk, the peg in his hand, and the old horse started
back.

"So ho, boy!" sa