“Spies, perhaps,” said his father.  “If so, let them go in peace.”

But he was not altogether easy.  There had been strange doings up at the Bryanite Chapel of late.  He still visited a few of his parishioners regularly—­hill farmers and their wives for the most part, who did not happen to be tenants of Squire Moyle, and on whom his visits therefore could bring no harm; and one or two had hinted of strange doings, now that the Bryanites had hold of the old Squire.  They themselves had been up—­just to look; they confessed it shamefacedly, much in the style of men who have been drinking overnight.  Without pressing them and showing himself curious, the Vicar could get at no particulars.  But as the summer grew he felt a moral sultriness, as it were, growing with it.  The people were off their balance, restless; and behind their behaviour he had a sense, now of something electric, menacing, now of a hand holding it in check.  Slowly in those days the conviction deepened in him that he was an alien on this coast, that between him and the hearts of the race he ministered to there stretched an impalpable, impenetrable veil.  And all this while the faces he passed on the road, though shy, were kindlier than they had been in the days before his self-confidence left him—­it seemed not so long ago.

On a Saturday night early in May, the footsteps were heard again, and this time in the porch itself.  While Mr. Raymond and Taffy listened the big latch went up with a creak, and a dark figure slipped into the church.

“Who is there?” challenged Mr. Raymond from the chancel where he stood peering out of the small circle of light.

“A friend.  Pass, friend, and all’s well!” answered a squeaky voice.  “Bless you, I’ve sarved in the militia before now.”

It was Jacky Pascoe, with his coat-collar turned up high about his ears.

“What do you want?” Mr. Raymond demanded sharply.

“A job.”

“We can pay for no work here.”

“Wait till thee’rt asked, Parson, dear.  I’ve been spying in upon ’ee these nights past.  Pretty carpenters you be!  T’other night, as I was a-peeping, the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go, and for goodness’ sake show them chaps how to do it fitty.’  ‘Dear Lord,’ I said, ‘Thou knowest I be a Bryanite.’  The Lord said to me, ’None of your back answers!  Go and do as I tell ‘ee.’  So here I be.”

Mr. Raymond hesitated.  “Squire Moyle is your friend, I hear, and the friend of your chapel.  What will he say if he discovers that you are helping us?”

Jacky scratched his head.  “I reckon the Lord must have thought o’ that, too.  Suppose you put me to work in the vestry?  There’s only one window looks in on the vestry:  you can block that up with a curtain, and there I’ll be like a weevil in a biscuit.”