“This is most distressing to hear, my dear Temple,” replied his rector; “but I trust I am as willing and as well prepared, from religious feeling, to suffer as another—­that is, provided always I am not deprived of those comforts and little luxuries to which I have all my life been accustomed.”

“I am very much afraid,” observed Purcel, “that the clergy of the established church will have a very fine opportunity to show the world how well and patiently they can suffer.”

“I have already said, Purcel,” said the doctor, “that I am as willing to suffer as another.  I know I am naturally of a patient and rather an humble disposition; let these trials come then, and I am prepared for them, provided only that I am not deprived of my little luxuries, for these are essential to my health itself, otherwise I could bear even this loss.  I intended, Temple, to have had a day or two’s shooting on the glebe lands, but Purcel, here, tells me that I am very unpopular, and would not, he says, recommend me to expose myself much, or if possible at all, in the neighborhood.

“And upon my word and credit I spoke nothing,” replied the other, “but what I know to be truth.  There is not a feather of game on the glebe lands that would be shot down with half the pleasure that the parson himself would.  I beg, then, Dr. Turbot, that you won’t think of it.  I’ll get my sons to go over the property, and if there’s any game on it we shall have it sent to you.”

“How does it stand for game, Temple, do you know?”

“I really cannot say,” replied the good man.  “The killing of game is a pursuit I have never relished, and with which I am utterly unacquainted.  I fear, however, that the principal game in the country will soon be the parson and the proctor.”

“It’s a delightful pursuit,” replied the Rev. Doctor, who did not at all relish the last piece of information, and only replied to the first, “and equally conducive to health and morals.  What, for instance, can be more delicious than a plump partridge or grouse, stewed in cinnamon and claret? and yet, to think that a man must be deprived of—­well,” said he, interrupting himself, “it is a heavy, and awful dispensation—­and one that I ought to have been made acquainted with—­that is, to its full and fearful extent—­before it came on me thus unawares.  Purcel here scarcely did his duty by me in this.”

“I fear, sir,” replied Temple, “that it was not Purcel who neglected his duty, but you who have been incredulous.  I think he has certainly not omitted to sound the alarm sufficiently loud during the approach of this great ordeal to which we are exposed.”

“And in addition to everything else, I am in arrears to you, Temple,” he added; “and now I have no means of paying you.”

Temple was silent, for at that moment the necessities of his family pressed with peculiar severity upon himself—­and he was not exactly prepared for such an intimation.  The portion of salary then coming to him was, in truth, his sole dependence at that peculiar crisis, and this failing him, he knew not on what hand or in what direction to turn.