squabbles of Otterburn had grown into such a notorious scandal that the bishop was only too thankful to promote his removal.  Mrs. Wiley’s health was the ostensible reason, and though Otterburn knew better, Beechhurst accepted it in good faith, and gave its new rector a cordial welcome—­none the less cordial that his wife came on the scene a robust and capable woman, ready and fit for parish work, and with no air of the fragile invalid it had been led to expect.

But men are shrewd on the Forest as on the Border, and the Rev. Askew Wiley was soon at a discount.  His appearance was eminently clerical, but no two of his congregation formed the same opinion of what he was besides, unless the opinion that they did not like him.  It was a clear case of Dr. Fell; for there was nothing in his life to except to, and in his character only a deficiency of courage. Only? But stay—­consider what a crop of servile faults spring from a deficiency of courage.

“He do so beat the devil about the bush that there is no knowing where to have him,” was the dictum early enunciated by a village Solomon, which went on to be verified more and more, until the new rector was as much despised on the Forest as on the Border.  But he had a different race to deal with.  At Otterburn the rude statesmen provoked and defied him with loud contempt; at Beechhurst his congregation dwindled down to the gentlefolks, who tolerated him out of respect to his office, and to the aged poor, who received a weekly dole of bread, bequeathed by some long-ago benefactor; and these were mostly women.  Mr. Carnegie was a fair sample of the men, and he made no secret of his aversion.

The Reverend Askew Wiley, see him as he paces the lawn, his supple back writhed just a little towards my lady deferentially, his head just a little on one side, lending her an ear.  By the gait of him he is looking another way.  Yes; for now my lady turns, he turns too, and they halt front to front; his pallid visage half averted from her observation, his glittering eyes roving with bold stealth over the populous garden, and his thin-lipped, scarlet mouth working and twisting incessantly in the covert of his thick-set beard.

My lady speaks with an impatience scarcely controlled.  She is the great lady of Beechhurst, the Dowager Lady Latimer, in the local estimation a very great lady indeed; once a leader in society, now retired from it, and living obscurely on her rich dower in the Forest, with almsdeeds and works of patronage and improvement for her pleasure and her occupation.  My lady always loved her own way, but she had worked harmoniously with Mr. Hutton through his year’s incumbency.  He was sufficient for his duties, and gave her no opportunity for the exercise of unlawful authority, no ground for encroachments, no room for interference.  But it was very different with poor Mr. Wiley.  Everybody knew that he was a trial to her.  He could not hold his own against