‘What a hobby farming is with Lord Watling!’ said Mr. Fellowes, when the cloth was being drawn.  ’I went over his farm at Tetterley with him last summer.  It is really a model farm; first-rate dairy, grazing and wheat land, and such splendid farm-buildings!  An expensive hobby, though.  He sinks a good deal of money there, I fancy.  He has a great whim for black cattle, and he sends that drunken old Scotch bailiff of his to Scotland every year, with hundreds in his pocket, to buy these beasts.’

‘By the by,’ said Mr. Ely, ’do you know who is the man to whom Lord Watling has given the Bramhill living?’

’A man named Sargent.  I knew him at Oxford.  His brother is a lawyer, and was very useful to Lord Watling in that ugly Brounsell affair.  That’s why Sargent got the living.’

‘Sargent,’ said Mr. Ely.  ’I know him.  Isn’t he a showy, talkative fellow; has written travels in Mesopotamia, or something of that sort?’

‘That’s the man.’

’He was at Witherington once, as Bagshawe’s curate.  He got into rather bad odour there, through some scandal about a flirtation, I think.’

‘Talking of scandal,’ returned Mr. Fellowes, ’have you heard the last story about Barton?  Nisbett was telling me the other day that he dines alone with the Countess at six, while Mrs. Barton is in the kitchen acting as cook.’

‘Rather an apocryphal authority, Nisbett,’ said Mr. Ely.

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Cleves, with good-natured humour twinkling in his eyes, ’depend upon it, that is a corrupt version.  The original text is, that they all dined together with six—­meaning six children—­and that Mrs. Barton is an excellent cook.’

‘I wish dining alone together may be the worst of that sad business,’ said the Rev. Archibald Duke, in a tone implying that his wish was a strong figure of speech.

‘Well,’ said Mr. Fellowes, filling his glass and looking jocose, ’Barton is certain either the greatest gull in existence, or he has some cunning secret,—­some philtre or other to make himself charming in the eyes of a fair lady.  It isn’t all of us that can make conquests when our ugliness is past its bloom.’

‘The lady seemed to have made a conquest of him at the very outset,’ said Mr. Ely.  ’I was immensely amused one night at Granby’s when he was telling us her story about her husband’s adventures.  He said, “When she told me the tale, I felt I don’t know how,—­I felt it from the crown of my head to the sole of my feet."’

Mr. Ely gave these words dramatically, imitating the Rev. Amos’s fervour and symbolic action, and every one laughed except Mr. Duke, whose after-dinner view of things was not apt to be jovial.  He said,—­’I think some of us ought to remonstrate with Mr. Barton on the scandal he is causing.  He is not only imperilling his own soul, but the souls of his flock.’

‘Depend upon it,’ said Mr. Cleves, ’there is some simple explanation of the whole affair, if we only happened to know it.  Barton has always impressed me as a right-minded man, who has the knack of doing himself injustice by his manner.’