until you can cadge up supper and a bed.”  And sulkily he kept on ploughing through the mud with glances at the exasperating Crocker, who had skinned one heel and was limping horribly.  It suddenly came home to him that life for three quarters of the world meant physical exhaustion every day, without a possibility of alternative, and that as soon as, for some cause beyond control, they failed thus to exhaust themselves, they were reduced to beg or starve.  “And then we, who don’t know the meaning of the word exhaustion, call them ‘idle scamps,’” he said aloud.

It was past nine and dark when they reached Dowdenhame.  The street yielded no accommodation, and while debating where to go they passed the church, with a square tower, and next to it a house which was certainly the parsonage.

“Suppose,” said Crocker, leaning on his arms upon the gate, “we ask him where to go”; and, without waiting for Shelton’s answer, he rang the bell.

The door was opened by the parson, a bloodless and clean-shaven man, whose hollow cheeks and bony hands suggested a perpetual struggle.  Ascetically benevolent were his grey eyes; a pale and ghostly smile played on the curves of his thin lips.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.  “Inn? yes, there’s the Blue Chequers, but I ’m afraid you ’ll find it shut.  They ’re early people, I ’m glad to say”; and his eyes seemed to muse over the proper fold for these damp sheep.  “Are you Oxford men, by any chance?” he asked, as if that might throw some light upon the matter.  “Of Mary’s?  Really!  I’m of Paul’s myself.  Ladyman—­Billington Ladyman; you might remember my youngest brother.  I could give you a room here if you could manage without sheets.  My housekeeper has two days’ holiday; she’s foolishly taken the keys.”

Shelton accepted gladly, feeling that the intonation in the parson’s voice was necessary unto his calling, and that he did not want to patronise.

“You ’re hungry, I expect, after your tramp.  I’m very much afraid there ’s—­er—­nothing in the house but bread; I could boil you water; hot lemonade is better than nothing.”

Conducting them into the kitchen, he made a fire, and put a kettle on to boil; then, after leaving them to shed their soaking clothes, returned with ancient, greenish coats, some carpet slippers, and some blankets.  Wrapped in these, and carrying their glasses, the travellers followed to the study, where, by doubtful lamp-light, he seemed, from books upon the table, to have been working at his sermon.

“We ’re giving you a lot of trouble,” said Shelton, “it’s really very good of you.”

“Not at all,” the parson answered; “I’m only grieved the house is empty.”

It was a truly dismal contrast to the fatness of the land they had been passing through, and the parson’s voice issuing from bloodless lips, although complacent, was pathetic.  It was peculiar, that voice of his, seeming to indicate an intimate acquaintanceship with what was fat and fine, to convey contempt for the vulgar need of money, while all the time his eyes—­those watery, ascetic eyes—­as plain as speech they said, “Oh, to know what it must be like to have a pound or two to spare just once a year, or so!”