“Very fanciful!” said John, with a forced smile—­“I suppose you can go on like that interminably?”

“I can, and I will,”—­said Julian—­“So long as the fit possesses me.  But not now.  You are in a hurry, and you wish to say good-bye.  You imply the P.P.C. in your aspect.  So be it!  I shall see you on Sunday in the pulpit as usual?”

“Yes.”

“Badsworth Hall will probably attend your ministrations, so I am told,”—­continued Julian—­“Lord Roxmouth wants to hear you preach,—­ and Sir Morton himself proposes to ‘sit under’ you.”

“Sorry for it!” said Walden abruptly—­“He should attend his own ’cure’—­Mr. Leveson.”

They laughed.

“Of course you don’t credit that story about Miss Vancourt’s marriage with Lord Roxmouth?” queried Adderley, suddenly.

“I am slow to believe anything I hear,”—­replied John—­“But—­is it quite without foundation?”

Adderley looked him straight in the eyes.

“Quite!  Very quite!  Most quite!  My dear Walden, you are pale!  A change, even a brief one, will do you good.  Go and see your Bishop by all means.  And tell him how nearly, how very nearly you gave prestige to the calling of a Churchman by knocking down a rascal!”

They parted then; and by sundown Walden was in the train speeding away from St. Rest at the rate of fifty miles an hour to one of the great manufacturing cities where human beings swarm together more thickly than bees in a hive, and overcrowd and jostle each other’s lives out in the desperate struggle for mere bread.  Bainton and Nebbie were left sole masters of the rectory and its garden, and both man and dog were depressed in spirits, and more or less restless and discontented.

“‘Tain’t what it used to be by no manner o’ means,”—­muttered Bainton, looking with a dejected air round the orchard, where the wall fruit was hanging in green clusters of promise—­“Passon don’t seem to care, an’ when he don’t care then I don’t care!  Why, it seems onny t’other day ‘twas May morning, an’ he was carryin’ Ipsie Frost on his shoulder, an’ leadin’ all the children wi’ the Maypole into the big meadow, an’ all was as right as right could be,—­yet ‘ere we’re onny just in August an’ everything’s topsy-turvy like.  Lord, Lord!—­’ow trifles do make up a sum o’ life to be sure, as the copybooks sez—­for arter all, what’s ’appened?  Naught in any wise partikler.  Miss Vancourt ’as come ‘ome to her own,—­an’ she’s ’ad a few friends from Lunnon stayin’ with ’er.  That’s simple enough, as simple as plantains growin’ in a lawn.  Then Miss Vancourt’s ’usband that is to be, comes down an’ stays with old Blusterdash Pippitt at the ’All, in order to be near ‘is sweet’art.  There ain’t nothin’ out of the common in that.  It’s all as plain as piecrust.  An’ Passon ain’t done nothin’ either but jest his dooty as he allus doos it,—­ he ain’t been up to the Manor more’n once,—­he ain’t been at the ‘All,—­an’ Miss Vancourt she ain’t been ’ere neither