to the river and its hallowed memories of the sister he had so dearly loved, was sold by private treaty,—­his voice was heard no more in London pulpits, where it had begun to carry weight and influence,—­and he managed to obtain the then vacant and obscure living of St. Rest, the purchase of the advowson being effected, so it was said, privately through the good offices of his quondam college friend, Bishop Brent.  And at St. Rest he had remained, apparently well contented with the very simple and monotonous round of duty it offered.

When he had first arrived there, he found that the church consisted of some thick stone walls of the early Norman, period, built on a cruciform plan, the stones being all uniformly wrought and close-jointed,—­together with a beautiful ruined chancel divided from the main body of the building by massive columns, which supported on their capitals the fragments of lofty arches indicative of an architectural transition from the Norman to the Early Pointed English style.  There were also the hollow slits of several lancet windows, and one almost perfect pierced circular window to the east, elaborately And here he whirled round on his only daughter, an angular and severely-visaged spinster; “Look at this fool!—­this staring ape!  All the sauce on the carpet!  Wish he had to pay for it!  He’ll take an hour to get a cloth and wipe it up!  Why did you engage such a damned ass, eh?”

Miss Tabitha preserved a prudent silence, seeing that the butler, a serious-looking personage with a resigned-to-ill-usage demeanour, was already engaged in assisting the hapless footman to remove the remains of the spilt condiment, from the offended gaze of his irate master.

“Like his damned impudence!” broke out Sir Morton again, resuming with some reluctance his seat at the breakfast table, and chopping at the fried bacon on his plate till the harder bits flew far and wide,—­“’Happy to reimburse me!’—­the snivelling puppy!  Why the devil he was allowed to sneak into this living, I don’t know!  The private purchase of advowsons is a scandal—­a disgraceful scandal!  Any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a friend to buy him a benefice in which to make himself a nuisance!  Done under the rose,—­and called a ‘presentation’!  All humbug and hypocrisy!  That’s why we get impudent dogs like this beast Walden settling down in a neighbourhood whether we like it or not!”

Miss Tabitha munched some toast slowly with a delicate regard for her front teeth, which had cost money.  There was no one in the room to suggest to Sir Morton that it is a pity some law is not in progress to prevent the purchase of historic houses by vulgar and illiterate persons of no family;—­which would be far more a benefit to the land at large than the suppression of privately purchased benefices.  For the chances are ten to one that the ordained minister, who, by his own choice secures a Church living for himself, is likely at least to be a well-educated gentleman, interested in the work he has himself elected to do,—­whereas the illiterate individual who buys an historic house simply for self-glorification, will probably be no more than a mere petty and pompous tyrant over the district which that particular house dominates.