“There you go, you clumsy, gaping idiot!” roared Sir Morton, growing purple with increasing fury.  “Tabitha!” called ’The Riversford Gazette.’  If Sir Morton had a pig killed, the fact was duly notified to an admiring populace in the ‘Riversford Gazette.’  If he took a prize in cabbages at the local vegetable and flower show, the ‘Riversford Gazette’ had a column about it.  If he gave a tennis-party, there were two columns, describing all the dresses of the ladies, the prowess of the ‘champions’ and the ’striking and jovial personality’ of Sir Morton Pippitt.  And if the fact of that ‘striking and jovial personality’ were not properly insisted upon, Sir Morton went himself to see the editor of the ’Riversford Gazette,’ an illiterate tuft-hunting little man,—­and nearly frightened him into fits.  He had asserted himself in this kind of autocratic fashion ever since he had purchased Badsworth, when he was still in his forties,—­and it may be well imagined that at the age of sixty he was not prepared to be thwarted, even in a matter wherein he had no real concern.  The former rector of St. Rest, an ailing, nervous and exceedingly poor creature, with a large family to keep, had been only too glad and ready to do anything Sir Morton Pippitt wished, for the sake of being invited to dine at the Hall once a week,—­it was therefore a very unexpected and disagreeable experience for the imperious Bone-melter to learn that the new incumbent was not at all disposed to follow in the steps of his predecessor, but, on the contrary, was apparently going to insist on having his own way with as much emphasis as Sir Morton Pippitt himself.

“I shall soon bring that fellow to his senses,” declared Sir Morton, on the eventful morning which first saw the gage of battle thrown down; “I shall teach him that, parson or no parson, he will have to respect my authority!  God bless my seoul!  Does he think I’m going to be dictated to at my time of life?”

He addressed these observations to his daughter, Miss Tabitha Pippitt, but whether she heard them or not was scarcely apparent.  At any rate, she did not answer.  Having finished her breakfast, she pulled out some knitting from an embroidered bag hanging at her side and set her needles clicketing, while her father, redder in the face and more implacable of mood than ever, went out to see what he could do to save his galvanised iron roof from the hand of the spoiler.

But, as he might have known, if his irascibility had allowed him to weigh the pros and cons of the situation, his ‘authority’ was of no avail.  An angry letter to the Bishop of the diocese only drew forth a curt reply from the Bishop’s secrebones of defunct animals into a convenient mixture wherewith to make buttons and other useful articles of hardware, bought it, as the saying goes, ’for a mere song.’  Through his easy purchase he became possessed of the Badsworth ancestry, as shown in their pictures hanging on the dining-room walls and in the long oak-panelled