Rogers.—­He gave a quantity of gossip about various people, evidently anxious that I should regard them as he regarded them; but in all he said concerning them I could scarcely detect one point of significance as to character or history.  I was very glad indeed when the waddling of hands—­for it was the perfect imbecility of hand-shaking—­was over, and he was safely out of the gate.  He had kept me standing on the steps for full five minutes, and I did not feel safe from him till I was once more in my study with the door shut.

I am not going to try my reader’s patience with anything of a more detailed account of my introduction to my various parishioners.  I shall mention them only as they come up in the course of my story.  Before many days had passed I had found out my poor, who, I thought, must be somewhere, seeing the Lord had said we should have them with us always.  There was a workhouse in the village, but there were not a great many in it; for the poor were kindly enough handled who belonged to the place, and were not too severely compelled to go into the house; though, I believe, in this house they would have been more comfortable than they were in their own houses.

I cannot imagine a much greater misfortune for a man, not to say a clergyman, than not to know, or knowing, not to minister to any of the poor.  And I did not feel that I knew in the least where I was until I had found out and conversed with almost the whole of mine.

After I had done so, I began to think it better to return Mrs Oldcastle’s visit, though I felt greatly disinclined to encounter that tight-skinned nose again, and that mouth whose smile had no light in it, except when it responded to some nonsense of her grand-daughter’s.

CHAPTER VI.

Oldcastle hall.

About noon, on a lovely autumn day, I set out for Oldcastle Hall.  The keenness of the air had melted away with the heat of the sun, yet still the air was fresh and invigorating.  Can any one tell me why it is that, when the earth is renewing her youth in the spring, man should feel feeble and low-spirited, and gaze with bowed head, though pleased heart, on the crocuses; whereas, on the contrary, in the autumn, when nature is dying for the winter, he feels strong and hopeful, holds his head erect, and walks with a vigorous step, though the flaunting dahlias discourage him greatly?  I do not ask for the physical causes:  those I might be able to find out for myself; but I ask, Where is the rightness and fitness in the thing?  Should not man and nature go together in this world which was made for man—­not for science, but for man?  Perhaps I have some glimmerings of where the answer lies.  Perhaps “I see a cherub that sees it.”  And in many of our questions we have to be content with such an approximation to an answer as this.  And for my part I am content with this.  With less, I am not content.