Jolly George Gurwood's only child, tie little boy whom his grandfather, old John Lorraine, made so much of during the latter years of his life, after having been educated at Marlborough and Oxford, was admitted into holy orders, and, at the time of our story, was Vicar of Lullington, a rural parish, about one hundred and twenty miles from London, on the great Northern road. A pleasant place Lullington for a lazy man. A quiet, sleepy little village of half a hundred houses, scattered here and there, with a chirpy little brook singing its way through what was supposed the the principal street, and hurrying onwards though great broad tracts of green pasturage, where in the summer time the red-brown cattle drank of it, and cooled their heated limbs in its refreshing tide, until it was finally swallowed up in the silver Trent.  
Lullington Church was not a particularly picturesque edifice, for it resembled a large barn, with a square, weather-beaten tower at one end of it; nor was the churchyard at all likely to be provocative of an elegy, or of anything but rheumatism, being a damp, dreary little spot, with most of its tombstones covered with green moss, and with a public footpath, with a stile at either end, running through the middle of it. But to the artists wandering through that part of the country (they were not numerous, for Notts and Lincoln have not much to offer to the sketcher), the vicarage made up for the shortcomings of the church. It was a square, old-fashioned, red-bricked house, standing in the midst of a garden full of greenery; and whereas the church looked time-worn and cold, and had even on the brightest summer day, a teeth-chattering, gruesome appearance, the vicarage had a jolly cheerful expression, and when the sun gleamed on its little diamond-shaped windows, with their leaden casements, you were inexplicably reminded of a red-faced, genial old gentleman, whose eyes were twinkling in delight at some funny story which he had just heard.
 
It was just the home for a middle-aged man with a wife and family; for it had a large number of rooms of all kinds and shapes, square bed-chambers, triangular nooks, long passages, large attics, wherein was accommodation for half-a-dozen servants, and ramshackle stables, where as many horses could be stowed away. It was just the house for a man of large means, who would not object to devoting a certain portion of his leisure to his parochial duties, but whose principal occupation would be in his garden or his greenhouses. Such a man was Martin Gurwood's predecessor, who had held the living for fifty years, and had seen some half-score boys and girls issue from the vicarage into the world to marry and settle themselves in various ways of life. The Reverend Anthony Camden was known as a rose-grower throughout three adjoining counties, and had even obtained special prizes at Crystal-Palace and Botanical-Garden shows. He was a bit of a fisherman too, and had been in his younger days something of a shot. Not being much of a reader, except of the Field and the Gardeners' Chronicle, he would have found the winter evenings dull, had it not been for the excitement of perpetually re-arranging his large collection of moths and butterflies, renewing their corks and pins, and putting fresh pieces of camphor into the corners of the glazed drawers which contained them. Mr. Camden knew all about crops and manure, and sub-soiling and drainage; the farmers for miles round used to come to the vicarage to consult him, and he always gave them beer and advice both of the best quality. He played long-whist and preached short sermons; and when he died in a green old age, it was universally voted in Lullington and its neighbourhood, that it would be impossible to replace him.
 
Certainly, there could not have been a more marked contrast than between him and his successor. Martin Gurwood was a man of six-and-twenty, unmarried, with apparently no thought in life beyond his sacred calling and the duties appertaining to it. Only half the rooms in the vicarage were furnished; and, except on such rare occasions as his mother or some of his friends coming to stay with him, only two of them on the ground-floor, one the vicar's study, the other his bed-chamber, were used. The persistent entreaties of his old housekeeper had induced him to relent from his original intention of allowing the garden to go to rack and ruin, and it was accordingly handed over to the sexton, who in so small a community had but little work in his own particular line, and who kept up the old-fashioned flowers and the smooth-shaven lawns in which their late owner had so much delighted. But Martin Gurwood took no interest in the garden himself, and only entered it occasionally of an evening, when he would stroll up and down the lawn, or one of the gravel walks, with his head bent forward and his hands clasped behind him, deep in meditation. He kept a horse, certainly--a powerful big-boned Irish hunter--but he only rode her by fits and starts, sometimes leaving her in the stable for weeks together, dependent on such exercise as she could obtain in the spare moments of her groom, at other times persistently riding her day after day, no matter what might be the weather. On those occasions the vicar did not merely go out for a mild constitutional, to potter round the outskirts of his parish, or to trot over to the market-town; he was out for hours at a stretch, and generally brought the mare home heated and foam-flecked. Indeed, more than one of his parishioners had seen their spiritual guide riding across country, solitary indeed, but straight, as though he were marking out the line for a steeple-chase, stopping neither for hedge, bank, nor brook, the Irish mare flying all in her stride, her rider sitting with his hands down on her withers, his lips compressed, and his face deadly pale. "Tekkin it out of hisself, mebbe," said Farmer Barford, when his son described to him this sight which he had seen that afternoon; "for all he's so close, and so meek and religious, there's a spice of the devil in him as in every other man; and, Bill, my boy, that's the way he takes it out of hisself." Thus Farmer Barford, and to this effect spoke several of the parishioners in committee assembled over their pipes and beer at the Dun Cow.
 
They did not hint anything of the kind to the vicar himself, trust them for that! Martin Gurwood could not be called popular amongst the community in which his lot was cast; he was charitable to a degree, lavish with his money, thinking nothing of passing days and nights by the bedside of the sick, contributing more than half the funds necessary for the maintenance of the village schools, accessible at all times, and ready with such advice or assistance as the occasion demanded; but yet they called him "high and standoffish." Old Mr.. Camden, making a house-to-house visitation perhaps once a year, when the fit so seized him, "going his rounds," as he called it, would sit down to dinner in a farm-house kitchen, or take a mug of beer with the farmer while they talked about crops, and occasionally would preside at a harvest-home supper, or a Christmas gathering. Martin Gurwood did nothing of this kind; he was always polite, invariably courteous, but he never courted anything like fellowship or bonhomie. He had joined the village cricket-club on his first arrival, and showed himself an excellent and energetic player; but the familiarity engendered in the field seemed displeasing to him, and though he continued his subscription, he gradually withdrew from active membership. Nor was his religious ardour particularly pleasing to the parishioners, who, under Mr. Camden's lax rule, had thought it sufficient if they put-in an appearance at morning service, and thus cleared off the debt of attendance until the succeeding Sunday. They could not understand what the parson meant by having prayers at eight o'clock every morning: who did he expect would go at such a time, they wondered? Not they, nor their men, who were far away in the fields before that time; not the missuses, who had the dairy and the house to attend to; not the girls, who were looking after the linen and minding the younger children; nor the boys, who, if not at school, were out at farm-work. It was all very well for the two Miss Dyneleys, the two maiden ladies living at Ivy Cottage, who had money coming in regular, paid them by the Government (the Lullington idea of consols was not particularly clear), and had naught to do from morning till night; it filled-up their time like, and was a kind of amusement to them. All very well for old Mr. Willis, who had made his fortune, it was said, by being a tailor in London, who had bought the Larches where Squire Needham used to live in the good old times, who could not ride, or drive, or shoot, or fish, or do anything but walk about his garden with a spud over his shoulders, and who was said to be dying to get back to business. These and some two or three of the bigger girls from the Miss Gilks's seminary for young ladies, were all that attended at "Mattins," as the name of the morning service stood in Early-english type on the index-board in the churchyard; but Martin Garwood persevered and went through the service with as much earnestness and devotion as though the church had been full and the bishop of the diocese seated in the vicar's pew.
 
There was the usual element of squirearchy in the neighbourhood, and on Martin's first introduction into its parish the squires' wives drove over, leaving their own and their husbands' cards, and invitations to dinner, duly arranged for a time when the moon was at its full. Mr. Gurwood responded to these invitations, and made his appearance at the various banquets. Accustomed to old Mr. Camden with his red face, his bald head, his white whiskers, and black suit cut in the fashion of a quarter of a century ago, the county people were at first rather impressed with Martin Gurwood's thin handsome face, and small well-dressed figure. It was a relief, the women said, to see a gentleman amongst them, and they were all certain that Mr. Gurwood would be an acquisition to the local society; but as the guests were driving homeward from the first of these feasts, several of the male convives imparted to their wives their idea that the new Vicar of Lullington was not merely unfit to hold a candle to his predecessor, but was likely to prove a meddlesome, disagreeable fellow. It seemed that after the ladies had retired, the conversation becoming as usual rather free, Mr. Gurwood had sat in blank, stony silence, keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon the contents of his dessert plate, and neither by look nor word giving the slightest intimation that he was aware of what was going on. But when rallied from his silence by Mr. Lidstone, a man of low tastes and small education, but enormously wealthy, Mr. Gurwood had spoken out and declared that if by indulging in such conversation, and telling such stories, they chose to ignore the respect due to themselves, they ought at least, while he was among them, to recollect the respect due to him, and to the calling which he represented. He had no desire to assume the character of a wet blanket or a kill-joy, but they must understand that for the future they must chose between his presence and the indulgence in such conversation; and as they had evidently not expected any such demonstration in the present instance, he would relieve them of his company at once, and leave them to decide whether or not he should again come amongst them as a guest. So saying, the parson had walked out of the window on to the lawn as cool as a cucumber, and left the squirearchy gaping in astonishment.
 
They were Boeotian, these county people, crass, ignorant, and rusted with prejudice from want of contact with the world, but they were by no means bad-hearted, and they took the parson's remonstrance in very good part. Each one who had already sent Martin Gurwood an invitation, managed to grip his hand before the evening was over, and took occasion to renew it, declaring he should have no occasion to reiterate the remarks which he had just made, and which they perfectly understood. Nor had he; he went a round of these solemn festivities, finding each one, both during the presence of the ladies and after their withdrawal, perfectly decorous, but unspeakably dull. He had not been sufficiently long in the neighbourhood for the local gossip to possess the smallest interest to him; he was not sufficient of an agriculturist to discuss the different methods of farming or the various qualities of food; he could talk about Oxford indeed, where some of his hosts or their friends had young relations whom he had known; he could and did sing well certain Italian songs in a rich tenor voice; and he discussed church architecture and decorations with the young ladies. But the old squires and the young squires cared for none of these things. They remembered how old Anthony Camden would sit by while the broadest stories were told, looking, save from the twinkle in his eye and the curling of his bulbous nether lip, as though he heard them not; with what feeling he would troll out a ballad of Dibdin's, or a bacchanalian ditty; and how the brewing of the bowl of punch, the "stirrup-cup," was always intrusted to his practised hand. Martin Gurwood took a glass of cold water before leaving; and if he were dining out any distance always had the one hired fly of the neighbourhood to convey him back to the vicarage. No wonder that the laughter-loving, roisterous squires shook their heads when th............