THE NEW RECTOR—AUNT MARIA TRIES TO FIND HIM A WIFE—MY FATHER HAS A SIMILAR CARE FOR ME The stone that marks the burying-place of the Andrewes family taught me the secret of the special love the Rector bore me. It recorded the deaths of his wife Margaret, and of his son Reginald. The child was born in the same year as myself.
 
Mr. Jonathan Andrewes came to Dacrefield on business connected with his brother's affairs, and he accepted my father's hospitality at the Hall. We seldom met afterwards, and were never intimate; but, slight as it was, our tie was that of friendship rather than acquaintance.
 
The next presentation to the Rectory of Dacrefield was in my father's gift. He held it alternately with the Bishop, to whom he owed Mr. Andrewes. He gave it to my old tutor.
 
Mr. Clerke's appointment had the rare merit of pleasing everybody. After he had been settled with us for some weeks, my father said,
 
"Mr. Clerke is good enough to be grateful to me for presenting him to the living, but I do not know how to be grateful enough to him for accepting it. I really cannot think how I should have endured to see Andrewes' place filled by some new broom sweeping away every trace of our dear friend and[205] his ways. Clerke's good taste in the matter is most delicate, most admirable, and very pleasant to my feelings."
 
The truth is there was not a truer mourner for the old Rector than the new one. "I so little thought I should never see him again," he cried to me. "I have often felt I did not half avail myself of the privilege of knowing such a man, when I was here. I have notes of more than a score of matters, on which I purposed to ask his good counsel, when we should meet again. And now it will never be."
 
"I feel so unworthy to fill his place," he would say. "My only comfort is in trying to carry out all his plans, and, so far as I can, tread in his steps."
 
In this spirit the new Rector followed the old one, even to becoming an expert gardener. He bought the old furniture of the Rectory. Altogether, we were spared those rude evidences of change which are not the least painful parts of such a loss as ours.
 
With the parishioners, I am convinced, that Mr. Clerke was more popular than Mr. Andrewes had been. They liked him at first for his reverence for the memory of a pastor they had loved well. I think he persuaded them, too, that there never could be another Rector equal to Mr. Andrewes. But in reality I believe he was himself more acceptable. He was much less able, but also less eccentric and reserved. He was nearer to the mental calibre of his flock, and not above entering into parish gossip after a discreet fashion. He was not less zealous than his predecessor.
 
When Aunt Maria came to visit us she gladly renewed acquaintance with Mr. Clerke, who was a[206] great favourite of hers. I think she imagined that he was presented to Dacrefield on the strength of her approval. She used to say to me, "You know Reginald, I always told your father that Mr. Clerke was a most spiritual preacher." But after seeing him as Rector of Dacrefield, she added, "He's getting much too 'high.' Quite like that extraordinary creature you had here before. But it's always the way with young men."
 
Uncle Ascott did not publicly undertake Mr. Clerke's defence, but he told me:
 
"I don't pretend to understand these matters as Maria does, but I can tell you I never liked any of our London parsons as I like Clerke. There's something I respect beyond anything in the feeling he has for your late Rector. And between ourselves, my dear boy, I rather like a nicely-conducted service."
 
So Uncle Ascott and Mr. Clerke were the very best of friends, and my uncle would go to the Rectory for a quiet smoke, and was always hospitably received. (Neither my aunt nor my father liked the smell of tobacco.) Aunt Maria's favour was a little withdrawn. She tried a delicate remonstrance, but though he was most courteous, it was not to be mistaken that the Rector of Dacrefield meant to go his own way: "the way of a better man than I shall ever be," he said. Failing to change his principles, or guide his practice, my aunt next became anxious to find him a wife. "Medical men and country parsons ought to be married," said she, "and it will settle him."
 
She selected a young lady of the neighbourhood, the daughter of a medical man. "Most suitable," said my aunt (by which she meant not quite up to the standard she would have exacted for a son of[207] her own), "and with a little money." She patronised this young lady, and even took her with us one day to lunch at the Rectory; but when she said something to Mr. Clerke on the subject, she fou............