"No, my dear, no. I must get back."
In three minutes the Vicar was on horseback again, having gone
magnanimously through a duty much harder than the renunciation
of whist, or even than the writing of penitential meditations.
CHAPTER LIII.
It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from
what outsiders call inconsistency--putting a dead mechanism
of "ifs" and "therefores" for the living myriad of hidden
suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into
mutual sustainment.
Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick,
had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one
whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement
and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation
at large, that just about the time when he came in possession of the
deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother
"read himself" into the quaint little church and preached his first
sermon to the congregation of farmers, laborers, and village artisans.
It was not that Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick Church
or to reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had
bought the excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a retreat
which he might gradually enlarge as to the land and beautify as
to the dwelling, until it should be conducive to the divine glory
that he should enter on it as a residence, partially withdrawing
from his present exertions in the administration of business,
and throwing more conspicuously on the side of Gospel truth the weight
of local landed proprietorship, which Providence might increase by
unforeseen occasions of purchase.
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