Mr. Evandale's new system produced a great sensation in the parish--not altogether a favorable sensation either; for the villagers, who had gone on so long in quiet, comfortable, self-complacent ways, did not regard with a favorable eye the changes which the Rector introduced. All the old abuses which had slumbered peacefully in darkness for so many years were exposed relentlessly by this too energetic young man. He swept away the village band of stringed instruments from the church gallery; he erected an organ in the chancel, and set the schoolmistress to play it; he introduced new tunes into the choir, new doctrines into the pulpit; he played havoc amongst all that was fusty and musty and venerable in the villagers' eyes. He talked about drainage, and had an inspector down to investigate the state of the village water-supply; he waged war upon the publicans, set up an institute and a library for the village youths, taught the boys, played with them--thrashed them too occasionally--and made himself a terror to evil-doers and the idol of the young ladies of the place. Naturally much was said against him, especially behind his back. To his face, people did not venture to say much. The young Rector had such a fearless way of looking straight into people's eyes, of saying what he meant and expecting other people to do the same, that he inspired something like fear in the shiftier and less trustworthy part of the community. On the other hand, the weak, the sick, the very young, instinctively loved and trusted him. "He is beautiful in a sick-room," averred the elder women. Perhaps his words seemed beautiful to them because they felt that by some mysterious law of sympathy he understood their sorrows without having been a partaker in them, that he had an infinite pity for the erring and the suffering, and that he never felt himself less of a brother to his flock because so many of that flock were sinful and ignorant and degraded. So, parson though he was, he became the friend and confidant of half the village; and strange tales were poured into his ear sometimes--tales which the tellers would formerly have laughed at the idea of relating to the Rector of the parish so long as Mr. Rumbold reigned supreme. But to Maurice Evandale nothing seemed to come amiss; he had interest and sympathy for all. Stern to impenitent sinners he certainly was--brutal men and idle lads cowered under the lash of his rebuke; but there was not a soul in the village who did not also know that a word of repentance, an act that showed a yearning after better things, was sufficient to melt the Rector's wrath and turn him from a judge and censor into a friend. Judging from the progress that Maurice Evandale had already made in the hearts of his people, there was a fair likelihood that if he stayed much longer he would be master of their affections and their intellects, in a way which was unprecedented indeed at Beechfield.