"I have no such ambition, my lord," answered the young chaplain gravely. "My life is vowed to your service and to that country which, though but in part my own, is wholly yours. I have no better wish than to labour unknown among the wild Welsh hills, if in God's mercy, by so doing, I may seek to diminish the woes appertaining to your house. At Cwmfelin I can work not only to this immediate effect, being still your chaplain, but for the good of that whole neighbourhood wherein the rumour of the curse works mischievously, and where, as you must needs confess, there is field enough for those special preachings of mine, at which you are pleased to jest. An it were better that I should confine myself wholly to the duties of my chaplaincy, I am ready so to do, as you know, having so undertaken." "Nay, that I will not," replied the earl; "for to hold a man of your gifts and learning ever tied to mine own apron-string were to my thinking an unpardonable selfishness. Yet such is the hold you have upon my affections, that, as you see, I do not urge you to more ambitious fields, but seek to hold you still by one end of the string, in thus giving you the spiritual charge of my own estate, and in placing you at my feet in the valley, so that, when, like all the Bryn Afons, I come to die within mine own accursed walls, it shall be your hands, and no stranger's, which shall minister to my dying wants. And my dying bed, I warrant you, Percival, will be no pleasant and peaceful scene, which you may bring your fair wife to witness! As my forefathers have died, so too must I, and that I bid you then not fail me is a sure proof of the trust I place in you, and of my belief in your strangely conceived affection for me. I too have a curious love for you, Percival, a love born out of pure contradiction! 'Tis passing strange that I, of all men, should so love you, with your everlasting hobby daily thrust down my unwilling throat, and your pure pale face warranting you well enough to be the 'lily-knight' they call you, ever stealing with haunting eyes between me and---- Ah well, when you are settled within the venerable walls of your parsonage, you will have opportunities for preaching your hobby, and can you but outlive good Master Jones of Puritanical repute, I doubt not you will have the whole country-side speedily imbued with your strange, new doctrine. 'Tis a pity Ap Gryffyth did not likewise hold such! He might surely then, if it were but 'on principle,' have spared me his imprecation! So the fair maid comes to town in the winter with our Lady Rosamond? Beware, lest betwixt that madcap's spoiling and the attentions of my infatuated wife, she is not spoiled for service as a good country parson's wife! Well, I give you both my blessing, such as it is worth--and there's my hand on it!"