"If you please, sir," said the clerk, putting his head in at the door, "the rain is a-coming down like nothing, and that great hole over the pulpit ben't mended yet. Master Brooks promised me it should be done afore to-night; but he's never seen to it." "That Brooks is the very--but, there, it can't be helped to-night, Sam, at all events," said Bolton, rather ashamed that the defects of his parochial administration should be exposed, as it were, to the enemy. "I must speak to him about it myself." "I clapped a couple of sods over it as well as I could, sir," said the persevering Sam; "and I don't think much wet can come in to hurt, like. Will this gentleman 'ficiate to-morrow?--(this was in a loud confidential whisper)--'cause the t'other surplice a'n't"-- "Don't bother now--there's a good fellow," said Harry, considerably annoyed, as he shut the door in the face of his astonished subordinate, who was generally privileged to gossip as much as he pleased. He covered his embarrassment by showing his visitor at once to his room, and then sat down to complete his own preparations for the next day's duties. The rain was as busily falling in the morning as if it had only just begun, instead of having been at it all night. Harry had been more than usually scrupulous in his dress; but when they met at the breakfast table, his guest's clerical _tout-ensemble_ beat him hollow. After a rather silent meal, in which both, as if by tacit consent, avoided all allusion to subjects connected with the day and its duties, Bolton mustered his courage, as they rose from table, to say--"My service is at eleven, and I shall have rather a wet walk; you, perhaps, are not disposed to accompany me?" "By all means," said the stranger, bowing; "I am quite ready;--is it time to set out?" And in a few minutes they were picking their way, side by side, down the little miry lane. The church, it must be confessed, was not a comely edifice. Its architectural pretensions must originally have been of the humblest order; and now, damp and dilapidated, it was one of the many which, in those days, were a disgrace to any Christian community. There was the hole in the roof, immediately over the curate's head, imperfectly stopped by Sam's extempore repairs; and very wretched and comfortless did the few who composed the congregation look, as they came dripping in, and dispersed themselves among the crumbling pews. The service proceeded, and none showed such reverent attention as the stranger; and being placed in the rectorial pew, immediately opposite the clerk, the distinct though subdued tone of his responses was so audible, and so disturbed that functionary, (who had that part of the service usually pretty much to himself, and had come to consider it as in some sort his exclusive privilege,) that he made some terrible blunders in the hard verses in the Psalms, and occasionally looked round upon his rival, on these latter occasions especially, with unmistakeable indignation.