_Seek ye first the Kingdom of God._ To the cultivated and academic mind there might be something blatant and vulgar about so loud an invitation. But if its character estranged the carriage-folk, the man who had put it up had sought the Kingdom himself, and had, if all was true, found it. Joe Longstaffe was by common consent a Christian man, and not of that too general kind which excuses its foolishness and fatuity on the ground of its religion. The Duke's agent disliked him for political reasons, but he would admit that the dissenter was the best farmer in the countryside; and the labourers would have added that he was also the best employer. The curious who walked over from Lewes to attend the little chapel in which he held forth, found nothing remarkable in the big, gaunt man with the Newgate fringe and clean-shaven lips, who looked like a Scot but was Sussex born and bred. Joe Longstaffe was not intellectual; his theology was such that even the Salvation Army shook their heads over it; he had read nothing but the Bible and Wesley's Diary--and those with pain; he stuttered and stumbled grotesquely in his speech, and a clerical Oxford don, who pilgrimaged from Pevensey to hear him, remarked that the only thing he brought away from the meeting was the phrase, reiterated _ad nauseam_, "As I was sayin', as you might say." But there was one mark-worthy point about the congregation of the chapel; and the Duke in his shrewd way was the first to note it. "Nine out of ten of the people who attend are his own folk--his carters, shepherds, milk-maids, and the like. And they don't go for what they can get. Now if I started a chapel--as I'm thinkin' of doin'--d'you think my people'd come? Yes; if they thought they'd get the sack if they didn't." They went, indeed, these humble folk, because they couldn't help it. And they couldn't help it because there was a man in that chapel who drew them as surely as the North Pole draws the magnetic needle. And he drew them because there was Something in him that would not be denied, Something that called to their tired and thirsting spirits, called and comforted. It was not possible to say what that Something was; but this man had it, and it was very rare. And that tall daughter of his, who rarely smiled, and never grieved, who was always strong, quiet, and equable, going about her work regular as the seasons, possessed it, too. Everybody, indeed, respected Patience Longstaffe, if few loved her. She was long past thirty, and people were beginning to say that she had dedicated herself to virginity, when to the amazement of all it was announced that she would marry Mat Woodburn, the trainer, twenty years her senior. The Duke, of whose many failings lack of courage was not one, asked her boldly why she was doing it. Her answer was as simple as herself. "He's a good man," she said. It was a new and somewhat surprising light on the character of Old Mat, but the Duke accepted it without demur.