The contrast between the stately pile of Helmsbury, which was Harry Venniker’s home, and the vicarage of Kestercham, where Gerald Eversley had spent the first thirteen years of his life, was strongly marked. But the two boys, when they met at St. Anselm’s, were not conscious of it, as neither of them had ever seen the home of the other. If I can succeed in delineating both these homes, the progress of this story will be more easily understood. Fortunately, in speaking of Kestercham vicarage it is possible to use some letters of Gerald’s--written partly to Harry Venniker and partly to another--which lie before me. The village of Kestercham is situated in the heart of the most beautiful of English counties. It is hidden, I had almost said, it seems to hide itself, from human eyes. The rare traveller who should happen to pass through it, making a slight détour, perhaps, to catch the view of the cathedral which bursts upon the eyes at the sharp turning where the road emerges from the valley of Depedown, about a mile and a half from Kestercham, would be likely to judge (and not unreasonably) that it was cut off from the affairs of the outer world. The large manufacturing town of X---- lies at a distance of some ten miles from Kestercham; its tall chimneys rise like giants into the air; but the smoke dies away, and the din of the great city, long before you come to the blacksmith’s shop where the three roads meet, and the left arm of the time-worn signpost bears the inscription ‘To Kestercham.’ In one of Gerald Eversley’s letters, written some years after the beginning of this story, the following passage occurs: ‘How well I remember that blacksmith’s shop! Often and often, when driving home on winter evenings with my father from one of the neighbouring villages where he had been doing duty, have I strained my eyes to catch the jolly inspiring glow of the blacksmith’s stithy, and I think the drive always seemed less cold and dreary when once the ruddy flame, shining through the little windowpane, came into view. The blacksmith himself was my particular friend. I remember how I used to stand by his side, when I was a child, in silent eager admiration of the force with which he brought down the large hammer on a bar of red-hot iron, sending the sparks in wild confusion through the stithy, like so many fireworks, and what a delight it was to me--never to be forgotten--when he took my little arms in his brawny black hands and let me play at producing the same luminiferous effect. I do not know or did not reflect in those days that it was an operation used long ago by a sacred writer to exemplify the multitude of human troubles. The blacksmith was kind to me, and I think he was my first boyish hero. Certainly, if anyone had asked me in these days what was the profession that most satisfied my ambition next to the clerical (for I always put the clerical first, as being my father’s), I should have answered “the blacksmith’s.”’