"Hm! You speak quite as if you belonged to the legal profession yourself, Mr. Maxwell. However, I am afraid that you will have to get off the lot just the same. You must remember that I am simply carrying out Mr. Bascom's instructions." "Very well; please give my compliments to Mr. Bascom and tell him that he is welcome to come here and put me out as soon as he thinks best. Moreover, you might remind him that he is not an autocrat, and that he cannot take any legal action in the matter without a formal meeting of the vestry, which I will call and at which I will preside. He can appeal to the Bishop if he sees fit." "Then I understand that you propose to stay where you are, in defiance of Mr. Bascom's orders?" "I most certainly do. It is well known that Mr. Bascom has successfully intimidated every one of my predecessors; but he has met his match for once. I shall not budge from this tent until I see fit." "Well, I should be very sorry to see you forcibly ejected." "Don't waste any sympathy on me, sir. If Mr. Bascom attempts to molest me, I shall take the matter to the courts and sue him for damages." "Your language is somewhat forcible, considering that you are supposed to be his pastor and spiritual advisor." "Very well; tell Mr. Bascom that as his spiritual advisor I strongly suggest that his spiritual condition will not be much improved by attempting to molest us here." "But to be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Maxwell, he can force you to leave, by stopping the payment of your salary, even if he does not eject you by force." "I rather think not. Until he can bring specific charges against me, he is liable for the fulfillment of our original contract, in his writing. Moreover, I may have more friends in the parish than he imagines." Nelson was visibly disturbed by the rector's firm hold on the situation. "But," he stuttered, "Mr. Bascom is the richest man in the parish, and his influence is strong. You will find that everyone defers to his judgment as a matter of course." "All right; then let me add, for your own information, that I can earn my living honestly in this town and take care of myself without Mr. Bascom's assistance, if necessary; and do my parish work at the same time. I have two muscular arms, and if it comes down to earning a livelihood, independent of my salary, I can work on the state road hauling stone. Williamson told me yesterday he was looking for men." "I can scarcely think that the parishioners would hold with their rector working like a common laborer, Mr. Maxwell," admonished Nelson. "We are all 'common,' in the right sense, Mr. Nelson. My view is that work of any kind is always honorable when necessary, except in the eyes of the ignorant. If Mr. Bascom is mortified to have me earn my living by manual labor, when he is not ashamed to repudiate a contract, and try to force me out of the parish by a process of slow starvation, his sense of fitness equals his standard of honor."