The Archdeacon himself, before Beaumont had been a week under his roof, had conceived not only a high opinion of his guests’ acumen and legal attainments, but also a warm regard for himself personally. Their very points of difference seemed to enhance the pleasure the cleric found in the lawyer’s society and conversation. It is true they approached almost every subject from an entirely different point of view, and therein lay constant danger of friction or collision. But Edward had ever a seemly consideration for his senior in years and a ready concession of whatever deference the Archdeacon’s ecclesiastical dignity reasonably demanded. There is, perhaps, nothing so well designed as practice in the Courts to develop in a man a happy blending of due submission to authority with the respectful but unflinching assertion of one’s own opinions. The Archdeacon declared in later years that it was as great a pleasure to be routed in argument by Beaumont as to prevail, for the fellow had a sweet reasonableness about him that took away the sting of defeat, and almost persuaded the vanquished that he himself was victor. The elder man was fond of controversy if it were not pushed too far, of debate if it were conducted decently. It was an intellectual treat to meet a man with the generous enthusiasm of youth and with ideas outside the narrow range with which a country clergyman, whose only associates are clergymen like unto himself, must, almost perforce, be content. Though not so disputative as the man who repined because the very wife of his bosom was ceasing to contradict him, the Archdeacon wearied at times of speaking _ex cathedra_ Moreover, in a society drawn almost exclusively from one’s fellows controversy lacked not only variety of interest but variety of treatment. No doubt the smooth serenity of a soundly Conservative orthodoxy was an excellent thing, but the Vicar of Caistorholm confessed to himself that Beaumont’s radical heterodoxy, if a disturbance, was one that acted as a mental tonic and wholesome fillip. Exercise is a disturbance; but it is recommended for the liver. Mr. St. Clair acknowledged with a sigh that, intellectually and spiritually, life at Caistorholm might be serene, but it was unquestionably sluggish. “We touched on Disestablishment the other evening,” he said one day to Edward, as they walked together in the peaceful afternoon of a mellow autumn day about the Vicarage gardens; “I did not encourage you to pursue the subject, because some of our friends are very sensitive on that topic. To us clergymen, you know, the Church is as the Ark to the Levites, not to be touched by unholy hands.” “Well,” said Edward, smiling, “I’ve no mind to bring upon myself the fate of Uzzah—at all events, I must avoid it whilst I am at the Vicarage. Percz-Uzzah is not near so pretty a name as Caistorholm.”