"Why? Why? Why? Why do sheep huddle together when the dog barks at their heels?...But I respect him. Don't you mistake me. He's a man to be respected. He's got courage. He cares for the Cathedral. He's a hundred years behind, that's all. He's read nothing, he knows nothing, he's a child--and does infinite harm...." He looked up at Ronder and said quite mildly, "Is there anything more you want to know?" "There's talk," said Ronder, "about the living at Pybus St. Anthony. It's apparently an important place, and when there's an appointment I should like to be able to form an opinion about the best man----" "What! is Morrison dead?" said Foster eagerly. "No, but very ill, I believe." "Well, there's only one possible appointment for that place, and that is Wistons." "Wistons?" repeated Ronder. "Yes, yes," said Foster impatiently, "the author of _The New Apocalypse_--the rector of St. Edward's, Hawston." Ronder remembered. "A stranger?" he said. "I thought that it would have to be some one in the diocese." Foster did not hear him. "I've been waiting for this--to get Wistons here --for years," he said. "A wonderful man--a great man. He'll wake the place up. We _must_ have him. As to local men, the more strangers we let in here the better." "Brandon said something about a man called Forsyth--Rex Forsyth?" Foster smiled grimly. "Yes--he would," he said, "that's just his kind of appointment. Well, if he tries to pull that through there'll be such a battle as this place has never seen." Ronder said slowly. "I like your idea of Wistons. That sounds interesting." Foster looked at him with a new intensity. "Would you help me about that?" he asked. "I don't know quite where I am yet," said Ronder, "but I think you'll find me a friend rather than an enemy, Foster." "I don't care what you are," said Foster. "So far as my feelings or happiness go, nothing matters. But to have Wistons here--in this place.... Oh, what we could do! What we could do!" He seemed to be lost in a dream. Five minutes later he roused himself to say good-bye. Ronder once more at the top of the stairs felt about him again the strange stillness of the house. Chapter VIII Son--Father Falk Brandon was still, in reality, a boy. He, of course, did not know this and would have been very indignant had any one told him so; it was nevertheless the truth. There is a kind of confidence of youth that has great charm, a sort of assumption of grown-up manners and worldly ways that is accompanied with an ingenuous belief in human nature, a naive trust in human goodness. One sees it sometimes in books, in stories that are like a charade acted by children dressed in their elders' clothes, and although these tales are nothing but fairy stories in their actual relation to life, the sincerity of their belief in life, and a kind of freshness that come from ignorance, give them a power of their own.