"I quite agree with you there," said Worthing, allowing himself to be diverted to this question of the welfare of a community, which he had much at heart. "I'm glad you take that view of it. It's the right view for a landholder to take, in my opinion. It's up to us who are running a place like this to keep people contented and happy. It's the human side, as I often tell young Bradby. You've got to be just in your dealings, but there are lots of little points where the law seems to give you an unfair advantage. I don't say it does, but it seems to, in the way things are looked at now, with all this Radicalism about. You can run things all right on the old system if you bring goodwill to bear, and remember the people you're dealing with aren't any different to what you are yourself. It seems to me that's the best thing about the old system--the human contact between all parties concerned." "Well, the parson of a village ought to be the one above all others who makes that contact. What's he there for otherwise?" "I agree with that too. I'm a good churchman, and all that, and of course the religious side of it is important. But to my mind it's more important still that he should be the friend of all his people, rich and poor alike, so that they can go to him for anything, and find a friend in him." "That _is_ the religious side of it, isn't it?" "I suppose it ought to be. But the parsons now-a-days seem to want to run a country parish as they would a town one. We don't see much of it hereabouts, except with Brill, and he's kept in order by Lady Mansergh. Brill's a nice kind-hearted fellow too, and if it wasn't for all that high falutin' church business, and changing all the services from what they've been accustomed to, and shoving them off their perches generally, he'd do as well as any country parson. Take a man like Williams. He's a good deal more interested in his dogs and his carpentering than he is in his church services, I should say. I don't want to hold him up as a perfect example, but he's the friend of all his parishioners. Beckley's a close-fisted landlord, and doesn't get on particularly well with his tenants. But Williams often does them a good turn with him. He's a _human_ sort of fellow. That's what I like about Williams." "And that's just what Mercer isn't." Worthing had rather forgotten about Mercer, and his inclination to make the best of people and give everybody a chance was strong in him. He frowned slightly. "He's cantankerous," he said. "I can't deny that." "Yes, he's cantankerous, and a good many other things besides. There's hardly a soul round about--of our sort, I mean--that he hasn't fallen out with. When I first came here he warned me against the whole lot of them, without exception." "Did he? Well, he oughtn't to have done that. I don't believe you'd find a nicer lot of people, take 'em all round, anywhere in England."