Mr. Woodward was of course adored by the people of the village. In his trim garden lived a couple of pea-fowl—gruff and selfish birds, but very beautiful to look at. Mr. Woodward had a singular delight in watching the old peacock trail his glories in the sun. They roosted in a tree that overhung the road. There came to stay in the next village a sailor, a ne’er-do-weel, who used to hang about with a gun. One evening Mr. Woodward heard a shot fired in the lane, went out of his study, and found that the sailor had shot the peacock, who was lying on his back in the road, feebly poking out his claws, while the aggressor was pulling the feathers from his tail. Mr. Woodward was extraordinarily moved. The man caught in the act looked confused and bewildered. “Why did you shoot my poor old bird?” said Mr. Woodward. The sailor in apology said he thought it was a pheasant. Mr. Woodward, on the verge of tears, carried the helpless fowl into the garden, but finding it was already dead, interred it with his own hands, told his sister at dinner what had happened, and said no more. But the story spread, and four stalwart young parishioners of Mr. Woodward’s vowed vengeance, caught the luckless sailor in a lane, broke his gun, and put him in the village pond, from which he emerged a lamentable sight, cursing and spluttering; the process was sternly repeated, and not until he handed over all his available cash for the purpose of replacing the bird did his judges desist. Another peacock was bought and presented to Mr. Woodward, the offender being obliged to make the presentation himself with an abject apology, being frankly told that the slightest deviation from the programme would mean another lustral washing. The above story testifies to the sort of position which Mr. Woodward held in his parish; and what is the most remarkable part of it, indicates the esteem with which he was regarded by the most difficult members of a congregation to conciliate—the young men. But then Mr. Woodward was at ease with the young men. He had talked to them as boys, with a grave politeness which many people hold to be unnecessary in the case of the young. He had encouraged them to come to him in all sorts of little troubles. The men who had resented the loss of Mr. Woodward’s peacock knew him as an intimate and honoured family friend; he had tided one over a small money difficulty, and smoothed the path of an ambition for another. He had claimed no sacerdotal rights over the liberties of his people, but such allegiance as he had won was the allegiance that always waits upon sympathy and goodwill; and further, he was shrewd and practical in small concerns, and had the great gift of foreseeing contingencies. He never forgot the clerical character, but he made it unobtrusive, kept it waiting round the corner, and it was always there when it was wanted. [Sidenote: THE PROFESSOR]