The village gossips were right. Lady Harriet Wiseman did find the vicar a wife, though not just then. The vicar's young zeal, his vague ideas, had first to be moderated or abandoned. Bit by bit he was brought down to the prosaic realities of parish life, which embraced obligations unheard of in Holy Writ. That says nothing about the necessity for upholding feudalism. A mere twelvemonths' labour at reforming the morals and refining the minds of the rustics by means of the schoolmaster was not quite enough to bring young Codling to a proper sense of his position. A few more vagaries, a little further indulgence in the pleasure of sowing religious wild oats, and then the vicar would be ready to contract that highly advantageous marriage, which forms the goal of so many a parson's ambition. That accomplished, Codling might be considered tamed. The one further aberration of his which we have to notice was his plunge into the allotment agitation. As the excitement over teaching the rustics their alphabet and multiplication table began to die out in his mind, this new whim came handily to take its place and prevent him from feeling like a deserter. Here, he declared, was the true remedy for the miseries of the rural poor; he had become convinced that to educate them first was to begin at the wrong end. The first thing was to make them comfortable in their homes, and then they might learn to read with more advantage. The schoolmaster was by no means to be thrown over, but meanwhile Codling said the most important thing was that the labourers should have patches of land to grow cabbages and potatoes.