The curate did not answer, and the two walked on in silence, feeling somewhat awkward. Clode, indeed, was raging inwardly. By one thing and another he had been led to expect a man past middle life, and the only Clergy List in the parish, being three years old and containing the name of Lindo’s uncle only, had confirmed him in the error. He had never conceived the idea that the man set over his head would be a fledgling, scarcely a year in priest’s orders, or he would have gone elsewhere. He would never have stayed to be at the beck and call of such a puppy as this! He felt now that he had been entrapped, and he chafed inwardly to such an extent that he did not dare to speak. To have this young fellow, six or seven years his junior, set over him would humiliate him in the eyes of all those before whom he had long played a different part! In a minor degree Lindo was also vexed—not only because he was sufficiently sensitive to enter into the other’s feelings, but also because he foresaw trouble ahead. It was annoying, too, to be received at each new _rencontre_ as a surprise—as the reverse of all that had been expected and all that had been, as he feared, hoped. “You will find the rectory a very comfortable house,” said the curate at last, his mind fully made up now that he would leave at the earliest possible date. “Warm and old-fashioned. Rough-cast outside. Many of the rooms are panelled.” “It looks out on the churchyard, I believe,” replied the rector, with the same labored politeness. “Yes, it stands high. The view from the windows at the back is pleasant. The front is perhaps a little gloomy—in winter at least.” Near the top of the street a quaint, narrow flight of steps conducted them to the churchyard—an airy, elevated place, surrounded on three sides by the church and houses, but open on the fourth, where a terraced walk, running along the summit of the old town wall, admitted the southern sun and afforded a wide view of plain and hill. The two men crossed the churchyard, the new rector looking about him with curiosity and a little awe, his companion marching straight onward, his strongly-marked face set ominously. He would go! He would go at the earliest possible minute! he was thinking. It did not affect him nor alter his resolution that in the wooden porch of the old rectory the new rector turned to him and shyly, yet with real feeling, besought his help and advice in the work before him. The young clergyman, commonly so self-confident, was moved, and moved deeply, by the evening light and his strange and solemn surroundings. Stephen Clode’s answer was in the affirmative—it could hardly have been other; and it was spoken becomingly, if a little coldly, in view of the rector’s advances; but, even while the curate spoke it, he was considering how he might best escape from Claversham. Still his Yea, yea, comforted his companion and lightened his momentary apprehensions.