The last speaker took in at a glance what was going on in his companion's breast, and that was a fight between independent defiance and curiosity, but he seemed not to notice it. "Give him time," he said to himself; and he smoked on, amused at the fellow's rough independence. He had been told that he would find Dumford a strange place, with a rough set of people; but nothing daunted, he had accepted the living, and had made up his mind how to act. At last the workman spoke: "I never see a parson smoke afore!" "Didn't you? Oh, I like a pipe." "Ain't it wicked?" said the other, with a grin. "Wicked? Why should it be? I see nothing wrong in it, or I should not do it." There was another pause, during which pipes were refilled and lighted once more. "Ever drink beer?" said the workman at last. "Beer? By Samson!" exclaimed the new vicar, "how I should like a good draught now, my man. I'm very thirsty." "Then there ain't none nigher than the Bull, an that's two mile away. There's plenty o' watter." "Where?" "Round the corner in the beck." A short nod accompanied this, and the vicar rose. "Then we'll have a drop of water--qualified," he said, taking a flask from his pocket. "Scotch whisky," he added, as he saw the stare directed at the little flask, whose top he was unscrewing. A dozen paces down the path, hidden by some rocks, ran the source of a tiny rivulet or beck, with water like crystal, and filling the cup he took from his flask, the vicar qualified it with whisky, handed it to his rough companion, and then drank a draught himself with a sigh of relief. "I've walked across the hills from Churley," he said, as they re-seated themselves. "I wanted to see what the country was like." "Ho!" said the workman. "Say, you ain't like the owd parson." "I suppose not. Did you know him?" "Know him? Not I. He warn't our sort." "You used to go and hear him, I suppose?" "Go and hear him? Well, that's a good one," said the workman; and a laugh transformed his face, driving away the sour, puckered look, which, however, began rapidly to return. "What's the matter?" said the vicar, after a few minutes' silent smoking. "Matter? matter wi' who?" "Why, with you. What have you come up here for, all by yourself?" "Nothing," was the reply, in the surliest of voices. "Nonsense, man! Do you think I can't tell that you're put out--hipped-- and that something has annoyed you?" The young man's face gave a twitch or two, and he shuffled half round in his seat. Then, leaping up, he began to hurry off. The new vicar had caught him in a dozen strides, putting away his pipe as he walked. "There," he said, "I won't ask any more questions about yourself. I'm going down into the town, and we may as well walk together." The young workman turned round to face him, angrily, but the calm unruffled look of his superior disarmed him, and he gave a bit of a gulp and walked on.