There was no rest for John Swinton that night. After the first rush of sorrow, he began to rebel against the injustice of his Master, who seemed to heap trouble upon him with both hands, and reward his untiring efforts in the cause of good by a crushing load of worry. His was a temperament generally summed up by the world in the simple phrase, good-natured. He was soft-hearted, and weaker of spirit than he knew. Those in trouble always found in him a sympathetic listener; and the distress and poverty among his people often pained him more acutely than it did the actual sufferers born in, and inured to, hardship and privation. His energy was tremendous where a noble end was to be achieved; but he loved the good things of life, and hated its trivial worries, the keeping of accounts, the payment of cash on the spot, and the attendance of committee meetings, where men met together to talk of doing what he could accomplish single-handed while they were deliberating. He was worldly enough to know that a great deal could be done by money, and his hand was always in his pocket to help those less fortunate than himself. The influence of a wife that had no sympathy with plain, common people who wore the wrong clothes, and said the wrong things, and desired to be guided in their ridiculous, trivial affairs, had more to do with his failure than he knew. He was always drawn between two desires, the one to be a great and beloved divine, the other to be a country gentleman, living in refinement, and in surroundings sympathetic to his emotional artistic temperament. The early promise of his youth, unfulfilled in his middle age, had disappointed him. But there was always one consolation. His son would endure no privation and limitation such as hampered a man without private means, like himself. As the heir to Herresford's great wealth, Dick's future prospects had seemed to be assured. But the lad himself, careless of his own interests, like his father, ran wild at an awkward period when his grandfather, breaking in mind and body, developed those eccentricities which became the marked feature of his latter days. The animosity of the old man was aroused, and once an enemy was always an enemy with him. He cared nothing for his daughter. Indeed, he cherished a positive hatred of her at times; and never lost an opportunity of humiliating the rector and making him feel that he gained nothing by marrying the daughter against her father's wishes. It was bad enough to have troubles coming upon him in battalions without this final blow--the charge of forgery against Dick.