“Ah—Dandy Chater was evidently not a professing Christian,” muttered Philip. “I’m half sorry now that I suggested going; but I suppose it’s best to take the bull by the horns, and plunge among the people I shall have to meet as rapidly as possible. Well, if they single me out as a lost sheep, and call me publicly to repentance, I can’t help it. But I shouldn’t be surprised if the living were in my gift; in which case, they may be disposed to forgive me, and treat me leniently.” Finding, to his satisfaction, that the clothes belonging to the late Dandy Chater fitted his successor as accurately as though made for him, Philip went down to breakfast in an improved frame of mind. After breakfast, when he lounged out into the grounds, there came another of those little trials to his nerves, which he was destined thereafter often to experience. Coming near to the stables, a dog—a fine animal of the spaniel breed—leapt out suddenly, with joyous barks, to meet him; came within a foot or two—sniffed at him suspiciously—and then fled, barking furiously. Turning, in some discomfiture, he came almost face to face with the servant Harry, who was looking at him, he thought, curiously. “Something the matter with that beast,” said Philip, as carelessly as he could. “Have it chained up.” Turning away, and reëntering the house, he said softly to himself—“The moral of which is: keep away from the animals. They are wiser than the more superior beings.” It was with very uncomfortable sensations in his breast that Philip Chater—after discovering, in his wanderings, a small gate and path leading direct from the grounds to the churchyard—strolled carelessly across, and entered the church. He had been careful to wait until the last moment, when the slow bell had actually ceased, before venturing inside; and it was perhaps as well that he did so. Fortunately for himself, he came face to face, just inside the porch, with an ancient man, who appeared to act as a sort of verger or beadle; and who was so much astonished at his appearance, and stepped so hurriedly backwards, that he almost tripped himself up in the folds of his rusty black gown. But he recovered sufficiently to be able to shuffle along the church, towards the pulpit, and to pull open the door of a huge old-fashioned pew, like a small parlour, with a fireplace in it. Philip was glad to hide himself within the high walls of this pew, and to find himself shut in by the ancient one.