"You may be--now--more shame to you. But Cora--well, your cousin Mark be first in the field there. A word to the wise is enough. You'll be doing a very improper thing if you look in that quarter, and I must firmly beg you won't, for everybody's sake." "Mark!" "Mark. And a very good chap he is--worth fifty of you." "Mark!" repeated Ned, as though the notion was unthinkable. "I should have guessed that he would rather have run out of the country than lift his eyes to a girl!" CHAPTER IV The Reverend Dennis Masterman was a bachelor. He came to Shaugh full of physical energy and certain hazy resolutions to accomplish notable work among a neglected people. His scholastic career was nugatory, and his intellect had offered no bar to his profession. He was physically brave, morally infirm. Therefore his sister, Alice Masterman, came to support him and share his lot and complement his character. She might indeed fly from cows, but she would not fly from parochial opposition. She was strong where he was weak. They were young, sanguine, and of gentle birth. They enjoyed private means, but were filled with wholesome ardour to justify existence and leave the world better than they found it. Dennis Masterman possessed interest, and regarded this, his first cure, as a stepping-stone to better things. Shaugh Prior was too small for his natural energies and powers of endurance--so he told his sister; but she said that the experience would be helpful. She also suspected that reform might not be a matter of energy alone. One evening, a week after their arrival, they were planning the campaign and estimating the value of lay helpers, when two important visitors were announced. A maiden appeared and informed the clergyman that Thomas Gollop and Eliza Gollop desired to see him. "Show them into the common room," said he; then he twisted a little bronze cross that he wore at his watchchain and regarded Miss Masterman. "The parish clerk and his sister--I wonder if you'd mind, Alice?" he asked. For answer she put down her work. "Certainly. Since you saw Joe Voysey alone and, not only engaged him, but promised he might have a boy for the weeding, I feel--well, you are a great deal too easy, Dennis. Gollop is a very masterful person, clearly, and his sister, so I am told, is just the same. You certainly must not see women alone. They'll get everything they want out of you." "Of course, one wishes to strike a genial note," he explained. "First impressions count for such a lot with common people." "Be genial by all means; I say nothing against that." "Let's tackle them, then. Gollop's a tremendous Conservative, but we must get Liberal ideas into him, if we can--in reason."