It was notorious that Considine's parochial labours occupied very little of his time. The parish was small and scattered, Lapton Huish itself being a mere hamlet, and the neighbouring farmers so soaked in respectable tradition and isolated from opportunities of vice that their souls lay in no great danger of damnation. The activities of Considine were practically limited to his Sunday services, but though the softness of the climate might eventually have transformed him into a likeness of the ancient automaton who had preceded him, it was not in his nature to take things easily. He came of a vigorous stock. The clear, thin air of the Wiltshire downland that his ancestors had breathed makes for energy of temperament. At Roscarna he had given vent to this in the education of Gabrielle, the acquisition of his doctor's degree, and the management of his father-in-law's estate. His capacity for management, of which he had shown evidence in his winding-up of the Roscarna affairs, appealed to Lord Halberton, and it was not long before he proposed a series of improvements to the Lapton property that took his patron's fancy. In Considine's ideas there was not only imagination, but money, and Halberton was getting rather tired of his own expensive agricultural experiments. The big house of the parish, Lapton Manor, had lain for several years unoccupied, for no other reason apparently but that it was isolated and out of date. To Lord Halberton it represented at least a thousand pounds a year in waste. When Considine had been at Lapton Huish for a little more than six months this deserted mansion suggested itself to him as an outlet for his energies. He told Gabrielle nothing of this--he was not in the habit of discussing business matters with Gabrielle--but he rode over to Halberton House one day with an elaborate and practical paper scheme. He proposed, in effect, to vacate the Rectory, and take over Lapton Manor as it stood.