"I will not rest," answered Hubert. "I will work night and day, and give body and soul, and I'll see you a prima donna yet!"
They both laughed, and then, obeying an impulse which stirred their hearts alike, held out their hands to each other and exchanged a friendly grasp.
CHAPTER XV.
The little village of Beechfield, like all other villages, had its dark corners where vice and misery reigned supreme. In old times Mr. and Mrs. Rumbold—good people as they were in their own fashion—had been content to leave these darker places to themselves; the decent religious poor of the parish gave them enough to do. But under the new Rector's rule a new system had begun. The Reverend Maurice Evandale thought that his duty lay amongst the lost sheep as well as amongst those already in the fold. If he had been at Beechfield in the days before Sydney Vane's death, he would never have let poor Andrew Westwood and his child remain outcasts from the interests of religious life. He would have visited them, talked to them, persuaded the child to go to school, perhaps even induced the poacher to give up his vagrant ways; at any rate, he would not have let them alone, but would have grappled fearlessly with the difficulties of their position, and with that hostility which seemed to exist between Westwood and the rest of the village. Whether he would have been successful or not it were indeed hard to say, but that he would have made a great effort to be so there can be no manner of doubt.
Mr. Evandale's new system produced a great sensation in the parish—not altogether a favorable sensation either; for the villagers, who had gone on so long in quiet, comfortable, self-complacent ways, did not regard with a favorable eye the changes which the Rector introduced. All the old abuses which had slumbered peacefully in darkness for so many years were exposed relentlessly by this too energetic young man. He swept away the village band of stringed instruments from the church gallery; he erected an organ in the chancel, and set the schoolmistress to play it; he introduced new tunes into the choir, new doctrines into the pulpit; he played havoc amongst all that was fusty and musty and venerable in the villagers' eyes. He talked about drainage, and had an inspector down to investigate the state of the village water-supply; he waged war upon the publicans, set up an institute and a library for the village youths, taught the boys, played with them—thrashed them too occasionally—and made himself a terror to evil-doers and the idol of the young ladies of the place. Naturally much was said against him, especially behind his back. To his face, people did not venture to say much. The young Rector had such a fearless way of looking straight into people's eyes, of saying what he meant and expecting other people to do the same, that he inspired something like fear in the shiftier and less trustworthy part of the community. On the other hand, the weak, the sick, the very young, instinctively loved and trusted him. "He is beautiful in a sick-room," averred the elder women. Perhaps his words seemed beautiful to them because they felt that by some mysterious law of sympathy he understood their sorrows without having been a partaker in them, that he had an infinite pity for the erring and the suffering, and that he never felt himself less of a brother to his flock because so many of that flock were sinful and ignorant and degraded.
So, parson though he was, he became the friend and confidant of half the village; and strange tales were poured into his ear sometimes—tales which the tellers would formerly have laughed at the idea of relating to the Rector of the parish so long as Mr. Rumbold reigned supreme. But to Maurice Evandale nothing seemed to come amiss; he had interest and sympathy for all. Stern to impenitent sinners he certainly was—brutal men and idle lads cowered under the lash of his rebuke; but there was not a soul in the village who did not also know that a word of repentance, an act that showed a yearning after better things, was sufficient to melt the Rector's wrath and turn him from a judge and censor into a friend. Judging from the progress that Maurice Evandale had already made in the hearts of his people, there was a fair likelihood that if he stayed much longer he would be master of their affections and their intellects, in a way which was unprecedented indeed at Beechfield.
He was not often at Beechfield Hall. The General liked his society extremely, but Mrs. Vane declared that it fatigued her.
"The man is so oppressively blunt and downright," she said, "that one never knows what to expect from him next. He is a perfect bear."
"But, my dear Flossy, he comes of a very good family, and I have heard him praised on all sides for his distinguished manners," expostulated the General. "I never knew a young man so courteous, so polished!"