"That's what my girls will be wanting to do, I suppose, later on. This craze for work in towns clears the country of all the young. If it wasn't for the boy, I sometimes think I would sell this place. But he loves it, and he will never be fit for anything but a quiet, retiring life."
"And your girls love it too. Don't take away their home from them, if you can help it. I doubt if they're the kind who will thrive in town. I hope they will marry happily, and, till that event, be useful daughters at home."
"Oh, marriage! That's a farce nowadays."
The bitter sneering tone escaped him; then he pulled himself up, changing the conversation hastily.
"I saw our parson this morning; he called to inquire for you, but you were not out of your room. He was rather in a fuss over the Sunday Services. I told him you would not be able to touch the organ for some considerable time, so he's arranging that the schoolmaster should try his hand at it again."
"It's a torture to hear him," said Anstice with a little sigh. "He was playing when I first came."
"Then why go to church to be inflicted with it? Stay at home as I do."
"Have you never been to church?" Anstice's tone was grave and soft.
"On rare occasions. As a boy of course I did. We had a racy old parson then, who was always fox-hunting, and used to use hunt language in his sermons. Then we had a very different sort of man. I had an earnest fit as a young man. I got it at Oxford, and when I came down for vacation, he and I chummed up, and I was going to do wonders with my life. He inspired me for the time being. He was drowned one summer—was going over the lake on a stormy day to visit some sick parishioner, and the boat capsized, and he got a knock in the head which stunned him. I married not long after that."
"I think Mr. Bolland would inspire you afresh, if you were to hear him," Anstice said quietly. "He has altered my life for me since I came here—has made me see and understand as I have never done before."