“I hope you will excuse this intrusion,” at last he muttered; “but I have a few words of business to which I will request your attention presently.”
“Certainly,” said Robarts, conveying a broiled kidney on to the plate before Mr. Crawley; “but there is no preparation for business like a good breakfast. Lucy, hand Mr. Crawley the buttered toast. Eggs, Fanny; where are the eggs?” And then John, in livery, brought in the fresh eggs. “Now we shall do. I always eat my eggs while they’re hot, Crawley, and I advise you to do the same.”
To all this Mr. Crawley said very little, and he was not at all at home under the circumstances. Perhaps a thought did pass across his brain, as to the difference between the meal which he had left on his own table, and that which he now saw before him; and as to any cause which might exist for such difference. But, if so, it was a very fleeting thought, for he had far other matter now fully occupying his mind. And then the breakfast was over, and in a few minutes the two clergymen found themselves together in the parsonage study.
“Mr. Robarts,” began the senior, when he had seated himself uncomfortably on one of the ordinary chairs at the farther side of the well-stored library table, while Mark was sitting at his ease in his own arm-chair by the fire, “I have called upon you on an unpleasant business.”
Mark’s mind immediately flew off to Mr. Sowerby’s bill, but he could not think it possible that Mr. Crawley could have had anything to do with that.
“But as a brother clergyman, and as one who esteems you much and wishes you well, I have thought myself bound to take this matter in hand.”
“What matter is it, Crawley?”
“Mr. Robarts, men say that your present mode of life is one that is not befitting a soldier in Christ’s army.”
“Men say so! what men?”
“The men around you, of your own neighbourhood; those who watch your life, and know all your doings; those who look to see you walking as a lamp to guide their feet, but find you consorting with horse-jockeys and hunters, galloping after hounds, and taking your place among the vainest of worldly pleasure-seekers. Those who have a right to expect an example of good living, and who think that they do not see it.”