'Of course,' said Felix, thinking that to talk it all out would conduce to Clement's quieter rest. 'We can all look back to much that we would have had otherwise; but I trace the original mischief to those days when Mr. Ryder, young and eager, talked out all his crudities to the cleverest boy in his school, just as he had done to his Oxford friends. He feels it himself, I think. He gave unintentionally a sort of resource against whatever was distasteful, and made all the scepticism that the poor dear fellow was exposed to abroad not seem a mere foreign aberration. Somehow he was afraid of what religion might do to him, and so took refuge not so much in doubt, as in knowing it was doubted. The only thing that I ever knew touch him, was something Lance said to him about refusing to go and live with him in London.'
'Yes; his brightness did good, where my assumptions only added to the general contempt.'
'Still, the more I think, the more I do believe that whether we ever know it or not, so sweet and loving a nature must come right at last.'
And there in the dark those two brothers knelt down together and in deep undertones uttered a few clauses of intense prayer. Then Clement said in a broken voice, 'Felix, do keep your present room, and let us say this together every night.'
And the elder brother's only answer was such a fatherly kiss as he gave the younger ones. They remembered that night long after!
On the Sunday Clement was not only exhausted and unwell, but could not help allowing it, for he fainted after his first service, and was forced to allow himself to lie by whenever he was not actually needed, letting Felix spare him whatever was possible. Thus it was that the new Squire astonished the natives by taking the Vicar's Sunday class in the stable that served for the school. By-the-by, instead of receiving such a lecture as used to be the penalty of intrusting his own Bexley boys to Clement, he was now dejectedly forewarned that the Vale Lestonites did not know half as much, and had the more reason to think it true because such an extraordinary proceeding on a Squire's part filled them with blank speechless amazement.
The congregation were equally full of wonder, approaching to incredulity, when their new Mr. Underwood stood forth surpliced, and read the Lessons. He had done the like often for Mr. Flowerdew; but he would not have thus amazed the villagers on this first Sunday if he had not been really uneasy as to their Vicar's powers of getting through the services. And it really was a memorable thing, to Clement at least, to hear his full clear beautiful voice setting forth the delights of the Land of Promise, the goodly houses and fields, and the warnings that he was verily taking to himself against the heart being lifted up, and forgetting, or turning to serve the gods the former nations had served—the gods may be of family pride, and pleasure, and ease, and comfort. To Clement it seemed as though he read the whole magnificent chapter of Deuteronomy like a manifesto of his own future course, declaring all against which he meant to beware. It was just as, when he had to seal up a bundle of papers that evening, he took up a big old white cornelian seal with the family shield, and said, squeezing it down into a deep well-prepared bed of red sealing-wax, 'There, I never did that before; I couldn't be liable for armorial bearings!' And as Bernard exclaimed, 'Yes, now you are a gentleman out and out!' he answered gravely, 'Not forgetting the motto, Bear. Remember what we take up.'
'There's no sense in those old sing-song saws,' boldly averred Bernard.
'Perhaps you'll know better some day.'
Felix went himself to St Matthew's with Clement, and had a private conference with Mr. Fulmort, the result of which was, that the senior curate, very glad of a breath of May loveliness, went down for three weeks to Vale Leston, while the Vicar thereof refreshed his spirit at St Matthew's, and that when he went back again he was to take with him the Reverend Frederick Somers, to stay till the family move should bring him other companions.