“Have you been in a row with the squire, Robert?” he had asked.
“Yes, sir, never out o’ one,” Robert had answered, and had seemed to experience a peculiar satisfaction in making the avowal; as though to be in a row with squire conveyed a certain distinction on a man of humble origin. For the vicar to be in a row was, however, another thing.
The vicar, to Robert’s amazement, had kept on friendly terms with the squire to the day of the old man’s death, which to those who knew Walter Errol did not appear so surprising a matter as it did to Robert, familiar with the squire’s irascible temper, and accustomed to hearing himself spoken of as a very ignorant man. The vicar never called Robert ignorant; he showed, indeed, a very proper appreciation of his value; and, because to be appreciated is agreeable to every one, Robert returned in kind with loyal service and devotion. No man, whatever his status, can give more.
The vicar, as he sat at dinner with his wife, filled the sympathetic rôle of listener while she gave, with a certain quiet humour of her own, a graphic account of the meagre resources of her wardrobe. His own clothes also, she stated, were somewhat shabby.
“We shall look the typical country vicar and vicaress,” she said, with a most unclerical dimple coming into play when she smiled. “I hate dowdiness, Walter.”
“Can’t you get something made in the time?” he asked.
“No. I wouldn’t if I could. For one dinner! Imagine it! Why shouldn’t I look a country vicaress? That’s what I am.”
“You always look pretty,” he said, “and so do your clothes.”
“I believe,” she observed, with a fair imitation of John Musgrave’s tone and manner, “that I compare very favourably with other clergymen’s wives.”
He laughed.