“You know that we parsons are privileged impertinents?” began Vernon, after a short pause.
“Yes,” answered the stranger promptly.
“Perhaps you know too that I have been until to-day ‘deputy shepherd’ here at Rishton?”
“I know that too,” admitted the other.
“Then perhaps you will let me ask if you are the new tenant of Church Cottage?”
“Well, there’s nothing gained or lost by admitting that I am; and further, I don’t mind telling you that I’d as soon the cottage were a little further off the church. One can’t expect to live in the odor of sanctity for nothing, and with a parson living next door, and religious consolation therefore always turned on, I shall feel, so to speak, always under the tap.”
“You needn’t be afraid of that with my brother,” said Vernon, smiling. “I suppose there never was a man with less professional cant about him. He’ll talk to a neighbor about his fruit trees, his pigs, his poultry, and everything that is his, but never a word of religion, unless the subject is introduced by somebody else.”
“I see; won’t give professional advice for nothing? Well, I respect him for it; there’s no good in making your wares too cheap. Guess your brother and me’ll get along.”
What could the work be which brought this keen-eyed, prosperous-looking colonist—for a colonist it was not difficult to guess that he must be—to a sleepy little hole like Rishton, where the commerce was restricted to the weekly buying and selling in Matherham market, and to the still humbler traffic in the small wares of half a dozen puny village shops? Vernon was shy of asking him point-blank the nature of his work; indeed, something in the stranger’s manner intimated pretty plainly that he would not have given the required information. And no hints sufficed to draw him out. The vicar of St. Cuthbert’s made one such attempt, which failed most signally.
“You will find also,” said he, “that my brother is a practical man, and any help that he can give you in the work you speak of he will offer most willingly, I know.”