End of Volume One.
Volume Two—Chapter One.
To Bultitude’s and Back.
Matters did not improve at Dumford as the days went on, and Murray Selwood found that he could not have arrived at a worse time, so far as his own comfort was concerned, though he was bound to own that the occasion was opportune for his parish, inasmuch as he was able to be of no little service to many of the people who, in a surly kind of way, acknowledged his help, and took it in a condescending manner, while, with a smile, he could not help realising the fact that the sturdy independent folks looked down upon him as a kind of paid official whom they were obliged to suffer in their midst.
He had secured a servant with great difficulty, for the girls of the place, as a rule, objected to domestic service, preferring the freedom and independence of working for the line-growing farmers of the neighbourhood, and spending the money earned with the big draper of the place. Not our independent friends, but Barmby the parish churchwarden, who coolly told the vicar that he could produce more effect upon the female population with a consignment of new hats or bonnets from town, than a parson could with a month’s preaching; and it must be conceded to Mr Barmby that his influence was far more visible than that of his clerical superior.
All efforts to patch up a peace between the locked-out men and their employer were without avail, even though the vicar had seen both parties again and again.
“Let them pay for my machine-bands,” said Richard Glaire—“Two hundred pounds, and come humbly and confess their faults, and I’ll then take their application into consideration.”
“But don’t you think you had better make a greater concession?” said the vicar. “You are punishing innocent and guilty alike.”