"Good day, sir!" said the stranger affably, as the minister came up to him. "Lovely weather!"
Mr Burnett, nothing loath to hear a fresh voice, stopped and smiled and agreed that the day was fine. He saw now that the stranger was a middle-sized man with a full fair moustache, jovial eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and a rosy healthy colour; while his manner was friendliness itself. The minister felt pleasantly impressed with him at once.
"Any trout in this stream?" inquired the stranger.
Mr Burnett answered that it was famed as a fishing river, at which the stranger seemed vastly interested and pleased, and put several questions regarding the baskets that were caught. Then he grew a little more serious and said—
"I hope you will pardon me, sir, for thanking you for a very excellent sermon. As I happened to be motoring past just as church was going in I thought I'd look in too. But I assure you I had no suspicion I should hear so good a discourse. I appreciated it highly."
Though a modest man, Mr Burnett granted the stranger's pardon very readily. Indeed, he became more favourably impressed with him than ever.
"I am very pleased to hear you say so," he replied, "for in an out-of-the-way place like this one is apt to get very rusty."
"I don't agree with you at all, sir," said the stranger energetically, "if you'll pardon my saying so. In my experience—which is pretty wide, I may add—the best thinking is done in out-of-the-way places. I don't say the showiest, mind you, but the best!"
Again the minister pardoned him without difficulty.
"Of course, one needs a change now and then, I admit," continued the stranger. "But, my dear sir, whatever you do, don't go and bury yourself in a crowd!"