In early youth, he had been a bit of a scamp. He broke his indentures, and ran away from his master, the tanner of Bryemere; he had got into fifty bad scrapes and out again; and, just as the little world of Golden Friars had come to the conclusion that it would be well for all parties—except, perhaps, himself—and a happy riddance for his afflicted mother, if he were sunk, with a gross of quart pots about his neck, in the bottom of the lake in which the grey gables, the elms, and the towering fells of Golden Friars are mirrored, he suddenly returned, a reformed man at the ripe age of forty.
For twelve years he had disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him. Then, suddenly, as I say, he reappeared at Golden Friars—a very black and silent man, sedate and orderly. His mother was dead and buried; but the "prodigal son" was received good-naturedly. The good vicar, Doctor Jenner, reported to his wife:
"His hard heart has been softened, dear Dolly. I saw him dry his eyes, poor fellow, at the sermon yesterday."
"I don't wonder, Hugh darling. I know the part—'There is joy in Heaven.' I am sure it was—wasn't it? It was quite beautiful. I almost cried myself."
The Vicar laughed gently, and stooped over her chair and kissed her, and patted her cheek fondly.
"You think too well of your old man's sermons," he said. "I preach, you see, Dolly, very much to the poor. If they understand me, I am pretty sure everyone else must; and I think that my simple style goes more home to both feelings and conscience—"
"You ought to have told me of his crying before. You are so eloquent," exclaimed Dolly Jenner. "No one preaches like my man. I have never heard such sermons."
Not many, we may be sure; for the good lady had not heard more than six from any other divine for the last twenty years.
The personages of Golden Friars talked Toby Crooke over on his return. Doctor Lincote said:
"He must have led a hard life; he had dried in so, and got a good deal of hard muscle; and he rather fancied he had been soldiering—he stood like a soldier; and the mark over his right eye looked like a gunshot."