"Apparent goodness," said Barron hotly.
The Canon smiled again. He wished—and this time more intensely—that
Barron would go, and let him get to his charters.
And in a few minutes Barron did take his departure. As he walked to the inn to find his carriage he pondered the problem of the virtuous unbeliever. A certain Bampton lecture by a well-known and learned Bishop recurred to him, which most frankly and drastically connected "Unbelief" with "Sin." Yet somehow the view was not borne out, as in the interests of a sound theology it should have been, by experience.
After all, he reached Upcote in good time before dinner, and remembering that he had to inflict a well-deserved lecture on the children who had been caught injuring trees and stealing wood in his plantations, he dismissed the carriage and made his way, before going home, to the cottage, which stood just outside the village, on the way from Maudeley to the Rectory and the church.
He knocked peremptorily. But no one came. He knocked again, chafing at the delay. But still no one came, and after going round the cottage, tapping at one of the windows, and getting no response, he was just going away, in the belief that the cottage was empty, when there was a rattling sound at the front door. It opened, and an old woman stood in the doorway.
"You've made a pretty noise," she said grimly, "but there's no one in but me."
"I am Mr. Barron," said her visitor, sharply. "And I want to see John Broad. My keepers have been complaining to me about his children's behaviour in the woods."
The woman before him shook her head irritably.
"What's the good of asking me? I only came off the cars here last night."
"You're a lodger, I suppose?" said Barron, eyeing her suspiciously. He did not allow his tenants to take in lodgers.