 England. According to the old saying Theobald had killed the cat at
the beginning. It had been a very little cat, a mere kitten in fact, or he might
have been afraid to face it, but such as it had been he had challenged it to
mortal combat, and had held up its dripping head defiantly before his wife's
face. The rest had been easy.
    Strange! that one whom I have described hitherto as so timid and easily put
upon should prove such a Tartar all of a sudden on the day of his marriage.
Perhaps I have passed over his years of courtship too rapidly. During these he
had become a tutor of his college, and had at last been Junior Dean. I never yet
knew a man whose sense of his own importance did not become adequately developed
after he had held a resident fellowship for five or six years. True -
immediately on arriving within a ten-mile radius of his father's house, an
enchantment fell upon him, so that his knees waxed weak, his greatness departed,
and he again felt himself like an overgrown baby under a perpetual cloud; but
then he was not often at Elmhurst, and as soon as he left the spell was taken
off again; once more he became the fellow and tutor of his college, the Junior
Dean, the betrothed of Christina, the idol of the Allaby womankind. From all
which it may be gathered that if Christina had been a Barbary hen, and had
ruffled her feathers in any show of resistance Theobald would not have ventured
to swagger with her, but she was not a Barbary hen, she was only a common hen,
and that too with rather a smaller share of personal bravery than hens generally
have.
 

                                   Chapter 14

Battersby-on-the-hill was the name of the village of which Theobald was now
rector. It contained 400 or 500 inhabitants, scattered over a rather large area,
and consisting entirely of farmers and agricultural labourers. The vicarage was
commodious, and placed on the brow of a hill which gave it a delightful
prospect. There was a fair sprinkling of neighbours within visiting range, but
with one or two exceptions they were the clergymen and clergymen's families of
the surrounding villages. By these the Pontifexes were welcomed as great
acquisitions to the neighbourhood. Mr. Pontifex, they said, was so clever; he
had been Senior Classic and Senior Wrangler; a perfect genius in fact, and yet
with so much sound practical common sense as well. The son of such a
distinguished man as the great Mr. Pontifex the publisher - he would come
