 at the
rectory, and assures him that never yet was clergyman so devoted to the welfare
of his flock. He believes her; he has a natural tendency to believe everything
that is told him, and who should know the facts of the case better than his
wife? Poor fellow! He has done his best, but what does a fish's best come to
when the fish is out of water? He has left meat and wine; that he can do; he
will call again and will leave more meat and wine; day after day he trudges over
the same plover-haunted fields, and listens at the end of his walk to the same
agony of forebodings, which day after day he silences, but does not remove, till
at last a merciful weakness renders the sufferer careless of her future, and
Theobald is satisfied that her mind is now peacefully at rest in Jesus.
 

                                   Chapter 16

He does not like this branch of his profession - indeed he hates it - but will
not admit it to himself. The habit of not admitting things to himself has become
a confirmed one with him. Nevertheless there haunts him an ill-defined sense
that life would be pleasanter if there were no sick sinners, or if they would at
any rate face an eternity of torture with more indifference. He does not feel
that he is in his element. The farmers look as if they were in their element.
They are full-bodied, healthy and contented; but between him and them there is a
great gulf fixed. A hard and drawn look begins to settle about the corners of
his mouth, so that even if he were not in a black coat and white tie a child
might know him for a parson.
    He knows that he is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of this more
firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is sadly in want of
occupation. He has no taste for any of those field sports which were not
considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago. He does not ride, nor
shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had
never really liked, and what inducement was there for him to study at Battersby?
He reads neither old books nor new ones. He does not interest himself in art,
science or politics, but he sets his back up with some promptness if any of them
show any development unfamiliar to himself. True, he writes his own sermons, but
even his wife considers that his forte lies rather in the example of his life
