effect a letter like this - so unled
up to - must have produced at Battersby. Even Christina refrained from ecstasy
over her son's having discovered the power of Christ's word, while Theobald was
frightened out of his wits. It was well his son was not going to have any doubts
or difficulties, and that he would be ordained without making a fuss over it,
but he smelt mischief in this sudden conversion of one who had never yet shewn
any inclination towards religion. He hated people who did not know where to
stop. Ernest was always so outré and strange; there was never any knowing what
he would do next, except that it would be something unusual, and silly. If he
was to get the bit between his teeth after he had got ordained and bought his
living, he would play more pranks than ever he, Theobald, had done. The fact,
doubtless, of his being ordained and having bought a living would go a long way
to steady him, and if he married, his wife must see to the rest; this was his
only chance - and to do justice to his sagacity, Theobald in his heart did not
think very highly of it.
    When Ernest came down to Battersby in June, he imprudently tried to open up
a more unreserved communication with his father than was his wont. The first of
Ernest's snipe-like flights on being flushed by Mr. Hawke's sermon was in the
direction of ultra-Evangelicism. Theobald himself had been much more low than
high church. This was the normal development of the country clergyman during the
first years of his clerical life, between, we will say, the years 1825 and 1850;
but he was not prepared for the almost contempt with which Ernest now regarded
the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and priestly absolution (hoity-toity,
indeed, what business had he with such questions?), nor for his desire to find
some means of reconciling Methodism and the church. Theobald hated the Church of
Rome, but he hated dissenters too, for he found them as a general rule
troublesome people to deal with: he always found people who did not agree with
him troublesome to deal with; besides, they set up for knowing as much as he
did; nevertheless if he had been let alone he would have leaned towards them
rather than towards the high church party. The neighbouring clergy, however,
would not let him alone. One by one they had come under the influence, directly
or indirectly, of the Oxford Movement which had begun twenty years earlier. It
was surprising how many