had always got away from them as soon
as he could, and so had they from him; oh, why he was inclined to ask himself
could not children be born into the world grown up? If Christina could have
given birth to a few full-grown clergymen in priest's orders - of moderate
views, but inclining rather to Evangelicism, with comfortable livings and in all
respects facsimiles of Theobald and Christina themselves - why there might have
been more sense in it; or if people could buy ready-made children of whatever
age and sex they liked at a shop instead of always having to make them at home
and to begin at the beginning with them - that might do better, but as it was he
did not like it. He felt as he had felt when he had been required to come and be
married to Christina - that he had been going on for a long time quite nicely
and would much rather continue things on their present footing. In the matter of
getting married he had been obliged to pretend he liked it; but times were
changed, and if he did not like a thing now, he could find a hundred
unexceptionable ways of making his dislike apparent.
    It might have been better if Theobald in his younger days had kicked more
against his father. The fact that he had not done so encouraged him to expect
the most implicit obedience from his own children. He could trust himself, he
said, and so did Christina, to be more lenient than perhaps his father had been
to himself; his danger, he said (and so again did Christina) would be rather in
the direction of being too indulgent; he must be on his guard against this, for
no duty could be more paramount than that of teaching a child to obey its
parents in all things.
    He had read not long since of an Eastern traveller, who while exploring
somewhere in the more remote parts of Arabia or Asia Minor, had come upon a
remarkably hardy, sober, industrious little Christian community - all of them in
the best of health - who had turned out to be the actual living descendents of
Jonadab the son of Rechab; and two men in European costume indeed, but speaking
English with a broken accent, and by their colour evidently oriental, had come
begging to Battersby soon afterwards, and represented themselves as belonging to
these people; they had said they were collecting funds to promote the conversion
of their fellow tribesmen to the English branch of the Christian religion. True,
they turned out to be imposters, for when he gave them a pound, and Christina
five shillings from