The New Rector

Jack Smith whistled. "Are you sure it is not a hoax?" he said, with a serious face.

"I think not," the rector-elect replied. "Perhaps I have given you a wrong impression. I have had nothing to do with the earl; but my uncle was his tutor."

"Oh!" said Smith slowly, "that makes all the difference. What uncle?"

"You have heard me speak of him. He was vicar of St. Gabriel's, Aldgate. He died about a year ago-last October, I think. Lord Dynmore and he were good friends, and my uncle used often to stay at his place in Scotland. I suppose my name must have come up some time when they were talking."

"Likely enough," assented the lawyer. "But for the earl to remember it, he must be one in a hundred!"

"It is certainly very good of him," Lindo replied, his cheek flushing. "If it had been a small country living, and my uncle had been alive to jog his elbow, I should not have been so much surprised."

"And you are just twenty-five!" Jack Smith observed, leaning back in his chair, and eyeing his friend with undisguised and whimsical admiration. "You will be the youngest rector in the Clergy List, I should think! And Claversham! By Jove, what a berth!"

A queer expression of annoyance for a moment showed itself in Lindo's face. "I say, Jack, stow that!" he said gently, and with a little shamefacedness. "I mean," he continued, smoothing down the nap on his hat, "that I do not want to look at it altogether in that way, and I do not want others to regard it so."

"As a berth, you mean?" Jack said gravely, but with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Well, from the loaves and fishes point of view," Lindo commenced, beginning to walk up and down the room. "I do not think an officer, when he gets promotion, looks only at the increase in his pay. Of course I am glad that it is a good living, and that I shall have a house, and a good position, and all that. But I declare to you, Jack, believe me or not as you like, that if I did not feel that I could do the work as I hope, please God, to do it, I would not take it up-I would not, indeed. As it is, I feel the responsibility. I have been thinking about it as I walked down here, and upon my honor for a while I thought I ought to decline it."

"I would not do that!" said Gallio, dismissing the twinkle from his eye, and really respecting his old friend, perhaps, a little more than before. "You are not the man, I think, to shun either work or responsibility. Did I tell you," he continued in a different tone, "that I had an uncle at Claversham?"

"No," said Lindo, surprised in his turn.

"Yes, and I think he is one of your church wardens. His name is Bonamy, and he is a solicitor. His London agent is my only client," Jack said jerkily.

"And he is one of the church wardens! Well, that is strange-and jolly!"

"Umph! Don't you be too sure of that!" retorted the barrister sharply. "He is a-well, he has been very good to me, and he is my uncle, and I am not going to say anything against him. But I am not quite sure that I should like him for my church warden. Your church warden! Why, it is like a fairy tale, old fellow!"

And so it seemed to Lindo when, an hour later, the small boy, with the same portentous gravity of face, let him out and bade him good-day. As the young parson started eastward, along Fleet Street first, he looked at the moving things round him with new eyes, from a new standpoint, with a new curiosity. The passers-by were the same, but he was changed. He had lunched, and perhaps the material view of his position was uppermost, for those in the crowd who specially observed the tall young clergyman noticed in his bearing an air of calm importance and a strong sense of personal dignity, which led him to shun collisions, and even to avoid jostling his fellows, with peculiar care. The truth was that he had all the while before his eyes, as he walked, an announcement which was destined to appear in the "Guardian" of the following week:

"The Rev. Reginald Lindo, M.A., St. Barnabas' Mission, London, to be Rector of Claversham. Patron, the Earl of Dynmore."

CHAPTER III

AN AWKWARD MEETING

A fortnight after this paragraph in the "Guardian" had filled Claversham with astonishment and Mr. Clode with a modest thankfulness that he was spared the burden of office, a little dark man-Jack Smith, in fact-drove briskly into Paddington Station, and, disregarding the offers of the porters, who stand waiting on the hither side of the journey like Charon by the Styx, and see at a glance who has the obolus, sprang from the hansom without assistance, and bustled on to the platform.

Here he looked up and down as if he expected to meet some one, and then, glancing at the clock, found that he had a quarter of an hour to spare. He made at once for the bookstall, and, with a lavishness which would have surprised some of his friends, bought "Punch," a little volume by Howells, the "Standard," and finally, though he blushed as he asked for it, the "Queen." He had just gathered his purchases together and was paying for them, when a high-pitched voice at his elbow made him start. "Why, Jack! what in the world are you buying all those papers for?" The speaker was a girl about thirteen years old, who in the hubbub had stolen unnoticed to his side.

"Hullo, Daintry," he answered. "Why did you not say that you were here before? I have been looking for you. Where is Kate? Oh, yes, I see her," as a young lady turning over books at the farther end of the stall acknowledged his presence by a laughing nod. "You are here in good time," he went on, while the younger girl affectionately slipped her arm through his.

"Yes," she said. "Your mother started us early. And so you have come to see us off, after all, Jack?"

"Just so," he answered drily. "Let us go to Kate."

They did so, the young lady meeting them halfway. "How kind of you to be here, Jack!" she said. "As you have come, will you look us out a comfortable compartment? That is the train over there. And please to put this, and this, and Daintry's parcel in the corners for us."

This and this were a cloak and a shawl, and a few little matters in brown paper. In order to possess himself of them, Jack handed Kate the papers he was carrying.

"Are they for me?" she said, gratefully indeed, but with a placid gratitude which was not perhaps what the donor wanted. "Oh, thank you. And this too? What is it?"

"'Their Wedding Journey,'" said Jack, with a shy twinkle in his eyes.

"Is it pretty?" she answered dubiously. "It sounds silly; but you are supposed to be a judge. I think I should like 'A Chance Acquaintance' better, though."

Of course the little book was changed, and Jack winced. But he had not time to think much about it, for he had to bustle away through the rising babel to secure seats for them in an empty compartment of the Oxford train, and see their luggage labelled and put in. This done, he hurried back, and pointed out to them the places he had taken. "Oh, dear, they are in a through carriage," Kate said, stopping short and eyeing the board over the door.

"Yes," he answered. "I thought that that was what you wanted."

"No, I would rather go in another carriage, and change. We shall get to Claversham soon enough without travelling with Claversham people."

"Indeed we shall," Daintry chimed in. "Let us go and find seats, and Jack will bring the things after us."

He assented meekly-very meekly for sharp Jack Smith-and presently came along with his arms full of parcels, to find them ensconced in the nearer seats of a compartment, which contained also one gentleman who was already deep in the "Times." Jack, standing at the open door, could not see his face, for it was hidden by the newspaper, but he could see that his legs wore a youthful and reckless air; and he raised his eyebrows interrogatively. "Pooh!" whispered Daintry in answer. "How stupid you are! It is all right. I can see he is a clergyman by his boots!"

Jack smiled at this assurance, and, putting in the things he was holding, shut the door and stood outside, looking first at the platform about him, on which all was flurry and confusion, and then at the interior of the carriage, which seemed in comparison peaceful and homelike. "I think I will come with you to Westbourne Park," he said suddenly.

"Nonsense, Jack!" Kate replied, with crushing decision. "We shall be there in five minutes, and you will have all the trouble of returning for nothing."

He acquiesced meekly-poor Jack! "Well," he said, with a new effort at cheerfulness, "you will soon be at home, girls. Remember me to the governor. I am afraid you will be rather dull at first. You will have one scrap of excitement, however."

"What is that?" said Kate, very much as if she were prepared to depreciate it before she knew what it was.

"The new rector!"

"He will make very little difference to us!" the girl answered, with an accent almost of scorn. "Papa said in his letter that he thought it was a great pity a local man had not been appointed-some one who knew the place and the old ways. You say he is clever and nice; but either way it will not affect us much."

No one noticed that the "Times" newspaper in the far corner of the compartment rustled suspiciously, and that the clerical boots became agitated on a sudden, as though their wearer meditated a move; and, in ignorance of this, "I expect I shall hate him!" said Daintry calmly.

"Come, you must not do that," Jack remonstrated "You must remember that he is not only a very good fellow, but a great friend of mine."

"Then we ought indeed to spare him!" Kate said frankly, "for you have been very good to us and made our visit delightful."

His face flushed with pleasure even at those simple words of praise. "And you will write and tell me," he continued eagerly, "that you have reached your journey's end safely."

"One of us will," was the answer. "Daintry," Kate went on calmly, "will you remind me to write to Jack to-morrow evening?"

His face fell sadly. So little would have made him happy. He looked down and kicked the step of the carriage, and made his tiny moan to himself before he spoke again. "Good-bye," he said then. "They are coming to look at your tickets. You are due out in one minute. Good-bye, Daintry."

"Good-bye, Jack. Come and see us soon," she cried earnestly, as she released his hand.

"Good-bye, Kate." Alas! Kate's cheek did not show the slightest consciousness that his clasp was more than cousinly. She uttered her "Good-bye, Jack, and thank you so much," very kindly, but her color never varied by the quarter of a tone, and her grasp was as firm and as devoid of shyness as his own.

He had not much time to be miserable, however, then, for, the ticket-collector coming to the window, Jack had to fall back, and in doing so made a discovery. Kate, hunting for her ticket in one of those mysterious places in which ladies will put tickets, heard him utter an exclamation, and asked, "What is it, Jack?"

To her surprise, the collector having by this time disappeared, he stretched out his hand through the window to some one beyond her. "Why, Lindo!" he cried, "is that you? I had not a notion of your identity. Of course you are going down to take possession."