168 IDLEHURST : 



direct advice as to mutual help, the risks of thrift, 

 and the like, with perhaps one fine thought or touch 

 of pathetic earnestness towards the close. The grave 

 responsibility of properly carrying out this part of 

 the Feet prevents, I believe, most of the Brothers 

 from listening to a word. And year by year the 

 Rector commends to them the virtue Sobriety ; now 

 perhaps, after knowledge of many Feasts of Reason, 

 rather hopelessly. 



A little before one o'clock I presented myself at 

 the Greyhound, and found some half-dozen fellow- 

 subscribers waiting about the steps till the dinner, 

 half an hour late in right Arnington style, should be 

 put on. There was the Rector, of course, talking to 

 Dr. Culpeper, who is medical officer to the Court ; 

 Chatfield, a young farmer ; Mr. Laban Peskett, the 

 proprietor of " the Shop ; " and Gervase French. 

 The Major rode up presently, and dismounted to the 

 admiration of the street. His hack, his buttonhole 

 rose, his strident hail of greeting and bluff air, we all 

 know and respect. As he entered the portico, he 

 dislodged from the shadow of the doorway a figure 

 I had not noticed before a small, slight man in a 

 shabby check suit and white wideawake, brown-faced, 

 grey-moustached, melancholy, and by no means so 

 distinguished as the Major. General Aske seems to 



