"Poor hands," said Mildmay. "Mr. St. John, you may think it strange that I should say this; but it is you who ought to be the rector, not me. You ought to stay here; I feel it. If I come after all, I shall be doing a wrong to the people and to you, and even to the Church, where such things should not be."
Once more Mr. St. John slowly shook his head; a smile came over his face; he held out his hand. "It is pleasant to hear you say it; somehow it is pleasant to hear you say it. I felt sure Cicely had been saying something to you this morning. But no, no; they would never have given me the living, and I should never have asked for it. As for a wrong, nobody will feel it a wrong; not myself, nor the Church, and the people here last of all."
"They must look upon you as their father," said Mildmay warmly. "Nothing else is possible. To them it is the greatest wrong of all."
"You speak like a--boy," said the curate. "Yes; you speak like a kind, warm-hearted boy. The girls say the same kind of things. You are all young, and think of what ought to be, not of what is. The people! The Church does not give them any voice in the matter, and it is just as well. Mr. Mildmay, I've been a long time among them. I've tried to do what I could for them. Some of them like me well enough; but the people have never forgotten that I was only curate--not rector. They have remembered it all these twenty years, when sometimes I was half tempted to forget it myself."
"Oh, sir, do not think so badly of human nature!" said Mildmay, almost with a recoil from so hard a judgment.
"Do I think badly of human nature? I don't feel that I do; and why should this be thinking badly? Which is best for them to have, a man who is well off, who is a real authority in the parish, whom the farmers and masters will stand in awe of, and who will be able to help them in trouble--or a poor man who has to struggle for himself, who has nothing to spare, and no great influence with any one? I shall feel it, perhaps, a little," said Mr. St. John, with a smile; "but it will be quite unreasonable to feel it. In a month you will be twice as popular in the parish as I am after twenty years."
"It is not possible!" said the young man.