"A true good man there was there of religion, Pious and poor, the parson of a town: But rich he was in holy thought and work; And thereto a right holy man; a clerk That Christ's pure gospel would sincerely preach, And his parishioners devoutly teach. Benign he was, and wondrous diligent, And in adversity full patient.
"Tho' holy in himself, and virtuous, He still to sinful men was mild and piteous; Not of reproach, imperious or malign; But in his teaching soothing and benign. To draw them on to heaven, by reason fair, And good example was his daily care. But were there one perverse and obstinate Were he of lofty or of low estate, Him would he sharply with reproof astound, A better priest is nowhere to be found."
Mrs. Linchmore was in the drawing-room, where she had been sitting ever since Anne went off so abruptly, leaving her with Mr. Vavasour and the curate.
The latter _was_ awkward and ungainly; and we question much if he would have tyrannised over a wife: certainly not, unless some unforeseen event accidentally discovered to him that he might make a woman who loved also fear him, and jealous; this latter thought had never entered his head--perhaps it was to come.
As Mrs. Linchmore and Robert Vavasour sat chatting and laughing, he remained perfectly silent; sitting firmly upright in the chair he had drawn close by, his long legs drawn up under him, trying in vain to find an easy position for his hands; and those long arms, which he never seemed to know what to do with, they certainly were too long for his body, just like two sails of a windmill. He looked, as he sat, decidedly like a man who could be thoroughly and completely henpecked--notwithstanding the sometimes stern look on his brow--by any woman possessing only half the amount of Anne Bennet's spirit; and she would not have been edified had she returned to the drawing-room as she threatened, and as no doubt Mr. Hall wished she would, for he looked thoroughly uncomfortable and out of place; evidently in the way of the two that sat there, who never addressed a single syllable to him, but left him totally unnoticed, he all the time wishing to join in the conversation, yet not knowing how to set about it.
In the pulpit he was a different creature altogether. No longer the timid, awkward curate, but, to all intents and purposes, a straightforward, honest man, unswerving in exhorting to the right, unshrinking in pointing out the wrong. There, his long, ungainly legs hidden, his face lighted up, as he warmed with his subject, he became decidedly handsome; even taken at his worst, he could never be called plain.