Yet the rector, honest man, had no ill-feeling at all, but rather a profound pity for the lamb of his flock who had been lost through ignorance on his part, for had he known of its illness nothing would have prevented him from storming the shepherd's hut and claiming his right as rector. Indeed, but for the necessity for reprobating the scandalous withholding of one of the Church's sacraments from an innocent soul because its parents were blameworthy, there is small doubt that he would have asked no questions, and buried the small dead body decently and in order. As it was he came, after service was over, tall and cassock-garbed, to stand beside the tiny mound of new-turned soil which broke the lush green of the churchyard, make the sign of the cross over it, and pray a little prayer for mercy.
Nevertheless, he went back to his study and his ecclesiastical histories a harder man for the incident. His bishop had not upheld the authority of the Church; he had--in all reverence be it spoken--hedged, and the Rev. Gawain Meredith was too priestly, soul and body, for hedging with heretics.
For there was no mincing of words about him. The Wesleyans were possibly schismatics; all other dissenters were heretics, and the Calvinistic Methodists the most distinctly dangerous heretics with whom he had to deal. They reminded him in their social, religious, and political organisation of the Jesuits whose history he was studying. He had a reluctant admiration for their determination to force means to an end, and he saw plainly how much capital they would make out of his refusal to bury the body. Elections to the parish council were coming on, and he had already made himself unpopular by questioning the expenditure. So he read the paragraphs concerning the baby's burial which he found waiting for him on his study table in the weekly local, with a setting of his thin lips. They might turn him out of the council if they choose, but while he was in it, he would do his duty by the ratepayers.
Morris Pugh had read these same paragraphs in manuscript; they had been sent to him for revision, and he had returned them without a word of comment; yet he had felt a vague regret pluck at his heart.