Felix was saying, among other things, to his youngest brother, as
he looked through his spectacles at the distant fields with sad
austerity. 'And, therefore, we must make the best of it. But I do
entreat you to endeavour to keep as much as possible in touch with
moral ideals. Farming, of course, means roughing it externally; but
high thinking may go with plain living, nevertheless.'
'Of course it may,' said Angel. 'Was it not proved nineteen hundred
years ago--if I may trespass upon your domain a little? Why should
you think, Felix, that I am likely to drop my high thinking and my
moral ideals?'
'Well, I fancied, from the tone of your letters and our
conversation--it may be fancy only--that you were somehow losing
intellectual grasp. Hasn't it struck you, Cuthbert?'
'Now, Felix,' said Angel drily, 'we are very good friends, you
know; each of us treading our allotted circles; but if it comes to
intellectual grasp, I think you, as a contented dogmatist, had
better leave mine alone, and inquire what has become of yours.'
They returned down the hill to dinner, which was fixed at any time at
which their father's and mother's morning work in the parish usually
concluded. Convenience as regarded afternoon callers was the last
thing to enter into the consideration of unselfish Mr and Mrs Clare;
though the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter to
wish that their parents would conform a little to modern notions.
The walk had made them hungry, Angel in particular, who was now
an outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse _dapes inemptae_ of the
dairyman's somewhat coarsely-laden table. But neither of the old
people had arrived, and it was not till the sons were almost tired of
waiting that their parents entered. The self-denying pair had been
occupied in coaxing the appetites of some of their sick parishioners,
whom they, somewhat inconsistently, tried to keep imprisoned in the
flesh, their own appetites being quite forgotten.
The family sat down to table, and a frugal meal of cold viands
was deposited before them. Angel looked round for Mrs Crick's
black-puddings, which he had directed to be nicely grilled as they
did them at the dairy, and of which he wished his father and mother
to appreciate the marvellous herbal savours as highly as he did
himself.
'Ah! you are looking for the black-puddings, my dear boy,' observed
Clare's mother. 'But I am sure you will not mind doing without them
as I am sure your father and I shall not, when you know the reason.
I suggested to him that we should take Mrs Crick's kind present to
the children of the man who can earn nothing just now because of his
attacks of delirium tremens; and he agreed that it would be a great
pleasure to them; so we did.'
'Of course,' said Angel cheerfully, looking round for the mead.
'I found the mead so extremely alcoholic,' continued his mother,
'that it was quite unfit for use as a beverage, but as valuable
as rum or brandy in an emergency; so I have put it in my
medicine-closet.'
