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the Dutch Gable period proper in the manorial architecture of England. So he has little say in village affairs, and the fact that he is well-disposed to my friend does not alter the situation. It is Jack Cox, the young farmer, with whom Rymer for his sins is confronted. This little rustic capitalist is Samuel Hartley Rymer’s cross. For Jack Cox neither likes Rymer’s politics, nor his brand of religion (Anglo-Catholic), nor his big sweet worried argumentative face.
        For ten years Farmer and Rector have not spoken to one another: or if the latter has proffered a Christian greeting, the former—the farmer—had disdainfully declined to return it. Rather, this was the position until only the other day, to which I will come later on. The farmer’s aggressiveness has become much more marked since the war: he has addressed complaints personally to the Bishop; then he drew up a petition, for which he obtained a number of signatures in the neighbourhood, for Rymer’s removal. Several times my friend has been visited by the Archdeacon who acts as a one-man Gestapo, the Bishop’s emissary detailed to investigate any case of this kind and report. If a few vague and desultory enquiries can be called a cross-examination, Rymer underwent that at the hands of the Archdeacon. The Rural Dean has bent a puzzled eye upon him. So poor Rymer has been the object of too much attention to be comfortable, But the last time the meek envoy of the Cathedral showed up, with elaborate casualness he observed: “Let us see, Rymer, did I not hear it said that you wrote—er—articles? It seems to me I did.” When Rymer agreed that he had indeed done that, the Archdeacon added, smiling a little slyly and shyly, “And verse —or am I wrong?” Rymer made no difficulty about admitting that he was married to immortal verse. But the interpretation he put upon this interrogatory surprised me at first. He regarded it as a very favourable omen. His literary habits, he felt, would excuse a good deal, especially the writing of verse. The farmer’s indictment would melt away confronted with that fact, or at least would be blunted.
        The charges brought by the farmer, it seems, are multiple. First, there is the usual one with which all clergymen have to contend, namely that he is lazy, lies down on the job, keeps the church in a dirty condition, never visits the sick for fear of infection: that he just draws his pay and lazes around, except for an hour or two of very hot air on Sunday—which does not however warm the church and the children come home sneezing their heads off, and old people who were fond of going there had stopped doing so because it was too dangerous after October the first.
        Next come his papist habits: the stink of incense that one can smell half the way down the road, the flexing of the knees and other ungodliness. All farmers like a “broad churchman” and dislike and suspect a “high churchman”, and Jack Cox was no exception to the rule. But there was another charge that may have carried far more weight, if only because it is not often heard. Jack Cox accused the Rector of being a “red”—the farmer’s bane—of stirring up his labourers, of contaminating the parish with radical doctrine, of being a disturbing and immoral influence.
        When first Rymer disclosed this latter charge I stared at him. I said “A Red, too!” He gave his little short breathless laugh, his eyes never participating. “Yes. It is true,” he told me, “that I am in favour of telling the United States to keep its beastly dollars, and to trade with Russia instead.” He stirred about vigorously in his chair, I noticed. Any mention of the United States inflamed him, but because of his sacred calling he was obliged to smother the flames within, or to bottle them up. This engendered a physical uneasiness.
        “Is that being a red? ” he asked. “If so I am one.”
        “But you advertise a desire for more