It was no wonder that conjecture was rife upon the subject, for hardly a
day passed without furnishing some new instance of the boundlessness of
his power and of the goodness of his heart. Through the vicar, Robert,
and others, he had learned much of the inner life of the parish, and
many were the times when the struggling man, harassed and driven to the
wall, found thrust into his hand some morning a brief note with an
enclosure which rolled all the sorrow back from his life. One day a
thick double-breasted pea-jacket and a pair of good sturdy boots were
served out to every old man in the almshouse. On another, Miss Swire,
the decayed gentlewoman who eked out her small annuity by needlework,
had a brand new first-class sewing-machine handed in to her to take the
place of the old worn-out treadle which tried her rheumatic joints.
The pale-faced schoolmaster, who had spent years with hardly a break in
struggling with the juvenile obtuseness of Tamfield, received through
the post a circular ticket for a two months' tour through Southern
Europe, with hotel coupons and all complete. John Hackett, the farmer,
after five long years of bad seasons, borne with a brave heart, had at
last been overthrown by the sixth, and had the bailiffs actually in the
house when the good vicar had rushed in, waving a note above his head,
to tell him not only that his deficit had been made up, but that enough
remained over to provide the improved machinery which would enable him
to hold his own for the future.
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