The New Rector

The king was dead. But not at once, not until after some short breathing-space, such as was pleasant enough to those whose only concern with the succession lay in the shouting,...

It was at the beginning of the second week in October that Mr. Williams died; and, the weather in those parts being peculiarly fine and bright for the time of year, men stood ab...

A fortnight after this paragraph in the “Guardian” had filled Claversham with astonishment and Mr. Clode with a modest thankfulness that he was spared the burden of office, a li...

The young rector could not deny it. He would have given anything for at least the appearance of being undisturbed; but the blood came into his cheek, and in his attempt to maint...

Long before the later train by which the rector came on arrived at the Claversham station, the Rev. Stephen Clode was waiting on the platform. The curate was a tall, dark man, s...

Lindo made his first exploration of the neighborhood, not on the day after his arrival, which was taken up with his induction by the archdeacon and with other matters, but on th...

The new top, the new book, the bride—the first joy in the possession of each one of these fades, not gradually, but at a leap, as day fades in the tropics. A chip in the wood, t...

On the evening of the Hammonds’ party, Mr. Clode sat alone in his room, trying to compose himself to work. His lamp burned brightly, and his tea kettle—he had already sent down...

He was a man, as the reader will perhaps have gathered, of many shifts, and cool-headed; but for a moment he felt something of the anguish of discovery which had so tortured the...

Stephen Clode, while listening with a certain pleasure to the archdeacon’s hints, did not dream of the good turn which fortune was about to do him. If he had foreseen it, he wou...

The feelings with which the curate hastened on the conclusion of his own service, to learn what had happened at the great church may be imagined. His excitement and curiosity we...

It was tea-time at Mr. Bonamy’s; five-thirty, that is, for the lawyer knew nothing of four o’clock tea. He would have stared had he been invited into the drawing-room to take it...

When a mine has been laid, and the fuse lit, and the tiny thread of smoke has begun to curl upward, it is apt to seem a long time—so I am told by those who have stood and watche...

When Stephen Clode left the Town House after his interview with Laura, he was in a state of exaltation—lifted completely out of his ordinary cool and calculating self by what ha...

Long before noon on the next day the service of the writ at the rectory was pretty well known in the town, and the course which the churchwardens had taken was freely canvassed...

When Lord Dynmore, a few minutes before the rector found his carriage at the door, trotted at the heels of the servant into Mrs. Hammond’s drawing-room, his entrance, unexpected...

If Mr. Clode, when he stepped forward to open the door for Lord Dynmore, had any thought beyond that of facilitating his departure—if, for instance, as is just possible, he had...

I have heard that the bitterest pang a boy feels on returning to school after his first holidays is reserved for the moment when he opens his desk and recalls the happy hour, fu...

Oddly enough, the rector’s first thought on rising next morning was of his curate. He had expected, as we have seen, that Clode would call before bedtime. Disappointed in this,...

“Kate,” said Daintry, looking up from a lesson book as her sister entered the dining-room a few mornings after the bazaar, “are you _never_ going to see old Peggy Jones again? I...

The young clergyman’s face, as he walked forward to the shaft, formed no index to his mind, for while it remained calm and even wore a faint smile, he was inwardly conscious of...

The church clock was striking nine as the rector, jogging along behind the little pony, came in sight of the turnpike-house outside the town. He had no overcoat, and the drive h...

Seldom, if ever, had the curate passed a week so harassing as that which was ushered in by the bazaar, and was destined to end—though he did not know this—in the colliery accide...

The ten days which followed the events just described were long remembered in Claversham with fondness and regret. The accident at Baerton, and the strange position of affairs a...

The success of reticence is great. Mr. Bonamy and his nephew, as they went home to tea after their victory, plumed themselves not a little upon the proof of this which they had...

Dr. Gregg was one of the first persons in the town to hear of the late rector’s engagement. His reception of the news was characteristic. “I don’t believe it!” he shrieked. “I d...