Half-way through the decade, the Rector began to feel the weight of his seventy odd years, and a succession of curates came to share his work and to provide new subjects of conversation for his parishioners. Several appeared and vanished without leaving any definite impression, beyond those of a new voice in church and an extraordinary bashfulness before the hamlet housewives; but two or three stayed longer and became, for a time, part of the life of the parish. There was Mr. Dallas, who was said to be “in a decline.” A pale, thin wraith of a man, who, in foggy weather wore a respirator, which looked like a heavy black moustache. Laura remembered him chiefly because when she was awarded the prize for Scripture he congratulated her—the first time she was ever congratulated upon anything in her life. On his next visit to her home he asked to see the prize prayer book, and when she brought it, said: “The binding is calf—my favourite binding—but it is very susceptible to damp. You must keep it in a room with a fire.” He was talking a language foreign to the children, who knew nothing of bindings or editions, a book to them being simply a book; but his expression and the gentle caressing way in which he turned the pages, told Laura that he, too, was a book-lover.

After he had left came Mr. Alport; a big, fat-faced young man, who had been a medical student. He kept a small dispensary at his lodgings and it was his delight to doctor any one who was ailing, both advice and medicine being gratis. As usual, supply created demand. Before he came, illness had been rare in the hamlet; now, suddenly, nearly every one had something the matter with them. “My pink pills,” “my little tablets,” “my mixture,” and “my lotion” became as common in conversation as potatoes or pig’s food. People asked each other how their So-and-So was when they met, and, barely waiting for an answer, plunged into a description of their own symptoms.

Mr. Alport complained to the children’s father that the hamlet people were ignorant, and some of them certainly were, on the subjects in which he was enlightened. One woman particularly. On a visit to her house he noticed that one of her children, a tall, thin, girl of eleven or twelve was looking rather pale. “She is growing too fast, I expect,” he remarked. “I must give her a tonic;” which he did. But she was not allowed to take it. “No, she ain’t a goin’ to take that stuff,” her mother told the neighbours. “He said she was growin’ too tall, an’ it’s summat to stunt her. I shan’t let a child o’ mine be stunted. Oh, no!”