CHAPTER XIII.
SELF-SACRIFICE
All Upton was thrown into a ferment by the unexpected news that their
rector had resigned his living, and was about to emigrate to New
Zealand. At first it was declared too strange to be true. Then in a few
of the lower class taverns it was said to be too good to be true; but in
the Upton Arms, where the landlady considered it her duty to be regular
at church, and even the landlord thought it the thing to go there pretty
often, a civil amount of regret was expressed. It was the fault of his
wife, said most of the respectable parishioners, who unfortunately did
not know when she had had enough of a good thing. Even those who were in
the same plight with herself threw a stone at poor Sophy when they heard
that their pleasant-spoken, affable, popular rector, as he used to be,
was about to flee his country. Very few sympathized with him. He was
taking an unheard-of, preposterous, fanatical course. How could a man in
his senses give up a living of L400 a year, with a pretty rectory and
glebe-land, for a colonial curacy?
But there was one person who heard the news, and brooded over it
silently, with very different feelings.
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