How pleasant it was to pull the strings and see his
puppets dance!
Of course, Mr. Birkett's consent was a necessary preliminary to Alick's
departure, but there was no difficulty about it. The military rector was
tired to death, so he used to say, of his zealous young aide-de-camp,
and hailed the prospect of getting rid of him handsomely with a frank
pleasure not flattering to poor Alick's self-love. "Certainly, my dear
boy, certainly," he said. "It will be better for you to have a place of
your own, where you can carry out your new ideas. You see I am an old
man now, and have learnt the value of letting well alone. You are in all
the fever-time of zeal, and believe that vice and ignorance are like the
walls of Jericho, to fall down when you blow your trump. I do not. But
on the whole, it is as well that you should learn the realities of life
for yourself, and carry your energies where they may be useful."
"Then you do not mind?" asked Alick boyishly.
The rector gave a loud clear laugh. "Mind! a thousand times no," he
said, rubbing his plump white hands. "I can manage well enough alone,
and if I cannot there are dozens of young eligibles ready to jump at the
place. Mind! no. Go in Heaven's name, and may you be blessed in your
undertaking!"
The last words came in as grace-lines, and with them Alick felt himself
dismissed.
If the rector had been facile to deal with, Mrs. Corfield was not. When
she heard of the proposed arrangement, and that she was to lose her boy
for the second time out of her daily life, and more permanently than
before, her grief was as intense as if she had been told of his
approaching death.
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