it its real name.

Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot, whose
only child I am, after whom also I am named Humphrey, was the
vicar of this place with which our family is said to have some
rather vague hereditary connection. If so, it was severed in the
Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of
Parliament.

My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a
Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High
Church for those days he was not popular with the family that
owned the Priory before me. Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar
person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost
persecuted him, as he was in a position to do, being the local
magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.

I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my
mind that one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a
wild enough idea at the time. Yet it became engrained in me, as
do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose
in after years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield! He fell on
evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who
was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end
he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced
to sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly now, for after
all he was good to me and gave me many a day's shooting and leave
to fish for trout in the river.

By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the