"Sabbath," or spoke in favour of schooling and education, my lady stepped
out of her corner, and drew up the window with a decided clang and clash.

I must tell you something more about Mr. Gray. The presentation to the
living of Hanbury was vested in two trustees, of whom Lady Ludlow was
one: Lord Ludlow had exercised this right in the appointment of Mr.
Mountford, who had won his lordship's favour by his excellent
horsemanship. Nor was Mr. Mountford a bad clergyman, as clergymen went
in those days. He did not drink, though he liked good eating as much as
any one. And if any poor person was ill, and he heard of it, he would
send them plates from his own dinner of what he himself liked best;
sometimes of dishes which were almost as bad as poison to sick people. He
meant kindly to everybody except dissenters, whom Lady Ludlow and he
united in trying to drive out of the parish; and among dissenters he
particularly abhorred Methodists--some one said, because John Wesley had
objected to his hunting. But that must have been long ago for when I
knew him he was far too stout and too heavy to hunt; besides, the bishop
of the diocese disapproved of hunting, and had intimated his
disapprobation to the clergy. For my own part, I think a good run would
not have come amiss, even in a moral point of view, to Mr. Mountford. He
ate so much, and took so little exercise, that we young women often heard
of his being in terrible passions with his servants, and the sexton and
clerk. But they none of them minded him much, for he soon came to
himself, and was sure to make them some present or other--some said in
proportion to his anger; so that the sexton, who was a bit of a wag (as
all sextons are, I think), said that the vicar's saying, "The Devil take
you," was worth a shilling any day, whereas "The Deuce" was a shabby
sixpenny speech, only fit for a curate.

There was a great deal of good in Mr. Mountford, too. He could not bear