The morning, whose afternoon was thus stormy, had been fine, and the
curate went out for a walk. Had it been just as stormy, however, he
would have gone all the same. Not that he was a great walker, or,
indeed, fond of exercise of any sort, and his walking, as an
Irishman might say, was half sitting--on stiles and stones and
fallen trees. He was not in bad health, he was not lazy, or given to
self-preservation, but he had little impulse to activity of any
sort. The springs in his well of life did not seem to flow quite
fast enough.

He strolled through Osterfield park, and down the deep descent to
the river, where, chilly as it was, he seated himself upon a large
stone on the bank, and knew that he was there, and that he had to
answer to Thomas Wingfold; but why he was there, and why he was not
called something else, he did not know. On each side of the stream
rose a steeply-sloping bank, on which grew many fern-bushes, now
half withered, and the sunlight upon them, this November morning,
seemed as cold as the wind that blew about their golden and green
fronds. Over a rocky bottom the stream went--talking rather than
singing--down the valley towards the town, where it seemed to linger
a moment to embrace the old abbey church, before it set out on its
leisurely slide through the low level to the sea. Its talk was
chilly, and its ripples, which came half from the obstructions in
its channel below, and half from the wind that ruffled it above,
were not smiles, but wrinkles rather--even in the sunshine. Thomas
felt cold himself, but the cold was of the sort that comes from the
look rather than the feel of things. He did not, however, much care
how he felt--not enough, certainly, to have made him put on a