him. Not that he was such a soft-spoken man as many were, who thought
more evil; but because of his deeds and nature, which were of the
kindest. He did his utmost, on demand of duty, to sacrifice this nature
to his stern position as pastor and master of an up-hill parish, with
many wrong things to be kept under. But while he succeeded in the form
now and then, he failed continually in the substance.

This gentleman was not by any means a fool, unless a kind heart proves
folly. At Cambridge he had done very well, in the early days of the
tripos, and was chosen fellow and tutor of Gonville and Caius College.
But tiring of that dull round in his prime, he married, and took to a
living; and the living was one of the many upon which a perpetual faster
can barely live, unless he can go naked also, and keep naked children.
Now the parsons had not yet discovered the glorious merits of hard
fasting, but freely enjoyed, and with gratitude to God, the powers with
which He had blessed them. Happily Dr. Upround had a solid income of
his own, and (like a sound mathematician) he took a wife of terms
coincident. So, without being wealthy, they lived very well, and helped
their poorer neighbors.

Such a man generally thrives in the thriving of his flock, and does not
harry them. He gives them spiritual food enough to support them without
daintiness, and he keeps the proper distinction between the Sunday and
the poorer days. He clangs no bell of reproach upon a Monday, when the
squire is leading the lady in to dinner, and the laborer sniffing at his
supper pot; and he lets the world play on a Saturday, while he works his
own head to find good ends for the morrow. Because he is a wise man who
knows what other men are, and how seldom they desire to be told the
same thing more than a hundred and four times in a year. Neither did
his clerical skill stop here; for Parson Upround thought twice about it