whereof the results--namely, the new church, vicarage, and
school-house--were now conspicuous.

This radical change, however, had not been the work of Mr. Thornburgh,
but of his predecessor, a much more pushing and enterprising man,
whose successful efforts to improve the church accommodation in
Long Whindale had moved such deep and lasting astonishment in the
mind of a somewhat lethargic bishop, that promotion had been readily
found for him. Mr. Thornburgh was neither capable of the sturdy
begging which had raised the church, nor was he likely on
other lines to reach preferment. He and his wife, who possessed
much more salience of character than he, were accepted in the dale
as belonging to the established order of things. Nobody wished
them any harm, and the few people they had specially befriended,
naturally, thought well of them.

But the old intimacy of relation which had once subsisted between
the clergyman of Long Whindale and his parishioners was wholly gone.
They had sunk in the scale; the parson had risen. The old statesmen
or peasant proprietors of the valley had for the most part succumbed
to various destructive influences, some social, some economical,
added to a certain amount of corrosion from within; and their place
had been taken by leaseholders, lets drunken perhaps, and better
educated, but also far less shrewd and individual, and lacking in
the rude dignity of their predecessors.

And as the land had lost, the church had gained. The place of the
dalesmen knew them no more, but the church and Parsonage had got
themselves rebuilt, the parson had had his income raised, had let
off his glebe to a neighboring farmer, kept two maids, and drank