Pryer, too, was popular in the
pulpit, and, take him all round, it was probable that many worse
curates would be found for one better. When Pryer called on my hero,
as soon as the two were alone together, he eyed him all over with a
quick, penetrating glance and seemed not dissatisfied with the result-
for I must say here that Ernest had improved in personal appearance
under the more genial treatment he had received at Cambridge. Pryer,
in fact, approved of him sufficiently to treat him civilly, and Ernest
was immediately won by anyone who did this. It was not long before
he discovered that the High Church party, and even Rome itself, had
more to say for themselves than he had thought. This was his first
snipe-like change of flight.
Pryer introduced him to several of his friends. They were all of
them young clergymen, belonging as I have said to the highest of the
High Church school, but Ernest was surprised to find how much they
resembled other people when among themselves. This was a shock to him;
it was ere long a still greater one to find that certain thoughts
which he had warred against as fatal to his soul, and which he had
imagined he should lose once for all on ordination, were still as
troublesome to him as they had been; he also saw plainly enough that
the young gentlemen who formed the circle of Pryer's friends were in
much the same unhappy predicament as himself.
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