Gover
was not regenerating the universe, and Ernest wanted nothing short
of this. The world was all out of joint, and instead of feeling it
to be a cursed spite that he was born to set it right, he thought he
was just the kind of person that was wanted for the job, and was eager
to set to work, only he did not exactly know how to begin, for the
beginning he had made with Mr. Chesterfield and Mrs. Gover did not
promise great developments.
Then poor Mr. Brookes -he suffered very much, terribly indeed; he
was not in want of money; he wanted to die and couldn't, just as we
sometimes want to go to sleep and cannot. He had been a serious-minded
man, and death frightened him as it must frighten anyone who
believes that all his most secret thoughts will be shortly exposed
in public. When I read Ernest the description of how his father used
to visit Mrs. Thompson at Battersby, he coloured and said- "That's
just what I used to say to Mr. Brookes." Ernest felt that his
visits, so far from comforting Mr. Brookes, made him fear death more
and more, but how could he help it?
Even Pryer, who had been curate a couple of years, did not know
personally more than a couple of hundred people in the parish at the
outside, and it was only at the houses of very few of these that he
ever visited, but then Pryer had such a strong objection on
principle to house visitations.
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