The church of St Laud's was perfectly deserted--not a single person
would attend there to hear mass said by the strange priest--the peasants
would as soon have been present at some infernal rite, avowedly
celebrated in honour of the devil--and yet the Cure newly sent there was
not a bad man But he was a constitutional priest, and that was enough
to recommend him to the ill-will of the peasantry In peaceable and happy
times, prior to the revolution, the Cure of St Laud's had been a
remarkable person, he was a man of more activity, both of mind and body,
than his brethren, he was more intimate with the gentry than the
generality of clergymen in the neighbourhood, and at the same time more
actively engaged in promoting the welfare of the poor. The country cures
generally were men who knew little of the world and its ways--who were
uneducated, save as regards their own profession--who had few ideas
beyond their own duties and station, This was not so with Father Jerome;
he had travelled and heard the ways of men in other countries; he had
not read much but he had seen a good deal, and he was a man of quick
apprehension--and above all a man of much energy.
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