'Is he ill-off, then?'
'The living's worth some forty pounds a-year. The great tithes, they say, are worth better than twelve hundred; but Squire Lavington has them.'
'Oh, I see!' said Lancelot.
'I'm glad you do, sir, for I don't,' meekly answered Tregarva. 'But the vicar, sir, he is a kind man, and a good; but the poor don't understand him, nor he them. He is too learned, sir, and, saving your presence, too fond of his prayer-book.'
'One can't be too fond of a good thing!'
'Not unless you make an idol of it, sir, and fancy that men's souls were made for the prayer-book, and not the prayer-book for them.'
'But cannot he expose and redress these evils, if they exist?'
Tregarva twisted about again.
'I do not say that I think it, sir; but this I know, that every poor man in the vale thinks it that the parsons are afraid of the landlords. They must see these things, for they are not blind; and they try to plaster them up out of their own pockets.'
'But why, in God's name, don't they strike at the root of the matter, and go straight to the landlords and tell them the truth?' asked Lancelot.
'So people say, sir. I see no reason for it, except the one which I gave you. Besides, sir, you must remember, that a man can't quarrel with his own kin; and so many of them are their squire's brothers, or sons, or nephews.'
'Or good friends with him, at least.'
