Mr Barham always made his approaches very gradually. The taciturn humility with which he commenced his operations was in exact proportion to the enthusiastic volubility of his advanced intimacy. Mrs Yeld thought that it became her to address to him a few civil words, and he replied to her with a shame-faced modesty that almost overcame her dislike to his profession. She spoke of the poor of Beccles, being very careful to allude only to their material position. There was too much beer drunk, no doubt, and the young women would have finery. Where did they get the money to buy those wonderful bonnets which appeared every Sunday? Mr Barham was very meek, and agreed to everything that was said. No doubt he had a plan ready formed for inducing Mrs Yeld to have mass said regularly within her husband's palace, but he did not even begin to bring it about on this occasion. It was not till he made some apparently chance allusion to the superior church-attending qualities of 'our people,' that Mrs Yeld drew herself up and changed the conversation by observing that there had been a great deal of rain lately.
When the ladies were gone the bishop at once put himself in the way of conversation with the priest, and asked questions as to the morality of Beccles. It was evidently Mr Barham's opinion that 'his people' were more moral than other people, though very much poorer. 'But the Irish always drink,' said Mr Hepworth.
'Not so much as the English, I think,' said the priest. 'And you are not to suppose that we are all Irish. Of my flock the greater proportion are English.'
'It is astonishing how little we know of our neighbours,' said the bishop. 'Of course I am aware that there are a certain number of persons of your persuasion round about us. Indeed, I could give the exact number in this diocese. But in my own immediate neighbourhood I could not put my hand upon any families which I know to be Roman Catholic.'
'It is not, my lord, because there are none.'
'Of course not. It is because, as I say, I do not know my neighbours.'
'I think, here in Suffolk, they must be chiefly the poor,' said Mr Hepworth.
'They were chiefly the poor who at first put their faith in our Saviour,' said the priest.
'I think the analogy is hardly correctly drawn,' said the bishop, with a curious smile. 'We were speaking of those who are still attached to an old creed. Our Saviour was the teacher of a new religion. That the poor in the simplicity of their hearts should be the first to acknowledge the truth of a new religion is in accordance with our idea of human nature. But that an old faith should remain with the poor after it has been abandoned by the rich is not so easily intelligible.'