Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/33

 would not again apply for preferment under his present Bishop—a decision which the smallness of his family and some private fortune enabled him to maintain without any great self-denial.

He was not however, above accepting a little balm for his wound when, a year or two later he allowed himself to be nominated Provst or rural dean; a position in which he at last found a fitting field for his superfluous energy, and his self-esteem recovered from the mortifications it had undergone. From that day he lived and breathed among old documents, and acts of parliament, composing with painful solicitude sheet upon sheet of representations to diocesan authorities and county councils. He instituted elaborate enquiries at every opportunity among his subordinate clergy, and was the special dread of the school masters under his jurisdiction, whom he pursued with endless lists of reports and schedules which he insisted on having filled up with great precision. He did in fact succeed to a great extent in strengthening the clerical control over the Education Department; and it was not without reason that he considered himself at home on this subject, for in his younger days he had been assistant master at one of the public schools for several years.

He explained all these measures to the curate at the tea-table, giving him to understand that he was taking a curate so as to have more time to devote to these works.