He was a Fellow of his college, though he had not been appointed rector of St.Chad's for this reason.

The appointment, as is well known (in the Church, at any rate), is the gift of the Earl of Earlscourt, and it so happened that, when at college together, George Holland had saved the young man who a year or two afterward became Earl of Earlscourt from a very great misfortune.

The facts of the case were these: Tommy Trebovoir, as he was then, had made up his mind to marry a lady whose piquant style of beauty made the tobacconist's shop where she served the most popular in town.

By the exercise of a great deal of diplomacy and the expenditure of a little money, Mr.Holland brought about a match between her and quite another man--a man who was not even on a subsidiary path to a peerage, and whose only connection with the university was due to his hiring out horses to those whom he called the "young gents." Tommy was so indignant with his friend for the part he had played in this transaction he ceased to speak to him, and went the length of openly insulting him.

Six years afterward, when he had become Earl of Earlscourt, and had espoused the daughter of a duke,--a lady who was greatly interested in the advance of temperance,--he had presented George Holland with the living at St.Chad's.
People then said that Lord Earlscourt was a lesser fool than some of his acts suggested.