The "Angel" was in this square, and the shops grouped themselves round it. In the centre was a large pump with a great leaden spout that had a hole bored in it at the side. By stopping up the mouth of the spout with the hand it was possible through this hole to get a good drink, if a friend was willing to work the handle; and as the square was a public playground, the pump did good service, especially amongst the boys, all of whom preferred it greatly to a commonplace mug. On Sundays it was invariably chained up; for although it was no breach of the Sabbath to use the pump in the backyard, the line was drawn there, and it would have been voted by nine-tenths of Cowfold as decidedly immoral to get water from the one outside. The shops were a draper's, a grocer's, an ironmonger's, a butcher's and a baker's. All these were regular shops, with shop-windows, and were within sight of one another.

There were also other houses where things were sold; but these were mere dwelling-houses, and were at the poorer and more remote ends of Cowfold. None of the regular shops aforesaid were strictly what they professed to be. Each of them diverged towards "the general." The draper sold boots and shoes; the grocer sold drugs, stationery, horse and cow medicines, and sheep ointment; and the ironmonger dealt in crockery. Even the butcher was more than a butcher, for he was never to be seen at his chopping block, and his wife did all the retail work. He himself was in the "jobbing" line, and was always jogging about in a cart, in the hind part of which, covered with a net, was a calf or a couple of pigs. Three out of the four streets ran out in cottages; but one was more aristocratic. This was Church Street, which contained the church and the parsonage. It also had in it four red brick houses, each surrounded with large gardens. In one lived a brewer who had a brewery in Cowfold, and owned a dozen beer-shops in the neighbourhood; another was a seminary for young ladies; in the third lived the doctor; and in the fourth old Mr. and Mrs. Muston, who had no children, had been there for fifty years; and this, so far as Cowfold was aware, was all their history. Mr. and Mrs. Muston and the seminary were the main strength of the church. To be sure the doctor and the landlord of the "Angel" professed devotion to the Establishment, but they were never inside the church, except just now and then, and were charitably excused because of their peculiar calling. The rest of Cowfold was Dissenting or "went nowhere." There were three chapels; one the chapel, orthodox, Independent, holding about seven hundred persons, and more particularly to be described presently; the second Wesleyan, new, stuccoed, with grained doors and cast-iron railing; the third, strict Baptist, ultra- Calvinistic, Antinomian according to the other sects, dark, down an alley, mean, surrounded by a small long-grassed graveyard, and named ZOAR in large letters over the long window in front. The "went nowhere" class was apparently not very considerable. On Sunday morning at twelve o'clock Cowfold looked as if it had been swept clean. It was only by comparison between the total number of church- goers and chapel-goers and the total population that it could be believed that there was anybody absent from the means of grace; but if a view could have been taken of the back premises an explanation would have been discovered. Men and women "did up their gardens," or found, for a variety of reasons, that they were forced to stay at home. In the evening they grew bolder, and strolled through the meadows. It is, however, only fair to respectable Cowfold to say that it knew nothing of these creatures, except by employing them on week-days.

With regard to the Wesleyan Chapel, nothing much need be said. Its creed was imported, and it had no roots in the town. The Church disliked it because it was Dissenting, and the Dissenters disliked it because it was half-Church, and, above all, Tory. It was supported mainly by the brewer, who was drawn thither for many reasons, one of which was political. Another was, that he was not in trade, and although he objected to be confounded with his neighbours who stood behind counters, the Church did not altogether suit him, because there Mr. and Mrs. Muston and the seminary stood in his way. Lastly, as he owned beer-shops, supplied liquor which was a proverb throughout the county, and did a somewhat doubtful business according to the more pious of the Cowfold Christians, he preferred to be accredited as a religious person by Methodism than by any other sect, the stamp of Methodism standing out in somewhat higher relief.

As for Zoar, it was a place apart. Its minister was a big, large- jawed, heavy-eyed man, who lived in a little cottage hard by. His wife was a very plain-looking person, who wore even on Sundays a cotton gown without any ornament, and who took her husband's arm as they walked down the lane to the chapel. The Independent minister, the Wesleyan minister, and, of course, the rector had nothing to do with the minister of Zoar. This was not because of any heresy or difference of doctrine, but because he was a poor man and poor persons sat under him. Nevertheless he was not in any way a characteristic Calvinist. The Calvinistic creed was stuck in him as in a lump of fat, and had no organising influence upon him whatever. He had no weight in Cowfold, took part in none of its affairs, and his ministrations were confined to about fifty sullen, half stupid, wholly ignorant people who found in the Zoar services something sleepier and requiring less mental exertion than they needed elsewhere; although it must be said that the demands made upon the intellect in none of the places of worship were very extensive. There was a small endowment attached to Zoar, and on this, with the garden and house rent free, the minister lived. Once now and then— perhaps once in every three or four years—there was a baptism in Zoar, and at such times it was crowded. The children of the congregation, as a rule fell away from it as they grew up; but occasionally a girl remained faithful and was formally admitted to its communion. In front of the pulpit was an open space usually covered; but the boards could be taken up, and then a large kind of tank was disclosed, which was filled with water when the ceremony was performed. After hymns had been sung the minister went down into the water, and the candidate appeared dressed in a long white robe very much like a night-gown. The dear sister, during a short address, stood on the brink of the tank for a few moments, and then descended into it beside the minister, who, taking her by the neck and round the waist, ducked her fairly and completely. She emerged, and walked dripping into the vestry, where it was always said that hot brandy and water was ready.

Many of us have felt that we would give all our books if we could but see with our own eyes how a single day was passed by a single ancient Jewish, Greek, or Roman family; how the house was opened in the morning; how the meals were prepared; what was said; how the husband, wife, and children went about their work; what clothes they wore, and what were their amusements. Would that the present historian could do as much for Cowfold! Would that he could bring back one blue summer morning, one afternoon and evening, and reproduce exactly what happened in Cowfold Square, in one of the Cowfold shops, in one of the Cowfold parlours, and in one Cowfold brain and heart. Could this be done with strictest accuracy, a book would be written, although Cowfold was not Athens, Rome, nor Jerusalem, which would live for many many years longer than much of the literature of this century. But alas! the preliminary image in the mind of the writer is faint enough, and when he comes to trace it, the pencil swerves and goes off into something utterly unlike it. An attempt, however, to show what the waking hours in Cowfold Square were like may not be out of place. The shopkeeper came into his shop at half-past seven, about half an hour after the shutters had been taken down by his apprentice. At eight o'clock breakfast was ready; but before breakfast there was family worship, and a chapter was read from the Bible, followed by an extempore prayer from the head of the household. If the master happened to be absent, it was not considered proper that the mistress should pray extempore, and she used a book of "Family Devotions." A very solid breakfast followed, and business began. It was very slow, but it was very human—much more so than business at the present day in the City. Every customer had something to say beyond his own immediate errand, and the shop was the place where everything touching Cowfold interests was abundantly discussed. Cowfold too, did much trade in the country round it. Most of the inhabitants kept a gig, and two or three times, perhaps, in a week a journey somewhere or other was necessary which was not in the least like a journey in a railway train. Debts in the villages were collected by the creditor in person, who called and invited his debtors to a most substantial dinner at the inn. At one o'clock Cowfold dined. Between one and two nobody was to be seen in the streets, and the doors were either fastened or a bell was put upon them. After dinner the same duties returned in the shop; but inside the house dinner was the turning-point of the day. When the "things were washed, up," servant and mistress began to smarten themselves, and disappearing into their bedrooms, emerged at four, to make preparations for tea, the meal most enjoyed in all Cowfold. If any spark of wit slept in any Cowfoldian male or female, it appeared then. No invitations to dinner were ever heard of; but tea was the opportunity for hospitality, especially amongst women. The minister, when he visited, invariably came to tea. The news circulated at tea, and, in fact, at tea between five and six, Cowfold, if its intellect could have been measured by a properly constructed gauge, would have been found many degrees higher in the scale than at any other hour. Granted that the conversation was personal, trivial, and even scandalous, it was in a measure philosophical. Cowfold, though it knew nothing, or next to nothing of abstractions, took immense interest in the creatures in which they were embodied. It would have turned a deaf ear to any debate on the nature of ethical obligation; but it was very keen indeed in apportioning blame to its neighbours who had sinned, and in deciding how far they had gone wrong. Cowfold in other words believed that flesh and blood, and not ideas, are the school and the religion for most of us, and that we learn a language by the examples rather than by the rules. The young scholar fresh from his study is impatient at what he considers the unprofitable gossip about the people round the corner; but when he gets older he sees that often it is much better than his books, and that distinctions are expressed by a washerwoman, if the objects to be distinguished eat and drink and sleep, which he would find it difficult to make with his symbols. Moreover, the little Cowfold clubs and parties understood what they were saying, and so far had an advantage over the clubs and parties which, since the days of penny newspapers, now discuss in Cowfold the designs of Russia, the graduation of the Income Tax, or the merits and demerits of the administration. The Cowfold horizon has now been widened, to use the phrase of an enlightened gentleman who came down and lectured there on the criminality of the advertisement duty; but unfortunately the eyes remain the same. Cowfold now looks abroad, and is very eloquent upon the fog in the distance, and the objects it thinks it sees therein; but, alas! what it has gained in inclusive breadth it has lost in definition. Politics, however, were not unknown in Cowfold; for before 1832 it was a borough, and after 1832 it was one of the principal polling-places for the county. Nevertheless it was only on the eve of an election that anybody dabbled in them, and even then they were very rudimentary. The science to most of the voters meant nothing more than a preference of blue to yellow, or yellow to blue; and women had nothing whatever to do with it, excepting that wives always, of course, took their husbands' colours. Politics, too, as a rule, were not mentioned in private houses. They were mostly reserved for the "Angel," and for the brandies and water and pipes which collected there in the evening.

To return. After tea the master went back once more to his counter, and the shutters were put up at eight. From eight to nine was an hour of which no account can be given: The lights were left burning in the shops, and the neighbour across the way looked in and remained talking till his supper was ready. Supper at nine, generally hot, was an institution never omitted, and, like tea, was convivial; but the conviviality was of a distinctly lower order. Everybody had whisky, gin, or brandy afterwards, and every male person who was of age smoked. There was, as a rule, no excess, but the remarks were apt to be disconnected and woolly; and the wife, who never had grog for herself, but always sipped her husband's went to sleep. Eleven o'clock saw all Cowfold in bed, and disturbed only by such dreams as were begotten of the previous liver and bacon and alcohol.

There were no villains amongst that portion of the inhabitants with which this history principally concerns itself, nor was a single adventure of any kind ever known to happen beyond the adventures of being born, getting married, falling sick, and dying, with now and then an accident from a gig. Consequently it might be though that there was no romance in Cowfold. There could not be a greater mistake. The history of every boy or girl of ordinary make is one of robbery, murder, imprisonment, death sentence, filing of chains, scaling of prison walls, recapture, scaffold, reprieve, poison, and pistols; the difference between such a history and that in the authorised versions being merely circumstantial. The garden of Eden, the murder of Cain, the deluge, the salvation of Noah, the exodus from Egypt, David and Bathsheba, with the murder of Uriah, the Assyrian invasion, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Resurrection from the Dead; to say nothing of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the tragedy of Count Cenci, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, the Inquisition in Spain, and Revolt of the Netherlands, all happened in Cowfold, as well as elsewhere, and were perhaps more interesting there because they could be studied in detail and the records were authentic.

Church Street, Cowfold—that is to say, the street in which the church stood—was tolerably broad going east and west, so that the sun shone full on the white window-frames and red brick of Mr. Muston's house, in which everything seemed to sleep in eternal calm. On the opposite side was the seminary, also red brick and white paint, facing the north; but, to make amends, the garden had a southern aspect, and the back of the house was covered with a huge magnolia whose edges curled round to the western side, so that it could be seen by wayfarers. It was a sight not to be forgotten—the red brick, the white paint, the July sun the magnolia leaves, the flanking elms on the east high above the chimneys, the glimpse of the acre of lawn through the great gates when they happened to be open, the peace, so profound, of summer noon! How lovely it looks as it hovers unsteadily before the eye, seen through the transfiguring haze of so many years! It was really, there is no doubt about it, handsomer than the stuccoed villa which stares at us over the way; but yet, if Cowfold Church Street, red brick, white paint, elms, lawn, and midsummer repose could be restored at the present moment, would it be exactly what the vision of it is? What is this magic gift which even for the humblest of us paints and frames these enchanting pictures? It is nothing less than the genius which is common to humanity. If we are not able to draw or model, we possess the power to select, group, and clothe with an ideal grace, which is the very soul of art, and every man and woman, every bush, nay, every cabbage, cup, and saucer, provided only it be not actually before us, becomes part of a divine picture. Would that we could do with the present what we do with the past! We CAN do something if we try.

At the end of Church Street came the vicarage, and then the churchyard, with the church. Beyond was the park, which half embraced Cowfold, for it was possible to enter it not only from Church Street, but from North Street, which ran at right angles to it. The Hall was not much. It was a large plain stone mansion, built in the earlier part of the eighteenth century; but in front of the main entrance was a double row of limes stretching for a quarter of a mile, and the whole of the park was broken up into soft swelling hills, from whose tops, owing to the flatness of the country round, an almost immeasurable distance could be seen, gradually losing itself in deepening mist of tenderest blue. The park, too, was not rigidly circumscribed. Public roads led through it. It melted on two or three sides into cultivated fields, and even the private garden of the Hall seemed a part of it, for there was nothing between them but a kind of grassy ditch and an almost invisible fence. The domain of Cowfold Hall was the glory of Cowfold and the pride of its inhabitants. The modern love of scenery was not known in Cowfold, and still less was that worship of landscape and nature known which, as before observed, is peculiar to the generation born under the influence of Wordsworth. We have learnt, however, from Zachariah that even before Wordsworth's days people were sometimes touched by dawn or sunset. The morning cheered, the moon lent pathos and sentiment, and the stars awoke unanswerable interrogations in Cowfold, although it knew no poetry, save Dr. Watts, Pollok's Course of Time, and here and there a little of Cowper. Under the avenue, too, whose slender columns, in triple rows on either side, rose to an immense height, and met in a roof overhead with all the grace of cathedral stone, and without its superincumbent weight and imprisonment—a roof that was not impervious to the sunlight, but let it pass and fall in quivering flakes on the ground—Cowfold generally took off its hat, partly, no doubt, because the place was cool, but also as an act of homage. Here and in the woods adjoining youths and maidens for three hundred years had walked and made love, for, though the existing house was new, it stood on the site of a far older building. Dead men and women, lord and churl, gone to indistinguishable dust, or even beyond that—gone perhaps, into vapour and gas, which had been blown to New Zealand, and become men and women again—had burned with passion here, and vowed a union which was to last beyond the Judgment Day. They wept here, quarrelled here, rushed again into one another's arms here, swore to one another here, when Henry the Eighth was king; and they wept here, quarrelled here, embraced here, swore here, in exactly the same mad fashion, when William the Fourth sat upon the throne. Half-way up the avenue was a stone pillar commanding a gentle descent, one way to the Hall, and the other way to the lodge. It set forth the anguish of a former lord of the time of Queen Anne, who had lost his wife when she was twenty-six years old. She was beneath him in rank, but very beautiful, and his affection for her had fought with and triumphed over the cruel opposition of father, mother, and relations, who had other designs. He had made enemies of them all; but he won his wife, and, casting her in the scale, father, mother, and friends were as gossamer. She died two years after the wedding—to the very day. Rich in her love, he had never taken a thought to propitiate anybody, nor to make friends with the Mammon of Unrighteousness, and when she suddenly departed, he turned round and found himself alone. So far from knocking at men's doors, he more fiercely hated those who now, touched with pity, would gladly have welcomed him. He broke from them all, lived his own life, was reputed to be a freethinker, and when he came to his estate, a long while afterwards, he put up the obelisk, and recorded in Latin how Death, the foul adulterer, had ravished his sweet bride—the coward Death whom no man could challenge—and that the inconsolable bridegroom had erected this monument in memory of her matchless virtues. That was all: no blessed resurrection nor trust in the Saviour. The Reverend John Broad, minister of Tanner's Lane Chapel, when he brought visitors here regularly translated the epitaph. He was not very good at Latin, but he had somehow found out its meaning. He always observed that it was not classic, and consequently not easy to render. He pointed out, too, as a further curiosity, which somewhat increased the difficulty to any ordinary person, that V was used for U, and I for J. He never, as might be expected, omitted to enlarge upon the omission of any reference to the Atoning Blood and the Life to Come, and remarked how the poor man's sufferings would have been entirely "assuaged"—a favourite word with Mr. Broad—if he had believed in those "remedies." At the same time Mr. Broad dwelt upon the "associations" of the avenue, which, he thought, added much to its natural "attractiveness." Cowfold thought so too, and welcomed the words as exactly expressing what it felt. John Broad and Cowfold were right, and more right, perhaps, than they knew. The draper's young man, who walked through the park with his arm round his young woman's waist, looked up at the obelisk, repeated its story, and became more serious. Thus it came to pass that the old lord's love lived again somewhat in the apprentice, and that which to the apprentice seemed most particularly himself was a little bit of the self of the Queen Anne's earl long since asleep in the vault under Cowfold Church.



CHAPTER XVII—WHEN WILT THOU ARISE OUT OF THY SLEEP? YET A LITTLE SLEEP



The Reverend John Broad was minister of Tanner's Lane Chapel, or, more properly, Meeting-house, a three gabled building, with the date 1688 upon it, which stood in a short street leading out of North Street. Why it was called Tanner's Lane nobody knew; for not in the memory of man had any tanner carried on his trade there. There was nothing of any consequence in it but the meeting-house, and when people said Tanner's Lane this was what they meant. There were about seven hundred and fifty sittings in it, and on Sundays it was tolerably full, for it was attended by large numbers of people from the surrounding villages, who came in gigs and carts, and brought their dinners with them, which they ate in the vestry. It was, in fact, the centre of the Dissenting activity for a whole district. It had small affiliated meeting-houses in places like Sheepgate, Hackston Green, and Bull's Cross, in which service was held on Sunday evening by the deacons of Tanner's Lane, or by some of the young men whom Mr. Broad prepared to be missionaries. For a great many years the congregation had apparently undergone no change in character; but the uniformity was only apparent. The fervid piety of Cowper's time and of the Evangelical revival was a thing almost of the past. The Reverend John Broad was certainly not of the Revival type. He was a big, gross-feeding, heavy person, with heavy ox-face and large mouth, who might have been bad enough for anything if nature had ordained that he should have been born in a hovel at Sheepgate or in the Black Country. As it happened, his father was a woollen draper, and John was brought up to the trade as a youth; got tired of it, thought he might do something more respectable; went to a Dissenting College; took charge of a little chapel in Buckinghamshire; married early; was removed to Tanner's Lane, and became a preacher of the Gospel. He was moderate in all of what he called his "views;" neither ultra- Calvinist nor Arminian not rigid upon Baptism, and certainly much unlike his lean and fervid predecessor, the Reverend James Harden, M.A., who was educated at Cambridge; threw up all his chances there when he became convinced of sin; cast in his lot with the Independents, and wrestled even unto blood with the world, the flesh, and the devil in Cowfold for thirty years, till he was gathered to his rest. A fiery, ardent, untamable soul was Harden's, bold and uncompromising. He never scrupled to tell anybody what he thought, and would send an arrow sharp and swift through any iniquity, no matter where it might couch. He absolutely ruled Cowfold, hated by many, beloved by many, feared by all—a genuine soldier of the Cross. Mr. Broad very much preferred the indirect mode of doing good, and if he thought a brother had done wrong, contented himself with praying in private for him. He was, however, not a hypocrite, that is to say, not an ordinary novel or stage hypocrite. There is no such thing as a human being simply hypocritical or simply sincere. We are all hypocrites, more or less, in every word and every action, and, what is more, in every thought. It is a question simply of degree. Furthermore, there are degrees of natural capacity for sincerity, and Mr. Broad was probably as sincere as his build of soul and body allowed him to be. Certainly no doubt as to the truth of what he preached ever crossed his mind. He could not doubt, for there was no doubt in the air; and yet he could not believe as Harden believed, for neither was Harden's belief now in the air. Nor was Mr. Broad a criminal in any sense. He was upright, on the whole, in all his transactions, although a little greedy and hard, people thought, when the trustees proposed to remit to Widow Oakfield, on her husband's death, half the rent of a small field belonging to the meeting-house, and contributing a modest sum to Mr. Broad's revenue. He objected. Widow Oakfield was poor; but then she did not belong to Tanner's Lane, and was said to have relations who could help her. Mr. Broad loved his wife decently, brought up his children decently, and not the slightest breath of scandal ever tarnished his well-polished reputation. On some points he was most particular, and no young woman who came to him with her experience before she was admitted into the church was ever seen by him alone. Always was a deacon present, and all Cowfold admitted that the minister was most discreet. Another recommendation, too, was that he was temperate in his drink. He was not so in his meat. Supper was his great meal, and he would then consume beef, ham, or sausages, hot potatoes, mixed pickles, fruit pies, bread, cheese, and celery in quantities which were remarkable even in those days; but he never drank anything but beer—a pint at dinner and a pint at supper.

On one Monday afternoon in July, 1840, Mr. and Mrs. Broad sat at tea in the study. This was Mr. Broad's habit on Monday afternoon. On that day, after the three sermons on the Sunday, he always professed himself "Mondayish." The morning was given over to calling in the town; when he had dined he slept in his large leathern chair; and at five husband and wife had tea by themselves. Thomas, the eldest son, and his two younger sisters, Priscilla and Tryphosa, aged seventeen and fifteen, were sent to the dining-room. Mr. Broad never omitted this custom of spending an hour and a half on Monday with Mrs. Broad. It gave them an opportunity of talking over the affairs of the congregation, and it added to Mr. Broad's importance with the missionary students, because they saw how great were the weight and fatigue of the pastoral office.

A flock like that which was shepherded by Mr. Broad required some management. Mrs. Broad took the women, and Mr. Broad the men; but Mrs. Broad was not a very able tactician. She was a Flavel by birth, and came from a distant part of the country. Her father was a Dissenting minister; but he was Dr. Flavel, with a great chapel in a great town. Consequently she gave herself airs, and occasionally let fall, to the great displeasure of the Cowfold ladies, words which implied some disparagement of Cowfold. She was a shortish, stout, upright little woman, who used a large fan and spoke with an accent strange to the Midlands. She was not a great help to the minister, because she was not sufficiently flexible and insinuating for her position; but nevertheless they always worked together, and she followed as well as she could the directions of her astuter husband, who, considering his bovine cast, was endowed with quite a preternatural sagacity in the secular business of his profession.

On this particular afternoon, however, the subject of the conversation was not the congregation, but young Thomas Broad, aged eighteen, the exact, and almost ridiculously exact, counterpart of his father. He had never been allowed to go to school, but had been taught at home. There was only one day-school in Cowfold, and his mother objected to the "mixture." She had been heard to say as much, and Cowfold resented this too, and the Cowfold youths resented it by holding Tommy Broad in extreme contempt. He had never been properly a boy, for he could play at no boyish games; had a tallowy, unpleasant complexion, went for formal walks, and carried gloves. But though in a sense incompletely developed, he was not incompletely developed in another direction. He was at what is called an awkward age, and both father and mother had detected in him an alarming tendency to enjoy the society of young women—a tendency much stimulated by his unnatural mode of life. Thomas was already a member of the church and was a teacher in the Sunday-school; but his mother was uneasy, for a serious attachment between Thomas and anybody in the town would have been very distasteful to her. The tea having been poured out, and Mr. Broad having fairly settled down upon the buttered toast and radishes, Mrs. Broad began:

"Have you thought anything more about Thomas, my dear?"

Being a minister's son, he was never called Tom by either papa or mamma.

"Yes, my love; but it is very difficult to know how to proceed judiciously in such a case."

"Mrs. Allen asked me, last Wednesday, when he was going to leave home, and I told her we had not made up our minds. She said that her brother in Birmingham wanted a youth in his office, but my answer was directly that we had quite determined that Thomas should not enter into any trade."

"What did she say?"

"That she was not surprised, for she hardly thought Thomas was fitted for it."

The minister looked grave and perplexed, for Mr. Allen was in trade, and was a deacon. Mrs. Broad proceeded:

"I am quite sure Thomas ought to be a minister; and I am quite sure, too, he ought to leave Cowfold and go to college."

"Don't you think this event might be procrastinated; the expense would be considerable."

"Well, my dear, Fanny Allen came here to tea the day before yesterday. When she went away she could not find her clogs. I was on the landing, and saw what happened, though they did not think it. Fanny's brother was waiting outside. Priscilla had gone somewhere far the moment—I don't know where—and Tryphosa was upstairs. Thomas said he would look for the clogs, and presently I saw him fastening them for her. Then he walked with her down the garden. I just went into the front bedroom and looked. It was not very dark, and,—well, I may be mistaken, but I do believe—" The rest of the sentence was wanting. Mrs. Broad stopped at this point. She felt it was more becoming to do so. She shifted on her chair with a fidgety motion, threw her head back a little, looked up at the portrait of Dr. Flavel in gown and bands which hung over the fireplace, straightened her gown upon her knees, and pushed it forward over her feet so as to cover them altogether—a mute protest against the impropriety of the scene she had partly described. Mr. Broad inwardly would have liked her to go on; but he always wore his white neckerchief, except when he was in bed, and he was still the Reverend John Broad, although nobody but his wife was with him. He therefore refrained, but after a while slowly observed:

"Thomas has not made much progress in systematic theology."

"They do not require much on admission, do they? He knows the outlines, and I am sure the committee will recollect my father and be glad to get Thomas. I have heard that the social position of the candidates is not what it used to be, and that they wish to obtain some of a superior stamp, who ultimately may be found adapted to metropolitan churches."

"One of the questions last year, my dear, was upon the office of the Comforter, and you remember Josiah Collins was remanded. I hardly think Thomas is sufficiently instructed on that subject at present; and there are others. On the whole, it is preferable that he should not go till September twelvemonths."

"His personal piety would have weight."

"Undoubtedly."

There was a pause, and Mrs. Broad then continued:

"Well, my dear, you know best; but what about Fanny? I shall not ask her again. How very forward, and indeed altogether"—Another stoppage, another twitch at her gown, with another fidget on the chair, the eyes going up to Dr. Flavel's bands as before. "In OUR house too—to put herself in Thomas's way!"

Ah! Mrs. Broad, are you sure Thomas did not go out of his way—even in your house, that eminently respectable, eminently orthodox residence—even Thomas, your Samuel, who had been granted to the Lord, and who, to use his own words when his written religious autobiography was read at the church-meeting, being the child of pious parents, and of many prayers, had never been exposed to those assaults of the enemy of souls which beset ordinary young men, and consequently had not undergone a sudden conversion?

"But," observed Mr. Broad, leaning back in his easy-chair, and half covering his face with his great broad, fat hand, "we shall offend the Allens if Fanny does not come, and we shall injure the cause."

"Has George Allen, Fanny's brother, prayed at the prayer-meeting yet? He was admitted two months ago."

"No."

"Then ask his father to let him pray; and we need not invite Fanny till Thomas has left."

The papa objected that perhaps Thomas might go to the Allen's, but the mamma, with Dr. Flavel's bands before her, assured him that Thomas would do nothing of the kind. So it was settled that Mr. Broad should call at the Allen's to-morrow, and suggest that George should "engage" on the following Thursday. This, it was confidently hoped, would prevent any suspicion on their part that Fanny had been put aside. Of course, once having begun, George would be regularly on the list.



CHAPTER XVIII—A RELIGIOUS PICNIC



Occasionally, in the summer months, Tanner's Lane indulged in a picnic; that is to say, the principal members of the congregation, with their wives and children, had an early dinner, and went in gigs and four-wheel chaises to Shott Woods, taking hampers of bread, cake, jam, butter, ham, and other eatables with them. At Shott Woods, in a small green space under an immense oak, a fire was lighted and tea was prepared. Mr. Broad and his family always joined the party. These were the days when Dissenters had no set amusements, and the entertainment at Shott mainly consisted in getting the sticks for the fire, fetching the water, and waiting on one another; the waiting being particularly pleasant to the younger people. Dancing, of course, was not thought of. In 1840 it may safely be said that there were not twenty Independent families in Great Britain in which it would have been tolerated, and, moreover, none but the rich learned to dance.

No dancing-master ever came into Cowfold; there was no music-master there; no concert was ever given; and Cowfold, in fact, never "saw nor heard anything;" to use a modern phrase, save a travelling menagerie with a brass band. What an existence! How DID they live? It's certain, however, that they did live, and, on the whole, enjoyed their life.

The picnics were generally on a Monday, as a kind of compliment to Mr. Broad, who was supposed to need rest and change on Monday, and who was also supposed not to be able to spare the time on any other day. About a month after the conversation recorded in the previous chapter Tanner's Lane was jogging along to Shott on one of its excursions. It was a brilliant, blazing afternoon towards the end of August. The corn stood in shocks, and a week with that sun would see it all stacked. There was no dreary suburb round Cowfold, neither town nor country, to shut out country influences. The fields came up to the gardens and orchards at the back of half the houses, and flowed irregularly, like an inundation, into the angles of the streets. As you walked past the great gate of the "Angel" yard you could see the meadow at the bottom belonging to Hundred Acres. Consequently all Cowfold took an interest in agriculture, and knew a good deal about it. Every shopkeeper was half a farmer, and understood the points of a pig or a horse. Cowfold was not a town properly speaking, but the country a little thickened and congested. The conversation turned upon the crops, and more particularly upon turnips and drainage, both of them a new importation. Hitherto all the parishes round had no drainage whatever, excepting along the bottoms of the ridges, and the now familiar red pipes had just made their appearance on a farm belonging to a stranger to those parts—a young fellow from Norfolk. Everybody was sceptical, and called him a fool. Everybody wanted to know how water was going to get through fifteen inches of heavy land when it would lie for two days where a horse trod. However, the pipes went in, and it so happened that the first wet day after they were laid was a Sunday. The congregation in Shott Church was very restless, although the sermon was unusually short. One by one they crept out, and presently they were followed by the parson. All of them had collected in the pouring rain and were watching the outfall in the ditches. To their unspeakable amazement the pipes were all running! Shott scratched its head and was utterly bewildered. A new idea in a brain not accustomed to the invasion of ideas produces a disturbance like a revolution. It causes giddiness almost as bad as that of a fit, and an extremely unpleasant sensation of having been whirled round and turned head over heels. It was the beginning of new things in Shott, the beginning of a breakdown in its traditions; a belief in something outside the ordinary parochial uniformities was forced into the skull of every man, woman, and child by the evidence of the senses; and when other beliefs asked, in the course of time, for admittance they found the entrance easier than it would have been otherwise.

The elderly occupants of the Tanner's Lane gigs and chaises talked exclusively upon these and other cognate topics. The sons and daughters talked about other things utterly unworthy of any record in a serious history. Delightful their chatter was to them. What does it signify to eighteen years what is said on such an afternoon by seventeen years, when seventeen years is in a charming white muslin dress, with the prettiest hat? Words are of importance between me and you, who care little or nothing for one another. But there is a thrice blessed time when words are nothing. The real word is that which is not uttered. We may be silent, or we may be eloquent with nonsense or sense—it is all one. So it was between George Allen and Miss Priscilla Broad, who at the present moment were sitting next to one another. George was a broad, hearty, sandy-haired, sanguine- faced young fellow of one and twenty, eldest son of the ironmonger. His education had been that of the middle classes of those days. Leaving school at fourteen, he had been apprenticed to his father for seven years, and had worked at the forge down the backyard before coming into the front shop. On week-days he generally wore a waistcoat with sleeves and a black apron. He was never dirty; in fact, he was rather particular as to neatness and cleanliness; but he was always a little dingy and iron-coloured, as retail ironmongers are apt to be. He was now in charge of the business under his father; stood behind the counter; weighed nails; examined locks brought for repair; went to the different houses in Cowfold with a man under him to look at boiler-pipes, the man wearing a cap and George a tall hat. He had a hard, healthy, honest life, was up at six o'clock in the morning, ate well, and slept well. He was always permitted by his father to go on these excursions, and, in fact, they could not have been a success without him. If anything went wrong he was always the man to set it right. If a horse became restive, George was invariably the one to jump out, and nobody else thought of stirring. He had good expectations. The house in which the Allens lived was their own. Mr. Allen did a thriving trade, not only in Cowfold, but in all the country round, and particularly among the village blacksmiths, to whom he sold iron. He had steadily saved money, and had enlarged the original little back parlour into a room which would hold comfortably a tea-party of ten or a dozen.

Miss Priscilla Broad was framed after a different model. Her face was not much unlike that of one of those women of the Restoration so familiar to us in half a hundred pictures. Not that Restoration levity and Restoration manners were chargeable to Miss Priscilla. She never forgot her parentage; but there were the same kind of prettiness, the same sideways look, the same simper about the lips, and there were the same flat unilluminated eyes. She had darkish brown hair, which fell in rather formal curls on her shoulder, and she was commonly thought to be "delicate." Like her sister and brother, she had never been to school, on account of the "mixture," but had been taught by her mother. Her accomplishments included Scripture and English history, arithmetic, geography, the use of the globes, and dates. She had a very difficult part to play in Cowfold, for she was obliged to visit freely all Tanner's Lane, but at the same time to hold herself above it and not to form any exclusive friendships. These would have been most injudicious, because, in the first place, they would have excited jealousy, and, in the next place, the minister's daughter could not be expected to be very intimate with anybody belonging to the congregation. She was not particularly popular with the majority, and was even thought to be just a bit of a fool. But what could she have been with such surroundings? The time had passed when religion could be talked on week-days, and the present time, when ministers' children learn French, German, and Latin, and read selected plays of Shakespeare, had not come. Miss Priscilla Broad found it very difficult, also, to steer her course properly amongst the young men in Cowfold. Mrs. Broad would not have permitted any one of them for a moment to dream of an alliance with her family. As soon might a Princess of the Blood Royal unite herself with an ordinary knight. Miss Broad, however, as her resources within herself were not particularly strong, thought about little or nothing else than ensnaring the hearts of the younger Cowfold males—that is to say, the hearts which were converted, and yet she encouraged none of them, save by a general acceptance of little attentions, by little mincing smiles, and little mincing speeches.

"Such a beautiful day," said George, "and such pleasant company!"

"Really, Mr. Allen, don't you think it would have been pleasanter for you in front?"

"What did you say, my dear?" came immediately from her mother, the ever-watchful dragon just before them. She forthwith turned a little round, for the sun was on her left hand, and with her right eye kept Priscilla well in view for the rest of the journey.

In the chaise behind pretty much the same story was told, but with a difference. In the back part were Mr. Thomas Broad and Miss Fanny Allen. The arrangement which brought these two together was most objectionable to Mrs. Broad; but unfortunately she was a little late in starting, and it was made before she arrived. She could not, without insulting the Allens, have it altered; but she consoled herself by vowing that it should not stand on the return journey in the dusk. Miss Fanny was flattered that the minister's son should be by her side, and the minister's son was not in the least deterred from playing with Miss Fanny by the weight of responsibility which oppressed and checked his sister. He did not laugh much; he had not a nature for wholesome laughter, but he chuckled, lengthened his lips, half shut his eyes; asked his companion whether the rail did not hurt her, put his arm on the top, so that she might lean against it, and talked in a manner which even she would have considered a little silly and a little odd, if his position, that of a student for the ministry, had not surrounded him with such a halo of glory.

Presently Shott Woods were reached; the parcels and hampers were unpacked, the fire was lit, the tea prepared, and the pastor asked a blessing. Everybody sat on the grass, save the reverend gentleman and his wife, who had chairs which had been brought on purpose. It would not have been considered proper that Mr. or Mrs. Broad should sit upon the grass, and indeed physically it would have been inconvenient to Mr. Broad to do so. He ate his ham in considerable quantities, adding thereto much plumcake, and excusing himself on the ground that the ride had given him an appetite. The meal being over, grace was said, and the victuals that were left were repacked. About an hour remained before the return journey began. This was usually passed in sauntering about or in walking to the springs, a mile away, down one of the grass drives. Mrs. Broad never for a moment lost sight of Thomas, and pressed him as much as possible into her service; but when Mrs. Allen announced that the young people had all determined to go to the springs, Mrs. Broad could not hold out. Accordingly off they started, under strict orders to be back by eight. They mixed themselves up pretty indiscriminately as they left their seniors; but after a while certain affinities displayed themselves, George being found with Priscilla, for example, and Thomas with Fanny. The party kept together; but Thomas and Fanny lagged somewhat till they came to a little opening in the underwood, which Thomas said was a short cut, and he pressed her to try it with him. She agreed, and they slipped out of sight nearly, but not, quite, unobserved. Thomas professed himself afraid Fanny might be tired, and offered his arm. She again consented, not without a flutter, and so they reached a clearing with three or four paths branching from it. Thomas was puzzled, and as for Fanny, she knew nothing. To add to their perplexity some drops of rain were felt. She was a little frightened, and was anxious to try one of the most likely tracks which looked, she thought, as if it went to the springs, where they could take shelter in the cottage with the others. Thomas, however, was doubtful, and proposed that they should stand up in a shed which had been used for faggot-making. The rain, which now came down heavily, enforced his arguments, and she felt obliged to stay till the shower had ceased.

"Only think, Fanny," he said, "to be here alone with you!"

He called her Fanny now; he had always called her Miss Allen before.

"Yes," said she, not knowing what answer to make.

"You are cold," he added, with a little trembling in his voice and a little more light than usual in his eyes.

"Oh no, I am not cold."

"I know you are," and he took her hand; "why, it is quite cold."

"Oh dear no, Mr. Thomas, it is really not cold," and she made a movement to withdraw it, but it remained.

The touch of the hand caused his voice to shake a little more than before.

"I say you are cold; come a little closer to me. What will your mamma say if you catch a chill?" and he drew Fanny a little nearer to him. The thick blood now drove through him with increasing speed: everything seemed in a mist, and a little perspiration was on his forehead. His arm found its way round Fanny's waist, and he pressed her closer and closer to him till his hot lips were upon her cheek. She made two or three futile attempts to release herself; but she might as well have striven with that brazen, red-hot idol who was made to clasp his victims to death. She was frightened and screamed, when suddenly a strong man's voice was heard calling "Fanny, Fanny." It was her brother. Knowing that she and Thomas had no umbrellas, he had brought them a couple.

"But, Fanny," he cried, "did I not hear you scream? What was the matter?"

"Nothing," hastily interposed Thomas; "she thought she saw it lighten." Fanny looked at Thomas for a moment; but she was scared and bewildered, and held her peace.

The three went down to the rendezvous together, where the rest of the party had already assembled. Mrs. Broad had been very uneasy when she found that Thomas and Fanny were the only absentees, and she had urged George the moment she saw him to look for his sister without a moment's delay. The excuse of the rain was given and accepted; but Mrs. Broad felt convinced from Fanny's forward look that she had once more thrown herself in the way of her beloved child, her delicate Samuel. She was increasingly anxious that he should go to college, and his papa promised at once to transmit the application. Meanwhile, in the few days left before the examination, he undertook to improve Thomas where he was weakest, that is to say, in Systematic Theology, and more particularly in the doctrine of the Comforter.



CHAPTER XIX—"THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE UNTO LEAVEN"



Mr. Isaac Allen, Fanny's father, was an ardent Whig in politics—what in later years would have been called a Radical. He had been apprenticed in London, and had attended Mr. Bradshaw's ministrations there. He was the chosen friend of Zachariah Coleman; but although he loved Zachariah, he had held but little intercourse with him during his first marriage. There were family reasons for the estrangement, due principally to a quarrel between Mrs. Isaac and the first Mrs. Zachariah. But after Mrs. Zachariah had died and her husband suffered so much Isaac was drawn to him again. He was proud of him as a martyr for a good cause, and he often saw him when he went to London on business.

It was in consequence of these London visits that books appeared on the little book-shelf in Cowfold Square which were to be found nowhere else in the town, at any rate not in the Dissenting portion of it. It was a little bookcase, it is true, for people in country places were not great readers in those days; but Sir Walter Scott was there, and upstairs in Mr. Allen's room there was Byron—not an uncut copy, but one well used both by husband and wife. Mrs. Allen was not a particularly robust woman, although she was energetic. Often without warning, she would not make her appearance till twelve or one o'clock in the day, and would have her fire alight in her bedroom and take her breakfast in bed. It was well understood when she was not at the table with the others that the house was to be kept quiet. After a cup of tea—nothing more—she rose and sat reading for a good two hours. It was not that she was particularly unwell—she simply needed rest. Every now and then retreat from the world and perfect isolation were a necessity to her. If she forced herself to come downstairs when she ought to be by herself she became really ill. Occasionally the fire was alight in the evening, too, and she would be off the moment tea was over, Isaac frequently joining her then, although he never remained with her in the morning. She was almost sure to escape on the day following any excitement or undue worry about household affairs. She knew Sir Walter Scott from end to end, and as few people knew him. He had been to her, and to her husband too, what he can only be to people leading a dull life far from the world. He had broken up its monotony and created a new universe! He had introduced them into a royal society of noble friends. He had added to the ordinary motives which prompted Cowfold action a thousand higher motives. Then there was the charm of the magician, so sanative, so blessed, felt directly any volume of that glorious number was opened. Kenilworth or Redgauntlet was taken down, and the reader was at once in another country and in another age, transported as if by some Arabian charm away from Cowfold cares. If anywhere in another world the blessings which men have conferred here are taken into account in distributing reward, surely the choicest in the store of the Most High will be reserved for His servant Scott! It may be said of others that they have made the world wise or rich, but of him it must be said that HE, MORE THAN ALL, HAS MADE THE WORLD HAPPIER— wiser too, wiser through its happiness.

Of the influence of Byron nothing more need be said here, because so much has been said before. It may seem strange that the deacon of a Dissenting chapel and his wife could read him, and could continue to wait upon the ministrations of the Reverend John Broad; but I am only stating a fact. Mrs. Allen could repeat page after page of Childe Harold, and yet she went diligently to Tanner's Lane. Part of what was read exhaled in the almost republican politics of the Allen household; but it had also its effect in another direction, and it was always felt by the Broads that the Allens were questionable members of the flock. They were gathered into the fold on Sunday, and had the genuine J. B. on their wool, but there was a cross in them. There was nothing which could be urged against them. No word of heresy ever escaped them, no symptom of disbelief was ever seen and yet Mr. Broad often desired exceedingly that they were different, was never at ease with them, and in his heart of hearts bitterly hated them. After all that can be said by way of explanation, there was much in this concealed animosity of Mr. Broad which was unaccountable. It was concealed because he was far too worldly-wise to show it openly; but it was none the less intense. Indeed, it was so intense as to be almost inconsistent with Mr. Broad's cast of character, and his biographer is at a loss to find the precise point where it naturally connects itself with the main stem from which branch off the rest of his virtues and vices. However, there it was, and perhaps some shrewder psychologist may be able to explain how such a passion could be begotten in a nature otherwise so somnolent.

For this literary leaven in the Allen's household, as we have said, Zachariah was answerable. Mrs. Allen loved him as she loved her father, and he wrote to her long letters, through which travelled into Cowfold Square all the thought of the Revolution. He never went to Cowfold himself, nor could he ever be persuaded to let little Pauline go. She had been frequently invited, but he always declined the invitation courteously on the ground that he could not spare her. The fame of her beauty and abilities had, however, reached Cowfold, and so it came to pass that when Mr. Thomas Broad, junior, being duly instructed in the doctrine of the Comforter, entered the Dissenting College in London, he determined that at the first opportunity he would call and see her. He had been privately warned both by his father and mother that he was on no account to visit this particular friend of the Allens, firstly, because Zachariah was reputed to be, "inclined towards infidelity," and secondly, because, summing up the whole argument, he was not "considered respectable."

"Of course, my dear, you know his history," quoth Mrs. Broad, "and it would very much interfere with your usefulness if you were to be intimate with him."

Little Pauline had by this time grown to be a woman, or very nearly one. She had, as in nine times, perhaps, out of ten is the case, inherited her temperament from her mother. She had also inherited something more, for she was like her in face. She had the same luxuriantly dark hair—a wonder to behold when it was let down over her shoulders—the same grey eyes, the same singularly erect attitude, and lips which, although they were not tight and screwed up, were always set with decision. But her distinguishing peculiarity was her inherited vivacity, which was perfectly natural, but frequently exposed her—just as it did her mother—to the charge of being theatrical. The criticism was as unjust in her case as in that of her mother, if by being theatrical we mean being unreal. The unreal person is the half-alive languid person. Pauline felt what she said, and acted it in every gesture. Her precious promptitude of expression made her invaluable as a companion to her father. He was English all over and all through; hypochondriacal, with a strong tendency to self-involution and self-absorption. She was only half English, or rather altogether French, and when he came home in the evening he often felt as if some heavy obstruction in his brain and about his heart were suddenly dissolved. She and her mother were like Hercules in the house of Admetus. Before Hercules has promised to rescue Alcestis we feel that the darkness has disappeared. Pauline was loved by her father with intense passion. When she was a little child, and he was left alone with a bitter sense of wrong, a feeling that he had more than his proper share of life's misery, his heart was closed, and he cared for no friendship. But the man's nature could not be thus thwarted, and gradually it poured itself out in full flood—denied exit elsewhere—at this one small point. He rejoiced to find that he had not stiffened into death, and he often went up to her bedside as she lay asleep, and the tears came, and he thanked God, not only for her but for his tears. He could not afford to bring her up like a lady, but he did his best to give her a good education. He was very anxious that she should learn French, and as she was wonderfully quick at languages, she managed in a very short time to speak it fluently.



CHAPTER XX—THE REVEREND THOMAS BROAD'S EXPOSITION OF ROMANS VIII. 7



Such was the Coleman household when Mr. Thomas Broad called one fine Monday afternoon about three months after he had been at college. He had preached his first sermon on the Sunday before, in a village about twelve miles from London in a north-easterly direction, somewhere in the flat regions of Essex. Mr. Thomas was in unusually good humour, for he had not broken down, and thought he had crowned himself with glory. The trial, to be sure, was not very severe. The so-called chapel was the downstairs living-room of a cottage holding at a squeeze about five-and-twenty people. Nevertheless, there was a desk at one corner, with two candles on either side, and Mr. Thomas was actually, for the first time, elevated above an audience. It consisted of the wheelwright and his wife, both very old, half a dozen labourers, with their wives, and two or three children. The old wheelwright, as he was in business, was called the "principal support of the cause." The "cause," however, was not particularly prosperous, nor its supporters enthusiastic. It was "supplied" always by a succession of first-year's students, who made their experiments on the corpus vile here. Spiritual teaching, spiritual guidance, these poor peasants had none, and when the Monday came they went to their work in the marshes and elsewhere, and lived their blind lives under grey skies, with nothing left in them of the Sunday, save the recollection of a certain routine performed which might one day save them from some disaster with which flames and brimstone had something to do. It was not, however, a reality to them. Neither the future nor the past was real to them; no spiritual existence was real; nothing, in fact, save the most stimulant sensation. Once upon a time, a man, looking towards the celestial city, saw "The reflection of the sun upon the city (for the city was of pure gold), so exceeding glorious that he could not as yet with open face behold it, save through an instrument made for that purpose;" but Mr. Thomas Broad and his hearers needed no smoked glass now to prevent injury to their eyes. Mr. Thomas had put on a white neckerchief, had mounted the desk, and had spoken for three-quarters of an hour from the text, "The carnal mind is at enmity with God." He had received during the last three weeks his first lectures on the "Scheme of Salvation," and his discourse was a reproduction of his notes thereon. The wheelwright and his wife, and the six labourers with their wives, listened as oxen might listen, wandered home along the lanes heavy-footed like oxen, with heads towards the ground, and went heavily to bed. The elder student who had accompanied Mr. Thomas informed him that, on the whole, he had acquitted himself very well, but that it would be better, perhaps, in future to be a little simpler, and avoid what "may be called the metaphysics of Redemption."

"No doubt," said he, "they are very attractive, and of enormous importance. There is no objection to expound them before a cultivated congregation in London; but in the villages we cannot be too plain—that, at least, is my experience. Simply tell them we are all sinners, and deserve damnation. God sent His Son into the world. If we believe in Him we shall be saved; if not, we shall be lost. There is no mystery in that; everybody can understand it; and people are never weary of hearing the old old gospel."

Mr. Thomas was well contented with himself, as we have said, when he knocked at Zachariah's door. It was opened by Pauline. He took off his hat and smiled.

"My name is Broad. I come from Cowfold, and know the Allens very well. I am now living in London, and having heard of you so often, I thought I should like to call."

"Pray come in," she said; "I am very glad to see you. I wish my father were here."

He was shown into the little front room, and after some inquiries about his relations Pauline asked him where was his abode in London.

"At the Independent College. I am studying for the ministry."

Pauline was not quite sure what "the ministry" meant; but as Mr. Thomas had yesterday's white tie round his neck—he always "dirtied out" the Sunday's neckerchief on Monday, and wore a black one on the other week-days—she guessed his occupation.

"Dear me! you must be tired with walking so far."

"Oh no, not tired with walking; but the fact is I am a little Mondayish."

"A little what?"

Mr. Thomas giggled a little. "Ah, you young ladies, of course, don't know what that means. I had to conduct a service in the country yesterday, and am rather fatigued. I am generally so on Mondays, and I always relax on that day." This, it is to be remembered, was his first Monday.

Pauline regretted very much that she had no wine in the house; neither had they any beer. They were not total abstainers, but nothing of the kind was kept in their small store-closet.

"Oh, thank you; never mind." He took a bottle of smelling-salts from the mantelpiece and smelt it. The conversation flagged a little. Pauline sat at the window, and Mr. Thomas at the table. At last he observed.

"Are you alone all day?"

"Generally, except on Sunday. Father does not get home till late."

"Dear me! And you are not dull nor afraid?"

"Dull or afraid! Why?"

"Oh, well," he sniggered, "dull—why, young ladies, you know, usually like society. At least," and he laughed a little greasy laugh at his wit, "we like theirs. And then—afraid—well, if my sister were so attractive"—he looked to see if this pretty compliment was effective—"I should not like her to be without anybody in the house."

Pauline became impatient. She rose. "When you come again," she said, "I hope my father will be here."

Mr. Thomas rose too. He had begun to feel awkward. For want of something better to say, he asked whose was the portrait over the mantelpiece.

"Major Cartwright."

"Major Cartwright! Dear me, is that Major Cartwright?" He had never heard of him before, but he did not like to profess ignorance of a Major.

"And this likeness of this young gentleman?" he inquired, looking at Pauline sideways, with an odious simper on his lips. "Nobody I know, I suppose?"

"My father when he was one-and-twenty." She moved towards the door. Mr. Thomas closed his fat eyes till they became almost slits, simpered still more effectively, as he thought, trusted he might have the pleasure of calling again, and departed.

Pauline returned, opened the window and door for ten minutes, and went upstairs. When she saw her father she told him briefly that she had entertained a visitor, and expressed her utter loathing of him in terms so strong that he was obliged to check her. He did not want a quarrel with any of Isaac's friends.

Mr. Thomas, having returned to the college, did not delay to communicate by mysterious hints to his colleagues that he was on visiting terms with a most delightfully charming person, and sunned himself deliciously in their bantering congratulations. About three weeks afterwards he thought he might safely repeat his visit; but he was in a difficulty. He was not quite so stupid as not to see that, the next time he went, it ought to be when her father was present, and yet he preferred his absence. At last he determined he would go about tea-time. He was quite sure that Mr. Coleman would not have returned then; but he could assume that he had, and would propose to wait for him. He therefore duly presented himself at half-past five.

"Good-evening, Miss Coleman. Is your father at home?"

"No, not yet," replied Pauline, holding the door doubtingly.

"Oh, I am so sorry;" and, to Pauline's surprise, he entered without any further ceremony. She hardly knew what to do; but she followed him as he walked into the room, where she had just laid the tea- things and put the bread and butter on the table.

"Oh, tea!" he cried. "Dear me, it would be very rude of me to ask myself to tea, and yet, do you know, Miss Coleman, I can hardly help it."

"I am afraid my father will not be here till eight." He sat down.

"That is very unfortunate. You will tell him I came on purpose to see him."

Pauline hesitated whether she should or should not inform Mr. Thomas that his presence was disagreeable, but her father's caution recurred to her, and she poured out a cup for her visitor.

It was one of his peculiarities that tea, of which he took enormous quantities, made him garrulous, and he expatiated much upon his college. By degrees, however, he became silent, and as he was sitting with his face to the window, he shifted his chair to the opposite side, under the pretence that the light dazzled his eyes. Pauline shifted too, apparently to make room for him, but really to get farther from him.

"Do people generally say that you take after your mother?" he said.

"I believe I am like my mother in many things."

Another pause. He became fidgety; the half smile, half grin which he almost perpetually wore passed altogether from his face, and he looked uncomfortable and dangerous. Pauline felt him to be so, and resolved that, come what might, he should never set foot in the house again.

"You have such black hair," he observed.

She rose to take away the tea-things.

"I am afraid," said she, "that I must go out; I have one or two commissions to execute."

He remained seated, and observed that surely she would not go alone.

"Why not?" and having collected the tea-things, she was on the point of leaving. He then rose, and she bade him good-bye. He held out his hand, and she took it in hers, but he did not let it go, and having pulled it upwards with much force, kissed it. He still held it, and before the astonished Pauline knew what he was doing his arm was round her waist. At that moment the little front gate swung back. Nobody was there; but the Reverend Thomas was alarmed, and in an instant she had freed herself, and had placed the table between them.

"What do you mean, you Gadarene pig, you scoundrel, by insulting a stranger in this way?" she cried. "Away! My father will know what to do with you."

"Oh, if you please, Miss Coleman, pray say nothing about it, pray do not mention it to your father; I do not know what the consequences will be; I really meant nothing; I really did not"—which was entirely true.

"You who propose to teach religion to people! I ought to stop you; but no, I will not be dragged into the mud."

A sudden thought struck her. He was shaky, and was holding on by the table. "I will be silent," she cried—what a relief it was to him to hear her say that! "but I will mark you," and before he could comprehend what she was doing she had seized a little pair of scissors which lay near her, had caught his wrist, and had scored a deep cross on the back of the hand. The blood burst out and she threw him a handkerchief.

"Take that and be gone!"

He was so amazed and terrified, not only at the sight of the blood, but at her extraordinary behaviour, that he turned ghastly white. The pain, however, recalled him to his senses; he rolled the handkerchief over the wound, twisted his own round it too, for the red stain came through Pauline's cambric, and departed. The account current in the college was, that he had torn himself against a nail in a fence. The accident was a little inconvenient on the following Sunday, when he had to preach at Hogsbridge Corner; but as he reproduced the sermon on the carnal mind, which he knew pretty well by heart, he was not nervous. He had made it much simpler, in accordance with the advice given on a former occasion. He had struck out the metaphysics and had put in a new head—"Neither indeed CAN be." "The apostle did not merely state a fact that the carnal mind was not subject to the law of God; he said, 'Neither indeed CAN be.' Mark, my brethren, the force of the neither can."



CHAPTER XXI—THE WISDOM OF THE SERPENT



George Allen meanwhile, at Cowfold, languished in love with Priscilla Broad, who was now a comely girl of eighteen. Mrs. Broad had, of course, discovered what was in the wind, and her pride suffered a severe shock. She had destined Priscilla, as the daughter of a Flavel, for a London minister, and that she should marry a tradesman was intolerable. Worse still, a tradesman in Cowfold! What would become of their influence in the town, she continually argued with Mr. Broad, if they became connected with a member of their congregation? She thought it would be a serious hindrance to their usefulness. But Mr. Broad was not so sure, although he hated the Allens; and Priscilla, somehow or other, was not so sure, for, despite her mother's constant hints about their vulgarity, she not infrequently discovered that something was wanted from the shop, and bought it herself.

One Monday afternoon, Mr. Broad having thrown the silk handkerchief off his face and bestirred himself at the sight of the radishes, water-cresses, tea, and hot buttered toast, thus addressed his wife:

"My love, I am not altogether inclined to discountenance the attentions which George pays to Priscilla. There are so many circumstances to be taken into account."

"It is a great trouble to me, John, and I really think if anything of the kind were to happen, at least you would have to seek another cause. Just consider the position in which I should stand towards Mrs. Allen. Besides, I am sure it will interfere with your duties here if we are obliged to take notice of the Allens more than of other people in the town."

"To seek for another cause, my love? That is a very grave matter at my time of life. You remember too, that there is an endowment here."

"Quite so; and that is the more reason why we should not permit the attachment."

"But, my love, as I observed, there are so many circumstances to be taken into account. You know as well as I do in what aspect I view the Allens, and what my sentiments with regard to them are— personally that is to say, and not as minister of the gospel. Perhaps Providence, my dear, intends this opportunity as a means whereby the emotions of my poor sinful nature—emotions which may have been uncharitable—may be converted into brotherly love. Then we must recollect that Isaac is a prominent member of the church and a deacon. Thirdly, in all probability, if we do not permit Priscilla to marry George, offence will be taken and they may withdraw their subscription, which, I believe, comes altogether to twenty pounds per annum. Fourthly, the Allens have been blessed with an unusual share of worldly prosperity, and George is about to become a partner. Fifthly and lastly"—Mr. Broad had acquired a habit of dividing his most ordinary conversation into heads—"it is by no means improbable that I may need a co-pastor before long, and we shall secure the Allens' powerful influence in favour of Thomas."

Mrs. Broad felt the full force of these arguments.

"I should think," she added, "that George, after marriage, cannot live at the shop."

"No, that will not be possible; they must take a private house."

So it was agreed, without any reference to the question whether Priscilla and George cared for one another, that no opposition should be offered. The Allens themselves, father and mother, were by no means so eager for the honour of the match as Mrs. Broad supposed them to be, for Mrs. Isaac, particularly proud of her husband, and a little proud of their comfortable business and their comfortable property, was not dazzled by the Flavel ancestry.

When George formally asked permission of Mr. Broad to sanction his addresses, a meeting between the parents became necessary, and Mrs. Broad called on Mrs. Allen. She was asked into the dining-room at the back of the shop. At that time, at any rate in Cowfold, the drawing-room, which was upstairs, was an inaccessible sanctuary, save on Sunday and on high tea-party days. Mrs. Broad looked round at the solid mahogany furniture; cast her eyes on the port and sherry standing on the sideboard, in accordance with Cowfold custom; observed that not a single thing in the room was worn or shabby; that everything was dusted with absolute nicety, for the Allen's kept two servants; and became a little reconciled to her lot.

Mrs. Allen presently appeared in her black silk dress, with her gold watch hanging in front, and saluted the minister's wife with the usual good-humoured, slightly democratic freedom which always annoyed Mrs. Broad.

"My dear Mrs. Allen," began Mrs. Broad, "I have called to announce to you a surprising piece of intelligence, although I dare say you know it all. Your son George has asked Mr. Broad to be allowed to consider himself as Priscilla's suitor. We have discussed the matter together, and I have come to know what your views are. I may say that we had destined—hoped—that—er—Priscilla would find her sphere as a minister's wife in the metropolis; but it is best, perhaps, to follow the leadings of Providence."

"Well, Mrs. Broad, I must say I was a little bit disappointed myself- -to tell you the plain truth; but it is of no use to contradict young people in love with one another."

Mrs. Broad was astonished. Disappointed! But she remembered her husband's admonitions. So she contented herself with an insinuation.

"What I meant, my dear Mrs. Allen, was that, as the Flavels have been a ministerial family for so long, it would have been gratifying to me, of course, if Priscilla had bestowed herself upon—upon somebody occupying the same position."

"That is just what my mother used to say. I was a Burton, you remember. They were large tanners in Northamptonshire, and she did not like my going to a shop. But you know, Mrs. Broad, you had better be in a shop and have plenty of everything, and not have to pinch and screw, than have a brass knocker on your door, and not be able to pay for the clothes you wear. That's my belief, at any rate."

The dart entered Mrs. Broad's soul. She remembered some "procrastination"—to use her husband's favourite word—in settling a draper's bill, even when it was diminished by the pew rent, and she wondered if Mrs. Allen knew the facts. Of course she did; all Cowfold knew every fact connected with everybody in the town. She discerned it was best to retreat.

"I wished to tell you, Mrs. Allen, that we do not intend to offer the least objection"—she thought that perhaps a little professional unction might reduce her antagonist—"and I am sure I pray that God will bless their union."

"As I said before, Mrs. Broad, neither shall we object. We shall let George do as he likes. He is a real good boy, worth a princess, and if he chooses to have Miss Broad, we shan't hinder him. She will always be welcome here, and it will be a consolation to you to know she will never want anything." Mrs. Allen shook her silk dress out a little, and offered Mrs. Broad a glass of wine. Her feelings were a little flustered, and she needed support, but she refused.

"No thank you, Mrs. Allen. I must be going."



CHAPTER XXII—THE ORACLE WARNS—AFTER THE EVENT



It is no part of my business to tell the story of the love-making between George and Priscilla. Such stories have been told too often. Every weakness in her was translated by George into some particularly attractive virtue. He saw nothing, heard nothing, which was not to her advantage. Once, indeed, when he was writing the letter that was for ever to decide his destiny, it crossed his mind that this was an epoch—a parting of the ways—and he hesitated as he folded it up. But no warning voice was heard; nothing smote him; he was doing what he believed to be the best; he was allowed to go on without a single remonstrant sign. The messenger was despatched, and his fate was sealed. His mother and father had held anxious debate. They believed Priscilla to be silly, and the question was whether they should tell George so. The more they reflected on the affair the less they liked it; but it was agreed that they could do nothing, and that to dissuade their son would only embitter him against them.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Allen, "when she has a family she will be better."

Mrs. Allen had a belief that children cured a woman of many follies.

Nevertheless the mother could not refrain, when she had to talk to George about his engagement, from "letting out" just a word.

"I hope you will be happy, my dear boy. The great thing is not to have a fool for a wife. There has never, to my knowledge, been a woman amongst the Burtons or the Allens who was a fool.

George felt nothing at the time, for he suspected nothing; but the words somehow remained with him, and reappeared later on in black intensity like invisible writing under heat.

So they were married, and went to live in a cottage, small, but very respectable, in the Shott Road. For the first six months both were in bliss. Priscilla was constantly backwards and forwards to her mother, who took upon herself at once the whole direction of her affairs; but there was no rupture with the Allens, for, whatever her other faults might be, Priscilla was not given to making quarrels, and there was little or no bitterness or evil temper in her. George came home after his work was over at the shop, and sometimes went out to supper with his wife, or read to her the newspaper, which came once a week. Like his father, he was an ardent politician, and, from the very beginning of the struggle, an enthusiastic Free Trader. The Free Trade creed was, indeed, the cause of serious embarrassment, for not only were the customers agricultural and Protectionist, but the deacons at Tanner's Lane, being nearly all either farmers or connected with the land, were also Protectionist, and Mr. Broad had a hard time of it. For himself, he expressed no opinion; but once, at a deacons' meeting, when it looked as if some controversy would arise, he begged Brother Allen to remember that, though we might be wise as serpents, we were also commanded to be harmless as doves. There was a small charity connected with the chapel, which was distributed, not in money, but in bread, and Brother Allen, not being able to contain himself, had let fall a word or two about the price of bread which would have raised a storm if Mr. Broad had not poured on the troubled waters that oil of which he was a perfect reservoir.

George did his best to instruct his wife in the merits of the controversy, and when he found anything in his newspaper read it aloud to her.

"You see, Priscilla," he said one evening, "it stands to reason that if foreign corn pays a duty, the price of every quarter grown here is raised, and this increased price goes into the farmer's or landlord's pocket: Why should I, or why should my men, pay twopence more for every loaf to buy Miss Wootton a piano?"

"Really, George, do you mean to say that they are going to buy Miss Wootton a piano?"

"My dear, I said that when they buy a loaf of bread twopence out of it goes to buy Miss Wootton's piano!" repeated George, laying an emphasis on every word. "I did not mean, of course, that they put their twopences in her pocket. The point is, that the duty enables Wootton to get more for his corn."

"Well," said Priscilla triumphantly, "I can tell you she is NOT going to have a piano. She's going to have a little organ instead, because she can play tunes better on an organ, and it's more suitable for her; so there's an end of that."

"It doesn't matter whether it is an organ or piano," said George, "the principle is the same."

"Well, but you said a piano; I don't think the principle is the same. If I were she I would sooner have the piano."

A shade of perplexed trouble crossed George's face, and some creases appeared in his forehead; but he smoothed them away and laid down his paper.

"Priscilla, put away your work for a moment and just listen."

Priscilla was making something in the shape of netting by means of pins and a long loop which was fastened under her foot.

"I can listen, George; there is no occasion to put it away."

"Well then," he answered, placing both his elbows on the table, and resting his face upon them, "all corn which comes into this country pays a duty—that you understand. Consequently it cannot be sold here for less than sixty shillings a quarter. Of course, if that is the case, English wheat is kept up to a higher price than it would fetch it there was no duty. Therefore bread is, as I calculate, about twopence a loaf dearer than it ought to be. And why should it be? That's what I want to know."

"I believe," said Priscilla, "we might save a good bit by baking at home."

"Yes, yes; but never mind that now. You know that foreign corn pays a duty. You do know that?"

"Yes," said Priscilla, because there was nothing else to be said.

"Well, then, you must see that, if that be so, farmers can obtain a higher price for English corn."

Poor Priscilla really did her best to comprehend. She stopped her knitting for a moment, put her knitting-pin to her lips, and answered very slowly and solemnly "Ye-es."

"Ah; but I know when you say 'Ye-es' like that you do not understand."

"I do understand," she retorted, with a little asperity.

"Well then, repeat it, and let us see."

"No, I shall not."

"Dear Priscilla, I am not vexed: but I only wanted to make it quite plain to you. The duty on foreign corn is a tax in favour of the farmer, or perhaps the landlord, just as distinctly as if the tax- collector carried the coin from our till and gave it them."

"Of course it is quite plain," she responded, making a bold stroke for her life. "Of course it is quite plain we are taxed"—George's face grew bright, for he thought the truth had dawned upon her— "because the farmers have to pay the duty on foreign corn."

He took up his newspaper, held it open so as to cover his face, was silent for a few minutes, and then, pulling out his watch, declared it was time to go to bed. She gathered up her netting, looked at him doubtfully as she passed, and went upstairs.

The roof of George's house had a kind of depression or well in the middle of it, whence ran a rainwater pipe, which passed down inside, and so, under the floor, to the soft-water cistern. A bad piece of construction, thought he, and he wished, if he could have done so, to improve it; but there was no way of altering it without pulling the whole place to pieces. One day, a very short time after the talk about Free Trade, a fearful storm of rain broke over Cowfold, and he was startled by Ellen, his servant, running into the shop and telling him that the staircase was flooded, and missis wanted him at once. He put on his coat and was off in a moment. When he got there Priscilla met him at the door crying, and in a great fright. The well up aloft was full of water, and it was pouring in torrents through the little window. It had gone through the floor of the bedroom and into the dining-room, pulling down with it about half the ceiling, which lay in a horrid mess upon the dining table and the carpet, George saw in an instant what was the matter. He ran up the steps to the well, pulled out a quantity of straw and dirt which blocked up the entrance to the pipe; the water disappeared in two minutes, and all further danger was arrested.

"Why on earth," he cried in half a passion, "did not you think to clear away the rubbish, instead of wasting your time in sending for me? It ought to have entered into anybody's head to do such a simple thing as that."

"How was I to know?" replied Mrs. George. "I am not an ironmonger. What have I to do with pipes? You shouldn't have had such a thing."

Ellen stood looking at the wreck.

"We don't want you;" said George savagely; "go into the kitchen," and he shut the dining-room door. There the husband and wife stood face to face with one another, with the drip, drip, drip still proceeding, the ruined plaster, and the spoilt furniture.

"I don't care," he broke out, "one brass farthing for it all; but what I do care for is that you should not have had the sense to unstop that pipe."

She said nothing, but cried bitterly. At last she sat down and sobbed out: "O George, George, you are in a rage with me; you are tired of me; you are disappointed with me. Oh! what shall I do, what SHALL I do?" Poor child! her pretty curls fell over her face as she covered it with her long white hands. George was touched with pity in an instant, and his arms were round her neck. He kissed her fervently, and besought her not to think anything of what he had said. He took out his handkerchief, wiped her eyes tenderly, lifted one of her arms and put it round his neck as he pulled a chair towards him and sat down beside her. Nothing she loved like caresses! She knew what THEIR import was, though she could not follow his economical logic, and she clung to him, and buried her face on his shoulder. At that moment, as he drew her heavy brown tresses over him, smothered his eyes and mouth in them, and then looked down through them on the white, sweet beauty they shadowed, he forgot or overlooked everything, and was once more completely happy.

Suddenly she released herself. "What shall we do to-night, George, the bedroom will be so damp?"

He recovered himself, and admitted that they could not sleep there. There was the spare bedroom; but the wet had come in there too.

"I will sleep at father's, and you sleep at home too. We will have fires alight, and we shall be dry enough to-morrow. You be off now, my dear; I will see about it all."

So George had the fires alight, got in a man to help him, and they swept and scoured and aired till it was dark. In a day or two the plasterer could mend the ceiling.

Priscilla had left, and, excepting the servant, who was upstairs, George was alone. He looked round, walked about—what was it? Was he tired? It could not be that; he was never tired. He left as soon as he could and went back to the shop. After telling the tale of the calamity which had befallen him he announced—it was now supper-time- -that he was going to stay all night. Mother, father, and sister were delighted to have him—"It looked like old times again;" but George was not in much of a mood for talking, and at ten o'clock went upstairs; his early departure being, of course, set down to the worry he had gone through. He turned into bed. Generally speaking he thought no more of sleep than he did of breathing; it came as naturally as the air into his lungs; but what was this new experience? Half an hour, an hour, after he had laid down he was still awake, and worse than awake; for his thoughts were of a different cast from his waking thoughts; fearful forebodings; a horror of great darkness. He rose and bathed his head in cold water, and lay down again; but it was of no use, and he walked about his room. What an epoch is the first sleepless night—the night when the first wrench has been given us by the Destinies to loosen us from the love of life; when we have first said to ourselves that there are worse things than death!