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God's Good Man: A Simple Love Story

by Marie Corelli · English · Gutenberg #4653 · 1,217,363 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: God's Good Man: A Simple Love Story

Author: Marie Corelli


        
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4653]
                Most recently updated: June 13, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4653

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD'S GOOD MAN: A SIMPLE LOVE STORY ***

GOD'S GOOD MAN

A Simple Love Story

By MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF "THE TREASURE OF HEAVEN," "THELMA," "A ROMANCE OF TWO
WORLDS," "THE MASTER CHRISTIAN," ETC.





                         TO

                 THE LIVING ORIGINAL

                         OF

             "THE REVEREND JOHN WALDEN"

                   AND HIS WIFE

              THIS SIMPLE LOVE STORY

                        IS

             AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

"THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD WHOSE NAME WAS JOHN."
                                   NEW TESTAMENT






GOD'S GOOD MAN




I


It was May-time in England.

The last breath of a long winter had blown its final farewell across
the hills,--the last frost had melted from the broad, low-lying
fields, relaxing its iron grip from the clods of rich, red-brown
earth which, now, soft and broken, were sprouting thick with the
young corn's tender green. It had been a hard, inclement season.
Many a time, since February onward, had the too-eagerly pushing buds
of trees and shrubs been nipped by cruel cold,--many a biting east
wind had withered the first pale green leaves of the lilac and the
hawthorn,--and the stormy caprices of a chill northern. Spring had
played havoc with all the dainty woodland blossoms that should,
according to the ancient 'Shepherd's Calendar' have been flowering
fully with the daffodils and primroses. But during the closing days
of April a sudden grateful warmth had set in,--Nature, the divine
goddess, seemed to awaken from long slumber and stretch out her arms
with a happy smile,--and when May morning dawned on the world, it
came as a vision of glory, robed in clear sunshine and girdled with
bluest skies. Birds broke into enraptured song,--young almond and
apple boughs quivered almost visibly every moment into pink and
white bloom,--cowslips and bluebells raised their heads from mossy
corners in the grass, and expressed their innocent thoughts in
sweetest odour--and in and through all things the glorious thrill,
the mysterious joy of renewed life, hope and love pulsated from the
Creator to His responsive creation.

It was May-time;--a real 'old-fashioned' English May, such as
Spenser and Herrick sang of:

                           "When all is yclad
     With blossoms; the ground with grass, the woodes
     With greene leaves; the bushes with blossoming buddes,"

and when whatever promise our existence yet holds for us, seems far
enough away to inspire ambition, yet close enough to encourage fair
dreams of fulfilment. To experience this glamour and witchery of the
flowering-time of the year, one must, perforce, be in the country.
For in the towns, the breath of Spring is foetid and feverish,--it
arouses sick longings and weary regrets, but scarcely any positive
ecstasy. The close, stuffy streets, the swarming people, the high
buildings and stacks of chimneys which only permit the narrowest
patches of sky to be visible, the incessant noise and movement, the
self-absorbed crowding and crushing,--all these things are so many
offences to Nature, and are as dead walls of obstacle set against
the revivifying and strengthening forces with which she endows her
freer children of the forest, field and mountain. Out on the wild
heathery moorland, in the heart of the woods, in the deep bosky
dells, where the pungent scent of moss and pine-boughs fills the air
with invigorating influences, or by the quiet rivers, flowing
peacefully under bending willows and past wide osier-beds, where the
kingfisher swoops down with the sun-ray and the timid moor-hen
paddles to and from her nest among the reeds,--in such haunts as
these, the advent of a warm and brilliant May is fraught with that
tremor of delight which gives birth to beauty, and concerning which
that ancient and picturesque chronicler, Sir Thomas Malory, writes
exultantly: "Like as May moneth flourisheth and flowerth in many
gardens, so in likewise let every man of worship flourish his heart
in this world!"

There was a certain 'man of worship' in the world at the particular
time when this present record of life and love begins, who found
himself very well-disposed to 'flourish his heart' in the Maloryan
manner prescribed, when after many dark days of unseasonable cold
and general atmospheric depression, May at last came in rejoicing.
Seated under broad apple-boughs, which spread around him like a
canopy studded with rosy bud-jewels that shone glossy bright against
the rough dark-brown stems, he surveyed the smiling scenery of his
own garden with an air of satisfaction that was almost boyish,
though his years had run well past forty, and he was a parson to
boot. A gravely sedate demeanour would have seemed the more fitting
facial expression for his age and the generally accepted nature of
his calling,--a kind of deprecatory toleration of the sunshine as
part of the universal 'vanity' of mundane things,--or a
condescending consciousness of the bursting apple-blossoms within
his reach as a kind of inferior earthy circumstance which could
neither be altered nor avoided.

The Reverend John Walden, however, was one of those rarely gifted
individuals who cannot assume an aspect which is foreign to
temperament. He was of a cheerful, even sanguine disposition, and
his countenance faithfully reflected the ordinary bent of his
humour. Seeing him at a distance, the casual observer would at once
have judged him to be either an athlete or an ascetic. There was no
superfluous flesh about him; he was tall and muscular, with well-
knit limbs, broad shoulders, and a head altogether lacking in the
humble or conciliatory 'droop' which all worldly-wise parsons
cultivate for the benefit of their rich patrons. It was a
distinctively proud head,--almost aggressive,--indicative of strong
character and self-reliance, well-poised on a full throat, and set
off by a considerable quantity of dark brown hair which was
refractory in brushing, inclined to uncanonical curls, and
plentifully dashed with grey. A broad forehead, deeply-set, dark-
blue eyes, a straight and very prominent nose, a strong jaw and
obstinate chin,--a firmly moulded mouth, round which many a sweet
and tender thought had drawn kindly little lines of gentle smiling
that were scarcely hidden by the silver-brown moustache,--such,
briefly, was the appearance of one, who though only a country
clergyman, of whom the great world knew nothing, was the living
representative of more powerful authority to his little 'cure of
souls' than either the bishop of the diocese, or the King in all his
majesty.

He was the sole owner of one of the smallest 'livings' in England,--
an obscure, deeply-hidden, but perfectly unspoilt and beautiful
relic of mediaeval days, situated in one of the loveliest of
woodland counties, and known as the village of St. Rest, sometimes
called 'St. Est.' Until quite lately there had been considerable
doubt as to the origin of this name, and the correct manner of its
pronouncement. Some said it should be, 'St. East,' because, right
across the purple moorland and beyond the line of blue hills where
the sun rose, there stretched the sea, miles away and invisible, it
is true, but nevertheless asserting its salty savour in every breath
of wind that blew across the tufted pines. 'St. East,' therefore,
said certain rural sages, was the real name of the village, because
it faced the sea towards the east. Others, however, declared that
the name was derived from the memory of some early Norman church on
the banks of the peaceful river that wound its slow clear length in
pellucid silver ribbons of light round and about the clover fields
and high banks fringed with wild rose and snowy thorn, and that it
should, therefore, be 'St. Rest,' or better still, 'The Saint's
Rest.' This latter theory had recently received strong confirmation
by an unexpected witness to the past,--as will presently be duly
seen and attested.

But St. Rest, or St. Est, whichever name rightly belonged to it, was
in itself so insignificant as a 'benefice,' that its present rector,
vicar, priest and patron had bought it for himself, through the good
offices of a friend, in the days when such purchases were possible,
and for some ten years had been supreme Dictator of his tiny kingdom
and limited people. The church was his,--especially his, since he
had restored it entirely at his own expense,--the rectory, a lop-
sided, half-timbered house, built in the fifteenth century, was
his,--the garden, full of flowering shrubs, carelessly planted and
allowed to flourish at their own wild will, was his,--the ten acres
of pasture-land that spread in green luxuriance round and about his
dwelling were his,--and, best of all, the orchard, containing some
five acres planted with the choicest apples, cherries, plums and
pears, and bearing against its long, high southern wall the finest
peaches and nectarines in the county, was his also. He had, in fact,
everything that the heart of a man, especially the heart of a
clergyman, could desire, except a wife,--and that commodity had been
offered to him from many quarters in various delicate and diplomatic
ways,--only to be as delicately and diplomatically rejected.

And truly there seemed no need for any change in his condition. He
had gone on so far in life,--'so far!' he would occasionally remind
himself, with a little smile and sigh,--that a more or less solitary
habit had, by long familiarity, become pleasant. Actual loneliness
he had never experienced, because it was not in his nature to feel
lonely. His well-balanced intellect had the brilliant quality of a
finely-cut diamond, bearing many facets, and reflecting all the hues
of life in light and colour; thus it quite naturally happened that
most things, even ordinary and common things, interested him. He was
a great lover of books, and, to a moderate extent, a collector of
rare editions; he also had a passion for archaeology, wherein he was
sustained by a certain poetic insight of which he was himself
unconscious. The ordinary archaeologist is generally a mere Dry-as-
Dust, who plays with the bones of the past as Shakespeare's Juliet
fancied she might play with her forefathers' joints, and who eschews
all use of the imaginative instinct as though it were some deadly
evil. Whereas, it truly needs a very powerful imaginative lens to
peer down into the recesses of bygone civilisations, and re-people
the ruined haunts of dead men with their shadowy ghosts of learning,
art, enterprise, or ambition.

To use the innermost eyes of his soul in such looking backward down
the stream of Time, as well as in looking forward to that 'crystal
sea' of the unknown Future, flowing round the Great White Throne
whence the river of life proceeds, was a favourite mental occupation
with John Walden. He loved antiquarian research, and all such
scientific problems as involve abstruse study and complex
calculation,--but equally he loved the simplest flower and the most
ordinary village tale of sorrow or mirth recounted to him by any one
of his unlessoned parishioners. He gave himself such change of air
and scene as he thought he required, by taking long swinging walks
about the country, and found sufficient relaxation in gardening, a
science in which he displayed considerable skill. No one in all the
neighbourhood could match his roses, or offer anything to compare
with the purple and white masses of violets which, quite early in
January came out under his glass frames not only perfect in shape
and colour, but full of the real 'English' violet fragrance, a
benediction of sweetness which somehow seems to be entirely withheld
from the French and Russian blooms. For the rest, he was physically
sound and morally healthy, and lived, as it were, on the straight
line from earth to heaven, beginning each day as if it were his
first life-opportunity, and ending it soberly and with prayer, as
though it were his last.

To such a mind and temperament as his, the influences of Nature, the
sublime laws of the Universe, and the environment of existence, must
needs move in circles of harmonious unity, making loveliness out of
commonness, and poetry out of prose. The devotee of what is
mistakenly called 'pleasure,'--enervated or satiated with the sickly
moral exhalations of a corrupt society,--would be quite at a loss to
understand what possible enjoyment could be obtained by sitting
placidly under an apple-tree with a well-thumbed volume of the
wisdom of the inspired pagan Slave, Epictetus, in the hand, and the
eyes fixed, not on any printed page, but on a spray of warmly-
blushing almond blossom, where a well-fed thrush, ruffling its
softly speckled breast, was singing a wild strophe concerning its
mate, which, could human skill have languaged its meaning, might
have given ideas to a nation's laureate. Yet John Walden found
unalloyed happiness in this apparently vague and vacant way. There
was an acute sense of joy for him in the repeated sweetness of the
thrush's warbling,--the light breeze, stirring through a great bush
of early flowering lilac near the edge of the lawn, sent out a wave
of odour which tingled through his sensitive blood like wine,--the
sunlight was warm and comforting, and altogether there seemed
nothing wrong with the world, particularly as the morning's
newspapers had not yet come in. With them would probably arrive the
sad savour of human mischief and muddle, but till these daily morbid
records made their appearance, May-day might be accepted as God made
it and gave it,--a gift unalloyed, pure, bright and calm, with not a
shadow on its lovely face of Spring. The Stoic spirit of Epictetus
himself had even seemed to join in the general delight of nature,
for Walden held the book half open at a page whereon these words
were written:

"Had we understanding thereof, would any other thing better beseem
us than to hymn the Divine Being and laud Him and rehearse His
gracious deeds? These things it were fitting every man should sing,
and to chant the greatest and divinest hymns for this, that He has
given us the power to observe and consider His works, and a Way
wherein to walk. If I were a nightingale, I would do after the
manner of a nightingale; if a swan, after that of a swan. But now I
am a reasoning creature, and it behooves me to sing the praise of
God; this is my task, and this I do, nor as long as it is granted
me, will I ever abandon this post. And you, too, I summon to join me
in the same song."

"A wonderfully 'advanced' Christian way of looking at life, for a
pagan slave of the time of Nero!" thought Walden, as his eyes
wandered from the thrush on the almond tree, back to the volume in
his hand,--"With all our teaching and preaching, we can hardly do
better. I wonder---"

Here his mind became altogether distracted from classic lore, by the
appearance of a very unclassic boy, clad in a suit of brown
corduroys and wearing hob-nailed boots a couple of sizes too large
for him, who, coming suddenly out from a box-tree alley behind the
gabled corner of the rectory, shuffled to the extreme verge of the
lawn and stopped there, pulling his cap off, and treading on his own
toes from left to right, and from right to left in a state of
sheepish hesitancy.

"Come along,--come along! Don't stand there, Bob Keeley!" And Walden
rose, placing Epictetus on the seat he vacated--"What is it?"

Bob Keeley set his hob-nailed feet on the velvety lawn with gingerly
precaution, and advancing cap in hand, produced a letter, slightly
grimed by his thumb and finger.

"From Sir Morton, please sir! Hurgent, 'e sez."

Walden took the missive, small and neatly folded, and bearing the
words 'Badsworth Hall' stamped in gold at the back of the envelope.
Opening it, he read:

"Sir Morton Pippitt presents his compliments to the Reverend John
Walden, and having a party of distinguished guests staying with him
at the Hall, will be glad to know at what day and hour this week he
can make a visit of inspection to the church with his friends."

A slight tinge of colour overspread Walden's face. Presently he
smiled, and tearing up the note leisurely, put the fragments into
one of his large loose coat pockets, for to scatter a shred of paper
on his lawn or garden paths was an offence which neither he nor any
of those he employed ever committed.

"How is your mother, Bob?" he then said, approaching the stumpy
urchin, who stood respectfully watching him and awaiting his
pleasure.

"Please sir, she's all right, but she coughs 'orful!"

"Coughs 'orful, does she?" repeated the Reverend John, musingly;
"Ah, that is bad!--I am sorry! We must--let me think!--yes, Bob, we
must see what we can do for her--eh?"

"Yes, sir," replied Bob meekly, turning his cap round and round and
wondering what 'Passon' was thinking about to have such a 'funny
look' in his eyes.

"Yes!" repeated Walden, cheerfully, "We must see what we can do for
her! My compliments to Sir Morton Pippitt, Bob, and say I will
write."

"Nothink else, sir?"

"Nothing--or as you put it, Bob, 'nothink else'! I wish you would
remember, my dear boy,"--and here he laid his firm, well-shaped hand
protectingly on the small brown corduroy shoulder,--"that the word
'nothing' does not terminate in a 'k.' If you refer to your
spelling-book, I am sure you will see that I am right. The
Educational authorities would not approve of your pronunciation,
Bob, and I am endeavouring to save you future trouble with the
Government. By the way, did Sir Morton Pippitt give you anything for
bringing his note to me?"

"Sed he would when I got back, sir."

"Said he would when you got back? Well,--I have my doubts, Bob,--I
do not think he will. And the labourer being worthy of his hire,
here is sixpence, which, if you like to do a sum on your slate, you
will find is at the rate of one penny per mile. When you are a
working man, you will understand the strict justice of my payment.
It is three miles from Badsworth Hall and three back again,--and now
I come to think of it, what were you doing up at Badsworth?"

Bob Keeley grinned from ear to ear.

"Me an' Kitty Spruce went up on spec with a Maypole early, sir!"

John Walden smiled. It was May morning,--of course it was!--and in
the village of St. Rest the old traditional customs of May Day were
still kept up, though in the county town of Riversford, only seven
miles away, they were forgotten, or if remembered at all, were only
used as an excuse for drinking and vulgar horse-play.

"You and Kitty Spruce went up on spec? Very enterprising of you
both, I am sure! And did you make anything out of it?"

"No, sir,--there ain't no ladies there, 'cept Miss Tabitha,--onny
some London gents,--and Sir Morton, 'e flew into an orful passion--
like 'e do, sir,--an' told us to leave off singin' and git out,--
'Git off my ground,' he 'ollers--'Git off!'--then jest as we was a
gittin' off, he cools down suddint like, an' 'e sez, sez 'e: 'Take a
note to the dam passon for me, an' bring a harnser, an' I'll give
yer somethink when yer gits back.' An' all the gents was a-sittin'
at breakfast, with the winders wide open an' the smell of 'am an'
eggs comin' through strong, an' they larfed fit to split
theirselves, an' one on 'em tried to kiss Kitty Spruce, an' she
spanked his face for 'im!"

The narration of this remarkable incident, spoken with breathless
rapidity in a burst of confidence, seemed to cause the relief
supposed to be obtained by a penitent in the confessional, and to
lift a weight off Bob Keeley's mind. The smile deepened on the
'Passon's' face, and for a moment he had some difficulty to control
an outbreak of laughter, but recollecting the possibly demoralising
effect it might have on the more youthful members of the community,
if he, the spiritual director of the parish, were reported to have
laughed at the pugnacious conduct of the valiant Kitty Spruce, he
controlled himself, and assumed a tolerantly serious air.

"That will do, Bob!--that will do! You must learn not to repeat all
you hear, especially such objectionable words as may occasionally be
used by a--a--a gentleman of Sir Morton Pippitt's high standing."

And here he squared his shoulders and looked severely down an the
abashed Keeley. Anon he unbent himself somewhat and his eyes
twinkled with kindly humour: "Why didn't you bring the Maypole
here?" he enquired; "I suppose you thought it would not be as good a
'spec as Badsworth Hall and the London gents--eh?"

Bob Keeley opened his round eyes very wide.

"We be all comin' 'ere, sir!" he burst out: "All on us--ever so many
on us! But we reckoned to make a round of the village first and see
how we took on, and finish up wi' you, sir! Kitty Spruce she be a-
keepin' her best ribbin for comin' 'ere--we be all a-comin' 'fore
twelve!"

Walden smiled.

"Good! I shall expect you! And mind you don't all sing out of tune
when you do come. If you commit such an offence, I shall--let me
see!--I shall make mincemeat of you!--I shall indeed! Positive
mincemeat!--and bottle you up in jars for Christmas!" And he nodded
with the ferociously bland air of the giant in a fairy tale, whose
particular humour is the devouring of small children. "Now you had
better get back to Badsworth Hall with my message. Do you remember
it? My compliments to Sir Morton Pippitt, and I will write."

He turned away, and Bob Keeley made as rapid a departure as was
consistent with the deep respect he felt for the 'Passon,' having
extracted a promise from the butcher boy of the village, who was a
friend of his, that if he were 'quick about it,' he would get a
drive up to Badsworth and back again in the butcher's cart going
there for orders, instead of tramping it.

The Reverend John, meanwhile, strolled down one of the many winding
garden paths, past clusters of daffodils, narcissi and primroses,
into a favourite corner which he called the 'Wilderness,' because it
was left by his orders in a more or less untrimmed, untrained
condition of luxuriantly natural growth. Here the syringa, a name
sometimes given by horticultural pedants to the lilac, for no reason
at all except to create confusion in the innocent minds of amateur
growers, was opening its white 'mock orange' blossoms, and a mass of
flowering aconites spread out before him like a carpet of woven
gold. Here, too, tufts of bluebells peeked forth from behind the
moss-grown stems of several ancient oaks and elms, and purple
pansies bordered the edge of the grass. A fine old wistaria grown in
tree-form, formed a natural arch of entry to this shady retreat, and
its flowers were just now in their full beauty, hanging in a
magnificent profusion of pale mauve, grapelike bunches from the
leafless stems. Many roses, of the climbing or 'rambling' kind, were
planted here, and John Walden's quick eye soon perceived where a
long green shoot of one of those was loose and waving in the wind to
its own possible detriment. He felt in his pockets for a bit of
roffia or twine to tie up the straying stem,--he was very seldom
without something of the kind for such emergencies, but this time he
only groped among the fragments of Sir Morton Pippitt's note and
found nothing useful. Stepping out on the path again, he looked
about him and caught a glimpse of a stooping, bulky form in weather-
beaten garments, planting something in one of the borders at a
little distance.

"Bainton!" he called.

The figure slowly raised itself, and as slowly turned its head.

"Sir!"

"Just come here and tie this rose up, will you?"

The individual addressed approached at a very deliberate pace,
dragging out some entangled roffia from his pocket as he came and
severing it into lengths with his teeth. Walden partly prepared his
task for him by holding up the rose branch in the way it should go,
and on his arrival assisted him in the business of securing it to
the knotty bough from which it had fallen.

"That looks better!" he remarked approvingly, as he stepped back and
surveyed it. "You might do this one at the same time while you are
about it, Bainton."

And he pointed to a network of 'Crimson rambler' rose-stems which
had blown loose from their moorings and were lying across the grass.

"This place wants a reg'ler clean out," remarked Bainton then, in
accents of deep disdain, as he stooped to gather up the refractory
branches: "It beats me altogether, Passon, to know what you wants
wi' a forcin' bed for weeds an' stuff in the middle of a decent
garden. That old Wistaria Sinyens (Sinensis) is the only thing here
that is worth keeping. Ah! Y'are a precious sight, y'are!" he
continued, apostrophising the 'rambler' branches--"For all yer green
buds ye ain't a-goin' to do much this year! All sham an' 'umbug,
y'are!--all leaf an' shoot an' no flower,--like a great many people
I knows on--ah!--an' not so far from this village neither! I'd clear
it all out if I was you, Passon,--I would reely now!"

Walden laughed.

"Don't open the old argument, Bainton!" he said good-humouredly; "We
have talked of this before. I like a bit of wild Nature sometimes."

"Wild natur!" echoed Bainton. "Seems to me natur allus wants a bit
of a wash an' brush up 'fore she sits down to her master's table;--
an' who's 'er master? Man! She's jest like a child comin' out of a
play in the woods, an' 'er 'air's all blown, an' 'er nails is all
dirty. That's natur! Trim 'er up an' curl 'er 'air an' she's worth
looking at. Natur! Lor', Passon, if ye likes wild natur ye ain't got
no call to keep a gard'ner. But if ye pays me an' keeps me, ye must
'spect me to do my duty. Wherefore I sez: why not 'ave this 'ere
musty-fusty place, a reg'ler breedin' 'ole for hinsects, wopses,
'ornits, snails an' green caterpillars--ah! an' I shouldn't wonder
if potato-fly got amongst 'em, too!--why not, I say, have it cleaned
out?"

"I like it as it is," responded Walden with cheerful
imperturbability, and a smile at the thick-set obstinate-looking
figure of his 'head man about the place' as Bainton loved to be
called. "Have you planted out my phloxes?"

"Planted 'em out every one," was the reply; "Likewhich the Delphy
Inums. An' I've put enough sweet peas in to supply Covint Garden
market, bearin' in mind as 'ow you sed you couldn't have enough on
'em. Sir Morton Pippitt's Lunnon valet came along while I was a-
doin' of it, an' 'e peers over the 'edge an' 'e sez, sez 'e:
'Weedin' corn, are yer?' 'No, ye gowk,' sez I! 'Ever seen corn at
all 'cept in a bin? Mixed wi' thistles, mebbe?' An' then he used a
bit of 'is master's or'nary language, which as ye knows, Passon, is
chice--partic'ler chice. 'Evil communications c'rupts good manners'
even in a valet wot 'as no more to do than wash an' comb a man like
a 'oss, an' pocket fifty pun a year for keepin' of 'is haristocratic
master clean. Lor'!--what a wurrld it is!--what a wurrld!"

He had by this time tied up the 'Crimson rambler' in orderly
fashion, and the Reverend John, stroking his moustache to hide a
smile, proceeded to issue various orders according to his usual
daily custom.

"Don't forget to plant some mignonette in the west border, Bainton.
Not the giant kind,--the odour of the large blooms is rough and
coarse compared with that of the smaller variety. Put plenty of the
'common stuff' in,--such mignonette as our grandmothers grew in
their gardens, before you Latin-loving horticultural wise-acres
began to try for size rather than sweetness."

Bainton drew himself up with a quaint assumption of dignity, and by
lifting his head a little more, showed his countenance fully,--a
countenance which, though weather-worn and deeply furrowed, was a
distinctly intelligent one, shrewd and thoughtful, with sundry
little curves of humour lighting up its native expression of
saturnine sedateness.

"I suppose y'are alludin' to the F.R.H.'s, Passon," he said; "They
all loves Latin, as cats loves milk; howsomever, they never knows
'ow to pronounce it. Likewhich myself not bein' a F.R.H. nor likely
to be, I'm bound to confess I dabbles in it a bit,--though there's a
chap wot I gets cheap shrubs of, his Latin's worse nor mine, an'
'e's got all the three letters after 'is name. 'Ow did 'e get 'em?
By reason of competition in the Chrysanthum Show. Lor'! Henny fool
can grow ye a chrysanthum as big as a cabbage, if that's yer fancy,-
-that ain't scientific gard'nin'! An' as for the mignonette, I
reckon to agree wi' ye, Passon--the size ain't the sweetness,
likewhich when I married, I married a small lass, for sez I: 'Little
to carry, less to keep!' An' that's true enough, though she's gained
in breadth, Lor' love 'er!--wot she never 'ad in heighth. As I was
a-sayin', the chap wot I gets shrubs of, reels off 'is Latin like
chollops of mud off a garden scraper; but 'e don't understand it
while 'e sez it. Jes' for show, bless ye! It all goes down wi' Sir
Morton Pippitt, though, for 'e sez, sez 'e: 'MY cabbages are the
prize vegetable, grown by Mr. Smogorton of Worcester, F.R.H.' 'E's
got it in 'is Catlog! Hor!--hor!--hor! Passon, a bit o' Latin do go
down wi' some folks in the gard'nin' line--it do reely now!"

"Talking of Sir Morton Pippitt," said Walden, disregarding his
gardener's garrulity, "It seems he has visitors up at the Hall."

"'E 'as so," returned Bainton; "Reg'ler weedy waifs an' strays o'
'umanity, if one may go by out'ard appearance; not a single firm,
well-put-down leg among 'em. Mos'ly 'lords' and 'sirs.' Bein' so
jes' lately knighted for buildin' a 'ospital at Riversford, out of
the proceeds o' bone meltin' into buttons, Sir Morton couldn't a'
course, be expected to put up wi' a plain 'mister' takin' food wi'
'im."

"Well, well,--whoever they are, they want to see the church."

"Seems to me a sight o' folks wants to see the church since ye spent
so much money on it, Passon," said Bainton somewhat resentfully;
"There oughter be a charge made for entry."

Walden smiled thoughtfully; but there was a small line of vexation
on his brow.

"They want to see the church," he repeated, "Or rather Sir Morton
wants them to 'inspect' the church;"--and then his smile expanded
and became a soft mellow laugh; "What a pompous old fellow it is!
One would almost think he had restored the church himself, and not
only restored it, but built it altogether and endowed it!" He turned
to go, then suddenly bethought himself of other gardening matters,--
"Bainton, that bare corner near the house must be filled with
clematis. The plants are just ready to bed out. And look to the
geraniums in the front border. By the way, do you see that straight
line along the wall there,--where I am pointing?"

"Yes, sir!" dutifully rejoined Bainton, shading his eyes from the
strong sun with one grimy hand.

"Well, plant nothing but hollyhocks there,--as many as you can cram
in. We must have a blaze of colour to contrast with those dark yews.
See to the jessamine and passion-flowers by the porch; and there is
a 'Gloire' rose near the drawing-room window that wants cutting back
a bit." He moved a step or two, then again turned: "I shall want you
later on in the orchard,--the grass there needs attending to."

A slow grin pervaded Bainton's countenance.

"Ye minds me of the 'Oly Scripter, Passon, ye does reely now!" he
said--"Wi' all yer different orders an' idees, y'are behavin' to me
like the very moral o' the livin' Wurrd!"

Walden looked amused.

"How do you make that out?"

"Easy enough, sir,--'The Scripter moveth us in sun'ry places'! Hor!-
hor!-hor!--"and Bainton burst into a hoarse chuckle of mirth,
entirely delighted with his own witticism, and walked off, not
waiting to see whether its effect on his master was one of offence
or appreciation. He was pretty sure of his ground, however, for he
left John Walden laughing, a laugh that irradiated his face with
some of the sunshine stored up in his mind. And the sparkle of mirth
still lingered in his eyes as, crossing the lawn and passing the
seat where the volume of Epictetus lay, now gratuitously decorated
by a couple of pale pink shell-like petals dropped from the apple-
blossoms above it, he entered his house, and proceeding to his study
sat down and wrote the following brief epistle:

"The Reverend John Walden presents his compliments to Sir Morton
Pippitt, and in reply to his note begs to say that, as the church is
always open and free, Sir Morton and his friends can 'inspect' it at
any time provided no service is in progress."

Putting this in an envelope, he sealed and stamped it. It should go
by post, and Sir Morton would receive it next morning. There was no
need for a 'special messenger,' either in the person of Bob Keeley,
or in the authorised Puck of the Post Office Messenger-service.

"For there is not the slightest hurry," he said to himself: "It will
not hurt Sir Morton to be kept waiting. On the contrary, it will do
him good. He had it all his own way in this parish before I came,--
but now for the past ten years he has known what it is to 'kick
against the pricks' of legitimate Church authority. Legitimate
Church authority is a fine thing! Half the Churchmen in the world
don't use it, and a goodly portion of the other half misuse it. But
when you've got a bumptious, purse-proud, self-satisfied old county
snob like Sir Morton Pippitt to deal with, the pressure of the iron
hand should be distinctly exercised under the velvet glove!"

He laughed heartily, throwing back his head with a sense of
enjoyment in his laughter. Then, rising from his desk, he turned
towards the wide latticed doors of his study, which opened into the
garden, and looked out dreamily, as though looking across the world
and far beyond it. The sweet mixed warbling of birds, the thousand
indistinguishable odours of flowers, made the air both fragrant and
musical. The glorious sunshine, the clear blue sky, the rustling of
the young leaves, the whispering swish of the warm wind through the
shrubberies,--all these influences entered the mind and soul of the
man and aroused a keen joy which almost touched the verge of
sadness. Life pulsated about him in such waves of creative passion,
that his own heart throbbed uneasily with Nature's warm
restlessness; and the unanswerable query which, in spite of his high
and spiritual faith had often troubled him, came back again
hauntingly to his mind,--"Why should Life be made so beautiful only
to end in Death?"

This was the Shadow that hung over all things; this was the one
darkness he and others of his calling were commissioned to transfuse
into light,--this was the one dismal end for all poor human
creatures which he, as a minister of the Gospel was bound to try and
represent as not an End but a Beginning,--and his soul was moved to
profound love and pity as he raised his eyes to the serene heavens
and asked himself: "What compensation can all the most eloquent
teaching and preaching make to men for the loss of the mere
sunshine? Can the vision of a world beyond the grave satisfy the
heart so much as this one perfect morning of May!"

An involuntary sigh escaped him. The beating wings of a swallow
flying from its nest under the old gabled eaves above him flashed a
reflex of quivering light against his eyes; and away in the wide
meadow beyond, where the happy cattle wandered up to their fetlocks
in cowslips and lush grass, the cuckoo called with cheerful
persistence. One of old Chaucer's quaintly worded legends came to
his mind,--telling how the courtly knight Arcite,

    "Is risen, and looketh on the merrie daye
     All for to do his observance to Maye,--
     And to the grove of which that I you told,
     By aventure his way he gan to hold
     To maken him a garland of the greves,
     Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves,
     And loud he sung against the sunny sheen,--
     'O Maye with all thy flowers and thy green,
     Right welcome be thou, faire, freshe, Maye!
     I hope that I some green here getten may!"

Smiling at the antique simplicity and freshness of the lines as they
rang across his brain like the musical jingle of an old-world
spinet, his ears suddenly caught the sound of young voices singing
at a distance.

"Here come the children!" he said; and stepping out from his open
window into the garden, he again bent his ear to listen. The
tremulous voices came nearer and nearer, and words could now be
distinguished, breaking through the primitive quavering melody of
'The Mayers' Song' known to all the country side since the
thirteenth century:

    "Remember us poor Mayers all.--
     And thus do we begin,
     To lead our lives in righteousness,
     Or else we die in sin.

    We have been rambling all this night,
     And almost all this day,
     And now returning back again,
     We bring you in the May.

    The hedges and trees they are so green,
     In the sunne's goodly heat,
     Our Heavenly Father He watered them
     With His Heavenly dew so sweet.

     A branch of May we have brought you---"

Here came a pause and the chorus dropped into an uncertain murmur.
John Walden heard his garden gates swing back on their hinges, and a
shuffling crunch of numerous small feet on the gravel path.

"G'arn, Susie!" cried a shrill boy's voice--"If y'are leadin' us,
lead! G'arn!"

A sweet flute-like treble responded to this emphatic adjuration,
singing alone, clear and high,

    "A branch of May---"  and then all the other voices chimed in:

    "A branch of May we have brought you
     And at your door it stands,
     'Tis but a sprout,
     But 'tis budded out
     By the work of our Lord's hands!"

And with this, a great crown of crimson and white blossoms, set on a
tall, gaily-painted pole and adorned with bright coloured ribbons,
came nid-nodding down the box-tree alley to the middle of the lawn
opposite Walden's study window, where it was quickly straightened up
and held in position by the eager hands of some twenty or thirty
children, of all sizes and ages, who, surrounding it at its base,
turned their faces, full of shy exultation towards their pastor,
still singing, but in more careful time and tune:

    "The Heavenly gates are open wide,
     Our paths are beaten plain,
     And if a man be not too far gone,
     He may return again.

    The moon shines bright and the stars give light
     A little before it is day,
     So God bless you all, both great and small,
     And send you a merrie May!"




II


For a moment or two Walden found himself smitten by so strong a
sense of the mere simple sensuous joy of living, that he could do no
more than stand looking in silent admiration at the pretty group of
expectant young creatures gathered round the Maypole, and huddled,
as it were, under its cumbrous crown of dewy blossoms, which showed
vividly against the clear sky, while the long streamers of red,
white and blue depending from its summit, trailed on the daisy-
sprinkled grass at their feet.

Every little face was familiar and dear to him. That awkward lad,
grinning from ear to ear, with a particularly fine sprig of
flowering hawthorn in his cap, was Dick Styles;--certainly a very
different individual to Chaucer's knight, Arcite, but resembling him
in so far that he had evidently gone into the woods early, moved by
the same desire: "I hope that I some green here getten may!" That
tiny girl, well to the front, with a clean white frock on and no hat
to cover her tangle of golden curls, was Baby Hippolyta,--the last,
the very last, of the seemingly endless sprouting olive branches of
the sexton, Adam Frost. Why the poor child had been doomed to carry
the name of Hippolyta, no one ever knew. When he, Walden, had
christened her, he almost doubted whether he had heard the lengthy
appellation aright, and ventured to ask the godmother of the
occasion to repeat it in a louder voice. Whereupon 'Hip-po-ly-ta'
was uttered in such strong tones, so thoroughly well enunciated,
that he could no longer mistake it, and the helpless infant,
screaming lustily, left the simple English baptismal font burdened
with a purely Greek designation. She was, however, always called
'Ipsie' by her playmates, and even her mother and father, who were
entirely responsible for her name in the first instance, found it
somewhat weighty for daily utterance and gladly adopted the simpler
sobriquet, though the elders of the village generally were rather
fond of calling her with much solemn unction: 'Baby Hippolyta,' as
though it were an elaborate joke. Ipsie was one of the loveliest
children in the village, and though she was only two-and-a-half
years old, she was fully aware of her own charms. She was pushed to
the front of the Maypole this morning, merely because she was
pretty,--and she knew it. That was why she lifted the extreme edge
of her short skirt and put it in her mouth, thereby displaying her
fat innocent bare legs extensively, and smiled at the Reverend John
Walden out of the uplifted corners of her forget-me-not blue eyes.
Then there was Bob Keeley, more or less breathless with excitement,
having just got back again from Badsworth Hall, his friend the
butcher boy having driven him to and from that place 'in a jiffy' as
he afterwards described it,--and there was a very sparkling,
smiling, vivacious little person of about fifteen, in a lilac cotton
frock, who wore a wreath of laburnum on her black curls, no other
than Kitty Spruce, generally alluded to in the village as 'Bob
Keeley's gel';--and standing near Baby Hippolyta, or 'Ipsie,' was
the acknowledged young beauty of the place, Susie Prescott, a slip
of a lass with a fair Madonna-like face, long chestnut curls and
great, dark, soft eyes like pansies filled with dew. Susie had a
decided talent for music,--she sang very prettily, and led the
village choir, under the guidance of Miss Janet Eden, the
schoolmistress. This morning, however, she was risking the duties of
conductorship on her own account, and very sweet she looked in her
cheap white nuns-veiling gown, wearing a bunch of narcissi
carelessly set in her hair and carrying a flowering hazel-wand in
her hand, with which she beat time for her companions as they
followed her bird-like carolling in the 'Mayers' Song.' But just now
all singing had ceased,--and every one of the children had their
round eyes fixed on John Walden with a mingling of timidity,
affection and awe that was very winning and pretty to behold.

Taking in the whole picture of nature, youth and beauty, as it was
set against the pure background of the sky, Walden realised that he
was expected to say something,--in fact, he had been called upon to
say something every year at this time, but he had never been able to
conquer the singular nervousness which always overcame him on such
occasions. It is one thing to preach from a pulpit to an assembled
congregation who are prepared for orthodoxy and who are ready to
listen with more or less patience to the expounding of the same,--
but it is quite another to speak to a number of girls and boys all
full of mirth and mischief, and as ready for a frolic as a herd of
young colts in a meadow. Especially when it happens that most of the
girls are pretty, and when, as a clergyman and director of souls,
one is conscious that the boys are more or less all in love with the
girls,--that one is a bachelor,--getting on in years too;--and that-
-chiefest of all--it is May-morning! One may perhaps be conscious of
a contraction at the heart,--a tightening of the throat,--even a
slight mist before the eyes may tease and perplex such an one--who
knows? A flash of lost youth may sting the memory,--a boyish craving
for love and sympathy may stir the blood, and may make the gravest
parson's speech incoherent,--for after all, even a minister of the
Divine is but a man.

At any rate the Reverend John found it difficult to begin. The round
forget-me-not eyes of Baby Hippolyta stared into his face with
relentless persistency,--the velvet pansy-coloured ones of Susie
Prescott smiled confidingly up at him with a bewildering
youthfulness and unconsciousness of charm; and the mischief-loving
small boys and village yokels who stood grouped against the Maypole
like rough fairy foresters guarding magic timber, were, with all the
rest of the children, hushed into a breathless expectancy, waiting
eagerly for 'Passon' to speak. And 'Passon' thereupon began,--in the
lamest, feeblest, most paternally orthodox manner:

"My dear children--"

"Hooray! Hooray! Three cheers for 'Passon'! Hooray!"

Wild whooping followed, and the Maypole rocked uneasily, and began
to slant downward in a drunken fashion, like a convivial giant whom
strong wine has made doubtful of his footing.

"Take care, you young rascals!" cried Walden, letting sentiment,
orthodoxy and eloquence go to the winds,--"You will have the whole
thing down!"

Peals of gay laughter responded, and the nodding mass of bloom was
swiftly pulled up and assisted to support its necessary horizontal
dignity. But here Baby Hippolyta suddenly created a diversion. Moved
perhaps by the consciousness of her own beauty, or by the general
excitement around her, she suddenly waved a miniature branch of
hawthorn and emitted a piercing yell.

"Passon! Tum 'ere! Passon! Tum 'ere!"

There was no possibility of 'holding forth' after this. A. short
address on the brevity of life, as being co-equal with the
evanescent joys of a Maypole, would hardly serve,--and a fatherly
ambition as to the unbecoming attitude of mendi-cancy assumed by
independent young villagers carrying a great crown of flowers round
to every house in the neighbourhood, and demanding pence for the
show, would scarcely be popular. Because what did the 'Mayers' Song
say:

"The Heavenly gates are opened wide, Our paths are beaten plain; And
if a man be not too far gone, He may return again."

And the 'Heavenly gates' of Spring being wide open, the Reverend
John, thought his special path was 'beaten plain' for the occasion;
and not being 'too far gone' either in bigotry or lack of heart,
John did what he reverently imagined the Divine Master might have
done when He 'took a little child and set it in the midst." He
obeyed Baby Hippolyta's imperious command, and to her again loudly
reiterated "Passon! Tum 'ere!" he sprang forward and caught her up
in his arms, kissing her rosy cheeks heartily as he did so. Seated
in 'high exalted state' upon his shoulder. 'Ipsie' became Hippolyta
in good earnest, so thoroughly aware was she of her dignity, while,
holding her as lightly and buoyantly as he would have held a bird,
the Reverend John turned his smiling face on his young parishioners.

"Come along, boys and girls!" he exclaimed,--"Come and plant the
Maypole in the big meadow yonder, as you did last year! It is a
holiday for us all to-day,--for me as well as for you! It has always
been a holiday even before the days when great Elizabeth was Queen
of England, and though many dear old customs have fallen into disuse
with the changing world, St. Rest has never yet been robbed of its
May-day festival! Be thankful for that, children!--and come along;--
but move carefully!--keep order,--and sing as you come!"

Whereupon Susie Prescott lifted up her pretty voice again and her
hazel wand baton at the same moment, and started the chorus with the
verse:

"We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day; And
now returning back again, We bring you in the May!"

And thus carolling, they passed through the garden moving meadow-
wards, Walden at the head of the procession,--and Baby Hippolyta
seated on his shoulder, was so elated with the gladsome sights and
sounds, that she clasped her chubby arms round 'Passon's' neck and
kissed him with a fervour that was as fresh and delightful as it was
irresistibly comic.

Bainton, making his way along the southern wall of the orchard, to
take a 'glance round' as he termed it, at the condition of the wall
fruit-trees before his master joined him on the usual morning tour
of inspection, stopped and drew aside to watch the merry procession
winding along under the brown stems dotted with thousands of red
buds splitting into pink-and-white bloom; and a slow smile moved the
furrows of his face upward in various pleasant lines as he saw the
'Passon' leading it with a light step, carrying the laughing 'Ipsie'
on his shoulder, and now and again joining in the 'Mayers' Song'
with a mellow baritone voice that warmed and sustained the whole
chorus.

"There 'e goes!" he said half aloud--"Jes' like a boy!--for all the
wurrld like a boy! I reckon 'e's got the secret o' never growin'
old, for all that 'is 'air's turnin' a bit grey. 'Ow many passons in
this 'ere neighbrood would carry the children like that, I wonder?
Not one on 'em!--though there's a many to pick an' choose from--a
darned sight too many if you axes my opinion! Old Putty Leveson,
wi's bobbin' an' 'is bowin's to the east--hor!--hor!--hor!--a fine
east 'e's got in 'is mouldy preachin' barn, wi' a whitewashed wall
an' a dirty bit o' tinsel fixed up agin it--he wouldn't touch a
child o' ourn, to save 'is life--though 'e's got three or four mean,
lyin' pryin' brats of 'is own runnin' wild about the place as might
jest as well 'ave never been born. And as for Francis Anthony, the
'igh pontiff o' Riversford, wi's big altar-cloak embrided for 'im by
all the poor skinny spinsters wot ain't never 'ad no chance to
marry--'e'd see all the children blowed to bits under the walls of
Jericho to the sound o' the trumpets afore 'e'd touch 'em! Talk o'
saints!--I'm not very good at unnerstannin' that kind o' folk, not
seein' myself 'owever a saint could manage to get on in this mortal
wurrld; but I reckon to think there's a tollable imitation o' the
real article in Passon Walden--the jolly sort o' saint, o' coorse,--
not the prayin', whinin', snuffin' kind. 'E's been doin' nothin' but
good ever since 'e came 'ere, which m'appen partly from 'is not
bein' married. If 'e'd gotten a wife, the place would a' been awsome
different. Not but wot 'e ain't a bit cranky over 'is, flowers
'isself. But I'd rather 'ave 'im fussin' round than a petticut arter
me. A petticut at 'ome's enough, an' I ain't complainin' on it,
though it's a bit breezy sometimes,--but a petticut in the gard'nin'
line would drive me main wild--it would reely now!"

And still smiling with perfect complacency, he watched the Maypole
being carried carefully along the space of grass left open between
the fruit trees on either side of the orchard, and followed its
bright patch of colour and the children's faces and forms around it,
till it entirely disappeared among the thicker green of a clump of
elms that bordered the 'big meadow,' which Walden generally kept
clear of both crops and cattle for the benefit of the village sports
and pastimes.

He was indeed the only land-owner in the district who gave any
consideration of this kind to the needs of the people. St. Rest was
surrounded on all sides by several large private properties, richly
wooded, and possessing many acres of ploughed and pasture land, but
there was no public right-of-way across any single one of them, and
every field, every woodland path, every tempting dell was rigidly
fenced and guarded from 'vulgar' intrusion. None of the proprietors
of these estates, however, appeared to take the least personal joy
or pride in their possessions. They were for the most part away in
London for 'the season' or abroad 'out' of the season,--and their
extensive woods appeared to exist chiefly for the preservation of
game, reared solely to be shot by a few idle louts of fashion during
September and October, and also for the convenience and support of a
certain land agent, one Oliver Leach, who cut down fine old timber
whenever he needed money, and thought it advisable to pocket the
proceeds of such devastation.

Scarcely in one instance out of a hundred did the actual owners of
property miss the trees sufficiently to ask what had become of them.
So long as the game was all right, they paid little heed to the
rest. The partridges and the pheasants thrived, and so did Mr.
Oliver Leach. He enjoyed, however, the greatest unpopularity of any
man in the neighbourhood, which was some small comfort to those who
believed in the laws of compensation and justice. Bainton was his
particular enemy for one, and Bainton's master, John Walden, for
another. His long-practised 'knavish tricks' and the malicious
delight he took in trying to destroy or disfigure the sylvan beauty
of the landscape by his brutish ignorance of the art of forestry,
combined with his own personal greed, were beginning to be well-
known in St. Rest, and it is very certain that on May-morning when
the youngsters of the village were abroad and, to a great extent,
had it all their own way, (aided and abetted in that way by the
recognised authority of the place, the minister himself,) he would
never have dared to show his hard face and stiffly upright figure
anywhere, lest he should be unmercifully 'guyed' without a chance of
rescue or appeal.

With the disappearance of the Maypole into the further meadow,
Bainton likewise disappeared on his round of duty, which, as he had
declared, moved him 'in sundry places,' and for a little while the
dove-like spirit of Spring brooded in restful silence over the quiet
orchard and garden.

The singing of the May-day children had now grown so faint and far
as to be scarcely audible,--and the call of the cuckoo shrilling
above the plaintive murmur of the wood pigeons, soon absorbed even
the echo of the young human voices passing away. A light breeze
stirred the tender green grass, shaking down a shower of pink almond
bloom as it swept fan-like through the luminous air,--a skylark half
lost in the brilliant blue, began to descend earthwards, flinging
out a sparkling fountain of music with every quiver of his jewel-
like wings, and away in the sheltered shade of a small hazel copse,
the faint fluty notes of a nightingale trembled with a mysterious
sweetness suggestive of evening, when the song should be full.

More than an hour elapsed, and no living being entered the seclusion
of the parson's garden save Nebbie, the parson's rough Aberdeen
terrier, who, appearing suddenly at the open study-window, sniffed
at the fair prospect for a moment, and then, stepping out with a
leisurely air of proprietorship lay down on the grass in the full
sunshine. A wise-looking dog was Nebbie,--though few would have
thought that his full name was Nebuchadnezzar. Only the Reverend
John knew that. Nebbie was perfectly aware that the children had
come with the Maypole, and that his master had accompanied them to
the big meadow. Nebbie also knew that presently that same master of
his would return again to make the circuit of the garden in the
company of Bainton, according to custom,--and as he stretched his
four hairy paws out comfortably, and blinked his brown eyes at a
portly blackbird prodding in the turf for a worm within a stone's
throw of him, he was evidently considering whether it would be worth
his while, as an  epicurean animal, to escort these two men on their
usual round on such a warm pleasant morning. For it was a dog's real
lazy day,--a day when merely to lie on the grass was sufficient
satisfaction for the canine mind. And Nebbie, yawning extensively,
and stretching himself a little more, closed his eyes in a rapture
of peace, and stirred his tail slightly with one, two, three mild
taps on the soft grass, when a sudden clear whistle caused him to
spring up with every hair bristling on end, fore-paws well forward
and eyes wide open.

"Nebbie! Nebbie!"

Nebbie was nothing if not thoroughbred, and the voice of his master
was, despite all considerations of sleep and sunshine, to him as the
voice of the commanding officer to a subaltern. He was off like a
shot at a tearing pace, nose down and tail erect, and in less than a
minute had scented Walden in the shrubbery, which led by devious
windings down from the orchard to the banks of the river Rest, and
there finding him, started frantically gambolling round and round
him, as though years had parted man and dog from one another,
instead of the brief space of an hour. Walden was smiling to
himself, and his countenance was extremely pleasant. Nebbie, with
the quaint conceit common to pet animals, imagined that the smile
was produced specially for him, and continued his wild jumps and
barks till his red tongue hung a couple of inches out of his mouth
with excess of heat and enthusiasm.

"Nebbie! Nebbie!" said the Reverend John, mildly; "Don't make such a
noise! Down, lad, down!"

Nebbie subsided, and on reaching the river bank, squatted on his
haunches, with his tongue still lolling out, while he watched his
master step on a small floating pier attached by iron chains and
posts to the land, and bend therefrom over into the clear water,
looking anxiously downward to a spot he well knew, where hundreds of
rare water-lilies were planted deep in the bed of the stream.

"Nymphea Odorata,"--he murmured, in the yearning tone of a lover
addressing his beloved;--"Nymphea Chromatella--now I wonder if I
shall see anything of them this year! The Aurora Caroliniana must
have been eaten up by water-rats!"

Nebbie uttered a short bark. The faintest whisper of 'rats'
seriously affected his nerves. He could have told his master many a
harrowing story of those mischievous creatures swimming to and fro
in the peaceful flood, tearing with their sharp teeth at the lily
roots, and making a horrible havoc of all the most perfect buds of
promise. The river Rest itself was so clear and bright that it was
difficult to associate rats with its silver flowing,--yet rats there
were, hiding among the osiers and sedges, frightening the moorhens
and reed-warblers out of their little innocent lives. Nebbie caught
and killed them whenever he could,--but he had no particular taste
for swimming, and he was on rather 'strained relations' with a pair
of swans who, with a brood of cygnets kept fierce guard on the
opposite bank against all unwelcome intrusion.

His careful examination of the lily beds done, John Walden sprang
back again from the pier to the land, and there hesitated a moment.
His eyes rested longingly on a light punt, which, running half out
of a rustic boathouse, swayed suggestively on the gleaming water.

"I wish I had time,--" he said, half aloud, while Nebbie wagging his
tail violently, sat waiting and expectant. The river looked
deliciously tempting. The young green of the silver birches drooping
above its shining surface, the lights and shadows rippling across it
with every breath of air,--the skimming of swallows to and fro,--the
hum of bees among the cowslips, thyme and violets that were pushing
fragrantly through the clipped turf,--were all so many wordless
invitations to him to go forth into the fair freedom of Nature.

"The green trees whispered low and mild, It was a sound of joy! They
were my playmates when a child, And rocked me in their arms so wild!
Still they looked on me and smiled As if I were a boy!"

Such simple lines,--by Longfellow too, the despised of all the Sir
Oracles of criticism,--yet coming to Walden's memory suddenly, they
touched a chord of vivid emotion.

"And still they whispered soft and low! Oh, I could not choose but
go!"

he hummed half under his breath, and then with a decided movement
turned from the winding river towards the house.

"No, Nebbie, it's no use," he said aloud, addressing his four-footed
comrade, who thereupon got up reluctantly and began to trot
pensively beside him--"We mustn't be selfish. There are a thousand
and one things to do. There is dinner to be served to the children
at two o'clock--there is Mrs. Keeley to call upon--there are the
school accounts to be looked into,--" here he glanced at his watch--
" Good Heavens!--how time flies! It is half-past eleven! I shall
have to see Bainton later on."

He hurried his steps and was just in sight of his study window, when
he was met by his parlourmaid, a neat, trim young woman who rejoiced
in the euphonious name of Hester Rockett, and who said as she
approached him:

"If you please, sir, Mrs. Spruce."

His genial face fell a little, and he heaved a short sigh.

"Mrs. Spruce? Oh, Lord!--I mean, very well! Show her in, Hester. You
are sure she wants to see me? Or is it her girl Kitty she is after?"

"She didn't mention Kitty, sir," replied Hester demurely; "She said
she wished to see you very particular."

"All right! Show her into my study, and afterwards just go round to
the orchard and tell Bainton I will see him when he's had his
dinner. I know I sha'n't get off under an hour at least!"

He sighed again, then smiled, and entered the house, Nebbie sedately
following. Arrived in his own quiet sanctum, he took off his soft
slouched hat and seated himself at his desk with a composed air of
patient attention, as the door was opened to admit a matronly-
looking lady with a round and florid countenance, clad in a
voluminous black gown, and wearing a somewhat aggressive black
bonnet, 'tipped' well forward, under which her grey hair was
plastered so far back as to be scarcely visible. There was a certain
aggrieved dignity about her, and a generally superior tone of self-
consciousness even in the curtsey which she dropped respectfully, as
she returned Walden's kindly nod and glance.

"Good morning, Mrs. Spruce!"

"Good morning, sir! I trust I see you well, sir?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Spruce, I am very well."

"Which is a mercy indeed!" said Mrs. Spruce fervently; "For we never
knows from one day to another whether we may be sound or crippled,
considering the diseases which now flies in the air with the dust in
the common road, as the papers tell us,--and dust is a thing we
cannot prevent, do what we may, for the dust is there by the will of
the Almighty, Who made us all out of it."

She paused. John Walden smiled and pointed to a chair,

"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Spruce?"

"Thank you kindly, sir!" and Mrs. Spruce accordingly plumped into
the seat indicated with evident relief and satisfaction. "I will
confess that it is a goodish step to walk on such a warm morning."

"You have come straight from the Manor?" enquired Walden, turning
over a few papers on his desk, and wondering within himself when the
good woman was going to unburden herself of her business.

"Straight from the Manor, sir, yes,--and such a heat and moil I
never felt on any May morning, which is most onwholesome, I am sure.
A cold May and a warm June is what I prefers myself,--but when you
get the cuckoo and the nightingale clicketin' together in the woods
on the First of May, you can look out for quarrelsome weather at
Midsummer, leastways so I have heard my mother often say, and she
was considered a wise woman in her time, I do assure you!"

Here Mrs. Spruce untied her bonnet-strings and flung them apart,--
she likewise loosened the top button of her collar and heaved a deep
sigh. Again the Reverend John smiled, and vaguely balanced a
penholder on his fore-finger.

"I daresay your mother was quite right, Mrs. Spruce! Indeed, I
believe all our mothers were quite right in their day. All the same,
I'm glad it's a fine May morning', for the children's sakes. They
are all down in the big meadow having a romp together. Your little
Kitty is with them, looking as bright as a May blossom herself."

Mrs. Spruce straightened herself up, patted her ample bosom, with
one hand, and threw her bonnet-strings still further back.

"Kitty's a good lass," she said, "though a bit mettlesome and wild;
but I'm not saying anything again her. The Lord forbid that I should
run down my own flesh and blood! An' she's better than most gels of
her age. I wouldn't grudge her a bit of fun while she's got it in
her,--Heaven knows it'll be soon gone out of her when she marries,
which nat'rally she will do, sooner or later. Anyhow, she's all I've
got,--which is a marvel how the Lord deals with some of us, when you
see a little chidester of a woman like Adam Frost's wife with
fifteen, boys and girls, and me with only one nesh maid."

Walden was silent. He was not disposed to argue on such marvels of
the Lord's way, as resulted in endowing one family with fifteen
children, and the other with only a single sprout, such as was
accorded to the righteous Jephthah, judge of Israel.

"Howsomever," continued Mrs. Spruce, "Kitty's welcome to jump round
the Maypole till she's wore her last pair of boots out, if so be
it's your wish, Mr. Walden,--and many thanks to you, sir, for all
your kindness to her!"

"Don't mention it, Mrs. Spruce!" said Walden amicably, and then,
determining to bring the worthy woman sharply round to the real
object of her visit, he gave a side-glance at the clock. "Is there
anything you want me to do for you this morning? I'm rather busy--"

"Beggin' your pardon, I'm sure, sir, for troubling you at all!--
knowin' as I do that what with the moithering old folks and the
maupsing young ones, your 'ands is always full. But when I got the
letter this morning, I says to my husband, William--'William,' says
I, very loud, for the poor creature's growing so deaf that by and by
I shall be usin' a p'lice whistle to make him 'ear me--'William,'
says I, 'there is only one man in this village who's got the right
to give advice when advice is asked for. Of course there's no call
for us to follow advice, even when we gets it,--howsomever, it's
only respectable for decent church-going folks to see the minister
of the parish whenever there's any fear of our makin' a slip of our
souls and goin' wrong. Therefore, William,' says I, shaking him By
the arm to make the poor silly fool understand me, 'it's to Passon
Walden I'm goin' this mornin' with this letter,--to Passon Walden,
d'ye 'ear?' And he nodded his head wise-like, for all the world as
though there were a bit of sense in it, (which there ain't), and
agrees with me;--for the Lord, knows, if William doesn't, that it
may make an awsome change for him as well as for me. And I do
confess I've been took back."

Following as best he could the entangled thread of the estimable
lady's discourse, Walden grasped the fact, albeit vaguely, that some
unexpected letter with unexpected news in it had arrived to trouble
the Spruces' domestic peace. Suppressing a slight yawn, he
endeavoured to assume the proper show of interest which every
village parson is expected to display on the shortest notice
concerning any subject, from the birth of the latest baby
parishioner, to the death of the earliest sucking pig.

"I'm sorry you're in trouble, Mrs. Spruce," he said kindly; "What
letter are you speaking of? You see I don't quite understand--"

"Which it's not to be expected you should, sir!" replied Mrs. Spruce
with an air of triumph,--"Considerin' as you wer'n't here when she
left, and the Manor has been what you may call a stately 'ome of
England deserted as most stately 'omes are, for more'n ten years,
you couldn't be expected to understand!"

The Reverend John looked as he felt, completely mystified. He
'wasn't here when she left.' Who was 'she'? With all his naturally
sweet temper he began to feel slightly irritated.

"Really, Mrs. Spruce," he said, endeavouring to throw an inflection
of sternness into his mellow voice, "I must ask you to explain
matters a little more clearly. I know that the Manor has been
practically shut up ever since I've been here,--that you are the
housekeeper in charge, and that your husband is woodman or forester
there,--but beyond this I know nothing. So you must not talk in
riddles, Mrs. Spruce,"--here his kind smile shone out again--"Even
as a boy I was never good at guessing them! And I am getting old
now."

"So you are, sir--so you are!" agreed Mrs. Spruce sympathetically;
"And 'tis a shame for me to come worryin' of you,--for no one more
truly than myself can feel pity for the weariness of the flesh, when
'tis just a burden to the bones and no pleasure in the carryin' of
it, though you don't put much of it on, Passon Walden, you don't, I
do assure you! But it's Gospel truth that some folks wears thin like
a knife, while others wears thick like a pig, and there is no
stopping them,--either way bein' the Lord's will,--but I'm feelin'
real okkard myself to have put you about, Passon, only as I said,
I've been took back,--and here's the letter, sir, which if you will
kindly glance your hi over, you will tell me whether I've done the
right thing to call on my way down here and get in a couple of
scrubbers at eighteen-pence a day, which is dear, but they won't
come for less, jest to get some of the rough dirt off the floors
afore polishin', which polishin' will have to be done whether we
will or no, for the boards are solid oak, and bein' ancient take the
shine quickly, which is a mercy, for this day week is none too far
off, seein' all that's put upon me suddint."

Here, being short of breath, she paused, and fumbling in a large
black calico pocket which hung loosely at her side, attached to her
ample waist by a string, she drew out with great care a rather
large, square-looking missive, and then rising from her chair with
much fluttering of her black gown and mysterious creaking sound, as
of tight under-wear strained to breaking point, she held it out
toward Walden, who had durng her last oratorical outburst
unconsciously put his hand to his head in a daze of bewilderment.

"There is the letter sir," she continued, in the tone of one who
should say: 'There is the warrant for execution'--"'Short and
sweet,' as the farmer's wife said when she ate the pig's tail what
dropped off while the animal was a-roastin'."

Allowing this brilliant simile to pass without comment, Walden took
the thick, creamy-white object she offered and found himself
considering it with a curious disfavour. It was a strictly
'fashionable' make of envelope, and was addressed in a particularly
bold and assertive hand-writing to

MRS. SPRUCE, Housekeeper, Abbot's Manor, St. Rest.

Opening it, the Reverend John read as follows:

"Miss Vancourt begs to inform Mrs. Spruce that she will arrive at
Abbot's Manor on the 7th inst., to remain there in residence. Mrs.
Spruce is requested to engage the necessary household servants, as
Miss Vancourt will bring none except the groom in charge of her two
hunters."

Over and over again Walden read this curt and commonplace note, with
a sense of irritation which he knew was perfectly absurd, but which,
nevertheless, defied all reason. The paper on which it was written
was thick and satiny,--and there was a faint artificial odour of
violets about it which annoyed him. He hated scented notepaper.
Deliberately he replaced it in its envelope, and holding it for a
moment as he again studied the superscription, he addressed the
expectant Mrs. Spruce, who had re-seated herself and was waiting for
him to speak.

"Well, Mrs. Spruce, I don't think you need any advice from me on
such a simple matter as this," he said slowly. "Your duty is quite
plain. You must obey orders. Miss Vancourt is, I suppose, the
mistress of Abbot's Manor?"

"She is, sir,--of course it all belongs to Miss Maryllia--"

"Miss--what?" interrupted Walden, with a sudden lightening of his
dark blue eyes.

"Maryllia, sir. It is a kind of family name, pronounced 'Ma-rill-
yer,'" explained Mrs. Spruce with considerable pomposity; "Many
folks never gets it right--it wants knowledge and practice. But if
you remember the pictures in the gallery at the Manor, sir, you may
call to mind one of the ancestresses of the Vancourts, painted in a
vi'let velvet; ridin' dress and holdin' a huntin' crop, and the name
underneath is 'Mary Ella Adelgisa de Vaignecourt' and it was after
her that the old Squire called his daughter Maryllia, rollin' the
two fust names, Mary Elia, into one, as it were, just to make a name
what none of his forebears had ever had. He was a queer man, the old
Squire--he wouldn't a-cared whether the name was Christian or
heathen."

"I suppose not." said the Reverend John carelessly, rising and
pushing back his chair with a slightly impatient gesture; whereupon
Mrs. Spruce rose too, and stood 'at attention,' her loosened bonnet-
strings flying and her large black calico pocket well in evidence to
the front of her skirt.

"Here's your letter, Mrs. Spruce;" and as she took it from his hand
with a curtsey he continued: "There is evidently nothing for it but
to get the house in order by the day appointed and do your best to
please the lady. I can quite understand that you feel a little
worried at having to prepare everything so quickly and
unexpectedly,--but after all, you must have often thought that Miss
Vancourt's return to her old home was likely to happen at any time."

"Which I never did, sir!" declared Mrs. Spruce emphatically, "No,
sir, never! For when the old Squire died, she was jest a slip of
fifteen and her uncle, the Squire's own twin brother, what had
married an American heiress with somethin' like a hundred million of
money, so I'm told, took her straight away and adopted her like, and
the reg'ler pay for keepin' up the Manor and grounds has been sent
to us through a Bank, and so far we've got nothin' to complain of
bein' all strictly honourable both ways, but of Miss Vancourt we
never heard a thing. And Mr. Oliver Leach he is the agent of the
property, and he ain't never said a word,--and we think, me and my
husband, that he don't know nothin' of her comin' back, and should
we tell him, sir? Or would you reckon that we'd better keep a still
tongue in our heads till she do come? For there's no knowin' why or
wherefore she's comin',--though we did hear her poor uncle died two
years ago, and we wondered where she and her aunt with the hundred
million was got to--but mebbe she'll change her mind and not come,
after all?"

"I should certainly not count upon that, if I were you, Mrs.
Spruce," said Walden decisively; "Your business is to keep
everything in order for the lady's arrival; but I don't think,--I
really don't think, you are at all bound to inform Mr. Oliver Leach
of the matter. He will no doubt find out for himself. or receive his
orders direct from Miss Vancourt." Here he paused. "How old did you
say she was when, she went away from home?"

"Fifteen, sir. That was nigh eleven years ago,--just one week after
the Squire's funeral, and a year afore you came here, sir. She's
gettin' on for seven-and-twenty now."

"Quite a woman, then," said Walden lightly; "Old enough to know her
own mind at any rate. Do you remember her?"

"Perfectly well, sir,--a little flitterin' creature all eyes and
hair, with a saucy way of tossin' her curls about, and a trick of
singin' and shoutin' all over the place. She used to climb the pine
trees and sit in them and pelt her father with the cones. Oh, yes,
sir, she was a terrible child to rule, and it's Gospel truth there
was no ruling her, for the governesses came and went like the
seasons, one in, t'other out. Ay, but the Lord knows I'll never
forget the scream she gave when the Squire was brought home from the
hunting field stone dead!"

Here John Walden turned his head towards her with an air of more
interest than he had yet shown.

"Ah!--How was that?" he enquired.

"He was killed jumpin' a fence;" went on Mrs. Spruce; "A fine,
handsome gentleman,--they say he'd been wild in his youth; anyhow he
got married in London to a great Court beauty, so I've been told.
And after the wedding, they went travelling allover the world for a
year and a half, and just when they was expected 'ome Mrs. Vancourt
died with the birth of the child, and he and the baby and the nurses
all came back here and he never stirred away again himself till
death took him at full gallop,--which is 'ow he always wished to
die. But poor Miss Maryllia--" And Mrs. Spruce sighed dolefully--
"'Twas hard on her, seein' him ride off so gay and well and cheery
in the early mornin' to be brought home afore noon a corpse! Ay, it
was an awsome visitation of the Lord! Often when the wind goes
wimblin' through the pines near the house I think I 'ear her shriek
now,--ay, sir!--it was like the cry of somethin' as was havin' its
heart tore out!"

Walden stood very silent, listening. This narrative was new to him,
and even Mrs. Spruce's manner of relating it was not without a
certain rough eloquence. The ancient history of the Vancourts he
knew as well as he knew the priceless archaeological value of their
old Manor-house as a perfect gem of unspoilt Tudor architecture,--
but though he had traced the descent of the family from Robert
Priaulx de Vaignecourt of the twelfth century and his brother
Osmonde Priaulx de Vaignecourt who had, it was rumoured, founded a
monastery in the neighbourhood, and had died during a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, he had ceased to follow the genealogical tree with
much attention or interest when the old Norman name of De
Vaignecourt had degenerated into De Vincourt and finally in the
times of James I. had settled down into Vancourt. Yet there was a
touch of old-world tragedy in Mrs. Spruce's modern history of the
young girl's shriek when she found herself suddenly fatherless on
that fatal hunting morning.

"And now," continued Mrs. Spruce, coaxing one bonnet-string at a
time off each portly shoulder with considerable difficulty; "I
s'pose I must be goin', Passon Walden, and thank you kindly for all!
It's a great weight off my mind to have told you just what's
'appened, an' the changes likely to come off, and I do assure you
I'm of your opinion, Passon, in letting Oliver Leach shift for
himself, for if so be Miss Vancourt has the will of her own she had
when she was a gel, I shouldn't wonder if there was rough times in
store for him! But the Lord only knows what may chance to all of
us!" and here she heaved another dismal sigh as she tied the
refractory bonnet-strings into a bow under her fat chin. "It's
right-down sinful of me to be wishin' rough times to any man, seein'
I'm likely in for them myself, for a person's bound to be different
at nigh seven-and-twenty to what she was at fifteen, and the modern
ways of leddies ain't old ways, the Lord be merciful to us all! And
I do confess, Passon, it's a bit upsettin' at my time of life to
think as how I've lived in Abbot's Manor all these years, and now
for all I can tell, me and William may have to shift. And where
we'll go, the Lord only knows!"

"Now don't anticipate misfortune, Mrs. Spruce!" said Walden,
beginning to shake off the indescribable feeling of annoyance
against which he had been fighting for the past few minutes and
resuming his usual quiet air of cheerfulness; "Miss Vancourt is not
likely to dismiss you unless you offend her. The great thing is to
avoid offence,--and to do even more than your strict duty in making
her old home look its best and brightest for her return and--" Here
he hesitated for a moment, then went on--"Of course if I can do
anything to help you, I will."

"Thank you, sir, I'm sure most kindly," said Mrs. Spruce curtseying
two or three times in a voluminous overflow of gratitude. "I shall
take the liberty of asking you to step up during the week, to see
how things appears to you yourself. And as for servants, there's no
gels old enough at the school for servants, so I'll be goin' to
Riversford with the carrier's cart to-morrow to see what I can do.
Ah, It's an awsome mission I'm goin' on; there ain't no gels to be
got of the old kind, as far as I can make out. They all wants to be
fine leddies nowadays and marry 'Merican millionaires."

"Not quite so bad as that, I think, Mrs. Spruce!" laughed Walden,
holding open the door of the study for her to pass out, as a broad
hint that the interview must be considered at an end.--"There are
plenty of good, industrious, intelligent girls in England ready and
willing to enter domestic service, if we make it worth their while,-
-and I'm sure no one can teach YOU anything in that line! Good-
morning, Mrs. Spruce!"

"Good-morning, sir,--and you'll step up to the Manor when convenient
some afternoon?"

"Certainly, if you wish it. Whenever convenient to yourself, Mrs.
Spruce."

Mrs. Spruce curtseyed again at the respect for her own importance
which was implied in Walden's last sentence, and slowly sidled out,
the 'Passon' watching her with a smile as she trotted down the
passage from his study to a door which led to the kitchen and
basement.

"Now she'll go and tell all her story again to Hester and the cook,"
he said to himself; "And how she will enjoy herself to be sure!
Bless the woman, what a tongue she has! No wonder her husband is
deaf!"

He re-seated himself at his desk, and taking up a bundle of accounts
connected with the church and the school, tried to fix his attention
on them, but in vain. His mind wandered. He was obliged to own to
himself that he was unreasonably irritated at the news that Abbot's
Manor, which had been so long a sort of unoccupied 'show' house, was
again to be inhabited,--and by one who was its rightful owner too.
Ever since he had bought the living of St. Rest he had been
accustomed to take many solitary walks through the lovely woods
surrounding the Vancourts' residence, without any fear of being
considered a trespasser,--and he had even strolled through the wide,
old-fashioned gardens with as little restraint as though they had
belonged to himself, Mrs. Spruce, the housekeeper, being the last
person in the world to forbid her minister to enter wherever he
would. He had passed long hours of delightful research in the old
library, and many afternoons of meditation in the picture gallery,
where the portrait of the lady in the 'vi'let velvet,' Mary Elia
Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, had often caught his eye and charmed his
fancy when the setting sun had illumined its rich colouring and had
given life to the face, half-petulant, half-sweet, which pouted
forth from the old canvas like a rose with light on its petals. Now
all these pleasant rambles were finished. The mistress of Abbot's
Manor would certainly object to a wandering parson in her house and
grounds. Probably she was a very imperious, disagreeable young
woman,--full of the light scorn, lack of sentiment and cheap atheism
common to the 'smart' lady of a decadent period, and if it were true
that she had been for so many years in the charge of an American
aunt with a 'hundred millions,' the chances were ten to one that she
would be an exceedingly unpleasant neighbour.

He gave a short impatient sigh.

"Ah, well! I only hope she will put a stop to the felling of the
fine old trees in her domain," he said half aloud,--"If no one else
in the village has the pluck to draw her attention to the
depredations of Oliver Leach, I will. But, so far as other matters
go,--my walks in the Manor woods are ended! Yes, Nebbie!" and he
gently patted the head of the faithful animal, who, with inborn
sagacity instinctively guessing that his master was somewhat
annoyed, was clambering with caressing forepaws against his knee.
"Our rambles by the big elms and silvery birches and under the
beautiful tall pines are over, Nebbie! and we shouldn't be human if
we weren't just a trifle sorry! Sir Morton Pippitt is bad enough as
a neighbour, but he's a good three miles off at Badsworth Hall,
thank Heaven!--whereas Abbot's Manor is but a quarter of an hour's
walk from this gate. We've had pleasant times in the dear old-
fashioned gardens, Nebbie, you and I, but it's all over! The
mistress of the Manor is coming home,--and I'm positively certain,
Nebbie,--yes, old boy!--positively certain that we shall both detest
her!"




III


When England's great Queen, Victoria the Good; was still enjoying
her first happy years of wedded life, and society, under her gentle
sway, was less ostentatious and much more sincere in its code of
ethics than it is nowadays, the village of St. Rest, together with
the adjacent post-town of Riversford, enjoyed considerable
importance in county chronicles. Very great 'county personages' were
daily to be seen comporting themselves quite simply among their own
tenantry, and the Riversford Hunt Ball annually gathered together a
veritable galaxy of 'fair women and brave men' who loved their
ancestral homes better than all the dazzle and movement of town, and
who possessed for the most part that 'sweet content' which gives
strength to the body and elasticity to the mind. There was then a
natural gaiety and spontaneous cheerfulness in English country life
that made such a life good for human happiness; and the jolly
Squires who with their 'dames' kept open house and celebrated
Harvest Home and Christmas Festival with all the buoyancy and vigour
of a sane and healthful manhood undeteriorated by any sickly taint
of morbid pessimism and indifferent inertia, were the beneficent
rulers of a merrier rural population than has ever been seen since
their day. Squire Vancourt the elder, grandfather of the present
heiress of Abbot's Manor, had been a splendid specimen of 'the fine
old English gentleman, all of the olden time,' and his wife, one of
the handsomest, as well as one of the kindest-hearted women that
ever lived, had been justly proud of her husband, devoted to her
children, and a true friend and benefactress to the neighbourhood.
Her four sons, two of whom were twins, all great strapping lads,
built on their vigorous father's model, were considered the best-
looking young men in the county, and by their fond mother were
judged as the best-hearted; but, as it often happens, Nature was
freakish in their regard, and turned them all out wild colts of a
baser breed than might have been expected from their unsullied
parentage. The eldest took to hard drinking and was killed at
steeple-chasing; the second was drowned while bathing; one of the
twins, named Frederick, the younger by a few minutes, after nearly
falling into unnameable depths of degradation by gambling with
certain 'noble and exalted' personages of renown, saved himself, as
it were, by the skin of his teeth, through marriage with a rich
American girl whose father was blessed with unlimited, oil-mines. He
was thereby enabled to wallow in wealth with an impaired digestion
and shattered nervous power, while capricious Fate played him her
usual trick in her usual way by denying him any heirs to his married
millions. His first-born brother, Robert, wedded for love, and chose
as his mate a beautiful girl without a penny, whose grace and charm
had dazzled the London world of fashion for about two seasons, and
she had died at the age of twenty in giving birth to her first
child, the girl whom her father had named Maryllia.

All these chances and changes of life, however, occurring to the
leading family of the neighbourhood had left very little mark on St.
Rest, which drowsed under the light shadow of the eastern hills by
its clear flowing river, very much as it had always drowsed in the
old days, and very much as it would always do even if London and
Paris were consumed by unsuspected volcanoes. The memory of the
first 'old Squire,'--who died peacefully in his bed all alone, his
wife having passed away two years before him, and his two living
twin sons being absent,--was frequently mixed with stories of the
other 'old Squire' Robert, the elder twin, who was killed in the
hunting field,--and indeed it often happened that some of the more
ancient and garrulous villagers were not at all sure as to which was
which. The Manor had been shut up for ten years,--the Manor 'family'
had not been heard of during all that period, and the tenantry's
recollection of their late landlord, as well as of his one daughter,
was more vague and confused than authentic. The place had been
'managed' and the cottage rents collected by the detested agent
Oliver Leach, a fact which did not sweeten such remembrance of the
Vancourts as still existed in the minds of the people.

However, nothing in the general aspect and mental attitude of the
village had altered very much since the early thirties, except the
church. That from a mere ruin, had under John Walden's incumbency
become a gem of architecture, so unique and perfect as to be the
wonder and admiration of all who beheld it, and whereas in the early
Victorian reign a few people stopped at Riversford because it was a
county town and because there was an inn there where they could put
up their horses, so a few people now went to St. Rest, because there
was a church there worth looking at. They came by train to
Riversford, where the railway line stopped, and then took carriage
or cycled the seven miles between that town and St. Rest to see the
church; and having seen it, promptly went back again. For one of the
great charms of the little village hidden under the hills was that
no tourist could stay a night in it, unless he or she took one spare
room--there was only one--at the small public-house which sneaked
away up round a corner of the street under an archway of ivy, and
pushed its old gables through the dark enshrouding leaves with a
half-surprised, half-propitiatory air, as though somewhat ashamed of
its own existence. With the exception of this one room in this one
public-house, there was no accommodation for visitors. Never will
the rash cyclist who ventured once to appeal to the sexton's wife
for rooms in her cottage, forget the brusqueness of his reception:

"Rooms!" And Mrs. Frost, setting her arms well akimbo, surveyed the
enquirer scornfully through an open doorway, rendered doubly
inviting by the wealth of roses clambering round it. "Be off, young
man! Where was you a-comin' to? D'ye think a woman wi' fifteen great
boys and girls in an' out of the 'ouse all day, 'as rooms for payin'
guests!" And here Mrs. Frost, snorting at the air in irrepressible
disdain, actually snapped her fingers in her would-be lodger's face.
"Rooms indeed! Go to Brighting!"

Whereupon the abashed wheelman went,--whether to Brighton, as the
irate lady suggested, or to a warmer place unmentionable history
sayeth not. But St. Rest remained, as its name implied, restful,--
and the barbaric yell of the cheap tripper, together with the
equally barbaric scream of the cheap tripper's 'young lady' echoed
chiefly through modernised and vulgarised Riversford, where there
were tea-rooms and stuffy eating-houses and bad open-air concerts,
such as trippers and their 'ladies' delight in,--and seldom
disturbed the tranquil charm of the tiny mediaeval village dear to a
certain few scholars, poets and antiquarians who, through John
Walden, had gradually become acquainted with this 'priceless bit' as
they termed it, of real 'old' England and who almost feared to
mention its existence even in a whisper, lest it should be 'swarmed
over' by enquiring Yankees, searching for those everlasting
ancestors who all managed so cleverly to cross the sea together in
one boat, the Mayflower.

There is something truly pathetic as well as droll in the anxiety of
every true American to prove himself or herself an offshoot from
some old British root of honour or nobility. It would be cruel to
laugh at this instinct, for after all it is only the passionate
longing of the Prodigal Son who, having eaten of the husks that the
swine did eat, experienced such an indigestion at last, that he said
'I will arise and go to my father.' And it is quite possible that an
aspiring Trans-Atlantic millionaire yearning for descent more than
dollars, would have managed to find tracks of a Mayflower pedigree
in St. Rest, a place of such antiquity as to be able to boast a
chivalric 'roll of honour' once kept in the private museum at
Badsworth Hall before the Badsworth family became extinct, but now,
thanks to Walden, rescued from the modern clutch of the Hall's
present proprietor, Sir Morton Pippitt, and carefully preserved in
an iron box locked up in the church, along with other documents of
value belonging to the neighbourhood. On this were inscribed the
names of such English gentlemen once resident in the district, who
had held certain possessions in France at the accession of Henry II.
in 1154. Besides the 'roll of honour' there were other valuable
records having to do with the Anglo-French campaigns in the time of
King John, and much concerning those persons of St. Rest and
Riversford who took part in the Wars of the Barons.

Whatever there was of curious or interesting matter respecting the
village and its surroundings had been patiently ferreted out by John
Walden, who had purchased the living partly because he knew it to be
a veritable mine for antiquarian research, and one likely to afford
him inexhaustible occupation and delight. But there were, of course,
other reasons for his settling down in so remote a spot far from the
busy haunts of men,--reasons which, to his own mind, were perfectly
natural and simple, though on account of his innate habit of
reticence, and disinclination to explain his motives to others, they
were by some supposed to be mysterious. In his youth he had been one
of the most brilliant and promising of University scholars, and all
those who had assisted to fit him for his career in the Church, had
expected great things of him. Some said he would be a Bishop before
he was thirty; others considered that he would probably content
himself with being the most intellectual and incisive preacher of
his time. But he turned out to be neither one nor the other. A
certain Henry Arthur Brent, his fellow student at College and five
years his senior, had, with apparent ease, outstripped him in the
race for honour, though lacking in all such exceptional slowly off
towards the vegetable garden where his 'under gardeners' as he
called three or four sturdy village lads employed to dig and hoe,
constantly required his supervision.

Meanwhile Walden, leaving his own grounds, entered the churchyard,
walking with softly reverent step among the little green mounds of
earth, under which kind eyes were closed, and warm hearts lay cold,
till, reaching the porched entrance of the church itself, he paused,
brought to a halt by the sound of voices which were pitched rather
too loud for propriety, considering the sacredness of the
surroundings.

"That eastern window is crude--very crude!" said a growlingly robust
baritone; "I suppose the reverend gentleman could not secure
sufficient subscriptions to meet the expense of suitable stained
glass?"

"Unfortunately Mr. Walden is a very self-opinionated man," replied a
smooth and oily tenor, whose particular tone of speech Walden
recognised as that of the Reverend 'Putty' Leveson, the minister of
Badsworth, a small scattered village some five or six miles 'on the
wrong side of Badsworth Hall,' as the locality was called, owing to
its removed position from the county town of Riversford. "He would
not accept outside advice. Of course these columns and capitals are
all wrong,--they are quite incongruous with early Norman walls,--but
when ignorance is allowed to have its own way, the effect is always
disastrous."

"Always--always,--my dear sir--always!" And the voice or Sir Morton
Pippitt, high pitched and resonant, trolled out on the peaceful air;
"The fact is, the church could have been much better done, had I
been consulted! The whole thing was carried out in the most brazen
manner, under my very nose, sir, under my very nose!--without so
much as a 'by your leave'! Shocking, shocking! I complained to the
Bishop, but it was no use, for it seems that he has a perfect
infatuation for this man Walden--they were college friends or
something of that kind. As for the sarcophagus here, of course it
ought in the merest common decency to have been transferred to the
Cathedral of the diocese. But you see the present incumbent bought
the place;--the purchase of advowsons is a scandal, in my opinion--
however this man got it all his own way, more's the pity!--he bought
it through some friend or other--and so--"

"So he could do as he liked with it!" said a mild, piping falsetto;
"And so far, he has made it beau-ti-ful!--beau-ti-ful!" carved with
traceries of natural fruit and foliage, which were scarcely injured
by the devastating mark of time. But rough and sacrilegious hands
had been at work to spoil and deface the classic remains of the
time-worn edifice, and some of the lancet windows had been actually
hewn out and widened to admit of the insertion of modern timber
props which awkwardly supported a hideous galvanised iron roof, on
the top of which was erected a kind of tin hen-coop in which a sharp
bell clanged with irritating rapidity for Sunday service. Outside,
the building was thus rendered grotesquely incongruous,--inside it
was almost blasphemous in its rank ugliness. There were several rows
of narrow pews made of common painted deal,--there was a brown stone
font and a light pine-wood pulpit--a small harmonium stood in one
corner, festooned by a faded red woollen curtain, and a general air
of the cheap upholsterer and jerry-builder hovered over the whole
concern. And the new incumbent, gazing aghast at the scene, was
triumphantly informed that "Sir Morton Pippitt had been generous
enough to roof and 'restore' the church in this artistic manner out
of his own pocket, for the comfort of the villagers," and moreover
that he actually condescended to attend Divine service under the
galvanised iron roof which he had so liberally erected. Nay, it had
been even known that Sir Morton had on one or two occasions himself
read the Lessons in the absence of the late rector, who was subject
to sore throats and was constantly compelled to call in outside
assistance.

To all this information John Walden said nothing. He was not
concerned with Sir Morton Pippitt or any other county magnate in the
management of his own affairs. A fortnight after his arrival he
quietly announced to his congregation that the church was about to
be entirely restored according to its original lines of
architecture, and that a temporary building would be erected on his,
Walden's, own land for the accommodation of the people during such
time as the restoration should be in progress. This announcement
brought about Walden's first acquaintance with his richest
neighbour, Sir Morton Pippitt. That gentleman having been accustomed
to have his own way in everything concerning St. Rest, for a
considerable time, straightway wrote, expressing his 'surprise and
indignation' at the mere assumption that any restoration was
required for the church beyond what he, Sir Morton, had effected at
his own expense. The number of parishioners was exceedingly small,--
too small to warrant any further expenditure for enlarging a place
of worship which mental ability as he possessed, and was now Bishop
of the very diocese in which he had his little living. University
men said he had 'stood aside' in order to allow Brent to press more
swiftly forward, but though this was a perfectly natural supposition
on the part of those who knew something of Walden's character, it
was not correct. Walden at that time had only one object in life,--
and this was to secure such name and fame, together with such
worldly success as might delight and satisfy the only relative he
had in the world, his sister, a beautiful and intelligent woman,
full of an almost maternal tenderness for him, and a sweet
resignation to her own sad lot, which made her the victim of a slow
and incurable disease. So long as she lived, her brother threw
himself into his work with intensity and ardour; but when she died
that impulse withered, as it were, at its very root. The world
became empty for him, and he felt that from henceforth he would be
utterly companionless. For what he had seen of modern women, modern
marriage and modern ways of life, did not tempt him to rashly seek
refuge for his heart's solitude in matrimony. Almost immediately
following the loss of his sister, an uncle of whom he had known very
little, died suddenly, leaving him a considerably large fortune. As
soon as he came into possession of this unexpected wealth, he
disappeared at once from the scene of his former labours,--the
pretty old house in the University town, with its great cedars
sloping to the river and its hallowed memories of the sister he had
so dearly loved, was sold by private treaty,--his voice was heard no
more in London pulpits, where it had begun to carry weight and
influence,--and he managed to obtain the then vacant and obscure
living of St. Rest, the purchase of the advowson being effected, so
it was said, privately through the good offices of his quondam
college friend, Bishop Brent. And at St. Rest he had remained,
apparently well contented with the very simple and monotonous round
of duty it offered.

When he had first arrived there, he found that the church consisted
of some thick stone walls of the early Norman, period, built on a
cruciform plan, the stones being all uniformly wrought and close-
jointed,--together with a beautiful ruined chancel divided from the
main body of the building by massive columns, which supported on
their capitals the fragments of lofty arches indicative of an
architectural transition from the Norman to the Early Pointed
English style. There were also the hollow slits of several lancet
windows, and one almost perfect pierced circular window to the east,
elaborately And here he whirled round on his only daughter, an
angular and severely-visaged spinster; "Look at this fool!--this
staring ape! All the sauce on the carpet! Wish he had to pay for it!
He'll take an hour to get a cloth and wipe it up! Why did you engage
such a damned ass, eh?"

Miss Tabitha preserved a prudent silence, seeing that the butler, a
serious-looking personage with a resigned-to-ill-usage demeanour,
was already engaged in assisting the hapless footman to remove the
remains of the spilt condiment, from the offended gaze of his irate
master.

"Like his damned impudence!" broke out Sir Morton again, resuming
with some reluctance his seat at the breakfast table, and chopping
at the fried bacon on his plate till the harder bits flew far and
wide,--"'Happy to reimburse me!'--the snivelling puppy! Why the
devil he was allowed to sneak into this living, I don't know! The
private purchase of advowsons is a scandal--a disgraceful scandal!
Any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a friend to buy him a benefice in
which to make himself a nuisance! Done under the rose,--and called a
'presentation'! All humbug and hypocrisy! That's why we get impudent
dogs like this beast Walden settling down in a neighbourhood whether
we like it or not!"

Miss Tabitha munched some toast slowly with a delicate regard for
her front teeth, which had cost money. There was no one in the room
to suggest to Sir Morton that it is a pity some law is not in
progress to prevent the purchase of historic houses by vulgar and
illiterate persons of no family;--which would be far more a benefit
to the land at large than the suppression of privately purchased
benefices. For the chances are ten to one that the ordained
minister, who, by his own choice secures a Church living for
himself, is likely at least to be a well-educated gentleman,
interested in the work he has himself elected to do,--whereas the
illiterate individual who buys an historic house simply for self-
glorification, will probably be no more than a mere petty and
pompous tyrant over the district which that particular house
dominates.

Badsworth Hall, a fine sixteenth-century pile, had, through the
reckless racing and gambling propensities of the last heir, fallen
into the hands of the Jews. On the fortunate demise of the young
gentleman who had brought it to this untimely end, it was put up for
sale with all its contents. And Sir Morton Pippitt,--a rich
colonial, whose forebears were entirely undistinguished, but who had
made a large fortune by a bone-melting business, which converted the
hoofs, horns and (considering that some years ago it had been a mere
roofless ruin, and that the people had been compelled to walk or
drive to Riversford in order to attend church at all on Sundays) Sir
Morton thought was now very comfortable and satisfactory. In fact,
Sir Morton concluded, "Mr. Walden would be very ill-advised if he
made any attempt to raise money for such a useless purpose as the
'entire restoration' of the church of St. Rest, and Mr. Walden might
as well be at once made aware that Sir Morton himself would not give
a penny towards it." To which somewhat rambling and heated epistle
John Walden replied with civil stiffness as follows:

"The Rev. John Walden presents his compliments to Sir Morton
Pippitt, and in answer to his letter begs to say that he has no
intention of raising any subscription to defray the cost of
restoring the church, which in its present condition is totally
unfit for Divine service. Having secured the living, Mr. Walden will
make the restoration the object of his own personal care, and will
also be pleased to reimburse Sir Morton Pippitt for any outlay to
which he may have been put in erecting the galvanised roof and other
accessories for the immediate convenience of the parishioners who
have, he understands, already expressed their sense of obligation to
Sir Morton for kindly providing them with such temporary shelter
from the changes of the weather as seemed to be humanely necessary."

This calm epistle when received at Badsworth Hall, had the effect of
a sudden stiff breeze on the surface of hitherto quiet waters. Sir
Morton Pippitt in a brand-new tweed suit surmounted by a very high,
clean, stiff shirt-collar, was sitting at breakfast in what was
formerly known as the 'great Refectory,' a memory of the days when
Badsworth had been a large and important monastery, but which was
now turned into a modern-antique dining-room,--and as he read, with
the aid of his gold-rimmed spectacles, the curt, chill, severely
polite letter of the 'new parson' he flew into a sudden violent
passion.

"Damn the fellow!" he spluttered, jumping up in haste and striking
out an arm towards the very direction in which a mild young footman
was just approaching him with a bottle of Worcester sauce on a
tray,--"Damn him!"

The footman staggered back in terror, and the Worcester sauce reeled
over drunkenly on to the carpet.

"There you go, you clumsy, gaping idiot!" roared Sir Morton, growing
purple with increasing fury. "Tabitha!" called 'The Riversford
Gazette.' If Sir Morton had a pig killed, the fact was duly notified
to an admiring populace in the 'Riversford Gazette.' If he took a
prize in cabbages at the local vegetable and flower show, the
'Riversford Gazette' had a column about it. If he gave a tennis-
party, there were two columns, describing all the dresses of the
ladies, the prowess of the 'champions' and the 'striking and jovial
personality' of Sir Morton Pippitt. And if the fact of that
'striking and jovial personality' were not properly insisted upon,
Sir Morton went himself to see the editor of the 'Riversford
Gazette,' an illiterate tuft-hunting little man,--and nearly
frightened him into fits. He had asserted himself in this kind of
autocratic fashion ever since he had purchased  Badsworth, when he
was still in his forties,--and it may be well imagined that at the
age of sixty he was not prepared to be thwarted, even in a matter
wherein he had no real concern. The former rector of St. Rest, an
ailing, nervous and exceedingly poor creature, with a large family
to keep, had been only too glad and ready to do anything Sir Morton
Pippitt wished, for the sake of being invited to dine at the Hall
once a week,--it was therefore a very unexpected and disagreeable
experience for the imperious Bone-melter to learn that the new
incumbent was not at all disposed to follow in the steps of his
predecessor, but, on the contrary, was apparently going to insist on
having his own way with as much emphasis as Sir Morton Pippitt
himself.

"I shall soon bring that fellow to his senses," declared Sir Morton,
on the eventful morning which first saw the gage of battle thrown
down; "I shall teach him that, parson or no parson, he will have to
respect my authority! God bless my seoul! Does he think I'm going to
be dictated to at my time of life?"

He addressed these observations to his daughter, Miss Tabitha
Pippitt, but whether she heard them or not was scarcely apparent. At
any rate, she did not answer. Having finished her breakfast, she
pulled out some knitting from an embroidered bag hanging at her side
and set her needles clicketing, while her father, redder in the face
and more implacable of mood than ever, went out to see what he could
do to save his galvanised iron roof from the hand of the spoiler.

But, as he might have known, if his irascibility had allowed him to
weigh the pros and cons of the situation, his 'authority' was of no
avail. An angry letter to the Bishop of the diocese only drew forth
a curt reply from the Bishop's secrebones of defunct animals into a
convenient mixture wherewith to make buttons and other useful
articles of hardware, bought it, as the saying goes, 'for a mere
song.' Through his easy purchase he became possessed of the
Badsworth ancestry, as shown in their pictures hanging on the
dining-room walls and in the long oak-panelled picture gallery. Lady
Madeline Badsworth, famous for her beauty in some remote and
chivalrous past, gazed down at Sir Morton while he sat at meals,
suggesting to the imaginative beholder a world of scorn in her
lovely painted eyes,--and a heroic young Badsworth who had perished
at the battle of Marston Moor, stood proudly out of one of the dark
canvases, his gauntleted hand on the hilt of his sword and a smile
of pained wrath on his lips, as one who should say, beholding the
new possessor of his ancient home 'To such base uses must we come at
last!'

Surrounded by gold-framed Badsworths, young and old, Sir Morton ate
his fried bacon and 'swilled' his tea, with a considerable noise in
swallowing, getting gradually redder in the face as he proceeded
with his meal. He was by no means a bad-looking old gentleman,--his
sixty years sat lightly upon his broad shoulders, and he was tall
and well set up, though somewhat too stout in what may be politely
called the 'lower chest' direction. His face was plump, florid and
clean-shaven, and what hair he still possessed was of a pleasantly-
bright silver hue. The first impression he created was always one of
kindness and benevolence,--the hearts of women especially invariably
went out to him, and murmurs of 'What a dear old man!' and 'What a
darling old man!' frequently escaped lips feminine in softest
accents. He was very courtly to women,--when he was not rude; and
very kind to the poor,--when he was not mean. His moods were
fluctuating; his rages violent; his temper obstinate. When he did
not succeed in getting his own way, his petulant sulks resembled
those of a spoilt child put in a corner, only they lasted longer.
There was one shop in Riversford which he had not entered for ten
years, because its owner had ventured, with trembling respect, to
contradict him on a small matter. Occasionally he could be quite the
'dear darling old man' his lady admirers judged him to be,--but
after all, his servants knew him best. To them, 'Sir Morton was a
caution.' And that is precisely what he was; the definition entirely
summed up his character. He had one great passion,--the desire to
make himself 'the' most important person in the county, and to be
written about in the local paper, a hazy and often ungrammatical
organ For the chancel appeared to demand special reverence, from the
nature of a wonderful discovery made in it during the work of
restoration,--a discovery which greatly helped to sustain and
confirm the name of both church and village as 'St. Rest,' and to
entirely disprove the frequently-offered suggestion that it could
ever have been meant for 'St. East.' And this is how the discovery
happened.

One never-to-be-forgotten morning when the workmen were hewing away
at the floor of the chancel, one of their pickaxes came suddenly in
contact with a hard substance which gave back a metallic echo when
the blow of the implement came down upon it. Working with caution,
and gradually clearing away a large quantity of loose stones, broken
pieces of mosaic and earth, a curious iron handle was discovered
attached to a large screw which was apparently embedded deep in the
ground. Walden was at once informed of this strange 'find' and
hastened to the spot to examine the mysterious object. He was not
very long in determining its nature.

"This is some very ancient method of leverage," he said, turning
round to the workmen with an excitement he could barely conceal;
"There is something precious underneath in the ground,--something
which can probably be raised by means of this handle and screw. Dig
round it about a yard away from the centre,--loosen the earth
gently--be very careful!"

They obeyed; and all that day Walden stood watching them at work,
his mind divided between hope and fear, and his spirit moved by the
passionate exultation of the antiquary whose studies and researches
are about to be rewarded with unexpected treasure. Towards sunset
the men came upon a large oblong piece of what appeared to be
alabaster, closely inlaid with patterns of worn gold and bearing on
its surface the sculptured emblems of a cross, a drawn sword and a
crown of laurel leaves intertwisted with thorns, the whole most
elaborately wrought, and very little injured. As this slowly came to
light, Walden summoned all hands to assist him in turning the great
iron screw which now stood out upright, some three or four feet from
the aperture they had been digging. Wondering at his 'fancy' as they
termed it, they however had full reliance on his proved knowledge of
what he was about, and under his guidance they all applied
themselves to the quaint and cumbrous iron handle which had been the
first thing discovered, and with considerable difficulty began to
day to the effect that as the Reverend John Walden was now the
possessor of the living of St. Rest and had furthermore obtained a
'faculty' for the proper restoration of the church, which was to be
carried out at the said John Walden's own risk and personal
expenditure, the matter was not open to any outside discussion.
Whereat, Sir Morton's fury became so excessive that he actually shut
up Badsworth Hall and went away for a whole year, greatly to the
relief of the editor of the 'Riversford Gazette,' who was able to
dismiss him with a comfortable paragraph, thus:

"Sir Morton Pippitt has left Badsworth Hall for a tour round the
world. Miss Pippitt accompanies her distinguished father."

Then followed a spell of peace;--and the restoration of the church
at St. Rest was quietly proceeded with. Lovingly, and with tenderest
care for every stone, every broken fragment, John Walden pieced
together the ruined shrine of ancient days, and managed at last to
trace and recover the whole of the original plan. It had never been
a large building, its proportions being about the same as those of
Roslin Chapel, near Edinburgh. The task of restoration was costly,
especially when carried out with such perfection and regard to
detail,--but Walden grudged nothing to make it complete, and
superintended the whole thing himself, rejecting all the semi-
educated suggestions of the modern architect, and faithfully
following out the ideas of the particular period in which the church
was originally designed by those to whom the building of a 'God's
House' was a work of solemn prayer and praise. The ancient stones
were preserved, and wherever modern masonry was used, it was
cunningly worked in to look as time-worn as the Norman walls, while
the lancet windows were filled with genuine old stained glass
purchased by degrees from different parts of England, each fragment
being properly authenticated. A groined roof, simple yet noble in
outline, covered in the building; ornamented with delicately rounded
mouldings alternated with hollows so planned as to give the most
forcible effects of light and shade according to the style of
English Early Pointed work, and the only thing that was left
incomplete was the pierced circular window above the chancel, which
Walden sought to fill with stained glass of such indubitable
antiquity and beauty of design that he was only able to secure it
bit by bit at long intervals. While engaged in collecting this, he
judged it best to fill the window with ordinary clear glass rather
than put in inferior stuff. age system exactly in the middle of the
chancel, fronting the altar, we will let it remain there and occupy
its own original place. The chancel could not have a grander
ornament!

And so, in the middle of the chancel, between the altar and the
steps which separated that part of the church from the main body of
the building, the mysterious undated relic lay under the warm light
of the eastern window, and people who were interested in antiquities
came from far and near to see it, though they could make no more of
it than Walden himself had done. The cross and sword might possibly
indicate martyrdom; the laurels and thorn fame. Certainly there were
no signs that the dumb occupant of that sealed coffer was a monarch
of merely earthly power and state. When the alabaster came to be
thoroughly cleansed and polished, part of the inscription could be
deciphered in the following letters of worn gold:

Sancta. vixit. Sancta obit.. In. coelum.. sanctorum.,
transmigravit... In Resurrectione Sanctorum resurget M.. Beatse.
ma.. R.

But to what perished identity these significant words applied
remained an impenetrable mystery. Every old record was carefully
searched,--every scrap of ancient history wherein the neighbourhood
of St. Rest had ever been concerned was turned over and over by the
patient and indefatigable John Walden, who followed up many
suggestive tracks eagerly and lost them again when apparently just
on the point of finding some sure clue,--till at last he gave up the
problem in despair and contented himself and his parishioners by
accepting the evident fact that in the old church at one time or
another some saint or holy abbot had been buried,--hence the name of
St. Rest or 'The Saint's Rest,' which had become attached to the
village. But at what exact period such saint or abbot had lived and
died, was undiscoverable.

When the restoration of the sacred shrine was completed, and an
expectant congregation filled it to overflowing to assist at the
solemn service of its re-dedication to the worship of God, not one
among them all but was deeply impressed by the appearance of the
restored chancel, with its beautiful columns and delicate capitals,
arching like a bower of protection over the altar, and over that
wonderful white sarcophagus lying turn it round and round. As they
proceeded laboriously in this task, while the screw creaked and
groaned under the process with a noise as of splitting timber, all
at once the oblong slab of alabaster moved, and rose upward about an
inch.

"To it, boys!" cried Walden, his eyes sparkling; "To it again, and
harder! We shall have it with us in an hour!"

And truly, in somewhat less than an hour the strange old-world lever
had lifted what it must often have lifted in a similar way in bygone
years,--a magnificent and perfectly preserved sarcophagus, measuring
some six or seven feet long by three feet wide, covered with
exquisite carving at the sides, representing roses among thorns, the
flowers having evidently at one time been centred with gems and
which even now bore traces of gold. Round the lid there was some dim
lettering which was scarcely discernible,--the lid itself was firmly
closed and strongly cemented.

Exclamations of wonder, admiration, and excitement broke from all
who had been engaged in the work of excavation, and presently the
whole village ran out to see the wonderful relic of a forgotten
past, all chattering, all speculating, all staring, Walden alone
stood silent; his head bared,--his hands clasped. He knew that only
some great saint or holy recluse could have ever been so royally
enshrined in ancient days, and the elaborate system of leverage used
seemed to prove that the body laid within that wrought alabaster and
gold must have been considered to be of that peculiar nature termed
'miraculous,' and worthy to be lifted from its resting-place into
the chancel on certain particular occasions for the homage and
reverence of the people. The sun poured down upon the beautiful
object lying there,--on the groups of workmen who, instinctively
imitating Walden's example, had bared their heads,--on the wrinkled
worn faces of old village men and women,--on the bright waving locks
of young girls, and the clear enquiring eyes of children, all gazing
at the strange treasure-trove their ruined church had given up to
the light of a modern day. Presently the chief workman, asked Walden
in a hushed voice:

"Shall we break it open, sir?"

"No,--never!" replied Walden gently but firmly; "That would be
sacrilege. We may not lightly disturb the dead! The ashes enshrined
in this wonderful casket must be those of one who was dear to the
old-time church. They shall rest in peace. And as this sarcophagus
is evidently fixed by its leversouls, and awakening them to hopeful
considerations of a happier end than the mere grave."

Ten years, however, had now passed since John Walden had bought the
living, and of these ten years three had been occupied in the
restoration of the church, so that seven had elapsed since it had
been consecrated. And during those seven years not once had Bishop
Brent been seen again in St. Rest. He remained in the thoughts of
the people as an indefinable association with whom they would fain
have had more to do. Sir Morton Pippitt had passed from the sixties
into the seventies, very little altered;--still upright, still
inflexible and obstinate of temperament, he ruled the neighbourhood,
Riversford especially, as much as was possible to him now that much
of the management of St. Rest had passed under the quieter, but no
less firm authority of John Walden, whose will was nearly always
found in intellectually balanced opposition to his. The two seldom
met. Sir Morton was fond of 'county' society; Walden loathed it.
Moreover, Miss Tabitha, wearing steadily on towards fifty, had, as
the saying is, secretly 'set her cap' at the Reverend John; and the
mere sight of the sedately-amorous spinster set his nerves on edge.
Devoting himself strictly to his duties, to the care of the church,
to the interests of his parishioners, young and old, to the
cultivation of his garden, and to the careful preservation of all
the natural beauties of the landscape around him,--John lived very
much the life of a 'holy man' of mediaeval days; while Sir Horton
built and 'patronised' a hospital at Riversford, gave several prizes
for cabbages and shooting competitions, occasionally patted the
heads of a few straggling school-children, fussed round among his
scattered tenantry, and wrote paragraphs about his own 'fine
presence and open-hearted hospitality' for publication in the
'Riversford Gazette' whenever he entertained a house party at
Badsworth Hall, which he very frequently did. He kept well in touch
with London folk, and to London folk he was fond of speaking of St.
Rest as 'my' little village. But when London folk came to enquire
for themselves as to the nature of his possession, they invariably
discovered that it was not Sir Morton's little village at all but
the Reverend John's little village. Hence arose certain
discrepancies and cross-currents of feeling, leading to occasional
mild friction and 'local' excitement. Up to the present time,
however, Walden had on the whole lived a tranquil life, such as best
suited his tranquil and philosophic temperament, and his occasional
'brushes' with. snow-like in the rays of the sun, which flashed
clear on its stray bits of gold and broken incrustation of gems,
sending a straight beam through the eastern window on the one word
'Resurget' like a torch of hope from beyond the grave.

Bishop Brent, Walden's old college friend, came to perform the
ceremony of consecration, and this was the first time the
inhabitants of St. Rest had seen a real Bishop for many years. Much
excitement did his presence create in that quiet woodland dell, the
more especially as he proved to be a Bishop somewhat out of the
common. Tall and attenuated in form, he had a face which might
almost be called magnetic, so alive was its expression,--so intense
and passionate was the light of the deep dark melancholy eyes that
burned from under their shelving brows like lamps set in a high
watch-tower of intellect. When he preached, his voice, with its deep
mellow cadence, thrilled very strangely to the heart,--and every
gesture, every turn of his head, expressed the activity of the keen
soul pent up within his apparently frail body. The sermon he gave on
the occasion of the re-dedication of the Church of St. Rest was
powerful and emotional, but scarcely orthodox--and therefore was not
altogether pleasing to Sir Morton Pippitt. He chose as his text:
"Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not sleep, but we shall all
be changed;" and on this he expatiated, setting forth the joys of
the spiritual life as opposed to the physical,--insisting on the
positive certainty of individual existence after death, and weaving
into his discourse some remarks on the encoffined saint whose
sarcophagus had been unearthed from its long-hidden burial-place and
set again where it had originally stood, in the middle of the
chancel. He spoke in hushed and solemn tones of the possibility of
the holy spirit of that unknown one being present among them that
day, helping them in their work, joining in their prayers of
consecration and perhaps bestowing upon them additional blessing. At
which statement, given with poetic earnestness and fervour, Sir
Morton stared, breathed hard and murmured in his daughter's ear "A
Roman! The man is a Roman!"

But notwithstanding Sir Morton Pippitt's distaste for the manner in
which the Bishop dealt with his subject, and his numerous allusions
to saints in heaven and their probable guardianship of their friends
on earth, the sermon was a deeply impressive one and lingered long
in the memories of those who had heard it, softening their hearts,
inspiring their for the news of her coming. It is the one cloud in
an otherwise clear sky!

The young moon swinging lazily downward to the west, looked upon him
as though she smiled. A little bat scurried past in fear and hurled
itself into the dewy masses of foliage bordering the edge of the
lawn. And from the reeds and sedges fringing the river beyond, there
came floating a long whispering murmur that swept past his ears and
died softly into space, as of a voice that had something strange and
new to say, which might not yet be said. Sir Morton only served to
give piquancy and savour to the quiet round of his daily habits.
Now, all unexpectedly, there was to be a break,--a new source of
unavoidable annoyance in the intrusion of a feminine authority,--a
modern Squire-ess, who no doubt would probably bring modern ways
with her into the little old-world place,--who would hunt and shoot
and smoke,--perhaps even swear at her grooms,--who could tell? She
would not, she could not interfere with, the church, or its
minister, were she ever so much Miss Vancourt of Abbot's Manor,--but
she could if she liked 'muddle about' with many other matters, and
there could be no doubt that as the visible and resident mistress of
the most historic house in the neighbourhood, she would be what is
called 'a social influence.'

"And not for good!" mused John Walden, during a meditative stroll in
his garden on the even of the May-day on. which he had heard the
disturbing news; "Certainly not for good!"

He raised his eyes to the sky where the curved bow of a new moon
hung clear and bright as a polished sickle. All was intensely still.
The day had been a very busy one for him;--the children's dinner and
their May-games had kept his hands full, and not till sunset, when
the chimes of the church began to ring for evening service, had he
been able to snatch a moment to himself for quiet contemplation. The
dewy freshness of the garden, perfumed by the opening blossoms of
the syringa, imparted its own sense of calm and grave repose to his
mind,--and as he paced slowly up and down the gravel walk in front
of his study window watching the placid beauty of the deepening
night, a slight sigh escaped him.

"It cannot be for good!" he repeated, regretfully; "A woman trained
as she must have been trained since girlhood, with all her finer
perceptions blunted by perpetual contact with the assertive and
ostentatious evidences of an excess of wealth,--probably surrounded
too by the pitiful vulgarisms of a half-bred American society, too
ignorant to admit or recognise its own limitations,--she must have
almost forgotten the stately traditions of the fine old family she
springs from. One must not expect the motto of 'noblesse oblige' to
weigh with modern young women--more's the pity! I'm afraid the
mistress of Abbot's Manor will be a disturbing element in the
village, breeding discontent and trouble where there has been till
now comparative peace, and a fortunate simplicity of life. I'm
sorry! This would have been a perfect First of May but Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
And he broke into a laugh so joyous and mellow that Bainton found it
quite irresistible and joined in it with a deep "Hor-hor-hor!"
evoked from the hollow of his throat, and beginning loudly, but
dying away into a hoarse intermittent chuckle.

"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the Reverend John again, throwing back his head
with a real enjoyment in his capability for laughter; "You did quite
right to disturb me, Bainton,--quite right! Where are Sir Morton and
his party? What are they doing?"

"They was jes' crossin' the churchyard when I spied 'em," answered
Bainton; "An' Sir Morton was makin' some very speshul observations
of his own on the 'herly Norman period.' Hor-hor-hor! An' they've
got ole Putty Leveson with 'em--"

"Bainton!" interrupted Walden severely; "How often must I tell you
that you should not speak of the rector of Badsworth in that
disrespectful manner?"

"Very sorry, sir!" said Bainton complacently; "But if one of the
names of a man 'appens to be Putwood an' the man 'imself is as fat
as a pig scored for roastin' 'ole, what more natrul than the pet
name of 'Putty' for 'im? No 'arm meant, I'm sure, Passon!--Putty's
as good as Pippitt any day!"

Walden suppressed his laughter with an effort. He was very much of a
boy at heart, despite his forty odd years, and the quaint
obstinacies of his gardener amused him too much to call for any
serious remonstrance. Turning back to his study he took his hat and
cane from their own particular corner of the room and started for
the little clap gate which Bainton had been, as he said, 'keeping
his eye on.'

"No more work to-day," he said, with an air of whimsical
resignation; "But I may possibly get one or two hints for my
sermon!"

He strode off, and Bainton watched him go. As the clap gate opened
and swung to again, and his straight athletic figure disappeared,
the old gardener still stood for a moment or two ruminating.

"What a blessin' he ain't married!" he said thoughtfully; "A
blessin' to the village, an' a blessin' to 'imself! He'd a bin a
fine man spoilt, if a woman 'ad ever got 'old on 'im,--a fine man
spoilt, jes' like me!"

An appreciative grin at his own expense spread among the furrows of
his face at this consideration;--then he trotted




IV


Two days later on, when Walden was at work in his own room seriously
considering the points of his sermon for the coming Sunday, his
'head man about the place,' Bainton, made a sudden appearance on the
lawn and abruptly halted there, looking intently up at the sky, as
though taking observations of a comet at noon. This was a customary
trick of his resorted to whenever he wished to intrude his presence
during forbidden hours. John saw him plainly enough from where he
sat busily writing, though for a few minutes he pretended not to
see. But as Bainton remained immovable and apparently rooted to the
ground, and as it was likely that there he would remain till
positively told to go, his master made a virtue of necessity, and
throwing down his pen, went to the window. Bainton thereupon
advanced a little, but stopped again as though irresolute. Walden
likewise paused a moment, then at last driven to bay by the old
gardener's pertinacity, stepped out.

"Now what is it, Bainton?" he said, endeavouring to throw a shade of
sternness into his voice; "You know very well I hate being disturbed
while I'm writing."

Bainton touched his cap respectfully.

"Now don't go for to say as I'm disturbing on ye, Passon," he
remonstrated, mildly; "I ain't said a mortal wurrd! I was onny jes'
keepin' my eye on the clap gate yonder, in case the party in the
churchyard might walk through, thinkin' it a right-o'-way. Them
swagger folk ain't got no sort of idee as to respectin' private
grounds."

Walden's eyes flashed.

"A party in the churchyard?" he repeated. "Who are they?"

"Who should they be?" And Bainton's rugged features expressed a
sedate mingling of the shrewd and the contemptnous that was quite
amazing. "Worn't you expectin' distinguished visitors some day this
week, sir?"

"I know!" exclaimed Walden quickly; "Sir Morton Pippitt and his
guests have come to 'inspect' the church!"

There was a pause, during which Walden, baring his head as he passed
in, entered the sacred edifice. He became aware of Sir Morton
Pippitt standing in the attitude of a University Extension lecturer
near the sarcophagus in the middle of the chancel, with the Reverend
Mr. Leveson and a couple of other men near him, while two more
strangers were studying the groined roof with critical curiosity. As
he approached, Sir Morton made a rapid sign to his companions and
stepped down from the chancel.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Walden," he said in a loud whisper, and with
an elaborate affectation of great heartiness; "I have brought His
Grace the Duke of Lumpton to see the church."

Walden allowed his calm blue eyes to rest quietly on His Grace the
Duke of Lumpton without much interest. His Grace was an undersized
fat man, with a bald head and a red face, and on Walden's being
presented to him, merely nodded with a patronisingly casual air.

"Lord Mawdenham,"--continued Sir Morton, swelling visibly with just
pride at his own good fortune in being able to introduce a Lord
immediately after a Duke, and offering Walden, as it were, with an
expressive wave of his hand, to a pale young gentleman, who seemed
seriously troubled by an excess of pimples on his chin, and who
plucked nervously at one of these undesirable facial addenda as his
name was uttered. Walden acknowledged his presence with silent
composure, as he did the wide smile and familiar nod of his brother
minister, the Reverend 'Putty,' whose truly elephantine proportions
were encased in a somewhat too closely fitting bicycle suit, and
whose grand-pianoforte shaped legs and red perspiring face together,
presented a most unclerical spectacle of the 'Church at large.'

The two gentlemen who had been studying the groined roof, now
brought their glances to bear on Walden, and one of them, a youngish
man with a crop of thick red hair and a curiously thin, hungry face,
spoke without waiting for Sir Morton's cue.

"Mr. Walden? Ye-es!--I felt sure it must be Mr. Walden! Let me
congratulate you, sir, on your exquisite devotional work here! The
church is beau-ti-ful--beau-ti-ful! A sonnet in stone! A sculptured
prayer! Ye-es! It is so! Permit me to press your hand!"

John smiled involuntarily. There was a quaint affectation about the
speaker that was quite irresistibly entertaining.

"Mr. Julian Adderley is a poet," said Sir Morton, whispering this in
a jocose stage aside; "Everything is 'beautiful' to him!"

Mr. Julian Adderley smiled faintly, and fixed a pair of rather fine
grey eyes on Walden with a mute appeal, as one who should say with
Hamlet 'These tedious old fools!' Meanwhile Sir Morton Pippitt had
secured the last member of his party affectionately by the arm, and
continuing his stage whisper said:

"Permit me, Mr. Walden! This is one of our greatest London literary
lights! He will particularly appreciate anything you may he good
enough to tell him respecting your work of restoration here--Mr.
Marius Longford, of the Savile and Savage clubs!"

Mr. Marius Longford, of the Savile and Savage clubs, bent his head
with an air of dignified tolerance. He was an angular personage,
with a narrow head, and a face cleanly shaven, except at the sides
where two small pussy-cat whiskers fringed his sharply defined jaws.
He had a long thin mouth, and long thin slits for his eyes to peep
through,--they would have been eyelids with other people, but with
him they were merely slits. He was a particularly neat man in
appearance--his clothes were well brushed, his linen spotless, his
iron-grey hair sleek, and his whole appearance that of a man well
satisfied with his own exterior personality. Walden glanced at this
great London literary light as indifferently as he would have
glanced at an incandescent lamp in the street, or other mechanical
luminary. He had not as yet spoken a word. Sir Morton had done all
the talking; but the power of silence always overcomes in the end,
and John's absolute  non-committal of himself to any speech, had at
last the effect he desired--namely that of making Sir Morton appear
a mere garrulous old interloper, and his 'distinguished' friends
somewhat of the cheap tripper persuasion. The warm May sun poured
through the little shrine of prayer, casting flickers of gold and
silver on the 'Saint at Rest' before the altar, and showering azure
and rose patterns through the ancient stained glass which filled the
side lancet windows. The stillness became for the moment intense and
almost oppressive,--Sir Morton Pippitt fidgeted uneasily, pulled at
his high starched collar and became red in the face,--the Reverend
'Putty' forgot himself so far as to pinch one of his own legs and
hum a little tune, while the rest of the party waited for the
individual whom their host had so frequently called 'the damned
parson' to speak. The tension was relieved by the sudden quiet
entrance of a young woman carrying a roll of music. Seeing the group
of persons in the chancel, she paused in evident uncertainty. Walden
glanced at her, and his composed face all at once lighted up with
that kindly smile which in such moments made him more than
ordinarily handsome.

"Come along, Miss Eden," he said in a low clear tone; "You are quite
at liberty to practise as usual. Sir Morton Pippitt and his friends
will not disturb you."

Miss Eden smiled sedately and bent her head, passing by the visitors
with an easy demeanour and assured step, and made her way to where
the organ, small, but sweet and  powerful, occupied a corner near
the chancel. While she busied herself in opening the instrument and
arranging her musics Walden took advantage of the diversion created
by her entrance to address himself to the knight Pippitt.

"If I can be of service to your friends in explaining anything about
the church they may wish, to know, pray command me, Sir Morton," he
said. "But I presume that you and Mr, Leveson"--here he glanced at
the portly 'Putty' with a slight smile--"have pointed out all that
is necessary."

"On the contrary!" said Mr. Marius Longford 'of the Savile and
Savage,' with a smoothly tolerant air; "We are really quite in the
dark! Do we understand, for example, that the restoration of this
church is entirely due to your  generosity, or to assistance from
public funds and  subscriptions?"

"The restoration is due, not to my 'generosity,'" replied Walden,
"but merely to my sense of what is fitting for Divine service. I
have had no assistance from any fund or from any individual, because
I have not sought it."

There was a pause, during which Mr. Longford fixed a pair of gold-
rimmed glasses on his nose and gazed quizzically through them at Sir
Morton Pippitt, whose countenance had grown uncomfortably purple in
hue either with exterior heat or inward vexation.

"I thought. Sir Morton," he began slowly, when Mr. Leveson adroitly
interrupted him by the query:

"Now what period would you fix, Mr. Longford, for this sarcophagus?
I am myself inclined to think it of the fourteenth century."

A soft low strain of music here crept through, the church,--the
village schoolmistress was beginning her practice. She had a
delicate touch, and the sounds her fingers pressed from the organ-
keys were full, and solemn and sweet. His Grace the Duke of Lumpton
coughed loudly; he hated music, and always made some animal noise of
his own to drown it.

"What matters the period!" murmured Julian Adderley, running his
thin hand through his thick hair. "Is it not sufficient to see it
here among us, with us, OF us?"

"God bless my soul! I hope it is not OF us!" spluttered Sir Morton
with a kind of fat chuckle which seemed to emanate from his stiff
collar rather than from his throat; "'Ashes to ashes' of course; we
are all aware of that--but not just yet!--not just yet!"

"I am unable to fix the period satisfactorily to my own mind," said
Walden, quietly ignoring both Sir Morton and his observations on the
Beyond; "though I have gone through considerable research with
respect to the matter. So I do not volunteer any opinion. There is,
however, no doubt that at one time the body contained in that coffer
must have been of the nature termed by the old Church 'miraculous.'
That is to say, it must have been supposed to be efficacious in
times of plague or famine, for there are several portions of the
alabaster which have evidently been worn away by the frequent
pressure or touch of hands on the surface. Probably in days when
this neighbourhood was visited by infection, drought, floods or
other troubles, the priests raised the coffin by the system of
leverage which we discovered when excavating (and which is still in
working order) and allowed the people to pass by and lay their hands
upon it with a special prayer to be relieved of their immediate
sickness or sorrow. There were many such 'miraculous' shrines in the
early part of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."

"Exactly," said Mr. Longford; "I imagine you may be right, Mr.
Walden; it is evidently a relic of the very earliest phases of the
Christian myth."

As he spoke the last words Walden looked straightly at him. A fine
smile hovered on his lips.

"It is as you say," he rejoined calmly--"It is a visible token of
the time when men believed in an Unseen Force more potent than
themselves."

The Duke of Lumpton coughed noisily again, and his friend, Lord
Mawdenham, who up to the present had occupied the time in staring
vaguely about him and anxiously feeling his pimples, said hurriedly:

"Oh, look here, Sir Morton--er--I say,--er--hadn't we better be
going? There's Lady Elizabeth Messing coming to lunch and you know
she can't bear to be kept waiting-never do, you know, not to be
there to see her when she arrives--he-he-he! We should never get
over it in London or out of London--'pon my life!--I do assure you!"

Sir Morton's chest swelled;--his starched collar crackled round his
expanding throat, and his voice became richly resonant as under the
influential suggestion of another 'titled' personage, he replied:

"Indeed, you are right, my dear Lord Mawdenham! To keep Lady
Elizabeth waiting would be an unpardonable offence against all the
proprieties! Hum--ha--er--yes!--against all the proprieties! Mr.
Walden, we must go! Lady Elizabeth Messing is coming to lunch with
us at Badsworth. You have no doubt heard of her--eldest daughter of
the Earl of Charrington!--yes, we must really be going! I think I
may say, may I not, your Grace?"--here he bent towards the ducal
Lumpton--"that we are all highly pleased with the way in which Mr.
Waldon has effected the restoration of the church?"

"Oh, I don't know anything at all about it!" replied His Grace, with
the air of a sporting groom; "I've no taste at all in churches, and
I'm not taking any on old coffins! It's a nice little chapel--just
enough for a small village I should say. After all, don't-cher-know,
you only want very little accommodation for a couple of hundred
yokels; and whether it's old or new architecture doesn't matter to
'em a brass farthing!"

These observations were made with a rambling air of vague self-
assertiveness which the speaker evidently fancied would pass for wit
and wisdom. Walden said nothing. His brow was placid, and his
countenance altogether peaceful. He was listening to the solemnly
sweet flow of a Bach prelude which Miss Eden was skilfully
unravelling on the organ, the notes rising and falling, and anon
soaring up again like prayerful words striving to carry themselves
to heaven.

"I think," said Mr. Marius Longford weightily, "that whatever fault
the building may have from a strictly accurate point of view,--which
is a matter I am not prepared to go into without considerable time
given for due study and consideration,--it is certainly the most
attractive edifice of its kind that I have seen for some time. It
reflects great credit on you, Mr. Walden;--no doubt the work gave
you much personal pleasure!"

"It certainly did so," replied John,--"and I'm afraid I am arrogant
enough to be satisfied with the general result so far as it goes,--
with the exception of the eastern window, of course!"

"Ah, that eastern window!" sighed the Reverend 'Putty' with an air
of aesthetic languor which was in comical contrast with his coarse
and commonplace appearance; "That is a sad, sad flaw! A terrible
incongruity!"

"I made up my mind from the first," pursued Walden, his equable
voice seeming to float pleasantly on the tide of music with which
the little sanctuary was just then filled; "that nothing but the
most genuine and authentic old stained glass should fill that fine
circular rose carving, and those lance apertures; so I am collecting
it slowly, bit by bit, for this purpose. It will take time and
patience, no doubt,--but I think and hope that success will be the
end of the task I have set myself. In the meantime, of course, the
effect of plain glass where there should be only the richest
colouring is decidedly 'crude'!"

He smiled slightly, and there was an uncomfortable pause. Sir Morton
Pippitt took out a voluminous red handkerchief covered with yellow
spots and blew his nose violently therein while the Reverend Mr.
Leveson nodded his large head blandly, as one who receives doubtful
information with kindly tolerance. Mr. Marius Longford looked
faintly amused.

"I understand!" said the light of the 'Savile and Savage,' slowly;
"You seek perfection!"

He smiled a pallid smile; but on the whole surveyed Walden with more
interest than he had hitherto done. Julian Adderley, who had during
the last couple of minutes stepped up to the chancel, now stood
gazing at the sarcophagus of the supposed Saint with a kind of
melancholy interest. Reading the only legible words of the
inscription in sotto voce, he sighed drearily.

"' In--Resurrectione--Sanctorum--Resurget!' How simple!--how new!--
how fresh! To think that anyone ever held such a child's faith!"

"The Church is still supposed to hold it," said Walden steadily,
"And her ministers also. Otherwise, religion is a farce, and its
professors much less honest than the trusted servant who steals his
master's money!"

Marius Longford smiled, and stroked one feline whisker thoughtfully.

"So you actually believe what you preach!" he murmured--"Strange!
You are more of an antiquity than the consecrated dust enclosed in
that alabaster! Believe me!"

"Much more,--much, more!" exclaimed the fantastic Adderley; "To
believe in anything at all is so remote!--so very remote!--and yet
so new--so fresh!"

Walden made no reply. He never argued on religious matters;
moreover, with persons minded in the manner of those before him, it
seemed useless to even offer an opinion. They exchanged meaning
glances with each other, and followed Sir Morton, who was now moving
down the central aisle of the church towards the door of exit,
holding the Duke of Lumpton familiarly by the arm, and accompanied
by Lord Mawdenham. Walden walked silently with them, till, passing
out of the church, they all stood in a group on the broad gravelled
pathway which led to the open road, where the Pippitt equipage, a
large waggonette and pair, stood waiting, together with a bicycle,
the property of the Reverend Mr. Leveson.

"Thank you, Mr. Walden!" then said Sir Morton Pippitt with a
grandiose air, as of one who graciously confers a benefit on the
silence by breaking it; "Thank you for--er--for--er--the pleasure of
your company this--er--this morning! My friend, the Duke,--and Lord
Mawdenham--and--er--our rising poet, Mr. Adderley--and--er--Mr.
Longford, have been delighted. Yes--er--delighted! Of course you
know MY opinion! Ha-ha-ha! You know MY opinion! It is the same as it
ever was--I never change! When _I_ have once made up my mind, it is
a fixture! I have said already and I say it again, that the church
was quite good enough for such people as live here, in its original
condition, and that you have really spent a great deal of cash on a
very needless work! I mustn't be rude, no, no, no!--but you know the
old adage: 'Fools and their money!' Ha-ha-ha! But we shan't quarrel.
Oh, dear no! It has cost ME nothing, I am glad to say! Ha-ha! Nor
anybody else! Now, if Miss Vancourt of Abbot's Manor had been here
when you began this restoration business of yours, SHE might have
had something to say--ha-ha-ha! She always has something to say!"

"You think she would have objected?" queried Walden, coldly.

"Oh, I won't go so far as that--no!--eh, your Grace--we won't go so
far as that!"

The Duke of Lumpton, thus suddenly adjured, looked round, and smiled
vacantly.

"Won't go so far as what?" he asked; "Didn't catch it!"

"I was talking of Maryllia Vancourt," said Sir Morton with a kind of
fatuous leer; "YOU know her, of course!--everyone knows her more or
less. Charming girl!--charming! Maryllia Van!--ha-ha!"

And Sir Morton laughed and leered again till certain veins, moved by
cerebral emotion, protruded largely on his forehead. His Grace
laughed also, but shortly and indifferently.

"Oh, ya-as--ya-as! She's the one who's just had a rumpus with her
rich American aunt. I believe they don't speak, After years of
devotion, eh? So like women, ain't it!"

The Reverend 'Putty' Leveson, who had been stooping over his bicycle
to set something right that was invariably going wrong with that
particular machine, and who was redder than ever in the face with
his efforts, now looked up.

"Miss Vancourt is coming back to the Manor to reside there, so I
hear," he said. "Very dull for a woman accustomed to London and
Paris. I expect she'll stay about ten days."

"One never knows--one cannot tell!" sighed Julian Adderley.
"Sometimes to the satiated female mind, overwrought with social
dissipation, there comes a strange longing for peace!--for the scent
of roses!--for the yellow shine of cowslips!--for the song of the
mating birds!--for the breath of cows!"

Mr. Marius Longford smiled, and picked a tall buttercup nodding in
the grass at his feet.

"Such aspirations in the fair sex are absolutely harmless," he said;
"Let us hope the lady's wishes may find their limit in a soothing
pastoral!"  "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Sir Morton. "You are deep, my dear
sir, you are very deep! God bless my soul! Deep as a well! No wonder
people are afraid of you! Clever, clever! I'm afraid of you myself!
Come along, come along! Can I assist your Grace?" Here he pushed
aside with a smothered 'Damn!' the footman, who stood holding open
the door of the waggonette, and officiously gave the Duke of Lumpton
a hand to help him into the carriage. "Now, Lord Mawdenham, please!
You next, Mr. Longford! Come, come, Mr. Adderley! Think of Lady
Elizabeth! She will be arriving at the Hall before we are there to
receive her! Terrible, terrible! Come along! We're all ready!"

Julian Adderley had turned to Walden.

"Permit me to call and see you alone!" he said. "I cannot just now
appreciate the poetry of your work in the church as I should do--as
I ought to do--as I must do! The present company is discordant!--one
requires the music of Nature,-the thoughts,--the dreams! But no more
at present! I should like to talk with you on many matters some wild
sweet morning,--if you have no objection?"

Walden was amused. At the same time he was not very eager to respond
to this overture of closer acquaintanceship with one who, by his
dress, manner and method of speech, proclaimed himself a 'decadent'
of the modern school of ethics; but he was nothing if not courteous.
So he replied briefly:

"I shall be pleased to see you, of course, Mr. Adderley, but I must
warn you that I am a very busy man--I should not be able to give you
much time--"

"No explanations--I understand!" And Adderley pressed his hand with
enthusiasm. "The very fact that you are busy in a village like this
adds to the peculiar charm of your personality! It is so strange!--
so new--so fresh!"

He smiled, and again pressed hands.

"Good-bye! The mood will send me to you at the fitting moment!"

He clapped his hat more firmly on his redundant red locks and
clambered into the waiting waggonette. Sir Morton followed him, and
the footman shut to the door of the vehicle with a bang as
unnecessary as his master's previous 'Damn!'

"Good-morning, Mr. Walden!" then shouted the knight of bone-melting
prowess; "Much obliged to you, I'm sure!"

Walden raised his hat with brief ceremoniousness, and then as the
carriage rolled away addressed the Reverend Mr. Leveson, who was
throwing himself with hippopotamus-like agility across his bicycle.

"You follow, I suppose?"

"Yes. I'm lunching at Badsworth Hall. The Duke wants to consult me
about his family records. You know I'm a bit of an authority on such
points!"

Walden smiled.

"I believe you are! But mind you calendar the ducal deeds
carefully," he said. "A slip in the lineal descent of the Lumptons
might affect the whole prestige of the British Empire!"

A light shone in his clear blue eyes,--a flashing spark of battle.
Leveson stayed his bicycle a moment, wobbling on it uneasily.

"Lumpton goes back a good way," he said airily; "I shall take him up
when I have gone through the history of the Vancourts. I'm on that
scent now. I shall make a good bit of business directly Miss
Vancourt returns; she'll pay for anything that will help her to
stiffen her back and put more side on."

"Really!" ejaculated Walden, coldly. "I should have thought her
forebears would have saved her from snobbery."

"Not a bit of it!" declared Leveson, beginning to start the muscles
of his grand-pianoforte legs with energy; "Rapid as a firework, and
vain as a peacock! Ta!"

And fixing a small cap firmly on the back of his very large head, he
worked his wheel with treadmill regularity and was soon out of
sight.

Walden stood alone in the churchyard, lost for a brief space in
meditation. The solemn strains of the organ which the schoolmistress
was still playing, floated softly out from the church to the
perfumed air, and the grave melodious murmur made an undercurrent of
harmony to the clear bright warbling of a skylark, which, beating
its wings against the sunbeams, rose ever higher and higher above
him.

"What petty souls we are!" he murmured; "Here am I feeling actually
indignant because this fellow Leveson, who has less education and
knowledge than my dog Nebbie, assumes to have some acquaintance with
Miss Vancourt! What does it matter? What business is it of mine? If
she cares to accept information from an ignoramus, what is it to do
with me? Nothing! Yet,--what a blatant ass the fellow is! Upon my
word, it does me good to say it--a blatant ass! And Sir Morton
Pippitt is another!"

He laughed, and lifting his hat from his forehead, let the soft wind
breathe refreshing coolness on his uncovered hair.

"There are decided limits to Christian love!" he said, the laughter
still dancing in his eyes. "I defy--I positively defy anyone to love
Leveson! 'The columns and capitals are all wrong' are they?" And he
gave a glance back at the beautiful little church in its exquisite
design and completed perfection."'Out of keeping with early Norman
walls!' Wise Leveson! He ignores all periods of transition as if
they had never existed--as if they had no meaning for the thinker as
well as the architect--as if the movement upward from the Norman, to
the Early Pointed style showed no indication of progress! And
whereas a church should always be a veritable 'sermon in stone'
expressive of the various generations that have wrought their best
on it, he limits himself to the beginning of things! I wonder what
Leveson was in the beginning of things? Possibly an embryo
Megatherium!"

Broadly smiling, he walked to the gate communicating with his own
garden, opened it, and passed through. Nebbie was waiting for him on
the lawn, and greeted him with the usual effusiveness. He returned
to his desk, and to the composition of his sermon, but his thoughts
were inclined to wander. Sir Morton Pippitt, the Duke of Lumpton,
and Lord Mawdenham hovered before him like three dull puppets in a
cheap show; and he was inclined to look up the name of Marius
Longford in one of the handy guides to contemporary biography, in
order to see if that flaccid and fish-like personage had really done
anything In the world to merit his position as a shining luminary of
the 'Savage and Savile.' Accustomed as he was to watch the ebb and
flow of modern literature, he had not yet sighted either the
Longford straw or the Adderley cork, among the flotsam and jetsam of
that murky tide. And ever and again Sir Morton Pippitt's coarse
chuckle, combined with the covert smiles of Sir Morton's
'distinguished' friends, echoed through his mind in connection with
the approaching dreaded invasion of Miss Vancourt into the happy
quietude of the village of St. Rest, till he experienced a sense of
pain and aversion almost amounting to anger. Why, he asked himself,
seeing she had stayed so long away from her  childhood's home, could
she not have stayed away altogether? The swift and brilliant life of
London was surely far more suited to one who, according to 'Putty'
Leveson, was 'rapid as a firework, and vain as a peacock.' But was
'Putty' Leveson always celebrated for accuracy in his statements?
No! Certainly not--yet--"

Then something seemed to fire him with a sudden resolution, for he
erased the first lines of the sermon he had begun, and altered his
text, which had been: "Glory, honour and peace to every man that
worketh good." And in its place he chose, as a more enticing subject
of discourse:

"The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of
God, of great price."




V


The warm bright weather continued. Morning after morning dawned in
unclouded sunshine, and when Saturday concluded the first five days
of the 'May-moneth,' the inhabitants of St. Rest were disposed to
concede that it was just possible they might have what they called
'a spell of fair weather.' Saturday was the general 'cleaning-up
day' in the village--the day when pails of water were set out in
unexpected places for the unwary to trip over; when the old
flagstones poured with soapsuds that trickled over the toes of too-
hasty passers-by; when cottage windows were violently squirted at
with the aid of garden-syringes and hose,--and when Adam Frost, the
sexton, was always to be found meditating, and even surreptitiously
drinking beer, in a quiet corner of the churchyard, because he was
afraid to go home, owing to the persistent housewifely energy of his
better half, who 'washed down' everything, 'cleaned out' everything,
and had, as she forcibly expressed it, 'the Sunday meals on her
mind.' It was a day, too, when Bainton, released from his gardening
duties at the rectory at noon, took a thoughtful stroll by himself,
aware that his 'Missis' was scrubbing the kitchen, and 'wouldn't
have him muckin' about,'--and when John Walden, having finished his
notes for the Sunday's sermon, felt a sense of ease and relief, and
considered himself at liberty to study purely Pagan literature, such
as The Cratylus of Plato. But on this special Saturday he was not
destined to enjoy complete relaxation. Mrs. Spruce had sent an
urgent appeal to him to 'kindly step up to the Manor in the
afternoon.' And Mrs. Spruce's husband, a large, lumbering, simple-
faced old fellow, in a brown jacket and corduroys, had himself come
with the message, and having delivered it, stood on Walden's
threshold, cap in hand, waiting for a reply. John surveyed his
awkward, peasant-like figure with a sense of helplessness,--excuses
and explanations he knew would be utterly lost on an almost deaf
man. Submitting to fate, he nodded his head vigorously, and spoke as
loudly as he judged needful.

"All right, Spruce! Say I'll come!"

"Jes' what I told her, sir," answered Spruce, in a remarkably gentle
tone; "It's a bit okkard, but if she doos her dooty, no 'arm can
'appen, no matter if it's all the riches of the yearth."

John felt more helpless than ever. What was the man talking about?
He drew closer and spoke in a more emphatic key.

"Look here, Spruce! Tell your wife I'll come after luncheon. Do you
hear? Af-ter lun-cheon!"

Spruce put one hand to his ear and smiled blandly.

"Ezackly, sir! I quite agrees with ye; but women are allus a bit
worrity-like, and of course there's a deal to do, and she got
frightened with the keys, and when she saw them fine clothes, and
what not,--so I drawed her a glass of cherry-cordial, an' sez I,
'Now, old 'ooman,' sez I, 'don't skeer yerself into fits. I'll fetch
the passon to ye.' And with that, she seemed easier in her mind.
Lord love ye!--it's a great thing to fetch the passon at once when
there's anything a bit wrong. So, if you'd step up, sir?--"

Driven almost to despair, Walden put his lips close to the old man's
obstinate ear.

"Yes," he bellowed--"af-ter lun-cheon! Yes! Ye-es!"

His reply at last penetrated the closed auricular doors of Spruce's
brain.

"Thank you, kindly, sir, I'm sure," he said, still in the same meek
and quiet tone. "And if I might make so bold, sir, seein' there's
likely to be changes up at the Manor, if it should be needful to
speak for me and my old 'ooman, p'raps you'd be so good, sir? We
wouldn't like to leave the old place now, sir---"

His soft, hesitating voice faltered, and he suddenly brushed his
hand across his poor dim eyes. The pathos of this hint was not lost
on Walden, who, forgetting all his own momentary irritation, rose
manfully to the occasion and roared down the old man's ears like one
of the far-famed 'Bulls of Bashan.'

"Don't worry!" he yelled, his face becoming rapidly crimson with his
efforts; "I'll see you all right! You sha'n't leave the Manor if I
can prevent it! I'll speak for you! Cheer up! Do you hear! Che-er
up!"

Spruce heard very clearly this time, and smiled. "Thank you, Passon!
God bless you! I'm sure you'll help us, if so be the lady is a hard
one--"

He trusted himself to say no more, but with a brief respectful
salutation, put on his cap and turned away.

Left alone, Walden drew a long breath, and wiped his brow. To make
poor old Spruce hear was a powerful muscular exertion. Nebbie had
been so much astonished at the loud pitch of his master's voice,
that he had retired under a sofa in alarm, and only crawled out now
as Spruce departed, with small anxious waggings of his tail. Walden
patted the animal's head and laughed.

"Mind you don't get deaf in your old age, Nebbie!" he said. "Phew! A
little more shouting like that and I should be unable to preach to-
morrow!"

Still patting the dog's head, his eyes gradually darkened and his
brow became clouded.

"Poor Spruce!" he murmured. "'Help him, if so be the lady is a hard
one!' Already in fear of her! I expect they have heard something--
some ill-report--probably only too correctly founded. Yet, how it
goes against the grain of manhood to realise that any 'lady' may be
'a hard one!' But, alas!--what a multitude of 'hard ones' there are!
Harder than men, perhaps, if all the truth were known!"

And there was a certain sternness and rooted aversion in him to that
dim approaching presence of the unknown heiress of Abbot's Manor. He
experienced an instinctive dislike of her, and was positively
certain that the vague repugnance would deepen into actual
antipathy.

"One cannot possibly like everybody," he argued within himself, in
extenuation of what he felt was an unreasonable mental attitude;
"'And modern fashionable women are among the most unlikeable of all
human creatures. Any one of them in such a village as this would be
absurdly out of place."

Thus self-persuaded, his mood was a singular mixture of pity and
resentment when, in fulfilment of his promise, he walked that
afternoon up the winding road which led to the Manor, and avoiding
the lodge gates, passed through a rustic turnstile he knew well and
so along a path across meadows and through shrubberies to the house.
The path was guarded by a sentinel board marked 'Private.
Trespassers will be prosecuted.' But in all the years he had lived
at St. Rest, he cared nothing for that. As rector of the parish he
had his little privileges. Nebbie trotted at his heels with the air
of a dog accustomed to very familiar surroundings. The grass on
either side was springing up long and green,--delicate little field
flowers were peeping through it here and there, and every now and
then there floated upwards the strong sweet incense of the young
wild thyme. The way he had chosen to walk was known as a 'short cut'
to Abbot's Manor, and ten minutes of easy striding brought him into
the dewy coolness of a thicket of dark firs, at the end of which,
round a sharp turn, the fine old red brick and timbered gables of
the house came into full view. He paused a moment, looking somewhat
regretfully at the picture, warmly lit up by the glow of the bright
sun,--a picture which through long habitude of observation had grown
very sweet to him. It was not every day that such a house as Abbot's
Manor came within reach of the archaeologist and antiquarian. The
beautiful tiled-roof--the picturesque roughness and crookedness of
the architectural lines of the whole building, so different to the
smooth, hard, angular imitations of half-timbered work common in
these degenerate days, were a delight to the eyes to rest upon,--a
wealth of ivy clung thickly to the walls and clambered round the
quaint old chimneys;--some white doves clustered in a group on the
summit of one broad oak gable, were spreading their snowy wings to
the warm sun and discussing their domestic concerns in melodious
cooings;--the latticed windows, some of which in their unspoilt
antiquity of 'horn' panes were a particular feature of the house,
were all thrown open,--but to Walden's sensitive observation there
seemed a different atmosphere about the place,--a suggestion of
change and occupation which was almost startling.

He paced slowly on, and arrived at the outside gate, which led into
a square old-fashioned court, such as was common to Tudor times,
paved on three sides and planted with formal beds of flowers, the
whole surrounded by an ancient wall. The gate was ajar, and pushing
it open he passed in, glancing for a moment at the grey weather-
beaten sun-dial in the middle of the court which told him it was
three-o'clock. For four centuries, at least, that self-same dial had
marked the hour in that self-same spot, a silent commentary on the
briefness of human existence, as compared with its own strange non-
sentient lastingness. The sound of Walden's footsteps on the old
paving-stones awoke faint echoes, and startled away a robin from a
spray of blossoming briar-rose, and as he walked up to the great
oaken porch of entrance,--a porch heavily carved with the
Vaignecourt or Vancourt emblems, and as deep and wide in its
interior as a small room, an odd sense came over him that he was no
longer an accustomed visitor to a beautiful 'show house,' so much as
a kind of trespasser on forbidden ground. The thick nail-studded
doors, clamped with huge bolts and bars, stood wide open; no servant
was on the threshold to bid him enter, and for a moment he
hesitated, uncertain whether to ring the bell, or to turn back and
go away, when suddenly Mrs. Spruce emerged from a shadowy corner
leading to the basement, and hailed his appearance with an
exclamation of evident relief.

"Thank the Lord and His goodness, Passon Walden, here you are at
last! I'd made up my mind the silly fool of a Spruce had brought me
the wrong message;--a good meanin' man, but weak in the upper
storey, 'cept where trees is concerned and clearing away brushwood,
when I'd be bold to say he's as handy as they make 'em--but do, for
mercy's sake, Passon, step inside and see how we've got on, for it's
not so bad as it might have been, an' I've seen worse done at a few
days' notice than even myself with hired hands on a suddint could
ever do. Step in, sir, step in!--we're leavin' the door open to let
the sun in a bit to warm the hall, for the old stained glass do but
filter it through at its best; not but that we ain't had a fire in
it night and mornin' ever since we had Miss Vancourt's letter."

Walden made no attempt to stem the flow of the worthy woman's
discourse. From old experience, he knew that to be an impossible
task. So he stepped in as he was bidden, and looked round the grand
old hall, decorated with ancient armour, frayed banners and worn
scutcheons, feeling regretfully that perhaps he was looking at it so
for the last time. No one more than he had appreciated the simple
dignity of its old-world style, or had more correctly estimated the
priceless value of the antique oak panelling that covered its walls.
He loved the great ingle-nook, set deep back as it were, in the very
bosom of the house, with its high and elaborately carved benches on
each side, and its massive armorial emblems wrought in black oak,
picked out with tarnished gold, crimson and azure,--he appreciated
every small gleam and narrow shaft of colour reflected by the strong
sun through the deeply-tinted lozenge panes of glass that filled the
lofty oriel windows on either side;--and the stuffed knight-in-
armour, a model figure 'clad in complete steel,' of the fourteenth
century, which stood, holding a spear in its gauntleted hand near
the doorway leading to the various reception rooms, was almost a
personal friend. Mrs. Spruce, happily unconscious of the deepening
melancholy which had begun to tinge his thoughts, led the way
through the hall, still garrulously chirping.

"We've cleaned up wonderfully, considerin'--and it was just the
Lord's providence that at Riversford I found a decent butler and
footman what had jes' got the sack from Sir Morton Pippitt's and
were lookin' for a place temp'ry, preferring London later, so I
persuaded both of 'em to come and try service with a lady for once,
instead of with a fussy old ancient, who turns red and blue in the
face if he's kept waitin' 'arf a second--and I picked up with a gel
what the footman was engaged to, and that'll keep HIM a fixture,--
and I found the butler had a hi on a young woman at the public-house
'ere,--so that's what you may call an 'hattraction,' and then I got
two more 'andy gels which was jes' goin' off to see about Mrs.
Leveson's place, and when I told 'em that there the sugar was
weighed out, and the tea dispensed by the ounce, as if it was
chemicals, and that please the Lord and anybody else that likes,
they'd have better feedin' if they came along with me, they struck a
bargain there and then. And then as if there was a special powerful
blessin' on it all, who should come down Riversford High Street but
one of the best cooks as ever took a job, a Scotch body worth her
weight in gold, and she'd be a pretty big parcel to weigh, too, but
she can send up a dinner for one as easy as for thirty, which is as
good a test as boilin' a tater---and 'as got all her wits about her.
She was just goin' to advertise for a house party or shootin' job,
so we went into the Crown Inn at Riversford and had tea together and
settled it. And they all come up in a wagginette together as merry
as larks;--so the place is quite lively, Passon, I do assure you,
'specially for a woman like me which have had it all to myself and
lonesome like for many years. I've made Kitty useful, too, dustin'
and polishin'--gels can't begin their trainin' too early, and all
has been going on fine;--not but what there's a mighty sight of
eatin' and drinkin' now, but it's the Lord's will that human bein's
should feed even as the pigs do, 'specially domestic servants, and
there's no helpin' of it nor hinderin'--but this mornin's business
did put me out a bit, and I do assure you I haven't got over it yet,
but howsomever, Spruce says 'Do yer dooty!'--and I'm a-doin' it to
the best of my belief and, 'ope--still it do make my mind a bit
ricketty--"

Silently Walden followed her through the rooms, saying little in
response to her remarks, 'ricketty' or otherwise, and noting all the
various changes as he went.

In the dining-room there was a great transformation. The fine old
Cordova leather chairs were all released from their brown holland
coverings,--the long-concealed Flemish tapestries were again
unrolled and disclosed to the light of day--valuable canvases that
had been turned to the wall to save their colour from the too
absorbing sunshine, were now restored to their proper positions, and
portraits by Vandyke, and landscapes by Corot gave quite a stately
air of occupation to a room, which being large and lofty, had always
seemed to Walden the loneliest in the house for lack of a living
presence. He trod in the restless wake of Mrs. Spruce, however,
without comment other than a word of praise such as she expected,
for the general result of her labours in getting the long-disused
residence into habitable condition, and was only moved to something
like enthusiasm when he reached what was called 'the morning room,'
an apartment originally intended to serve as a boudoir for that
beautiful Mrs. Vancourt, the bride who never came home. Here all the
furniture was of the daintiest design,--here rich cushions of silk
and satin were lavishly piled on the luxurious sofas and in the deep
easy-chairs,--curtains of cream brocade embroidered by hand with
garlands of roses, draped the sides of the deep embrasured window-
nook whence two wide latticed doors opened outwards to a smooth
terrace bordered with flowers, where two gardeners were busy rolling
the rich velvety turf,--and beyond it stretched a great lawn shaded
with ancient oaks and elms that must have seen the days of Henry
VII. The prospect was fair and soothing to the eyes, and Walden.
gazing at it, gave a little involuntary sigh of pleasure.

"This is beautiful!" he said, speaking more to himself than to
anyone--"Perfectly beautiful!"

"It is so, sir," agreed Mrs. Spruce, with an air of comfortably
placid conviction; "There's no doubt about it--it's as beautiful a
room as could be made for a queen, though I say it--but whether our
new lady will like it, is quite another question. You see, sir, this
room was always kept locked in the Squire's time, and so was all the
other rooms as was got ready for the wife as never lived to use
them. The Squire wouldn't let a soul inside the doors, not even his
daughter. And now, sir, will you please read the letter I got this
morning, which as you will notice, is quite nice-like and kindly,
more than the other--onny when the boxes came I was a bit upset. You
see the letter was registered and had the keys inside it all right."

Walden took the missive in reluctant silence. The same thick
notepaper, odorous with crushed violets--the same bold, dashing
handwriting he had seen before, but the matter  expressed in it was
worded somehow in a totally different tone to that of the previous
letter from the same hand.

"DEAR MRS. SPRUCE," it ran: "I enclose the keys of my boxes which I
am sending in advance, as I never travel with luggage. Kindly unpack
all the contents and arrange them in the wardrobes and presses of my
mother's rooms. If I  remember rightly, these rooms have never been
used, hut I intend to take them for myself now, so please have
everything prepared. I have received your letter in which you say
there is some difficulty in getting good servants at so short a
notice. I quite understand this, and am sure you. will arrange for
the best. Should everything not be quite satisfactory, we can make
alterations when I come. I expect to arrive home in time for
afternoon tea. MARYLLIA VANCOURT."

Walden folded up the letter and gave it back to its owner.

"Well, so far, you have nothing to complain of, Mrs. Spruce," he
said, with a little smile; "The lady is evidently prepared to excuse
any deficiencies arising from the hurry of your preparations."

"Yes, sir, that may be," answered Mrs. Spruce; "but if so be you saw
what I've seen you mightn't take it so easily. Now, sir, if you'll
follow me, you'll be able to judge of the quandary we was in till we
got our senses back."

Beginning to be vaguely amused and declining to speculate as to the
'quandary' which according to the good woman had resulted in a
species of lunacy, Walden followed as he was told, and slowly
ascended the broad staircase, one of the finest specimens of Tudor
work in all England, with its richly turned balustrades and
grotesquely carved headpieces, but as he reached the upper landing,
he halted abruptly, seeing through an open door mysterious
glimmerings of satins and laces, to which he was entirely
unaccustomed.

"What room is that?" he enquired.

"That's what we used to call 'the bride's room,' sir," replied Mrs.
Spruce, smoothing down her black skirts with an air of fussy
importance, and heaving a sigh; "Miss Maryllia's mother was to have
had it. Don't be afraid to step inside, Passon; everythink's been
turned out and aired, and there's not a speck of damp or dismals
anywhere, and you'll see for yourself what a time we're 'avin'
though we're gettin' jes' a bit straight now, and I've 'ad Nancy
Pyrle as is 'andy with her pencil to mark things down as they come
to 'and. Step inside, Passon Walden,--do step inside!"

But Walden, held back by some instinctive fastidiousness, declined
to move further than the threshold of this hitherto closed and
sacredly guarded chamber. Leaning against the doorway he looked in
wonderingly, with a vague feeling of bewilderment, while Mrs.
Spruce, trotting busily ahead, gave instructions to a fresh-faced
country lass, who, breathing very hard, as though she were running,
was carefully shaking out what seemed to be a fairy's robe of filmy
white lace, glistening with pearls.

"Ye see, Passon, this is what all my trouble's about;"--she said--
"Fancy 'avin' to unpack all these grand clothes, and sort 'em as
they comes, not knowin' whether they mayn't fall to bits in our
'ands, some of 'em bein' fine as cobwebs, an' such body linen as was
never made for any mortal woman in St. Rest, all lace an' silk an'
little ribbins! When the trunks arrived an' we got 'em into the
'all, I felt THAT faint, I do assure ye! For me to 'ave to unpack
an' open 'em, and take out all the things inside,--ah, Passon, it's
an orful 'sponsibility, seein' there's jewels packed among the
dresses quite reckless-like, rubies an' sapphires an' diamants,
somethin' amazin', and we've taken a reg'lar invent'ry of them all
lest somethin' might be missin', for the Lord He only knows whether
there might not be fifty thousand pounds of proputty in one of them
little kicketty boxes, all velvet and satin, made just as if they
was sweetmeats, only when ye looks inside ye sees a sparklin' stone
glisterin' at ye, and ye know it's wuth a fortune! I do assure ye,
Passon, I've never seen such things in all my life! Miss Maryllia
must be mortal extravagant, for there's enough in one o' them boxes
to feed the whole village of St. Best for several years. Ah! Passon,
I do assure ye, I've thought of Scripter many a time this mornin';
'Whose adornin' let it be the adornin' of a meek and quiet spirit,'
which is a hornament and no mistake!"

Walden made no remark. It never even occurred to him just then that
Mrs. Spruce was unconsciously rendering in her own particular
fashion the text he had chosen for the next day's sermon. Never in
all his life before had he experienced such strongly mingled
sensations of repulsion and interest as at that moment. With a kind
of inward indignation, he asked himself what business he had to be
there looking curiously into a woman's room, littered with all the
fripperies and expensive absurdities of a woman's apparel? Above
all, why should he be so utterly ridiculous and inconsequential in
his own mind as to find himself deeply fascinated by such a
spectacle? In all the years he had passed with his sister, so long
as she had lived, he had never seen such a bewildering disorder of
feminine clothes. He had never had the opportunity of noting the
pathetic difference existing between the toilette surroundings of a
woman who is strong and well, and of one who is deprived of all
natural coquetry by the cruel ravages of long sickness and disease.
His sister, beautiful even in her incurable physical affliction, had
always borne that affliction more or less in mind, and had attired
herself with a severely simple taste,--her bedroom, where she had
had to pass so many weary hours of suffering, had been a model of
almost Spartan-like simplicity, and her dressing-table was wont to
be far more conspicuous for melancholy little medicine-phials than
for flashing, silver-stoppered cut-glass bottles, exhaling the
rarest perfumes. Then, since her death, Walden had lived so entirely
alone, that the pretty vanities of bright and healthy women were
quite unfamiliar to him.

The present glittering display of openly expressed frivolity seemed
curiously new, and vaguely alarming. He was angry with it, yet in a
manner attracted. He found himself considering, with a curious
uneasiness, two small nondescript pink objects that were lying on
the floor at some distance from each other. At a first glance they
appeared to be very choice examples of that charming orchid known as
the 'Cypripedium,'--but on closer examination it was evident they
were merely fashionable evening shoes. Again and again he turned his
eyes away from them,--and again and again his glance  involuntarily
wandered back and rested on their helpless-looking little pointed
toes and ridiculously high heels. Considered from a purely
'sanitary' point of view, they were the most wicked, the most
criminal, the most absolutely unheard-of shoes ever seen. Why, no
human feet of the proper size could possibly get into them, unless
they were squeezed---

"Yes, squeezed!"--repeated Walden inwardly, with a sense of
unreasonable irritation; "All the toes cramped and the heels
pinched--everything out of joint and distorted--false feet, in fact,
like everything else false that has to do with the modern
fashionable woman!"

There they lay,-apparently innocent;--but surely detestable, nay
even Satanic objects. He determined he would have them removed--
picked up--cast out--thrust into the nearest drawer, anywhere, in
fact, provided they were out of his stern, clerical sight. Mrs.
Spruce was continuing conversation in brisk tones, but whether she
was addressing him, or the buxom young woman, who, under her
directions was shaking out or folding up the various garments taken
out of the various boxes, he did not know, and, as a matter of fact,
he did not care. She sounded like Tennyson's 'Brook,' with a 'Men
may come and men may go, but I go on for ever' monotonousness that
was as depressing as it was incessant.

He determined to interrupt the purling stream.

"Mrs. Spruce," he began,--then hesitated, as she turned briskly
towards him, looking like a human clothes-prop, with both fat arms
extended in order to keep well away from contact with the floor a
gauzy robe sparkling all over with tiny crystalline drops, which,
catching the sunbeams, flashed like little points of flame.

"Beggin' your pardon, Passon, did you speak?"

"Yes. I think you should not let anything lie about, as, for
example,--those--" and he pointed to the objectionable shoes with an
odd sense of discomfiture; "They appear to be of a delicate colour
and might easily get soiled."

Mrs. Spruce peered round over the sparkling substance she held,
looking like a very ancient and red-faced cherub peeping over the
rim of a moonlit cloud.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed; "What a hi you have, Passon! What a
hi! Now them shoes missed me altogether! They must have dropped out
of some of the dresses we've been unfoldin', for the packin's quite
reckless-like, and ain't never been done by no trained maid. All
hustled-bustled like into the boxes anyhow, as if the person what
had done it was in a mortal temper or hurry. Lord! Don't I know how
people crams things in when they's in a rage! Ah! Wait till I get
rid of all these diamants," and she waddled to the deep oak
wardrobe, which stood open, and carefully hung the glittering
garment up by its two sleeveholes on two pegs,--then turned round
with a sigh. "It's orful what the world's coming to, Passon Walden,-
-orful! Fancy diamants all sewed on to a gown! I wouldn't let my
Kitty in 'ere for any amount of money! She'd be that restless and
worritin' and wantin' the like things for 'erself, and the mortal
mischief it would be, there's no knowin'! Why, the first
'commercial' as come round 'ere with 'is pack and 'is lies, would
get her runnin' off with 'im! Ah! That's jes' where leddies makes
such work for Satan's hands to do; they never thinks of the envy and
jealousy and spite as eats away the 'arts of poor gels what sees all
these fine things, and ain't got no chance for to have them for
theirselves!" Here, sidling along the floor, she picked up the pink
shoes to which Walden had called her attention, first one and then
the other. "Well! Call them shoes! My Kitty couldn't get her 'and
into 'em! And as for a foot fittin' in! What a foot! It can't be
much bigger'n a baby's. Well, well, what a pair o' shoes!"

She stood looking at them, a fat smile on her face, and Walden moved
uneasily from the threshold.

"I'll leave you now, Mrs. Spruce," he said; "You have plenty to do,
and I'm in the way here."

"Well, now, Passon, that do beat me!" said Mrs. Spruce plaintively;
"I thought you was a-goin' to help us!"

"Help you? I?" and Walden laughed aloud; "My dear woman, do you
think I can unpack and unfold ladies' dresses? Of all the many
incongruous uses a clergyman was ever put to, wouldn't that be the
most impossible?"

"Lord love ye, Passon Walden, I ain't askin' ye no such thing;"
retorted Mrs. Spruce; "Don't ye think it! For there's nothin' like a
man, passon or no passon, for makin' rumples of every bit of clothes
he touches, even his own coats and weskits, and I wouldn't let ye
lay hands on any o' these things to save my life. Why, they'd go to
pieces at the mere sight of yer fingers, they're so flimsy! What I
thought ye might do, was to be a witness to us while we sorted them
all. It's a great thing to have a man o' God as a witness to the
likes o' this work!"

Again Walden laughed, this time with very genuine heartiness, though
he did wish Mrs. Spruce would put away the troublesome pink shoes
which she still held, and to which he found his eyes still
wandering.

"Nonsense! You don't want any witness!" he said gaily; "What are you
thinking about, Mrs. Spruce? When Miss Vancourt is here, all you
have to do is to go over every item of her property with her, and
see that she finds it all right. If anything is missing, it's not
your fault."

"If anythink's missing," echoed Mrs. Spruce in sepulchral tones,
"then the Lord knows what we'll do, for it'll be all over, so far as
we're consarned! Beggars in the street'll be kings to us. Passon, I
reckon ye doesn't read the newspapers much, does ye?"

"Pretty fairly," responded Walden still smiling; "I keep myself as
well acquainted as I can with what is going on in the world."

"Does ye now?" And Mrs. Spruce surveyed him admiringly. "Well, now,
I shouldn't have thought it, for ye seems as inn'cent as a babby I
do assure ye; ye seems jes' that. But mebbe ye doesn't get the same
kind o' newspapers which we poor folks gets--reg'ler weekly penny
lists o' murders, soocides, railway haccidents, burgul'ries, fires,
droppin's down dead suddint, struck by lightnin' and collapsis, with
remedies pervided for all in the advertisements invigoratin' to both
old and young, bone and sinew, brain and body, whether it be pills,
potions, tonics, lotions, ointment or min'ral waters. Them's the
sort o' papers we gets, or rather the 'Mother Huff' takes 'em all in
for us, an' the 'ole village drinks the 'orrors an' the medicines in
with the ale. Ah! It's mighty edifyin', Passon, I do assure ye--and
many of us goes to church on Sundays and reads the 'orrors an'
medicines in the arternoon, and whether we remembers your sermon or
the 'orrors an' medicines most, the Lord only knows! But it's in
them papers I sees how fine leddies goes on nowadays, and if they
misses so much as a two-and-sixpenny 'airpin, some of 'em out of
sheer spite, will 'aul a gel up 'fore the p'lice and 'ave 'er in
condemned cells in no time, so that ye see, Passon, if so be Miss
Maryllia counts over the sparkling diamants and one's lost, we'll
all be brought 'fore Sir Morton Pippitt as county mag'strate afore
we've 'ad time to look at our breakfasts. Wherefore, I sez, why not
'ave a man o' God as witness?"

"Why not, indeed!" returned Walden, playfully; "but your 'man of
God' won't be me, Mrs. Spruce! I'm off! I congratulate you on your
preparations, and I think you are doing everything splendidly! If
Miss Vancourt does not look upon you as a positive treasure, I shall
be very much mistaken! Good afternoon!"

"Passon, Passon!" urged Mrs. Spruce; "Ye baint goin' already?"

"I must! To-morrow's Sunday, remember!"

"Ah!--that it is!" she sighed, "And my mind sorely misgives me that
I never asked the new servants whether they was 'Igh, Low or Roman.
It fairly slipped my memory, and they seemed never to think of it
themselves. Why didn't they remind me, Passon?--can you answer me
that? Which it proves the despisableness of our naturs that we never
thinks of the religious sides of ourselves, but only our wages and
stummicks. Wages and stummicks comes fust, and the care of the Lord
Almighty arterwards. But, there, there!--we're jest a perverse and
stiffnecked generation!"

Walden turned away. Mrs. Spruce, at last deciding to resign her hold
of the pink shoes, over whose pointed toes she had been moralising,
gave them into the care of the rosy-cheeked Phyllis, who was
assisting her in her labours, and followed her 'man of God' out to
the landing.

"Do ye reely think we're doin' quite right, and that we're quite
safe, Passon?" she queried, anxiously.

"You're doing quite right, and you're quite safe," replied Walden,
laughing. "Go on in your present path of virtue, Mrs. Spruce, and
all will be well! I really cannot wait a moment longer. Don't
trouble to come and show me out,--I know my way!"

He sprang down the broad stairs as lightly as a boy, leaving Mrs.
Spruce at the summit, looking wistfully after him.

"It's a pity he couldn't stay!" she murmured, dolefully; "There's a
lace petticut which must be worth a fortune!--I'd have liked 'im to
see it!"

But Walden was beyond recall. On reaching the bottom of the
staircase he had turned into the picture gallery, a long, lofty room
panelled with Jacobean oak on both sides and hung with choice
canvases, the work of the best masters, three or four fine
Gainsboroughs, Peter Lelys and Romneys being among the most notable
examples. At one end of the gallery a close curtain of dark green
baize covered a picture which was understood to be the portrait of
the Mrs. Vancourt who had never lived to see her intended home. The
late Squire had himself put up that curtain, and no one had ever
dared to lift it. Mrs. Spruce had often been asked to do so, but she
invariably refused, 'not wishin' to be troubled with ghosteses of
the old Squire,' as she frankly explained. Facing this, at the
opposite end, hung another picture, disclosed in all its warm and
brilliant colouring to the light of day,--the picture of Mary Elia
Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, who, in the time of Charles the Second had
been a noted beauty of the 'merry monarch's' reign, and whose
counterfeit presentment Mrs. Spruce had styled 'the lady in the
vi'let velvet.' John Walden had suddenly taken a fancy to look at
this portrait though for ten years he had known it well.

He walked up to it now slowly, studying it critically as the light
fell on its rich colouring. The painted lady had a wonderfully
attractive face,--the face of a child, piquante, smiling and
provocative,--her eyes were witching blue, with a moonlight halo of
grey between the black pupil and the azure iris,--her mouth, a
trifle large, but pouting in the centre and curved in the 'Cupid's
bow' line, suggested sweetness and passion, and her hair,--but
surely her hair was indescribable! The painter of Charles the
Second's time had apparently found it difficult to deal with,--for
there was a warm brown wave there, a tiny reddish ripple behind the
small ear, and a flash of golden curls over the white brow,
suggestive of all the tints of spring and autumn sunshine. Habited
in a riding dress of velvet the colour of a purple pansy, Mary Elia
Adelgisa held her skirt, white gauntleted gloves, and riding whip
daintily in one hand,--her hat, a three-cornered piece of coquetry,
lay ready for wear, on a garden-seat hard by,--a blush rosebud was
fastened carelessly in her close-fitting bodice, which was turned
back with embroidered gold revers, and over her head, great forest
trees, heavy with foliage, met in an arch of green. John Walden
stood for a quiet three minutes, studying the picture intently and
also the superscription: "Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, Born
May 1st, 1651: Wedded her cousin, Geoffrey de Vaignecourt, June 5th,
1671: Died May 30th, 1681."

"Not a very long life!" he mused: "All the Vaignecourts, or
Vancourts, have died somewhat early."

He let his eyes rest again on the portrait lingeringly.

"Mary Elia! I wonder if her descendant, 'Maryllia,' is anything
like her?"

Slowly turning, he went out of the picture gallery, across the hall
and into the garden, where the faithful Nebbie was waiting for him,
amid a company of pigeons who were busy picking up what they fancied
from the gravelled path, and who were utterly unembarrassed by the
constant waggings of the terrier's rough tail. And he walked
somewhat abstractedly through the old paved court, past the
unsympathetic sun-dial, and out through the great gates, which were
guarded on either side by stone griffins, gripping in their paws
worn shields decorated with defaced tracings of the old Vaignecourt
emblems. Clematis clasped these fabulous beasts in a dainty embrace,
winding little tendrils of delicate green over their curved claws,
and festooning their savage-looking heads with large star-like
flowers of white and pale mauve, and against one of the weather-
beaten shields an early flowering red rose leaned its perfumed head
in blushing crimson confidence. Halting a moment in his onward pace,
Walden paused, and looked back at the scene regretfully.

"Dear old place!" he said half aloud; "Many and many a happy hour
have I passed in it, loving it, reverencing it, honouring its every
stone,--as all such relics of a chivalrous and gracious past deserve
to be loved, reverenced and honoured. But I fear,--yes!--I fear I
shall never again see it quite as I have seen it for the past ten
years,--or as I see it now! New days, new ways! And I am not
progressive. To me the old days and old ways are best!"




VI


"And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always!"

So prayed John Walden, truly and tenderly, stretching out his hands
in benediction over the bent heads of his little congregation, which
responded with a fervent 'Amen.'

Service was over, and the good folks of St. Rest wended their
gradual way out of church to the full sweet sound of an organ
voluntary, played by Miss Janet Eden, who, as all the village said
of her, 'was a rare 'and at doin' the music proper.' Each man and
woman wore their Sunday best,--each girl had some extra bit of
finery on, and each lad sported either a smart necktie or wore a
flower in his buttonhole, as a testimony to the general festal
feeling inspired by a day when ordinary work is set aside for the
mingled pleasures of prayer, meditation and promiscuous love-making.
The iconoclasts who would do away with the appointed seventh day of
respite from the hard labours of every-day life, deserve hanging
without the mercy of trial. A due observance of Sunday, and
especially the English country observance of Sunday, is one of the
saving graces of our national constitution. In the large towns, a
growing laxity concerning the 'keeping of the seventh day holy,' is
plainly noticeable, the pernicious example of London 'smart' society
doing much to lessen the old feeling of respect for the day and its
sacredness; but in small greenwood places, where it is still judged
decent and obedient to the laws of God, to attend Divine worship at
least once a day,--when rough manual toil is set aside, and the
weary and soiled  labourer takes a pleasure in being clean, orderly
and cheerfully respectful to his superiors, Sunday is a blessing and
an educational force that can hardly be over-estimated.

In such a peaceful corner as St. Rest it was a very day of days.
Tourists seldom disturbed its tranquillity, the 'Mother Huff'
public-house affording but sorry entertainment to such parties; the
motor-bicycle, with its detestable noise, insufferable odour and
dirty, oil-stained rider in goggled spectacles, was scarcely ever
seen,--and motor-cars always turned another way on leaving the
county town of Riversford, in order to avoid the sharp ascent from
the town, as well as the still sharper and highly dangerous descent
into the valley again, where the little mediaeval village lay
nestled. Thus it was enabled to gather to itself a strangely
beautiful halcyon calm on the Lord's Day,--and in fair Spring
weather like the present, dozed complacently under the quiet smile
of serene blue skies, soothed to sleep by the rippling flow of its
ribbon-like river, and receiving from hour to hour a fluttering halo
of doves' wings, as these traditional messengers of p

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