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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“At the Independent College.  I am studying for the ministry.”

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

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

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

“A little what?”

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

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

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

“Are you alone all day?”

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

“Dear me!  And you are not dull nor afraid?”

“Dull or afraid!  Why?”

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

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

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

“Major Cartwright.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, not yet,” replied Pauline, holding the door doubtingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I believe I am like my mother in many things.”

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

“You have such black hair,” he observed.

She rose to take away the tea-things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Take that and be gone!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Broad felt the full force of these arguments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No thank you, Mrs. Allen.  I must be going.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It doesn’t matter whether it is an organ or piano,” said George, “the principle is the same.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah; but I know when you say ‘Ye-es’ like that you do not understand.”

“I do understand,” she retorted, with a little asperity.

“Well then, repeat it, and let us see.”

“No, I shall not.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ellen stood looking at the wreck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

George’s father always slept well, but the mother stirred at the slightest sound.  She heard her boy on the other side of the wall pacing to and fro, and she slipped out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and went to listen.  Presently she knocked gently.

“George, my dear, aren’t you well?”

“Yes, mother; nothing the matter.”

“Let me in.”

He let her in, and sat down.  The moon shone brightly, and there was no need for any other light.

The mother came and sat beside her child.

“George, my dear, there is something on you mind?  What is it?—tell me.”

“Nothing, mother; nothing indeed.”

She answered by taking his cold hand in both her own and putting it on her lap.  Presently he disengaged himself and went to the window.  She sat still for a moment, and followed him.  She looked up in his face; the moonlight was full upon it; there was no moisture in his eyes, but his lips quivered.  She led him away, and got him to sit down again, taking his hand as before, but speaking no word.  Suddenly, without warning, his head was on his mother’s bosom, and he was weeping as if his heart would break.  Another first experience to him and to her; the first time he had ever wept since he was a child and cried over a fall or because it was dark.  She supported that heavy head with the arm which had carried him before he could walk alone; she kissed him, and her tears flowed with his; but still she was silent.  There was no reason why she should make further inquiry; she knew it all.  By themselves there they remained till he became a little calmer, and then he begged her to leave him.  She wished to stay, but he would not permit it, and she withdrew.  When she reached her bedroom her husband was still asleep, and although she feared to wake him, she could no longer contain herself, and falling on her knees with her face in the bedclothes, so that she might not be heard, she cried to her Maker to have mercy on her child.  She was not a woman much given to religious exercises, but she prayed that night such a prayer as had not been prayed in Tanner’s Lane since its foundation was laid.  For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife?  Ah, yes! he does leave them; but in his heart does he never go back?  And if he never does, does his mother ever leave him?

In the morning Mrs. Allen was a little pale, and was asked by her husband if she was unwell, but she held her peace.  George, too, rose, went about his work, and in the afternoon walked up to the cottage to meet his wife there.  She was bright and smiling, and had a thousand things to tell him about what her mamma said, and how mamma hoped that the nasty pipe would be altered and never ought to have been there; and how she was coming after tea to talk to him, and how she herself, Priscilla, had got a plan.

“What is it?” said George.

“Why, I would put a grating, or something, over the pipe, so that it shouldn’t get stopped up.”

“But if the grating got stopped up that would be just as bad.”

“Well then, I wouldn’t have a well there at all.  Why don’t you cover it over?”

‘“But what are you to do with the window?  You cannot block out the light.”

So Priscilla’s “plans,” as she called them, were nothing.  And though George had a plan which he thought might answer, he did not consult her about it.

Six months afterwards Priscilla was about to give birth to her first-born.  At Mrs. Allen’s earnest request old nurse Barton had been engaged, who nursed Mrs. Allen when George came into the world, and loved him like her own child.  As a counterpoise, Mrs. Broad, who had desired a nurse from a distance, whom she knew, installed herself with Priscilla.  Nurse Barton had a great dislike to Mrs. Broad, although she attended Mr. Broad’s ministrations at Tanner’s Lane.  She was not a member of the church, and never could be got to propose herself for membership.  There was, in fact, a slight flavour of Paganism about her.  She was considered to belong to the “world,” and it was only her age and undoubted skill which saved her practice amongst the Tanner’s Lane ladies.  There was a rival in the town; but she was a younger woman, and never went out to any of the respectable houses, save when Mrs. Barton was not available.

The child was safely born, and as soon as nurse Barton could be spared for an hour or two she went to Mrs. Allen, whom she found alone.  The good woman then gave Mrs. Allen her opinions, which, by the way, she always gave with prefect frankness.

“Thank the Lord-i-mercy this ’ere job, Mrs. Allen, is near at an end.  If it ’adn’t been my dear boy George’s wife, never would I have set foot in that ’ouse.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?  Now, Mrs. Allen, you know as well as I do.  To see that there Mrs. Broad!  She might ’ave ordered me about; that wouldn’t a been nothin’; but to see ’er a orderin’ ’im, and a ridin’ on ’im like a wooden rockin’-’orse, and with no more feelin’!  A nasty, prancin’, ’igh-’eaded creatur’.  Thinks I to myself, often and often, if things was different I’d let yer know, that I would; but I ’eld my tong.  It ’ud a been wuss for us all, p’r’aps, if I ’adn’t.”

“I should think so,” said Mrs. Allen; “remember she is the minister’s wife.”

“Minister’s wife!” repeated Mrs. Barton, and with much scorn.  “And then them children of hern.  Lord be praised I never brought such things as them into the world.  That was her fine nuss as she must get down from London; and pretty creaturs they are!”

“Hush, hush; George has one of them, and she is mine.”

“I can’t ’elp it, ma’am, I must speak out.  I say as he ought to ’ave married somebody better nor ’er; though I don’t mind a tellin’ of yer she’s the best of the lot.  Why did the Lord in heaven, as sent Jesus Christ to die for our souls, let my George ’ave such a woman as that?  What poor silly creaturs we all are!” and the old woman, bending her head down, shook it mournfully and rubbed her knees with her hand.  She was thinking of him as he lay in her lap years and years ago, and pondering, in her disconnected, incoherent way, over the mysteries which are mysteries to us as much as to her.

Mrs. Broad, who was in constant attendance upon Priscilla, at the very earliest moment pronounced the baby a Flavel, and made haste to tell father and mother so.  There was no mistaking a refinement, so to say, in the features and an expression in the eye.  George, of course, was nearly banished for a time, and was much with his father and mother.  At length, however, the hour arrived when the nurse took her departure, and, Mrs. Broad having also somewhat retired, he began to see a little more of his wife; but it was very little.  She was altogether shut up in maternal cares—closed round, apparently, from the whole world.  He was not altogether displeased, but he did at times think that she might give him a moment now and then, especially as he was greatly interested in the coming county election.  It was rather too early in the day for a Free Trader to stand as a candidate, but two Whigs, of whom they had great hopes, had been put up, and both George and his father were most energetic in canvassing and on committees.

Mr. Broad had decided not to vote.  He did not deny that his sympathies were not with the Tories, but as a minister of religion it would be better for him to remain neutral.  This annoyed the Allens and damaged their cause.  At a meeting held by the Tories one of the speakers called upon the audience to observe that all the respectable people, with very few exceptions, were on their side.  “Why,” cried he, “I’ll bet you, my friends, all Lombard Street to a china orange that they don’t get even the Dissenting parson to vote for the Radicals.  Of course he won’t, and why?  Just because he’s a cut above his congregation, and knows a little more than they do, and belongs to the intelligent classes.”

George bethought himself that perhaps he might do something through Priscilla to influence her mother, and he determined to speak to her about it.  He came home one evening after attending a committee, and found supper ready.  Priscilla was downstairs, sitting with the door open.

“Hadn’t we better shut the door?” said George; “it is rather cold.”

“No, no, George; I shouldn’t hear the baby.”

“But Ellen is upstairs.”

“Yes; but then she might go to sleep.”

“My dear,” began George, “I wish your father could be got to vote straight.  You see that by not doing so he goes against all the principles of the Independents.  Ever since they have been in existence they have always stood up for freedom, and we are having the large yellow flag worked with the words, Civil and Religious Liberty.  It will be a bad thing for us if he holds aloof.  I cannot understand,” he continued, getting eloquent, “how a Dissenting minister can make up his mind not to vote against a party which has been answerable for all the oppression and all the wrongs in English history, and for all our useless wars, and actually persecuted his predecessors in this very meeting-house in which he now preaches.  Besides, to say nothing about the past, just look at what we have before us now.  The Tories are the most bitter opponents of Free Trade.  I can’t tell you how I feel about it, and I do think that if you were to speak to your mother she would perhaps induce him to change his mind.”

It was a long time since he had said so much all at once to his wife.

“George, George, I am sure he’s awake!” and she was off out of the room in an instant.  Presently she returned.

“Mamma came here this afternoon and brought his hood—a new one—such a lovely hood!—and she says he looks more than ever like a Flavel in it.”

“I don’t believe you listened to a word of what I was saying.”

“Oh yes, I did; you always think I don’t listen; but I can listen to you and watch for him too.”

“What did I say?”

“Never mind, I know.”

“I cannot understand,” he said sullenly, and diverted for a moment from his subject, “why mamma should be always telling you he is a Flavel.”

“Well, really, George, why shouldn’t she?  Tryphosa said the other day that if you were to take away grandpapa Flavel’s wig and bands from the picture in the Evangelical Magazine he would be just like him.”

“It seems to me,” replied George, “that if there’s any nonsense going about the town, it always comes to you.  People don’t talk such rubbish to me.”

What the effect of this speech might have been cannot be told, for at this moment the baby did really cry, and Priscilla departed hastily for the night.  She never spoke to her mother about the election, for, as George suspected, she had not paid the slightest attention to him; and as to exchanging with her mother a single word upon such a subject as politics, or upon any other subject which was in any way impersonal,—she never did such a thing in her life.

It was the uniform practice of the Reverend John Broad to walk down the main Street of Cowfold on Monday morning, and to interchange a few words with any of his congregation whom he might happen to meet.  This pastoral perambulation not only added importance to him, and made him a figure in Cowfold, but, coming always on Monday, served to give people some notion of a preoccupation during the other days of the week which was forbidden, for mental reasons, on the day after Sunday.  On this particular Monday Mr. Broad was passing Mr. Allen’s shop, and seeing father and son there, went in.  Mr. Allen himself was at a desk which stood near the window, and George was at the counter, in a black apron, weighing nails.

After an unimportant remark or two about the weather, Mr. Allen began in a cheery tone, so as to prevent offence:

“Mr. Broad, we are sorry we cannot persuade you to vote for the good cause.”

Mr. Broad’s large mouth lengthened itself, and his little eyes had an unpleasant light in them.

“Brother Allen, I have made this matter the subject of much meditation, and I may even say of prayer, and I have come to the conclusion it will be better for me to occupy a neutral position.”

“Why, Mr. Broad?  You cannot doubt on which side the right lies.”

“No; but then there are so many things to be considered, so many responsibilities, and my first care, you see, must be the ministerial office and the church which Providence has placed in my charge.”

“But, Mr. Broad, there are only two or three of them who are Tory.”

“Only old Bushel and another farmer or two,” interrupted George.

Mr. Broad looked severely at George, but did not condescend to answer him.

“Those two or three, Brother Allen, require consideration as much as ourselves.  Brother Bushel is, I may say, a pillar of the cause, a most faithful follower of the Lord; and what are political questions compared with that?  How could I justify myself if my liberty were to become a stumbling-block to my brother.  The house of God without Brother Bushel to give out the hymns on Sunday would, I am sure, not be the same house of God to any of us.”

“But, Mr. Broad, do you think he will be so silly as to be offended because you exercise the same right which he claims for himself?”

“Ah, Brother Allen—offended!  You remember, no doubt, the text, ‘Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth.’”

It is a very good thing to have at one’s elbow a Bible of rules for our guidance; but unfortunately we relieve ourselves very often of the most necessary inquiry whether the rule applies to the particular case in hand.  Mr. Allen had the greatest possible respect for St. Paul, but he felt sure the apostle was where he had no business to be just at that particular moment.  George also saw the irrelevance of the quotation, and discerned exactly where it did not fit.

“Mr. Broad, I am sure I don’t pretend to know what St. Paul thought as well as you do—of course not—but do you think that voting is like eating meat?  Is it not a duty to express our convictions on such questions as those now before the country?  It didn’t much matter whether a man ate meat which had been offered to an idol or not, but it does matter how we are governed.”

Mr. Broad turned round on George, and smiled with a smile which was certainly not a sign of affection, but otherwise did not notice him.

“Well, Mr. Broad,” continued Mr. Allen, “all I can say is, I regret it; and I am sure you will excuse me if I also say that we too deserve some consideration.  You forget that your refusal to declare yourself may be stumbling-block to us.”

“I hope not, I hope not.  George, how is Priscilla, and how is her child?  Are they both quite well?” and with a pontifical benediction the minister moved away.  When he got home he consulted the oracle; not on his knees, but sitting in his arm-chair; that is to say, Mrs. Broad at the Monday afternoon tea, and she relieved his anxiety.  There was no fear of any secession on the part of the Allens, connected as they were with them through Priscilla.  On the other hand, Brother Bushel, although he gave out the hymns, had already had a quarrel with the singing pew because they would not more frequently perform a tune with a solo for the double bass, which he always accompanied with his own bass voice, and Mr. Broad had found it difficult to restore peace; the flute and clarionet justly urging that they never had solos, and why the double bass, who only played from ear, and not half as many notes as they played, should be allowed to show off they didn’t know.  Mr. Bushel, too, contributed ten pounds a year to the cause, and Piddingfold Green Chapel was but a mile farther off from him than Cowfold.  There were allies of the Allens in Tanner’s Lane, no doubt; but none of them would be likely to desert so long as the Allens themselves remained.  Therefore Providence seemed to point out to Mr. and Mrs. Broad that their course was clear.

Mr. Allen, having business in London, determined to go on Saturday, and spend the next day with Zachariah.  Although he always called on his old friend whenever he could do so, he was not often away from home on a Sunday.  He also resolved to take George with him.  Accordingly on Saturday morning they were up early and caught a coach on the North Road.  The coaches by this time had fallen off considerably, for the Birmingham railway was open, and there was even some talk of a branch through Cowfold; but there were still perhaps a dozen which ran to places a good way east of the line.  Father and son dismounted at the “George and Blue Boar,” where they were to sleep.  Sunday was to be spent with the Colemans, whom George had seen before but very seldom; never, indeed, since he was a boy.

Zachariah still went to Pike Street Chapel, but only in the morning to hear Mr. Bradshaw, who was now an old man, and could not preach twice.  On that particular Sunday on which Zachariah, Pauline, Mr. Allen, and George heard him he took for his text the thirteenth verse of the twelfth chapter of Deuteronomy: “Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place thou seest.”  He put down his spectacles after he had read these words, for he never used a note, and said: “If your religion doesn’t help you, it is no religion for you; you had better be without it.  I don’t mean if it doesn’t help you to a knowledge of a future life or of the way to heaven.  Everybody will say his religion does that.  What I do mean is, that the sign of a true religion—true for you, is this—Does it assist you to bear your own private difficulties?—does it really?—not the difficulties of the schools and theology, but those of the parlour and countinghouse; ay, difficulties most difficult, those with persons nearest to you? . . .  Everybody ought to have his own religion.  In one sense we are all disciples of Christ, but nevertheless each man has troubles peculiar to himself, and it is absurd to expect that any book system will be sufficient for each one of us at all points.  You must make your own religion, and it is only what you make yourself which will be of any use to you.  Don’t be disturbed if you find it is not of much use to other persons.  Stick to it yourself if it is really your own, a bit of yourself.  There are, however, in the Book of God universal truths, and the wonderful thing about them is, that they are at the same time more particularly adapted to you and me and all our innermost wants than anything we can discover for ourselves.  That is the miracle of inspiration.  For thousands and thousands of years some of the sayings here have comforted those who have well nigh despaired in the desert of the world.  The wisdom of millions of apostles, of heroes, of martyrs, of poor field labourers, of solitary widows, of orphans of the destitute, of men driven to their last extremity has been the wisdom of this volume—not their own, and yet most truly theirs. . . .  Here is a word for us this morning: ‘Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place thou seest.’  Ah, what a word it is!  You and I are not idolaters, and there is no danger of our being so.  For you and me this is not a warning against idolatry.  What is it for us then?  Reserve yourself; discriminate in your worship.  Reserve yourself, I say; but what is the implication?  What says the next verse?  ‘In the place which the Lord shall choose;’ that is to say, keep your worship for the Highest.  Do not squander yourself, but, on the other hand, before the shrine of the Lord offer all your love and adoration.  What a practical application this has! . . . I desire to come a little closer to you.  What are the consequences of not obeying this Divine law?  You will not be struck dead nor excommunicated, you will be simply disappointed.  Your burnt offering will receive no answer; you will not be blessed through it; you will come to see that you have been pouring forth your treasure, and something worse, your heart’s blood—not the blood of cattle—before that which is no God—a nothing, in fact.  ‘Vanity of vanities,’ you will cry, ‘all is vanity.’  My young friends, young men and young women, you are particularly prone to go wrong in this matter.  You not only lay your possessions but yourselves on altars by the roadside.”

It was the first time George had ever heard anything from any public speaker which came home to him, and he wondered if Mr. Bradshaw knew his history.  He interpreted the discourse after his own way, and Priscilla was ever before him.

They came back to the little house, and sat down to dinner in the little front room.  There were portraits on the walls—nothing else but portraits—and the collection at first sight was inconsistent.  Major Cartwright was still there; there were also Byron, Bunyan, Scott, Paine, Burns, Mr. Bradshaw, and Rousseau.  It was closely expressive of its owners.  Zachariah and Pauline were private persons; they were, happily for them, committed to nothing, and were not subsidised by their reputations to defend a system.  They were consequently free to think at large, and if they admired both Bunyan and Rousseau, they were at liberty to do so.  Zachariah, in a measure, and a very large measure, had remained faithful to his earliest beliefs—who is there that does not?—and although they had been modified, they were still there; and he listened to Mr. Bradshaw with the faith of thirty years ago.  He also believed in a good many things he had learned without him, and perhaps the old and the new were not so discordant as at first sight they might have seemed to be.  He was not, in fact, despite all his love of logic, the “yes or no” from which most people cannot escape, but a “yes and no”; not immorally and through lack of resolution, but by reason of an original receptivity and the circumstances of his training.  If he had been merely a student the case would have been different but he was not a student.  He was a journeyman printer; and hard work has a tendency to demolish the distinctions of dialectics.  He had also been to school outside his shop, and had learned many lessons, often confusing and apparently contradictory.  Blanketeer marches; his first wife; the workhouse imprisonment; his second wife; the little Pauline had each come to him with its own special message, and the net result was a character, but a character disappointing to persons who prefer men and women of linear magnitude to those of three dimensions.

After dinner the conversation turned upon politics and Mr. Allen described his interview with Mr. Broad, regretting that the movement in the district round Cowfold would receive no countenance from the minister of the very sect which ought to be its chief support.

“A sad falling off,” said Zachariah, “from the days, even in my time, when the Dissenters were the insurrectionary class.  Mr. Bradshaw, last Sunday, after his sermon, shut his Bible, and told the people that he did not now interfere much in political matters; but he felt he should not be doing his duty if he did not tell those whom he taught which way they ought to vote, and that what he had preached to them for so many years would be poor stuff if it did not compel them into a protest against taxing the poor for the sake of the rich.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Allen; “but then Broad never has taught what Bradshaw teaches; he never seems to me to see anything clearly; at least he never makes me see anything clearly; the whole world is in a fog to him.”

“From what I have heard of Mr. Broad,” said Pauline, “I should think the explanation of him is very simple; he is a hypocrite—an ordinary hypocrite.  What is the use of going out of the way to seek for explanations of such commonplace persons?”

“Pauline, Pauline,” cried Zachariah, “you surely forget, my child, in whose company you are!”

“Oh, as for that,” said George, “Miss Coleman needn’t mind me.  I haven’t married Mr. Broad, and my father is quite right.  For that matter, I believe Miss Coleman is right too.”

“Well,” said Mr. Allen, “it is rather strong to say a man is an ordinary hypocrite, and it is not easy to prove it.”

“Not easy to prove it,” said Pauline, shifting a little her chair and looking straight at Mr. Allen, with great earnestness; “hypocrisy is the one thing easiest to prove.  I can tell whether a man is a hypocrite before I know anything else about him.  I may not for a long time be able to say what else he may be, but before he speaks, almost, I can detect whether he is sincere.”

“You women,” said Zachariah, with a smile, “or you girls rather, are so positive.  Just as though the world were divided like the goats and the sheep in the gospel.  That is a passage that I never could quite understand.  I never, hardly, see a pure breed either of goat or sheep.  I never see anybody who deserves to go straight to heaven or who deserves to go straight to hell.  When the judgment day comes it will be a difficult task.  Why, Pauline, my dear, I am a humbug myself.”

“Ah well, I have heard all that before; but, nevertheless, what I say is true.  Some men, using speech as God meant men to use it, are liars, and some are not.  Of course not entirely so, nor at all times.  We cannot speak mere truth; we are not made to speak it.  For all that you are not a liar.”

“Anyhow, I shall go on,” said Mr. Allen.  “We shall have a desperate fight, and shall most likely lose; but no Tory shall sit for our county if I can help it.”

“Of course you will go on,” said Zachariah.  “So shall I go on.  We are to have a meeting in Clerkenwell to-morrow night, although, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel exactly the interest in the struggle which I did in those of five-and-twenty years ago, when we had to whisper our treasons to one another in locked rooms and put sentries at the doors.  You know nothing about those times, George.”

“I wish I had,” said George, with an unusual passion, which surprised his father and caused Pauline to lift her eyes from the table and look at him.  “I only wish I had.  I can’t speak as father can, and I often say to myself I should like to take myself off to some foreign country where men get shot for what they call conspiracy.  If I knew such a country I half believe I would go to-morrow.”

“Which means,” said Pauline, “that there would be an end of you and your services.  If you care anything for a cause, you can do something better than get shot for it; and if you want martyrdom, there is a nobler martyrdom than death.  The Christians who were trundled in barrels with spikes in them deserve higher honour than those who died in a moment, before they could recant.  The highest form of martyrdom, though, is not even living for the sake of a cause, but living without one, merely because it is your duty to live.  If you are called upon to testify to a great truth, it is easy to sing in flames.  Yes, yes, Mr. George, the saints whom I would canonise are not martyrs for a cause, but those who have none.”

George thought that what Pauline said—just as he had thought of Mr. Bradshaw’s sermon—seemed to be said for him; and yet what did she know about him?  Nothing.  He was silent.  All were silent, for it is difficult to follow anybody who pitches the conversation at so high a level; and Zachariah, who alone could have maintained it, was dreaming over his lost Pauline and gazing on the sacred pictures which were hung in the chamber of his heart.  Just at that moment he was looking at the one of his wife as a girl; the room in which he was sitting had gone; he was in the court near Fleet Street; she had cleared the space for the dance; she had begun, and he was watching her with all the passion of his youth.  The conversation gradually turned to something more indifferent, and the company broke up.

On the Monday George and his father went home.  It is very depressing, after being with people who have been at their best, and with whom we have been at our best, to descend upon ordinary existence.  George felt it particularly as he stood in the shop on Tuesday morning and reflected that for the whole of that day—for his father was out—he should probably not say nor hear a word for which he cared a single straw.  But there was to be an election meeting that evening, and Mr. Allen was to speak, and George, of course, must be there.  The evening came, and the room at the Mechanics’ Institute, which had just been established in Cowfold, was crowded.  Admission was not by ticket, so that, though the Whigs had convened it, there was a strong muster of the enemy.  Mr. Allen moved the first resolution in a stirring speech, which was constitutionally interrupted with appeals to him to go home and questions about a grey mare—“How about old Pinfold’s grey mare?”—which seemed conclusive and humorous to the last degree.  Old Pinfold was a well-known character in Cowfold, horse-dealer, pig-jobber, attendant at races, with no definite occupation, and the grey mare was an animal which he managed to impose upon Mr. Allen, who sued him and lost.  When Mr. Allen’s resolution had been duly seconded, one Rogers, a publican, got up and said he had something to say.  There was indescribable confusion, some crying, “Turn him out;” others “Pitch into ’em, Bill.”  Bill Rogers was well known as the funny man in Cowfold, a half-drunken buffoon, whose wit, such as it was, was retailed all over the place; a man who was specially pleased if he could be present in any assembly collected for any serious purpose and turn it into ridicule.  He got upon a chair, not far from where George sat, but refused to go upon the platform.  “No, thank yer my friends, I’m best down here; up there’s the place for the gentlefolk, the clever uns, them as buy grey mares!”—(roars of laughter)—“but, Mr. Chairman, with your permission”—and here Bill put his had upon his chest and made a most profound bow to the chair, which caused more laughter—“there is just one question I should like to ask—not about the grey mare, sir”—(roars of laughter again)—“but I see a young gentleman here beknown to us all”—(points to George)—“and I should just like to ask him, does his mother-in-law—not his mother, you observe, sir—does his mother-in-law know he’s out?”  Once more there was an explosion, for Mr. Broad’s refusal to take part in the contest was generally ascribed to Mrs. Broad.  George sat still for a moment, hardly realising his position, and then the blood rose to his head; up crashed across the forms, and before the grin had settled into smoothness on Bill’s half-intoxicated features there was a grip like that of a giant on his greasy coat collar; he was dragged amidst shouts and blows to the door, George nothing heeding, and dismissed with such energy that he fell prostrate on the pavement.  His friends had in vain attempted to stop George’s wrathful progress; but they were in a minority.