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Volume Two – Chapter Eighteen.
Sim Slee’s Patriotism

Then Mrs Slee would tighten up her lips, look as if she would like to box her lord’s ears, and end sometimes by doing it, Sim appealing to “Moother” for mercy till she went upstairs, when Sim would get up from the floor, where he had thrown himself, and rub his ears till they ceased tingling, and end by winking to himself and performing the strange movements alluded to in the previous chapter.

At these times, in spite of the very liberal quantity of ale indulged in at his own and other people’s expense, Sim’s head would be perfectly clear; and knowing, from old experience, that as soon as he had lain down and gone fast asleep, Mrs Slee would get up and empty his pockets, he would proceed to conceal his money. Half-crowns were placed up the chimney, a half-sovereign on the ledge over a door, shillings in corners not likely to be swept, under chimney ornaments, and on the tops of picture frames, his great hoard at this time being under an old scrubby geranium, growing – or rather existing, for it had long ceased to grow – in a pot in the window – a favourite plant of Mrs Slee’s, as she had kept it through the winter for years. So matted together were its roots, that if the stem were taken in the hand the whole of the earth came out quite clean in its basket of fibres, and beneath this, in the bottom of the pot, Sim had placed five golden sovereigns, nicely arranged round the hole, on the night after the riot, the geranium being replaced, and all looking as before.

The next morning Mrs Slee was up a long while the first, as usual, and as was her custom when Sim had been bad over night, she made a tour of the place, finding and gleaning up coins of various value, wondering the while where Sim obtained the money that she transferred to her ample pocket, hidden by drapery and folds at a great depth from the surface.

Just as she was finishing, she caught sight of the pot, and saw that it had been removed over night, for the water that had drained into the earthen saucer had, when the pot was moved, dripped on the floor.

A grim smile overspread her countenance as she lifted pot and saucer together, and looked beneath, to see nothing. Even the pot was lifted from the saucer, and with like result, when, replacing it, the wet pot slipped, and Mrs Slee caught at the stem of the plant, with the result that she held geranium in one hand, pot in the other, and saw the five glittering gold pieces at the bottom.

She clutched them eagerly, and hid them away, replaced the pot, and then stood thinking.

“Where does he get his money?” she said, looking grimly. “I’ll speak to parson.”

Mrs Slee had been gone a couple of hours before Sim descended to partake of the breakfast placed ready for him, all the while battling with his infirmity.

It was one that always troubled him after a night’s excess, for, though Sim’s head was clear enough over night when he hid his money, the over-excited brain refused to act next morning, and a thick veil was drawn between the eve and the morrow. There was always the dim recollection of having hidden his money, but that was all; and in this case as in others, pot, door-ledge, pictures, all had passed away from his memory, and there was a blank in answer to his oft-repeated question – “Where did I put that money?” It was a blessing in disguise for Sim, though he did not know it. But for this, and his wife’s tenacious grasp of all she found, none of which went directly back to Sim, he would have been without a roof to cover his head years before, and many a pound that he accredited himself with having spent in gills of ale and standing treat had really gone into his wife’s pocket.

“Well, this wean’t do,” he said at last; “money’s gone, and I shall get no more out o’ Dicky Glaire.”

“He’ll be pretty sick o’ his lock-out by this time,” said Sim, as he laced his boots. “That was a fine plan wi’ them bands. It’s kep the strike on, and it’s easier than wucking your fingers to the bone. Wonder how long they’ll keep it oop. Well, here goes.”

He went out, and had not gone far before he met the vicar, who stopped to speak to him; but Sim, to use his own words, “coot him dead,” making his way right off through the town, where he stopped for a bit of bombastic “blather,” as his associates called it, on the success of their attack on Richard.

“He had the finest leathering he ever had in his life,” said Sim.

“And what good’s it going to do?” said one of the men, in a grumbling tone.

“What good? Open thee eyes, mun, and see for your sen. Good? It’ll bring him to his senses, and he’ll come round and ask on his knees for us to go to work, and then we’ll mak’ our own terms.”

“And if he wean’t come round,” said another, “what then?”

Sim stooped to the man’s ear, and whispered something.

“Eh, mun, but we wouldn’t do that, would we?”

“Howd thee tongue,” said Sim. “Wait and see. I’ve got a friend coming down to-day as can settle all these things. I’m going to meet him at the station, and he’s going to stay here till things is settled.”

“And who’s going to keep un?” said another man. “I can’t keep mysen.”

“All on you, o’ course,” said Sim. “You keep a good heart, lad, and all will be as raight as raight.”

“But that would be coming it strange and strong, man,” said the first speaker.

“Strong diseases want strong doses, lad,” said Sim, winking. “But don’t you wherrit yoursen. There’s them in the Brotherhood as is looking after your interests, and we shall all come off wi’ flying colours.”

“I dessay we shall,” said the man, in a discontented tone; “but I want to hear them theer furnaces a-roaring agen, and the firemen’s shovels rattling in the coals, and the brass a-chinking in the box o’ pay nights. Dal the strike, I say.”

“But it aint a strike now,” said Sim, didactically. “Don’t you see, it’s a lock-out.”

“It’s all the same,” said another, sulkily. “Theer aint no brass to tak’, and the missus and the bairns is pined to dead wi’ hunger, and starved to dead for want of a bit o’ fire.”

“But you get the society money,” said Sim, indignantly.

“Yah! what’s that to a man in full fettle! Just pays for bread, and you can’t buy a decent weigh o’ meat for fear o’ waring it all at once.”

“Yes,” said another; “it’s like club money when a man’s sick and can’t wuck.”

“Raight enew, then,” said another; “bud a man wants wuck as well as something to yeat. It’s strange, coarse weather for us as far as yeating and drinking goes. Why, my bairns heven’t hed a bit of bootther sin’ the strike begun.”

“A man need be as tiff as a band to stand it all,” said another.

“Ay, tough as a bont whong,” said another.

“Well, I shall be a very poor creature,” said another, “if this here’s going to last. I’m ’bout pined to dead now.”

“I shall flit and get wuck somewheer else.”

“Iver get berry pie for dinner now, Sim Slee?” said another, alluding to a favourite luxury of Sim’s, who was accredited with having stolen a neighbour’s gooseberries to make the famous berry pie.

Here there was a bit of a laugh, a good sign, for the men seemed ripe for mischief.

“His missus gives him tongue for breakfast ivery morning,” said another.

“Sim, come home wi’ uz and hev a bit o’ custard,” said another, and there was a general laugh from the gaunt-looking men.

“Nice bit o’ stuffed chine at my place, Sim,” said another; and one after the other, men, whose fare had been bread and potatoes for many days, gave their great orator invitations to partake of the popular delicacies of the place.

“Tellee what,” said big Harry, coming up, “I mean to have somebody’s thack off if this game arn’t soon over.”

“I hadn’t going to say much,” said Sim, who had been standing with folded arms, looking contemptuously at the crowd around; “but, I say this – if I was to go on as you do I’d hate mysen. Wheer’s your paytriotism? Wheer’s your risings against tyranny? Wheer’s your British wucking man rising like a lion in his might?”

“Yes,” said a shrill female voice from a window, “but your British lion wucking man wants his dinner, don’t he?”

There was a roar of laughter at this. “Yah!” said Sim, contemptuously. “Why do I wuck mysen to death for you all, to be badgered for it?”

“I don’t know,” said the same voice from the window, sounding more shrill than ever, “but I know this, Sim Slee, that my bairns is all pining, while their father’s doing nowt but walk about wi’ his hands in his pockets, and if things don’t soon change, some o’ them as got up this strike ’ll be put oonder the poomp, and if the men don’t do it uz women will.”

Sim folded his arms, looked round contemptuously as there rose another shout of laughter, and stalked off to walk to the station and meet the deputation, as he called the man he had invited to come down.

Volume Two – Chapter Nineteen.
The Foreman’s Apology

There was, indeed, a calm, but to the vicar it seemed a very deceitful one, and he spent many an uneasy hour in thinking whether it was likely when the men grew excited they would attack the house; but he always came back to the conclusion that Richard would be safe there, so long as he did nothing more to exasperate his workmen.

During visits to the house, Mrs Glaire, with tears, avowed that she could do nothing, only hope, for Richard was stubbornness itself, and when for a moment he thought of inducing Eve to play the part of intercessor, the poor girl’s wan and piteous look pained him so that he could not ask her, and it was brought thoroughly home to him that she must love Richard very dearly, though now they were cruelly estranged; and as he sat and gazed upon her, and grew more and more intimate, learning the sweet truth of her nature, and thorough self-denial, he felt half maddened to think she should be thrown away upon such a man, and told himself that he would gladly have seen her wedded to any one to escape so terrible a union.

The past and Daisy Banks were quite ignored. She was a trouble that had come upon the mother and cousin’s life, but she was removed apparently from their path, unless some of the letters Richard so regularly wrote were for her.

Murray felt his position in connection with the family acutely. The rumour spread by Budd as to his being forbidden the house was false, but scarcely a day passed when Richard came down, after indulging himself a week in bed to cure ills from which he really did not suffer, but for which stout Mr Purley doctored him stolidly, and made his sister enter them in the day-book when he got home – scarcely a day passed without the vicar having to submit to some insult.

He would have stayed away, but for Mrs Glaire, who looked to him for her support in this time of trouble; and he would have avoided Eve’s society, dear to him as it was, but for the sweet ingenuous looks with which she greeted him, and laid bare her innocent, truthful heart to his gaze. To her he was dear Mr Selwood, whose hands she had kissed when he promised her to leave no stone unturned to bring Richard to the path of duty; and her belief in him was, that with his strong mind and knowledge of the world, he would do this, that Richard would be quite reformed; and make her, to her aunt’s lasting happiness, a good and loving husband.

And she – does she love him? the vicar often asked himself, and he was compelled to answer, “No!”

For there was no deep passion, only the sorrow for Richard’s frailties, the disappointment and bitterness of the young girl, who finds the man to whom she is betrothed is a scoundrel, and fights with self to keep from believing it. No, Eve did not love him with all her heart, for a true love passion had never yet gained an entrance. Richard was to be her husband; that was settled; and some day, when he showed his sorrow and repented, she would forgive him, and become his wife.

And had she the least idea that another loved her?

Not the least. Mr Selwood was her and her aunt’s dear friend, working with them for the same end, and some day in the future, when Richard was forgiven, he would make them man and wife.

This was the state of Eve’s heart at the present period of the story; but a change was coming – a look, a word, or a touch, something had thrilled one of the fibres of Eve’s being, directly after the saving of Richard from his men; and, though innocent of its meaning, the first germ of a thought which she came afterwards to term “disloyal to Richard,” was planted in her heart, and began to grow.

The vicar was at home, busy over his garden. It had been a busy morning, and Mrs Slee had informed him that she was “dead bet.” And she must have been tired, for fully a hundred people had been for relief that morning, the munificent sums the young vicar devoted to the workmen’s families having been of late supplemented by money furnished by Mrs Glaire.

“Richard must never know,” she said; “but I feel bound to do something towards alleviating the distress caused by his obstinacy.”

The result was that soup and bread were supplied, and no one came to the vicarage without getting some assistance.

“Thee’ll give all thee’s got away, and leave nowt for thee sen,” said Mrs Slee to him crossly, when the distribution was over, and the people gone.

“You’re tired,” said the vicar, smiling.

“Nay, I’m not,” said Mrs Slee; “but it makes me mad.”

“What makes you mad?”

“Why, to see you finding money, and trouble, and me helping you, to keep the poor silly women and bairns from pining, when my maister’s doing all he can to keep the men from going to work. It makes me hate my sen.”

“Well, but we can’t help it, Mrs Slee.”

“No,” she retorted; “but half of them don’t deserve it.”

“If we waited to be charitable till only those who deserved it came, Mrs Slee, you need not make so much soup, and shins of beef would not be so scarce.”

“You’re raight theer, sir,” said Mrs Slee, speaking a little less vinegary to the man whom, in spite of her short, snappish ways, she almost worshipped, and would do anything to serve. In fact, Mrs Slee had, since her instalment as housekeeper to the vicar, grown less angular and pasty of face, even approaching to her old comeliness. Not from idleness, though, for the neat maidservant, who was her assistant, had almost a sinecure for place, Mrs Slee insisting on making bread, cooking, “rembling” and “siding,” as she termed it; in short, she monopolised nearly the whole of the work, and the place was a model of neatness and perfection.

“One’s obliged to do the best one can, Mrs Slee, and be content to leave the working and result to wiser hands.”

“Oh yes, sir, that’s raight enew; but it makes me mad for all them big owry fellows to be idle ’bout a quarrel, and their missusses looking all poor creatures, and their bairns as wankle as wankle for want o’ better food, when there ought to be bacon and pig cheer and ony mander o’ thing they want. It’s time some on ’em give ower, instead o’ leaving their wives scratting about to keep body and soul together.”

“I keep hoping matters will mend,” said the vicar.

“Here’s some un else to wherrit you,” said Mrs Slee, hearing the gate bang. “Why, I never saw such a sight in my life. It’s Joe Banks.”

The vicar was surprised, and rose as Joe Banks, looking years older, was shown in by Mrs Slee, who counteracted her longing to know his business by hurriedly going out, making her way into the kitchen, and attacking a pancheon of dough, which had been put to the fire to rise, and was now ready to pour over the side like a dough eruption, and run down and solidify as bread.

This was, however, by the help of flour, soon reduced to normal proportions, banged into tins, and thrust into the oven, Mrs Slee performing each part of her task as if she were very angry with the compound, and desirous of punishing it for being so good. But it was a way she had, induced by the behaviour of her master, Simeon Slee.

Meanwhile, Joe Banks, in spite of the friendly welcome he had received, refused to sit down, but stood leaning on the stick he carried.

“Nay, parson, nay,” he said, “I haven’t come to stop. I just thowt I’d act like a man now, and say I arks your pardon, sir, hearty like, and wi’ all my heart.”

“My pardon, for what, Banks?”

“For acting like a fond, foolish owd father the other day, and giving ye the rough side of my tongue, when you came to gi’ me good advice.”

“Oh, don’t talk about that, man, pray.”

“Yes, I thowt I would, because I ought to ha’ knowd better, and not been such a blind owd owl. But there you know, parson – and I suppose you’re used to it – them as you goes to advise always coots oop rough. So I thowt, as I said, I’d arsk your pardon.”

“If I’ve anything to pardon, Banks, it was forgiven the next minute. I look upon life as too short, and the work we have to do as too much, to allow room for nursing up such troubles as that.”

“Don’t say any more, parson,” said Joe, wringing his hand, with a grip of iron; “it makes me feel ’shamed like o’ my sen.”

“I don’t see why,” said the vicar. “If I had been a father I dare say I should have done the same.”

“Down on your knees to-night, parson, and pray as you never may be,” cried the old man fiercely; “that you may never nurse and bring up and love a bairn whom you toil for all your life, to find she throws you over for the first face that pleases her.”

“But we are not quite certain yet, Banks,” said the vicar, laying his hand on the other’s arm.

“Yes, I am,” said Banks, sturdily. “I know enew to satisfy me; but stop a moment, I meant to have a word about that, and let’s have it at once. It’s all my own doing, I know, but there it is, and it can’t be undone. Tell me, though, parson, can you say from your heart, ‘Joe Banks, you’re mista’en; I don’t think Richard Glaire – Richard Glaire – dal me! I will say it.’”

The old man’s voice turned hoarse, and shook at last, so that he could not speak, as he came to Richard Glaire’s name, when, after an effort, he exclaimed as above, and then went on – “I don’t think Richard Glaire stole away your bairn?”

There was silence in the room, as the vicar looked sorrowfully in the keen eyes of Daisy’s father.

“I say, parson,” he repeated, “can you say fro’ your heart, ‘Joe Banks, you’re mista’en; I don’t think Richard Glaire stole away your bairn?’”

There was another pause, and Joe Banks spoke again.

“Can you say that, parson?”

“No, Banks,” said the vicar, sadly. “I may be mistaken, but I cannot say what you wish.”

“Thanky, parson, thanky,” said the old man, quietly. “You’ll shake hands with me afore I go.”

“Indeed I will, Mr Banks; indeed I will,” said the vicar, heartily. “But you are not going yet.”

“Yes, I’m going now, parson, and if in the time as is to come you hear owt as isn’t good of me, put it down to circumstances. You will, wean’t you?”

“You’re not going away, Banks?”

“Nay, nay, man, I’m not going away. Just do as I say, that’s all.”

“How is your wife? I hope better. She seemed ill yesterday.”

“Ah, ah, you called yesterday, as she said. Thanky, she’s on’y a poor creature now. This job’s unsattled her. Good-bye, parson, good-bye.”

“But is there anything I can do for you, Banks?”

“Nay, parson, nowt as I knows on. Good-bye, good-bye.”

He shook hands, and went quietly out to the garden, and along the path, leaving the vicar wondering.

“Did he mean anything by his words?” the vicar said, “or was it only in connection with asking me to forgive him? He couldn’t mean – oh, no, he’s too calm and subdued for that. He’s like a man who knows the worst now, and is better able to bear it. I should be glad to see the lock-out at an end, but, even if it were, that poor old man would never go to work for Richard Glaire again.”

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty.
At Dumford Church

The vicar used to look sadly at his church every Sunday, at the damp-stained walls, the unpainted high deal pews, with their straw-plaited cushions and hassocks, dotted with exceptions, where the better-off inhabitants had green baize, and in the case of the doctor’s, the lawyer’s, and the Big House pews, scarlet moreen cushions.

It was a dreary, damp place, with a few ugly old tablets, and one large monument, which nearly half filled the little chancel with its clumsy wrought-iron railings, enclosing the gilded and painted marble effigies of Roger de Dumford and Dame Alys, his wife, uncomfortably lying on their backs on a cushion not large enough for them, and turning up the rosetted shoes that they wore in the most ungainly way. Sir Roger was in slashed doublet and puffed breeches, and wore a ruff as stiff as marble could make it, and so did Dame Alys, in long stomacher and farthingale; while their great merits were enumerated, and the number of children they had issue was stated on the tablet on the wall.

This great tomb went pretty close up to the communion-rail, and for generations past the various vicars had hung their surplices on the rails, and changed them for their gowns in the shade, for the vestry was over the porch at the south door, and was only opened for parish meetings, when the officials went in and came out, to adjourn and do business at the big room at the Bull.

Always damp, and smelling of very bad, mouldy cheese, was that church. The schoolmistress, a limp, melancholy woman, always used to give it out to the schoolmaster as her opinion that it was the bodies buried beneath the flags – a matter rather open to doubt, as no one had been interred there for over a hundred years, while the damp-engendered mould and fungi in corner and on wall spoke for themselves.

No stove to warm the place in winter; few windows to open in summer, to admit the pleasant warm air; the place was always dank, dark, and ill-smelling, and from its whitewashed beams overhead to its ancient flag flooring, and again from the stained glass windows on either side, all was oppressive, cold, and shudder-engendering.

Let it not be imagined, however, that there were stained glass windows of wondrous dye. Nothing of the kind, for they were merely stained and encrusted by time of a dingy, ghastly, yellowish tint, and as full of waves and blurs as the old-fashioned glass could be.

The consequence was the people were slow to come to church, and quick to get out. One or two vicars had had ideas of improving the place, and had mooted the matter at public and parochial meetings. The result had always been whitewash – whitewash on the ceilings, and whitewash on the walls.

The question had been mooted again.

More whitewash.

Again, and again, and again, as years rolled on.

More whitewash, and whitewash, and whitewash. Even the two old rusty helmets and pairs of gauntlets hung up in the chancel, said to have been worn by great De Dumfords of the past, had been whitewashed, with a most preservative effect, saving where the rust had insisted upon coming through in stains of brown. The result was that, thanks to the churchwarden’s belief in lime as representing purity, Dumford was the most whitewashed church in the country, and it stood up in waves and corrugations all over the walls, where the damp had not caused it to peel off in plates, varying in thickness from that of a shilling to half an inch; and these scales had a knack of falling into pews during service time, probably from the piercing character of the music causing vibrations that they could not stand.

That music on Sundays was not cheerful, for there was no organ governed by one will, the minstrelsy being supplied by Owd Billy Stocks, who played dismally upon a clarionet, which wailed sadly for the cracks all down its sides; by Tommy Johnson, the baker, who blew a very curly crooked French horn, which he always seemed to fear would make too much noise, so held it in subjection by keeping his fist thrust up the bell; by Joey South, a little old man in tight leather pantaloons, skimpy long-tailed coat, and tight-squeezy hat, turned close up to the sides at the brims, giving him a tighter appearance altogether than the great umbrella, which, evidently an heirloom, he always carried under his arm, as if it were a stiffened fac-simile of himself as he walked to church preceded by a boy carrying his instrument – a thing like a thick black gun, with a brass crook about a foot long coming out of one side – Joey South called it his “barsoon,” but as he sat cuddling it in church, it looked more like some wonderful Eastern pipe that he was smoking, while it emitted strange sounds like a huge bumble-bee stopped constantly in its discourse by a finger placed over its mouth; by Johnny Buffam, the shoemaker, who blew a large brass affair like a small steam thrashing-engine, and boomed and burred in it like “an owd boozzard clock,” as Kitty Stocks said; and lastly, by Trappy Pape, who used to bring a great violoncello in a green baize bag, and saw away solemnly in a pair of round tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles.

These variations of the Christian names of the sacred band were, as before said, common to the town, where every man was a Dicky, or a Tommy, or a Joey, or the like, and generally with an “Owd” before it. The clergyman our vicar succeeded was the Reverend James Bannister, but he was always known as “Owd Jemmy,” and it was a matter of regret to the popular wits of the place that the Reverend Murray Selwood’s name offered no hold for the ingenious to nickname, so they settled down to “Owd Parson,” and so he was called.

But to return to the choir.

They sat in a gallery that crossed the western end of the church, and on Sundays such of them as put in an appearance had it, with the singers and the schoolchildren, all to themselves; and let it not be supposed that the preponderance of bass was noticeable, for it was pretty well drowned by the shrill treble, as the musicians did not get much music out of their instruments, save and excepting Billy Stokes, who always seemed to be dying in agonies, such wails did he send forth in “Portugal,” “Hanover,” and “Old Hundredth,” that it took all the efforts of the basses to smother his piercing cries.

The bells, pulled for a treat by five boys under the direction of Jacky Budd, had had their say; the musicians had blundered and clumped up the dark staircase to their seats, and Trappy Pape was working away with his bow upon a large cake of rosin, while Joey Tight, as he was more generally called, was sucking his brass pipe, and conning over the notes he had known for fifty years, to the great admiration of the schoolboys, one and all longing to “have a blow at that theer big black thing.” The “tingtang” which went for ten minutes in a cracked, doleful, sheep-bell style, was being pulled, and the vicar was standing in his surplice, waiting for the clock to strike – which it would do sometimes with tolerable accuracy – and he was thinking of how he should like to move the people to have something done by way of restoration to the church, when Jacky Budd, with one thumb in his arm-hole, came slinking softly up to try and get a bit of whispered conversation with the parson.

“Strange great congregation this morning, sir,” he whispered.

“Indeed, Budd,” said the vicar, brightening. “I’m glad of that.”

“I counted ’em, sir – there’s two-and-forty.”

“Forty-two, Budd,” said the vicar, with his countenance falling; “and the church holds seven hundred.”

“Two-and-forty, sir, wi’out the schoolchildren.”

“But you counted the singers, Budd?”

“No, sir, I didn’t; two-and-forty wi’out.”

“Ah, Budd, it’s very sad,” said the vicar, sighing. “I hoped for better things by now.”

“Why, we never used to hev such congregations in the owd vicar’s time, sir, as we do wi’ you. We never used to hev more than five-and-twenty o’ wet Sundays, and I hev know’d him preach to six.”

“Hah!” A long sigh and a mental question, “What can I do to bring them here?” as Jacky Budd shuffled as far as the door and back.

“Owd Robinson from the Bull, and his missus, just come in, sir; and Master Bultitude and Miss Jessie, and John Maine from the farm, makes forty-seven, sir. If I might make so bold, sir, don’t you think we ought to hev a collection?”

“Why, that’s due next Sunday, Budd, and a strange clergyman coming,” said the vicar, hardly able to restrain a smile.

“That’s why I said it, sir,” said Budd, slily. “You wean’t get a score o’ people here nex’ Sunday.”

The vicar shook his head, and looked at his watch, which Jacky took as a hint to go, and he went as far as his desk, opened his book, and then saw something that made him softly shuffle back to where the vicar was waiting for the first stroke of the clock to start for the reading-desk.

“They’ve come to the big pew, sir,” he whispered behind his hand.

“What?”

“Mrs Glaire, sir, and Miss Eve, and young Master Dicky.”

The vicar started slightly. This was a change, indeed, and full of promise. Richard Glaire, who had not been out of the house nor into the garden since the attack made upon him, and who had never been seen in the old pew since the vicar’s coming, had walked down the High Street between his mother and Eve, and made his appearance at church.

“Well, of course, he would be safe on such a day,” thought the vicar, “and the people have been quieter. God grant this is the beginning of the end, and that this little feud may be succeeded by peace.”

He thought this as the clock was striking, and he walked to the reading-desk, glanced through the Prayer-Book and Bible, where the markers were, to see that Jacky Budd, whose memory was erratic, had made no mistakes, and given him wrong psalms and lessons to read, and then turned to the opening sentences, and was about to commence; but the presence of Richard Glaire troubled him. He was glad at heart that he should be there, and now that he had come he wished to influence him for good, – to bring him to a different way of thinking, for Eve’s sake; and now these sentences all seemed, as of course they were, personal, and such as would make Richard Glaire think that they were selected and aimed specially at him.

“When the wicked man,” read the vicar to himself. No. “I acknowledge.” No, no, no, one after the other they seemed warnings to the sinner, such a one as Richard Glaire, and in the hurried glance down he came to, “I will arise.”