Loe raamatut: «One Of Them», lehekülg 7

“I don’t say,” whispered he, – “I don’t say that you were n’t right, and he wrong in everything. I know nothing about false quantities in Latin, or German metaphysics, or early Christian art. You may be an authority in all of them. All I say is, he is a great Government official, and you are a village doctor.”

“That was exactly why I couldn’t let slip the opportunity,” broke in Layton. “Let me tell you an incident I once witnessed in my old days of coach travelling. I was going up from Liverpool to London in the ‘Umpire,’ that wonderful fast coach that astonished the world by making the journey in thirty-six hours. I sat behind the coachman, and was struck by the appearance of the man on the box-seat, who, though it was the depth of winter, and the day one of cutting sleet and cold wind, wore no upper coat, or any protection against the weather. He was, as you may imagine, speedily wet through, and presented in his dripping and soaked habiliments as sorry a spectacle as need be. In fact, if any man’s external could proclaim want and privation, his did. The signs of poverty, however, could not screen him from the application of ‘Won’t you remember the coachman, sir?’ He, with no small difficulty, – for he was nearly benumbed with cold, – extricated a sixpence from his pocket and tendered it. The burly driver flung it contemptuously back to him with insult, and sneeringly asked him how he could dare to seat himself on the box when he was travelling like a pauper? The traveller never answered a word; a slight flush, once, indeed, showed how the insult stung him, but he never uttered a syllable.

“‘If I had you down here for five minutes, I ‘d teach you as how you ‘d set yourself on the box-seat again!’ cried coachee, whose passion seemed only aggravated by the other’s submission. Scarcely were the words spoken, when the dripping traveller began to descend from the coach. He was soon on the ground, and almost as he touched it the coachman rushed upon him. It was a hand-to-hand conflict, which, however, could not have lasted four minutes. The stranger not only ‘stopped’ every blow of the other, but followed each ‘stop’ by a well-sent-in one of his own, dealt with a force that, judging from his size, seemed miraculous. With closed eyes, a smashed jaw, and a disabled wrist, the coachman was carried away; while the other, as he drank off a glass of cold water, simply said, ‘If that man wishes to know where to find me again, tell him to ask for Tom Spring, Crane Alley, Borough Road!’”

Karstairs followed the anecdote with interest, but, somehow – for he was not a very brilliant man, though “an excellent officer” – missed the application. “Capital – excellent – by Jove!” cried he. “I ‘d have given a crown to have seen it.”

Layton turned away in half ill-humor.

“And so it was Tom Spring himself?” said the Colonel. “Who ‘d have guessed it?”

Layton made no reply, but began to set the chessmen upon the board at random.

“Is this another amongst your manifold accomplishments, sir?” asked Ogden, as he came up to the table.

“I play most games,” said Layton, carelessly; “but it’s only at billiards that I pretend to any skill.”

“I’m a very unworthy antagonist,” said Ogden; “but perhaps you will condescend to a game with me, – at chess, I mean?”

“With pleasure,” said Layton, setting the pieces at once. He won the first move, and just as he was about to begin he stopped, and said, “I wish I knew your strength.”

“The players give me a knight, and generally beat me,” said Ogden.

“Oh! I understand. Will you allow me to fetch a cheroot? I move king’s knight’s pawn one square.” He arose as he spoke, and walked into the adjoining room.

Ogden moved his queen’s pawn.

Layton, from the adjoining room, asked the move, and then said, “King’s bishop to knight’s first square;” meanwhile continuing to search for a cigar to his liking.

“Do you purpose to continue the game without seeing the board?” asked Ogden, as he bit his lip with impatience.

“Not if you prefer otherwise,” said Layton, who now came back to his place, with his cigar fully lighted.

“You see what an inexorable enemy I have, Millar,” said Ogden, with an affected laugh; “he will not be satisfied unless my defeat be ignominious.”

“Is it so certain to be a defeat, George?” said the rector. “Chess was always your great game. I remember how the Windsor Club entertained you on the occasion of your victory over that Swiss player, Eshwald.”

“And so you have beaten Eshwald,” broke in Layton, hastily. “We must give no quarter here.” And with this he threw away his cigar, and bent down over the board.

“We shall only disturb them, Karstairs; come along into the drawing-room, and let us talk parish business,” said the rector. “Our little dinner has scarcely gone off so well as I had expected,” said Millar, when they were alone. “I meant to do our doctor a service, by asking him to meet Odgen, who has patronage and influence in every quarter; but I suspect that this evening will be remembered grievously against him.”

“I confess I was highly amused at it all, and not sorry to see your friend Ogden so sorely baited. You know well what a life he has led us here for the last week.”

“A hard hitter sometimes, to be sure,” said the rector, smiling; “but a well-meaning man, and always ready for a kind action. I wish Layton had used more moderation, – more deference towards him.”

“Your Madeira did it all, Millar. Why did you give the fellow such insinuating tipple as that old ‘31 wine?”

“I can’t say that I was not forewarned,” continued Millar. “I was told, on his coming down to our neighborhood, to be careful of him. It was even intimated to me that his ungovernable and overbearing temper had wrecked his whole fortune in life; for, of course, one can easily see such a man ought not to be sentenced to the charge of a village dispensary.”

“No matter how clever you are, there must be discipline; that’s what I’ve always told the youngsters in my regiment.”

The rector sighed; it was one of those hopeless little sighs a man involuntarily heaves when he finds that his companion in a tête-à-tête is always “half an hour behind the coach.”

“I intended, besides,” resumed Millar, “that Ogden should have recommended to the Government the establishment of a small hospital down here; an additional fifty or sixty pounds a year would have been a great help to Layton.”

“And of course he ‘ll do it, when you ask him,” said the hearty Colonel. “Now that he has seen the man, and had the measure of his capacity, he ‘ll be all the readier to serve him.”

“The cleverest of all my school and college companions sacrificed his whole career in life by shooting the pheasant a great minister had just ‘marked.’ He was about to be invited to spend a week at Drayton; but the invitation never came.”

“I protest, Millar, I don’t understand that sort of thing.”

“Have you never felt, when walking very fast, and eagerly intent upon some object, that if an urchin crossed your path, or came rudely against you, it was hard to resist the temptation of giving him a box on the ear? I don’t mean to say that the cases are parallel, but great people do, somehow, acquire a habit of thinking that the road ought always to be cleared for them, and they will not endure whatever interferes with their wishes.”

“But don’t you think if you gave Layton a hint – ”

“Is n’t that like it? Hear that – ”

A loud burst of laughter from the adjoining room cut short the colloquy, and Layton’s voice was heard in a tone of triumph, saying, “I saw your plan – I even let you follow it up to the last, for I knew you were checkmated.”

“I ‘m off my play; I have not touched a chessman these three years,” said Ogden, pettishly.

“Nor I for three times three years; nor was it ever my favorite game.”

“I’m coming to crave a cup of tea from you, Millar,” said Ogden, entering the drawing-room, flushed in the cheek, and with a flurried manner.

“Who won the game?” asked the Colonel, eagerly.

“Dr. Layton was the conqueror; but I don’t regard myself as an ignoble foe, notwithstanding,” said Ogden, with a sort of look of appeal towards the doctor.

“I ‘ll give you a bishop and play you for – ” He stopped in some confusion, and then, with an effort at a laugh, added, “I was going to say fifty pounds, quite forgetting that it was possible you might beat me.”

“And yet, sir, I have the presumption to think that there are things which I could do fully as well as Dr. Layton.”

Layton turned hastily round from the table, where, having half filled a large glass with brandy, he was about to fill up with soda-water; he set down the unopened soda-water bottle, and, drinking off the raw spirit at a draught, said, —

“What are they? Let’s hear them, for I take the challenge; these gentlemen be my witnesses that I accepted the gage before I knew your weapon.” Here he replenished his glass, and this time still higher than before, and drank it off. “You have, doubtless, your speciality, your pet subject, art or science, what is it? Or have you more than one? You’re not like the fellow that Scott tells us could only talk of tanned leather, – eh, Millar, you remember that anecdote?”

The rector started with that sort of spasm that unobtrusive men feel when first accosted familiarly by those almost strangers to them.

“Better brandy than this I never tasted,” said Layton, now filling out a bumper, while his hand shook so much that he spilled the liquor over the table; “and, as Tom Warrendar used to say, as he who gives you unpleasant advice is bound in honor to lend you money, so he who gives you light claret, if he be a man of honor, will console you with old brandy afterwards; and you are a man of honor, Millar, and a man of conscience, and so is our colonel here, – albeit nothing remarkable in other respects; and as for that public servant, as he likes to call himself, – the public servant, if I must be candid, – the public servant is neither more nor less than – ” Here he stretched out his arm to its full length, to give by the gesture greater emphasis to what he was about to utter, and then staring half wildly, half insolently around him, he sank down heavily into a deep armchair, and as his arms dropped listlessly beside him, fell back insensible.

“I will say that I never felt deeper obligation to a brandy-bottle; it is the first enjoyable moment of the whole evening,” said Ogden, as he sat down to the tea-table.

In somewhat less than half an hour afterwards, Layton awoke with a sort of start, and looked wildly and confusedly around him. What or how much he remembered of the events of the evening, is not possible to say, as, with a sudden spring to his feet, he took his hat, and with a short “good-night,” left the house, and hurried down the avenue.

CHAPTER X. THE LABORATORY

There was a small closet-like room in Layton’s cottage which he had fitted up, as well as his very narrow means permitted, as a laboratory. Everything in it was, of course, of the very humblest kind; soda-water flasks were fashioned into retorts, and even blacking-jars held strange chemical mixtures. Here, however, he spent most of his time in the search of some ingredient by which he hoped to arrest the progress of all spasmodic disease. An accidental benefit he had himself derived from a certain salt of ammonia had suggested the inquiry, and for years back this had constituted the main object of all his thoughts. Determined, if his discovery were to prove a success, it should burst upon the world in all its completeness, he had never revealed to any one but his son the object of his studies. Alfred, indeed, was made participator of his hopes and ambitions; he had seen all the steps of the inquiry, and understood thoroughly the train of reasoning on which the theory was based. The young man’s patience in investigation and his powers of calculation were of immense value to his father, and Layton deeply regretted the absence of the one sole assistant he could or would confide in. A certain impatience, partly constitutional, partly from habits of intemperance, had indisposed the old man to those laborious calculations by which chemical discovery is so frequently accompanied, and these he threw upon his son, who never deemed any labor too great, or any investigation too wearisome, if it should save his father some part of his daily fatigue. It was not for months after Alfred’s departure that Layton could re-enter his study, and resume his old pursuits. The want of the companionship that cheered him, and the able help that seconded all his efforts, had so damped his ardor, that he had, if not abandoned his pursuit, at least deferred its prosecution indefinitely. At last, however, by a vigorous effort, he resumed his old labor, and in the interest of his search he soon regained much of his former ambition for success.

The investigations of chemistry have about them all the fluctuating fortunes of a deep and subtle game. There are the same vacillations of good and bad luck; the same tides of hope and fear; the almost certain prospect of success dashed and darkened by failure; the grief and disappointment of failure dispelled by glimpses of bright hope. So many are the disturbing influences, so subtle the causes which derange experiment, where some infinitesimal excess or deficiency, some minute accession of heat or cold, some chance adulteration in this or that ingredient, can vitiate a whole course of inquiry, requiring the labor of weeks to be all begun again, that the pursuit at length assumes many of the features of a game, and a game only to be won by securing every imaginable condition of success.

Perhaps this very character was what imparted to Layton’s mind one of the most stimulating of all interests; at all events, he addressed himself to his task like one who, baffled and repulsed as he might be, would still not acknowledge defeat. As well from the indefatigable ardor he showed, as from the occasional bursts of boastful triumph in anticipation of a great success in store, his poor ailing wife had grown to fancy that his pursuit was something akin to those wonderful researches after the elixir vitae, or the philosopher’s stone. She knew as little of his real object as of the means he employed to attain it, but she could see the feverish eagerness that daily gained on him, mark his long hours of intense thought, his days of labor, his nights of wakefulness, and her fears were that these studies were undermining his strength and breaking up his vigor.

It was, then, with a grateful joy at her heart she saw him invited to the Rectory, – admitted once more to the world of his equals, and the notice of society. She had waited hour by hour for his return home, and it was already daybreak ere she heard him enter the cottage, and repair to his own room. Who knows what deep and heartfelt anxieties were hers as she sought her bed at last? What sorrowful forebodings might not have oppressed her? What bitter tears have coursed along her worn cheeks? for his step was short and impatient as he crossed the little hall, and the heavy slam of his door, and the harsh grating of the lock, told that he was ruffled and angry. The morning wore on heavily, – drearily to her, as she watched and waited, and at last she crept noiselessly to the door, and tapped at it gently.

“Who’s there? Come in!” cried he, roughly.

“I came only to ask if you would not have your breakfast,” said she, timidly. “It is already near eleven o’clock.”

“So late, Grace?” said he, with a more kindly accent, as he offered her a seat. “I don’t well know how the time slipped over; not that I was engaged in anything that interested me, – I do not believe I have done anything whatever, – no, nothing,” muttered he, vaguely, as his wearied eye ranged over the table.

“You are tired to-day, Herbert, and you need rest,” said she, in a soft, gentle tone. “Let this be a holiday.”

“Mine are all holidays now,” replied he, with an effort at gayety. Then suddenly, with an altered voice, he added: “I ought never to have gone there last night, Grace. I knew well what would come of it. I have no habits, no temper, no taste, for such associates. What other thoughts could cross me as I sat there, sipping their claret, than of the cold poverty that awaited me at home? What pleasure to me could that short hour of festivity be, when I knew and felt I must come back to this? And then, the misery, the insult of that state of watchfulness, to see that none took liberties with me on the score of my humble station.”

“But surely, Herbert, there is not any one – ”

“I don’t know that,” broke he in. “He who wears finer linen than you is often a terrible tyrant, on no higher or better ground. If any man has been taught that lesson, I have! The world has one easy formula for its guidance. If you be poor, you must be either incompetent or improvident, or both; your patched coat and shabby hat are vouchers for one or the other, and sleek success does not trouble itself to ask which.”

“The name of Herbert Layton is a sure guarantee against such depreciation,” said she, in a voice tremulous with pride and emotion.

“So it might, if it had not earned a little extra notoriety in police courts,” said he, with a laugh of intense bitterness.

“Tell me of your dinner last night,” said she, eager to withdraw him from the vein she ever dreaded most. “Was your party a pleasant one?”

“Pleasant! – no, the very reverse of pleasant! We had discussion instead of conversation, and in lieu of those slight differences of sentiment which flavor talk, we had stubborn contradictions. All my fault, too, Grace. I was in one of my unhappy humors, and actually forgot I was a dispensary doctor and in the presence of an ex-Treasury Lord, with great influence and high acquaintances. You can fancy, Grace, how boldly I dissented from all he said.”

“But if you were in the right, Herbert – ”

“Which is exactly what I was not; at least, I was quite as often in the wrong. My amusement was derived from seeing how powerless he was to expose the fallacies that outraged him. He was stunned by a fire of blank cartridge, and obliged to retreat before it. But now that it’s all over, I may find the amusement a costly one. And then, I drank too much wine – ” She gave a heavy sigh, and turned away to hide her look. “Yes,” resumed he, with a fierce bitterness in his tone, “the momentary flush of self-esteem – Dutch courage, though it be – is a marvellous temptation to a poor, beaten-down, crushed spirit, and wine alone can give it; and so I drank, and drank on.”

“But not to excess,” said she, in a half-broken whisper.

“At least to unconsciousness. I know nothing of how or when I quitted the Rectory, nor how I came down the cliffs and reached this in safety. The path is dangerous enough at noonday with a steady head and a cautious foot, and yet last night assuredly I could not boast of either.”

Another and a deeper sigh escaped her, despite her efforts to stifle it.

“Ay, Grace, the doctor was right when he said to me, ‘Don’t go there.’ How well if I had but taken his advice! I am no longer fit for such associates. They live lives of easy security, – they have not the cares and struggles of a daily conflict for existence; we meet, therefore, on unequal grounds. Their sentiments cost them no more care than the French roll upon their breakfast-table. They can afford to be wrong as they can afford debt, but the poor wretch like myself, a bare degree above starvation, has as little credit with fine folk as with the huckster. I ought never to have gone there! Leave me now,” added he, half sternly; “let me see if these gases and essences will not make me forget humanity. No, I do not care for breakfast, – I cannot eat!”

With the same noiseless step she had entered, she now glided softly from the room, closing the door so gently that it was only when he looked round that he was aware of being alone. For a moment or two he busied himself with the objects on the table; he arranged phials and retorts, he lighted his stove, he stood fanning the charcoal till the red mass glowed brightly, and then, as though forgetting the pursuit he was engaged in, he sat down upon a chair, and sank into a dreamy revery.

Another low tap at the door aroused him from his musings, and the low voice he knew so well gently told him it was his morning to attend the dispensary, a distance fully three miles off. More than one complaint had been already made of his irregularity and neglect, and, intending to pay more attention in future, he had charged his wife to keep him mindful of his duties.

“You will scarcely reach Ballintray before one o’clock, Herbert,” said she, in her habitually timid tone.

“What if I should not try? What if I throw up the beggarly office at once? What if I burst through this slavery of patrons and chairmen and boards? Do you fancy we should starve, Grace?”

“Oh, no, Herbert,” cried she, eagerly; “I have no fears for our future.”

“Then your courage is greater than mine,” said he, bitterly, and with one of the sudden changes of humor which often marked him. “Can’t you anticipate how the world would pass sentence on me, the idle debauchee, who would not earn his livelihood, but must needs forfeit his subsistence from sheer indolence? – ay, and the world would be right too. He who breaks stones upon the highroad will not perform his task the better because he can tell the chemical constituent of every fragment beneath his hammer. Men want common work from common workmen, and there are always enough to be found. I’ll set out at once.”

With this resolve, uttered in a tone she never gainsaid or replied to, he took his hat and left the cottage.

There is no more aggressive spirit than that of the man who, with the full consciousness of great powers, sees himself destined to fill some humble and insignificant station, well knowing the while the inferiority of those who have conquered the high places in life. Of all the disqualifying elements of his own character, his unsteadiness, his want of thrift, perseverance, or conduct, his deficiency in tact or due courtesy, his stubborn indifference to others, – of all these he will take no account as he whispers to his heart,

“I passed that fellow at school! – I beat this one at college! – how often have I helped yonder celebrity with his theme! – how many times have I written his exercise for that great dignitary!” Oh, what a deep well of bitterness lies in the nature of one so tried and tortured, and how cruel is the war that he at last wages with the world, and, worse again, with his own heart!

Scarcely noticing the salutations of the country people, as they touched their hats to him on the road, or the more familiar addresses of the better-to-do farmers as they passed, Layton strode onwards to the little village where his dispensary stood.

“Yer unco late, docther, this morning,” said one, in that rebukeful tone the northern Irishman never scruples to employ when he thinks he has just cause of complaint.

“It’s na the way to heal folk to keep them waitin’ twa hours at a closed door,” said another.

“I’se warrant he’s gleb eneuch to call for his siller when it’s due to him,” said a third.

“My gran’mither is just gane hame; she would na bide any longer for yer comin’,” said a pert-looking girl, with a saucy toss of her head.

“It’s na honest to take people’s money and gie naething for it,” said an old white-haired man on crutches; “and I ‘ll just bring it before the board.”

Layton turned an angry look over the crowd, but never uttered a word. Pride alone would have prevented him from answering them, had he not the deeper motive that in his conflict with himself he took little heed of what they said.

“Where’s the key, Sandy?” cried he, impatiently, to an old cripple who assisted him in the common work of the dispensary.

The man came close and whispered something secretly in his ear.

“And carried the key away, do you say?” asked Layton, eagerly.

“Just so, sir. There was anither wi’ him, – a stranger, – and he was mair angry than his rev’rance, and said, ‘What can ye expec’? Is it like that a man o’ his habits could be entrusted with such a charge as this?”

“And Dr. Millar – what did he reply?”

“Na much; he just shook his head this way, and muttered, ‘I hoped for better, – I hoped for better!’ I dinna think they ‘d have taken away the key, but that old Jonas Graham kem up at the time, and said, ‘It’s mair than a month since we seen him’ – yourself he meant – ‘down here, and them as has the strength for it would rather gae all the gait to Coleraine than tak their chance o’ him.’ For a’ that,” said Sandy, “I opened the dispensary door, and was sarvin’ out salts and the like, when the stranger said, ‘Is it to a cretur like that the people are to trust their health? Just turn the key in the door, Millar, and you’ll certainly save some one from being poisoned this morning.’ And so he did, and here we are.” And poor Sandy turned a rueful look on the surrounders as he finished.

“I can’t cure you as kings used to cure the evil, long ago, by royal touch, good people,” said Layton, mockingly; “and your guardians, or governors, or whatever they call themselves, have shut me out of my own premises. I am a priest cut off from his temple.”

“I ‘m na come here to ask for charity,” said a stout old fellow, who stood alongside of a shaggy mountain pony; “I ‘m able to pay ye for a’ your docther’s stuff, and your skill besides.”

“Well spoken, and like a man of independence,” said Layton. “Let us open the treaty with a gill of brandy, and you shall tell me your case while I am sipping it.” And with these words he led the way into a public-house, followed by the farmer, leaving the crowd to disperse when and how they pleased.

Whatever the nature of those ailments now so confidentially imparted, they were long enough in narration not only to require one, or two, or three gills, but a full bottle of strong mountain whiskey, of which it is but fair to say the farmer took his share. Layton’s powers as a talker were not long in exercise ere they gained their due influence over his companion. Of the very themes the countryman deemed his own, he found the doctor knew far more than himself; while by his knowledge of life and human nature generally, he surprised his listener, who actually could not tear himself away from one so full of anecdote and observation.

Partly warned by the lateness of the hour – for already the market was over and the streets deserted – and partly by the thick utterance of his companion, whose heavy, bloodshot eye and sullen look now evidenced how deeply he had exceeded, the farmer at last arose to go away.

“You ‘re not ‘flitting.’ as you call it hereabouts,” said Layton, half stupidly, “you’re not thinking of leaving me alone to my own company, are you?”

“I maun be thinkin’ of home; it’s more than twalve miles o’ a mountain that’s afore me. There’s na anither but yoursel’ had made me forget it a’ this while,” said the farmer, as he buttoned his coat and prepared for the road. “Just tell me now what’s to pay for the bit o’ writin’ ye gav’ me.”

“You ‘ve had a consultation, my friend, – not a visit, but a regular consultation. You’ve not been treated like the outer populace, and only heard the oracles from afar, but you have been suffered to sit down beside the augur, to question him, and to drink with him. Pay, – nothing to pay! I’ll cure your boy, there’s my word on’t. These cases are specialities with me. Bell used to say, ‘Ask Layton to look at that fellow in such a ward; he’s the only one of us understands this sort of thing. Layton will tell us all about it.’ And I ‘m Layton! Ay, sir, this poor, shabby, ill-dressed fellow that you see before you is that same Herbert Layton; so much for brains and ability to work a man’s way in life! Order another quart of Isla whiskey, man, – that’s my fee; at least it shall be to-day. Tell them to send me pen, ink, and paper, and not disturb me; tell them, besides – no, nevermind, I’ll tell them that! And now, good-day, my honest fellow. You ‘ve been my physician to-day as much as I have been yours. You have cured a sick heart – cheated it, at least – out of one paroxysm, and so, a good journey, and safe home to you. Send me news of your boy, and good-bye.” And his head dropped as he spoke; his arms fell heavily at his sides; and he appeared to have sunk into a profound sleep. The stupor was but brief; the farmer was not well out of the village when Layton, calling for a basin of cold water, plunged his face and part of his head in it, baring his brawny throat, and bathing it with the refreshing liquid. As he was thus employed, he caught sight of his face reflected in a much-cracked mirror over the fireplace, and stood gazing for a few seconds at his blotched and bloated countenance.

“A year or two left still, belike,” muttered he. “Past insuring, but still seaworthy, or, at least” – and here his voice assumed an intense mockery in tone, – “at least, capable of more shipwreck!” The sight of the writing-materials on the table seemed to recall him to something he had half forgotten, and, after a pause of reflection, he arranged the paper before him and sat down to write.

With the ease of one to whom composition was familiar, he dashed off a somewhat long letter; but though he wrote with great rapidity, he recurred from time to time to the whiskey-bottle, drinking the strong spirits undiluted, and, to all seeming, unmoved by its potency. “There,” cried he, as he finished, “I have scuttled my own ship; let’s see what will come of it.”

He called for the landlord to give him wax and a seal. Neither were to be had, and he was fain to put up with a wafer. The letter closed and addressed, he set out homewards; scarcely, however, beyond the outskirts of the village, than he turned away from the coast and took the road towards the Rectory. It was now the early evening, one of those brief seasons when the wind lulls and a sort of brief calm supervenes in the boisterous climate of northern Ireland. Along the narrow lane he trod, tall foxgloves and variegated ferns grew luxuriantly, imparting a half-shade to a scene usually desolate and bare; and Layton lingered along it as though its calm seclusion soothed him. At last he found himself at a low wall, over which a stile led to a little woodland path. It was the Rectory; who could mistake its trim neatness, the order and elegance which pervaded all its arrangements? Taking this path, he walked leisurely onward, till he came to a small flower-garden, into which three windows opened, their sashes reaching to the ground. While yet uncertain whether to advance or retire, he heard Ogden’s sharp voice from within the room. His tone was loud, and had the vibration of one speaking in anger. “Even on your own showing, Millar, another reason for getting rid of him. You can’t be ambitious, I take it, of newspaper notoriety, or a controversy in the public papers. Now, Layton is the very man to drag you into such a conflict. Ask for no explanations, inquire for no reasons, but dismiss him by an act of your board. Your colonel there is the chairman; he could n’t refuse what you insist upon, and the thing will be done without your prominence in it.”