ESTHER AND HAMAN.

By M. L. Gow, R.I.

THE QUIVER
ANNUAL VOLUME, 1899

PAPERS, ADDRESSES, STORIES
POEMS, MUSIC

BY

CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited
London, Paris, New York & Melbourne
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

INDEX

THE QUIVER.

THE EMPEROR'S VISIT TO THE HOLY LAND.

By Our Special Commissioner at Berlin.

Illustrated from Photographs.

Few projects of Church extension have attracted so much attention as the forthcoming opening of the Lutheran church in Jerusalem: a movement which has been zealously pushed forward by his Imperial Majesty the Kaiser of Germany and King of Prussia, and will be happily consummated by an imposing ceremony, at which his Majesty and his illustrious consort will be the central figures, just about the time that this number reaches its thousands of subscribers. So important is the movement, and with such close attention has it been watched by the religious bodies of England, that a special representative was sent to Berlin, who was fortunate enough to be received by some most distinguished Personages and kindly furnished with many details of the scheme, and all the information that it was possible to give—so much in advance as the exigencies of a monthly periodical demand.

A VIEW OF VENICE.

(The Imperial Party's Place of Embarcation.)

It will be as well to first speak of the requirements for a new Lutheran church in Jerusalem. For a great many years there has been a considerable German colony in the city, its members steadily augmenting year by year. In the time of Frederick William IV. of Prussia a joint Protestant bishopric (German and English) was established, the right of appointment to lie with each country alternately. The first Bishop was a converted German Jew[2] holding orders in the English Church; two others succeeded him, and then in 1886 Prussia withdrew from the agreement.

THE LATEST PORTRAIT-GROUP OF THE GERMAN ROYAL FAMILY.

(Photo: J. Baruch, Berlin.)

Nearly twenty years previous to this latter date the Sultan had presented to King William I. a disused building, which formerly was the property of the Knights of St. John, in order that a Protestant Lutheran church might be erected on the site. For some reason, the work was delayed for a considerable period, and the members of the German Evangelical Church have been worshipping in a small temporary chapel, by the side of which the handsome new church has been reared. The work has been carried on by a pastor and an assistant teacher, and there has also been a good school in conjunction with it. The foundation stone of the church was laid on October 31st, 1893, and it was thought the consecration would take place in 1897; but things were not in readiness, and so the event was fixed for October 31st of this year—the anniversary of the birth of the Evangelical Church, being the day on which Luther nailed his thesis to the church door in Wittenberg.

The Kaiser and Kaiserin have long cherished a wish to visit the Holy City and tread the land which Christ trod when on earth; and no better opportunity could possibly occur than when a new Lutheran church was about to be consecrated. Both their Majesties have done much—not only by rightly using the immense influence which they possess, but also financially—to further Church work; and, apart from any other cause, the opening of this sacred building for the use of their countrymen in a foreign land could not fail to enlist their sympathetic interest. The undertaking is a pious and domestic, and not a political, one, spite of several assertions to the contrary; and all who have the cause of true religion at heart cannot but rejoice that there will be[3] another pulpit from which the risen Saviour will be proclaimed to the residents of God's chosen land.

Their Imperial Majesties will leave Berlin by special train for Venice, where a brief rest will be taken previous to the embarkation on the royal yacht Hohenzollern. The dignitaries of the Lutheran Church and invited personages will travel in another direction. Leaving Berlin by train, they embark on the Midnight Sun (an English vessel flying the English flag) at Trieste; thence they will proceed to Alexandria. Having explored that city, they will visit Cairo, and thence, returning to Alexandria, they will go on to Jaffa, and so through Palestine to Jerusalem, where they arrive about midday on October 25th. The next few days will be spent in viewing the city and neighbourhood, and on the 31st the entire party will be present at the formal opening of the "Erlöser-Kirche" in the presence of the Kaiser and Kaiserin.

JAFFA (JOPPA) AT THE PRESENT DAY.

But I wish more particularly to draw your attention to the route taken by their Majesties, as this was particularly pointed out to me in Berlin. Venice—the principal port on the Adriatic—will naturally claim some share of the interest of the Imperial couple, and the Palace of the Doges, dating from the fourteenth century, with its many historical and awful associations; the famous cathedral of St. Mark—a venerable building of the eleventh century, rich in cupolas and mosaics, and marble columns to the number of five hundred—as well as other renowned places, will be visited.

At Venice their Majesties will go on board for a voyage of four days down the Adriatic, and up in a northerly direction through the Dardanelles and Sea of Marmora, direct to Constantinople and the Golden Horn. Here the Sultan has made great preparations for their reception. Special buildings are being erected, old roads widened, and new roads made; moreover, all streets to be traversed by the Imperial party are being properly paved—not before it was requisite—thousands of gas-jets are being added to the meagre number which have hitherto done duty, and the Yildiz Palace has been completely overhauled and refitted. In short, Abdul Hamid is incurring tremendous expense in order to entertain his distinguished visitors right regally. The sojourn will extend over several days, and many places will be visited, including the royal palaces—which abound in Constantinople—the mosques, tombs, towers, and bazaars; and as their Majesties will be in the city on a Friday, the "Selamlik," or Sultan's procession to the mosque, will be included in the programme.

On leaving Constantinople, the Imperial yacht will steam round Asia Minor to the Syrian coast, passing many attractive places, amongst which may be mentioned the Plains of Troy and the Isle of Patmos. A run of about three days will bring them to Kaiffa, more generally known as Haifa. Here the Kaiser and Kaiserin will land about[4] midday on October 25th, at the special new landing-stage which has lately been erected for the purpose. The first stone of this was laid amidst much ceremony by the Mutessarif of Acre, in the presence of the entire Consular body, the troops, and all the local notabilities. The ceremony was, of course, a Mohammedan one, a sheep being sacrificed upon the stone, and the blessing of Allah invoked upon the coming Imperial guests.

A VIEW OF MODERN JERUSALEM.

Once landed at Haifa, thenceforth the Imperial expedition will be entirely under the guidance of Messrs. Thomas Cook and Son, the well-known tourist agents, Mr. Cook himself personally conducting the party to Jerusalem. The Sultan had previously offered tents, horses and carriages for the journey, but these the Emperor at first declined, as he was anxious to avoid giving any political significance to an expedition undertaken solely on religious grounds, and for the purpose of the formal opening of the Church of St. Saviour or the Redeemer. At the earnest solicitation of the Sultan, he, however, finally consented to use horses, mules, carriages, and wagons provided by the Turkish monarch. The journey will be performed in true Oriental style, everything else necessary being furnished by Thomas Cook and Son.

HAIFA, AND THE BAY OF ACRE.

(The Landing-Place of the Imperial Party.)

The Kaiser will make the journey on horseback, the Kaiserin in an open carriage. The route is to be exactly the same as that followed by ordinary tourists, and the entire party will camp out at night in the usual way. The first day's journey will occupy nine or ten hours, and tents will be pitched for the night outside Cæsarea, in full view of the Mediterranean. Thence the party will ride to Jaffa, a journey of ten hours. The town is beautifully situated, and extensively planted with orange groves. There is a good carriage road from it direct to Jerusalem, and a railway, which was opened some six years since. The Imperial party will spend the night under canvas outside the city, the view of which has an added interest, inasmuch as there is within its walls a considerable German colony. The[5]
[6] remainder of the journey to Jerusalem will be carried out in the same manner over ground that is scripturally historical and highly picturesque, passing as it does over the Plains of Sharon, by Lydda and Emmaus—where Christ walked with His disciples after the Resurrection—and so on through the Valley of Ajalon, by Kirjath and Jesrun; arriving at Jerusalem on Saturday, October 29th, where tents will be pitched on ground acquired by the Evangelical Jerusalem Fund.

THE JAFFA GATE AT JERUSALEM.

(From here the Emperor and Empress go on foot to the Holy Sepulchre.)

The actual entrance of the procession into the city will be imposing, but, once within the Jaffa Gate, the Kaiser and Kaiserin purpose going on foot to the Holy Sepulchre, with an entire absence of any State surroundings. The route from the gate to the Sepulchre has been entirely renovated for their Majesties by the Sultan. Needless to say, this block of buildings containing the Chapel of the Sepulchre is surrounded by much that is legendary, and has been the scene of many and fierce contentions. Now it is under the protection of the Sultan, and Moslem soldiers guard it, and are stationed within the vestibule to keep order amongst the various Christian pilgrims who visit it. Various chapels credited to various nations are within its portals, the Church of the Sepulchre being, of course, the chief place of interest.

The rotunda of the sepulchre is the principal part of the building. In the centre of the adjoining vestibule, or Angel's Chapel, lies the stone which is said to be that which the angel rolled away from the mouth of the sepulchre; then by passing through a lower door you enter the Chapel of the Sepulchre; it is very small, only holding three or four persons at one time. Very much controversy has taken place regarding the correctness of the site of the Holy[7] Sepulchre. It must of necessity be an uncertain matter, as the course of the city wall has not been clearly ascertained, and it seems an undoubted fact that in the fourth century the actual site of the tomb was completely lost sight of. Pilgrims who visited Jerusalem at that period centred their entire interest on the place of the Ascension of the Lord, worshipping and revering the living, and not the dead, Christ.

It is perhaps hardly necessary here to point out the difference between ancient and modern Jerusalem. Many of the old landmarks are still in existence, some of which I shall have occasion to mention later. There is a large German colony now resident there, and during his Majesty's visit he will receive representatives of this colony at the German Consulate.

CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

Sunday will be a memorable day for the expedition, the first event being the attendance at morning service in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, to be followed by the opening of an orphanage for Armenian children.

In the afternoon certain sacred places on the Mount of Olives will be visited. The entire Mount is replete with interest, for there is no other place which was frequented so much by Christ when on earth. It is a significant fact that, so far as can be ascertained from the Scriptures, Jesus never spent one night within the precincts of Jerusalem, but was wont to spend them on the Mount of Olives.

The Brook Kedron and the valley of Jehoshaphat are each near, and are amongst the places to be visited by the Kaiser and the Kaiserin on that special Sunday. But as interesting as any event of the day will be an open-air service to be held on the Mount, attended by their Majesties, the whole of the personages forming the expedition, and the German settlement in Jerusalem. The bands of the royal yacht and the escorting squadron, which will have journeyed up from Haifa for the purpose, will perform the musical part of the service.

DR. BARKHAUSEN OF BERLIN.

(Organiser of the Tour.)

(Photo: Johannes Hülsen, Berlin.)

The next day—Monday, the 31st—the consecration of the Church of the Redeemer in the Mâristân will take place; the ceremony will be somewhat imposing, as a large number of clergy and distinguished personages will be taking part in it. The list of representatives who will be present reads as follows:—The members of the Evangelical[8] Church Council specially formed for the Jerusalem expedition; the representatives of the German Evangelical Ecclesiastical Governments; the invited Foreign Church Corporations; the Knights of the Order of St. John; the invited representatives of the missionary societies who are working in Palestine and Syria; the Gustave Adolf Society; the whole of the Evangelical Church in Jerusalem; their Imperial Majesties and suite. I may say that everyone present who has gone out from Germany will wear a decoration that has been specially designed, known as the Jerusalem cross; these, in fact, will be worn the whole route of the journey. The military element will be in the minority, consisting only of about sixteen men, eight of them belonging to the Imperial Body Gendarmerie, and eight to the Kaiserin's bodyguard; these, however, will not travel up with the Imperial party, having gone out from Berlin some little time beforehand to accustom themselves to the habits of the country.

THE NEW LUTHERAN CHURCH, JERUSALEM.

Immediately subsequent to the ceremony at the church the Kaiser and Kaiserin will start for a two or three days' visit to places of interest around Jerusalem, commencing by riding to Jericho, which will take about six hours. The Imperial party will halt there for the night, camping at the foot of Jebel Harantel.

On the succeeding day visits will be paid to the Dead Sea and the Jordan, the latter one of the most wonderful rivers of the world, with a history running through the entire Bible. Various other places of much interest will be seen, and then their Majesties return to Jerusalem, going back to the coast by train, and taking ship again at Jaffa for Haifa.

From here they will visit Nazareth—which is memorable as the home of Jesus. It is still a flourishing place, partly built on rocky ridges. There is a Latin chapel which is supposed to be built over the workshop of Joseph; also a small chapel known as the Table of Christ, which is merely a vaulted chamber containing the table at which the Saviour and His disciples sat. Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee will be visited. Bethsaida, the birthplace of some of Christ's disciples, and other small places[9] in the vicinity, will each come in for a share of attention.

A PRESENT-DAY VIEW ON THE JORDAN.

Proceeding northward, the expedition will view other places, but none, perhaps, so beautiful as one at which they will make a brief stay—Damascus, the oldest city in the world. It is situated on the western side of the great plain, at an elevation of two thousand two hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, and is beautiful beyond all description. On an elevated part of the Anti-Libanus, which rises to a height of nearly four thousand feet, there is erected a dome of victory, from which the best view of the city and the seven rivers can be obtained, as also of the white-streaked mountains, the chocolate plain, and the rich and varied colours of the foliage of the trees. Within the city stands a citadel and a palace. Damascus has seventy mosques, and about one hundred and fifty other places of worship in addition; and each of the principal religious communities occupy different parts of the city. In the same way different industries are carried on, each in their own quarters exclusively, having their own bazaars for the sale of goods. The place is highly prosperous, and its appearance is, as I have said, extremely beautiful. Thence the Kaiser and Kaiserin will journey on to Egypt, seeing Alexandria, Cairo, and going up the Nile; but here space forbids us following them.

It is a visit which cannot fail to impress all; the Kaiser himself to no ordinary extent, considering his remarkable power of grasping the religious and romantic elements of ancient history and its famous scenes. What he will see will stir his heart to no ordinary degree, sensitive as is his mind to all such impressions. It must also sensibly appeal to the cultured members of every religious community, and all will watch this Imperial pilgrimage with unusual interest, and wish for it a happy and prosperous finale.

I cannot close this without tendering my respectful thanks for the gracious kindness accorded me in Berlin, and for the valuable assistance rendered me by Dr. Barkhausen, the President of the Evangelical Church Council for the Jerusalem Expedition, this gentleman being chiefly responsible for the entire arrangements.

PLEDGED

By Katharine Tynan, Author of "A Daughter of Erin," Etc.

CHAPTER I.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

Mr. Graydon and his daughter Pamela were jogging leisurely home from the little market town of Lettergort. There was no reason to hurry, and if there had been, Frisky, the little fat pony, whose frisky days were long over, would not have been aware of it.

It was very hot, a morning of late summer; but Pamela's creamy cheeks were as cool as the firm petals of a lily. She bore as if accustomed to it the jog-trot of the pony and the frequent ruts into which their chariot bumped, flinging her from the seat as though she were the football in a hotly contested game.

Mr. Graydon kept up a contented whistling when he was not commenting on the fields and the cattle as they passed. That had been a long, hot summer, and for once in a century people had begun to long for the patter of rain on the leaves.

"Woa, Frisky—woa, little lad! That's a nice colt of Whelan's down there by the sally-tree. Do you see, Pam? Now, I hope the poor fellow will get a handful of money for it. He'll need it this summer," Mr. Graydon would say.

Or, again, it would be a farmer going their own way from Lettergort.

"Good-morning, John."

"Good-morning, your honour. How did the calves do wid your honour?"

"I'm not complaining, John. Murray of Slievenahoola gave me thirty shillings apiece for them. It was as much as I hoped for."

"Aye, they wor but weanlin's. An' 'tis no use keepin' stock this summer."

"How did you do with the heifers, John?"

"Didn't get the price of their feed, your honour. Wirra! 'tis a desperate summer. The hay wasn't worth cuttin', and the oats is pitiful."

Again, it would be a labourer with a scythe on his shoulder whom Mr. Graydon would stop to ask after his household concerns. Everywhere they passed a smile followed Mr. Graydon's broad back in its faded homespuns.

"'Tis a rale pleasant word he has in his mouth, God bless him! an' him a rale gentleman an' all," followed him from many a cottage-door.

"You've done your marketing, Pam," said her father, turning to her.

"I'd plenty of time, dad, while you chatted to your million acquaintances."

"And sold my calves, Pam."

"You might have sold a thousand in the time."

"Well, well, Pam, it is my little world, you see. I hope the perishable things won't be broken when we come to the rut by Murphy's gate. 'Tis a foot and a half deep at least. Johnny Maher ought really to mend this road."

"You ought to make him, dad. What's the good of being a magistrate?"

"What indeed, Pam! Sure, I never get a job done for myself. There's old Inverbarry now, and he a lord, and he's getting the private road through his park mended at the public expense. And he as rich as Crœsus, the old sinner!"

Mr. Graydon rubbed his hands with benevolent amusement. His daughter glanced at him with a pucker between her white brows. The violet-blue eyes under curling black lashes exactly reproduced her father's,[11] though at this moment the expressions were widely different.

"You're too easy-going, dad. You should make Johnny Maher mend the road."

Mr. Graydon dropped a rein to pull one of his daughter's silky black curls.

"You wouldn't be having me too hard on the poor fellow, and he with a sick wife and an old mother and a pack of children. Eh, little Pam?"

Pamela shook her head severely, and the red mouth, which had drooped at the corners when she was serious, parted over white teeth in a laugh fresh as a child's.

"How did the calves do wid your honour?"

"You've no conscience, dad, any more than Lord Inverbarry or Johnny Maher. You're conniving at their wrongdoing, you see."

"Maybe I am, Pam—maybe I am. Only I don't suppose it seems wrongdoing to them—at least, not to Johnny Maher, poor fellow. Inverbarry ought to know better."

They jogged along for a few minutes till there was another jolt. Simultaneously there was a crash at their feet, and Mr. Graydon pulled up with an exclamation.

"There goes some of your crockery, Pam. I hope it's not the lad's looking-glass."

"Never mind," said Pam, with a sigh of despair. "Perhaps now you'll get Johnny Maher to see to the road. If it's his looking-glass, he'll have to shave as Mick St. Leger used, with the lid of a can for his looking-glass."

"Ah, poor Mick was used to our ways. He didn't mind. But this is a public-school man. We'll have to furbish up for him, little Pam, and put our best foot foremost, eh?"

"It looks like it," said Pam, gazing down at the jumbled parcels at her feet. "I'll[12] tell you what it is," she said: "it's the glass for his bedroom window. It is all in smithereens. He'll have to put up with the brown-paper panes, as Mick St. Leger did."

"Never mind, never mind. The lad's a gentleman, and he'll see we're gentlefolk, though we're as poor as church mice. He won't mind, you'll see, Pam; gentlemen never do mind these things."

"You're thinking of Mick still, dad. You forget that Gwynne man who wouldn't stay because he got nothing but potatoes for three days. As if we could help the roads being frozen and Frisky not being able to get to Lettergort! Do you remember Gwynne's face over the potato-cake the third day? Yet I'm sure Bridget had done her best. What with potatoes in their jackets, and mashed, and with butter, and without, and in a salad, and at last in a cake, I'm sure there was no sameness about the diet."

"Gwynne was a—well, of course, he was a gentleman, but as disagreeable as a gentleman can be. Besides, Pam, potatoes probably didn't agree with him; they don't with everyone, you know, and Gwynne was dyspeptic. I don't know what the lads are coming to. In my young days we didn't even know the word dyspepsia, much less the thing."

"Gwynne was hateful," said Pamela. "He expected us to kill the chickens for him when every single chicken was a pet, and so tame, dear things! that they would walk into the drawing-room and perch on your knee."

"Perhaps that's why Gwynne wanted them killed," said Mr. Graydon.

"Nasty thing!" said Pamela. "I was glad when we saw his back. He couldn't bear the dear dogs lying on his bed either, though Mary told him it was a proof of their friendliness towards him. He fired his bootjack after Mark Antony, you remember, and though it's not easy to stir up Mark Antony, yet I'm glad he had the spirit to go for Gwynne's legs."

"Mark Antony had been burying bones under Gwynne's pillow, my dear."

"Only because it was a wet day, and he never liked to go out in the rain. I daresay if he'd had time he'd have removed the bones to the garden. However, I don't suppose this youth will be like Gwynne. What do you think, dad?"

"His father was the best fellow ever stepped on shoe-leather. If the lad is like him, we shan't complain. What a handsome, dashing fellow he was! I can see him now in his scarlet and gold lace that night at Lady Westbury's ball, where I first met——"

He broke off suddenly with a little sigh. "That was another world, Pam."

"A world well lost—was it not?—dad."

"Aye, a world well lost, little girl."

It was plain to see that a tender intimacy existed between this father and daughter.

"I daresay he'll find my ways rather old-fashioned, Pam. It was an odd thing that his father should have remembered me, and have wished the lad to come to me."

"It would have been odd if he hadn't," said Pam shortly.

"There are new ways and new methods in the world since I was at Oxford. I daresay the lad'll find me rather rusty in my knowledge."

"You'll teach over his head, as you always do, and you'll get great delight out of it. You'll forget all about your pupil, and you'll go mouthing Greek poetry till we think downstairs that the study chimney is on fire. And while you're growling and thundering the youth will be making caricatures of you under the table, or cutting his name deep in the oak of your precious study table."

"Is that my way, little Pam?"

"That's your way, dad. There was never one of your pupils that could follow you, only little Sells, and he died young, poor boy!"

"Ah, little Sells. I am proud of Sells. He died fighting the small-pox with all the heroic soul in his little body. He had the making of a fine scholar."

"Never mind, dad. None of us can do more than die heroically. And Sells would always have been a poor curate. They'd never have made him a bishop."

"I suppose not, poor lad! Scholarship doesn't count for much, Pam."

"Or you wouldn't be here, dad."

"I'd always be in the ruck, Pam; I'm afraid I'm a worthless old fellow. From what you say, Pam, I'm as much of a failure at the teaching as anything else. I'm really afraid it's true."

"Never mind, dad. As Mick St. Leger said, you taught them better things. It isn't your fault that you're over their heads."

"Did poor Mick say that, now?" said Mr. Graydon, answering the first part of her sentence. "Mick was a good boy; but no scholarship in him. A child could beat Mick at the Greek verbs."

"He was more at home with a rod or a gun," assented Pamela. "Only for the noise he made you'd never know he was in the house. There was no fun he wasn't up to."

Mr. Graydon's face suddenly became serious.

"You'll remember this lad's not Mick, Pam," he said; "you and Sylvia, I mean, for, of course, Mary is always prudent. Don't behave with him as if you were all boys together. Now, that locking Mick in the hayloft, or going with him to Whiddy Fair, would never do with this boy."

[13]

"That was five years ago, dad," answered Pamela, looking with a demure smile at the hem of her pink cotton frock where it covered her shoes. "We were wild little colts of girls, then, with our hair down our backs. Besides, we never meant to leave Mick in the hayloft; we only forgot he was there in the delight of finding a wild bees' nest; and we cried coming home from Whiddy Fair, we were so tired and so hungry."

"Till I overtook you with Frisky, and drove you home and comforted you."

"You should have spanked us, dad, and sent Mick to the right-about."

"So I should. If you'd been boys, I daresay I'd have known a better way with you. But what can one do with little girls? Then poor Mick. I knew it wasn't Mick's fault. You'd been leading him astray, as usual."

But Frisky had pulled up suddenly at a rather dilapidated gate, with a post falling to pieces, and the two halves of the gate fastened together with a piece of string. Out of the lodge within poured a stream of blue-eyed and chubby children, who stood regarding Frisky and his freight with shy and friendly smiles.

"Halloa, you rascals," called out Mr. Graydon, "run and call your mother, some of you. Gone with your father's dinner, is she? She seems to be always gone with your father's dinner. You can't get down to open the gate, Pam? No, I see you can't; you're built in with parcels round your feet. Here, take the reins, and I'll get down myself. Only don't let Frisky get his head, or he'll run off with the other post, as he did with that one."

"Frisky is not likely to do that, dad. He's got more sedate since those days. It was about the same time that Sylvia and I locked Mick in the hayloft."

"Five years ago, Pam? It can't be five years ago. I'd never have left that post unmended five years. Why, it was only the other day I was saying I'd have over the mason from Lettergort to mend it."

He had now done fumbling with the tie of the gate, and Pamela drove into the overgrown avenue. While he was replacing the bit of string he kept up a running fire of jests with the small, shame-faced children, to which she listened with a half-smile.

"Dear old dad," she said to herself. "He has been so long letting things go that he even forgets that he has let them go. And I'm his own daughter."

She took up a breadth of her pink frock and looked at it. There was a rent of at least three inches in it. Pamela shook her head in mute self-reproach.

"It'll never do for 'Trevithick's lad,' as the dear dad calls him. I don't suppose he's used to young women with rents in their frocks. And I am a young woman, and so is Sylvia, though our own father has never found it out."

As she sat waiting, a dreamy smile came to her lips and a softness to her eyes. It was like a prophecy of what "Trevithick's lad" was to bring—like the dawn of love, sweet and bitter, that was to bring Pam the hoyden into her woman's inheritance.

"Come along, dear," she said with a start, turning to her father: it seemed as if his head-pattings of the children would never come to an end. "Frisky's getting uneasy, and will bolt with me and the crockery, if you don't hurry up."

Her father jumped into the little cart with a laugh.

"I forgot that you were waiting, Pam, those infants have such pleasing ways. But as for Frisky running away with you, why, bless me! he's had time to get old since he ran away with the post; at least, so you say, though I should never have believed it—never!"

"And now," said Pam, "you're going to be turned out of house and home for the next few days. Unhappy man, you little know how you've carried soap and scrubbing brushes for your own destruction."

Mr. Graydon gave a gasp of genuine alarm.

"Soap and scrubbing brushes! But what for, Pam? I am sure everything is very clean—except my books; and I won't have the books touched, mind that—I won't have my books touched."

"Indeed, then, and I'd advise you to say that to Bridget yourself, for I'm sure I won't. She's taken a fit of industry, and says she might as well be living among haythens, wid th' ould dust an' dirt the masther's for ever gatherin'. 'Them ould books of his,' she says, 'would be a dale better for a rub of a damp cloth, and then a polish up wid a duster.'"

"Pam!" cried the unhappy gentleman. "She wouldn't dare put a damp cloth near my books."

"She'd dare most things, would Bridget. It's your vellum covers she's after chiefly. She says they're unnaturally dirty."

She looked at the beloved face, which bore a look of genuine dismay over its genial ruddiness.

"Never mind, dad," she said. "Bridget promises great things; but between you and me I believe the great clearing up will just end in what she herself calls a lick and a promise. I don't suppose she'll ever get so far as your possessions—I don't really believe she will."

"Don't let her, Pamela darling, will you?" said her father entreatingly. "Why, good gracious! my classics in vellum! A damp cloth! And Bridget's damp cloth! It would be enough to send me to an asylum."

[14]

"Come along," she said.

CHAPTER II.

PREPARATIONS.

"When I was at Lord Carrickmines's," began Bridget.

"Bother Lord Carrickmines!" said Miss Sylvia Graydon. "We know everything that happened at Lord Carrickmines', and that can't have been much, seeing you've lived in this house since before I was born."

"When I was at Lord Carrickmines's," went on Bridget with a kindling eye, "the young ladies—and sweet young ladies they were, Miss Mabel and Miss Alice—would have scorned to sit on the kitchen table swingin' their feet an' givin' advice they worn't asked for when there was work to be done in the house. They were more likely to come an' help——"

"In their pink and blue silks, Bridget dear. You know they always wore pink and blue silks. Besides, I only advised you for your good. You're going the wrong way entirely about mending that chair. The first time Sir Anthony sits on it he'll go flat on the floor."

"Well, then, it won't be you'll go flat on the floor, Miss Sylvy, so you needn't be talkin' about it. There, bother the thing! The more nails I drives in it the more it splits, till the cracks in it is like the spokes of a wheel. I believe 'tis you sittin' there givin' me impudence, Miss Sylvy. Sure[15] it's the contrary ould thing entirely. I wish I'd never bothered after it."

"Why did you, then? Why can't he sit on his trunk, as Mick used to do? I'm sure he can't be better than Mick."

"There's a deal o' differ, Miss Sylvy, between the rank of a 'Sir' an' the rank of a meleetia leftenant, though Mr. St. Leger was a real nice young gentleman, when not led into mischief by you or Miss Pamela. You see, I learnt the differ when I was at Lord——"

"I'll tell you what, Bridget," said Miss Sylvia, jumping off the table, "I'll go and pick currants in the garden. You were saying yesterday they were dropping off their stalks for want of picking."

"Aye, do, dearie. I'll be makin' jam as soon as I get this weary cleanin' done, an' you'll help me with the stirrin', Miss Sylvy, an' write the labels for me?"

"That I will, Bridget, on condition you give me a pot for myself."

Bridget looked fondly after the slender young figure as it went out in the sunlight, followed by a very fat bull-dog which had been basking before the fire.

"There," she said to herself, "Miss Sylvy's real willin', if you only take her the right way. Sure, as I was sayin' to the master the other day, you'd never miss a young gentleman in the house as long as you'd Miss Sylvy. Miss Pamela's real pleasant, too, but give me Miss Sylvy, for all she's more like a boy nor a girl. But there, a household of females is apt to weigh on the spirits, as I say, so it's well we have Miss Sylvy, for the master's ever abroad or shut up wid his musty ould books."

At this moment a lieutenant of Bridget's appeared on the scene. This was Mrs. Murphy, a stout village matron, who had been brought in to assist in the great cleaning up, preparatory to the arrival of the new pupil.

The good woman was steaming like her suds, of which she carried a very dirty bucketful.

"Well, that job's done," she observed, "an' the room ought to be clane enough to sarve him another twelvemonth. I don't know what the gentry wants wid all the clanin' at all. 'Tis meself wouldn't like ould buckets o' suds rowled round the flure o' my little room at home. They say washin' flures is the cause of a many coulds. How is the work wid ye, ma'am?"

"I'm not progressin' much, ma'am. I was just tellin' Miss Sylvy that it was her sittin' and laughin' at me was puttin' out my hand. Sit down for a minute, ma'am, an' have a noggin o' buttermilk to cool ye. There's time enough to be pullin' up the master's ould carpet that hasn't been up in the memory o' man. He won't be home this hour yet."

"Gentlemen doesn't like clanin' times, Miss Flanagan," Mrs. Murphy observed, as she seated herself.

"Indeed, they're contrairy cratures, like all men. They like claneness, but they don't like to be claned. See how they're always moppin' themselves in could baths enough to give them their end, and yet water about their rooms is somethin' they can't endure. When I was at Lord Carrickmines's, the housekeeper put me, as it might be you, ma'am, to pelt an ould bucket o' water round his lordship's studio. He was a hasty man, an' he caught sight o' me enterin' the door—oh, bedad! he took the ould blunderbuss an' promised me the contints of it if I didn't quit."

"The master here's rale quiet, though. He won't be for murdherin' you, glory be to goodness!"

"I daresay he'll raise a pillalew all the time," said Bridget philosophically, "but 'tis no use mindin' him."

"Yez have great preparations anyway, an' people's comfort all out o' the windy. I suppose 'tis a rale grand young gentleman yez are gettin'?"

"Well enough, well enough," said Bridget loftily. "He's what ye call a baronite."

"Rowlin' in gould, I suppose?"

"Well, then, ma'am, I was never curious enough to ax his fortin'."

Undeterred by this glaring snub, Mrs. Murphy went on placidly:

"He'll be a fine match for wan o' the young ladies."

"He might be," assented Bridget, as if she had thought of it for the first time.

"Miss Sylvy now'll dazzle the eyes of him wid beauty. I wouldn't ask a greater beauty meself if I wor a young gentleman."

"Oh, the beauty's there, never fear. You wouldn't find a sweeter angel than Miss Sylvy sittin' up in church on Sunday, wid the feathery hat she made herself, poor lamb. The little face of her, and the big shiny eyes, an' the darlin' hair puffed out about her. Och, indeed, you'd go a long way to bate Miss Sylvia in beauty."

"So the young gentleman'll think, I'll be bound."

"Indeed, then, I hope he won't be wastin' his time, for if he was to come makin' love to Miss Sylvy, 'tis as like as not she'd make a face at him."

"Well, then, it'll be Miss Pamela."

"May be, may be. Anyhow, it won't be Miss Sylvy, for she's just an imp of mischief, for all she has the face of an angel. The master calls her 'Boy.' 'I was lookin' for a[16] boy,' says he, 'an' 'twas herself that come. But sure, after all,' says he, 'I'm not sure 'twas any mistake at all, at all.'"

"And now, Mrs. Murphy," said Bridget, with a sudden return to authority, "I'd be obliged to you if it was your work you was gettin' about, an' not sittin' here idlin' all day. Stir your lazy bones, woman, an' be off to the master's studio, or 'tis never done 'twill be at all."

"Well, indeed, ma'am," said Mrs. Murphy, with a justly aggrieved air. "Here I wouldn't be at all, exceptin' by your own invitation."

"Gentlemen doesn't like clanin' times, Miss Flanagan."

Bridget hurried upstairs through the quiet house flooded with morning sunshine. Carrickmoyle stood on a plateau, and looked away over the bleached country and the summer-dark coppices. It was a square house, kindly of aspect, despite its ruinous condition, and around it lay a rich old garden, full of damask roses and such wealth of fruit as only come with years to a garden.

An orchard, gnarled and overgrown, was down in the hollow. A delightful place it was to dream away a summer day, with no sound to break the stillness save only the moan of the wood-dove or the dropping of ripe fruit.

As Bridget went upstairs she paused at a window. Below her, flitting here and there through the raspberry canes and currant bushes, she caught a glimpse of Sylvia's blue frock.

"There she is, the lamb," muttered the old woman, her face softening. "There she is, wid that Mark Antony at her heels, helpin' himself to the raspberries, I'll be bound. An' she, pretty lamb! 'tis more she'll be atin' thin pickin', I'm thinkin'. But never mind, never mind, we can't be young but wance."

In the room intended for the new pupil Mary Graydon, the eldest of the three girls, was sitting, puckering her forehead over a mass of muslin that overflowed her lap.

"What are you in trouble about, Miss Mary?" asked Bridget.

"I don't know how to cut this into curtains for the window at all, Bridget dear," said the sweetest, most plaintive voice; "it's so narrow and the window so wide."

"What have you got at all, child? 'Tisn't your poor mamma's muslin slips?"

"It is indeed, Bridget. They were only going to pieces where they were, and we can't afford curtains, and I'm sure if mamma was alive she'd tell me to 'take them.'"

"Indeed, then, I'm sure she would, Miss Mary, for she was like yourself; she'd give the clothes off her back to anyone she thought wanted them worse. Give me the scissors, jewel, an' I'll just cut them out for you. I once got a prize in Major Healy's lady's sewin'-class for cuttin'-out when I was a girl; though you'd never believe it, to see the botch I made of the chair I was tryin' to mend."

"It isn't quite the same thing, Bridget, you know. Oh! thank you, that is clever. How are you getting on downstairs?"

"Pretty well, Miss Mary, but 'tis aisy does it wid that woman, Mrs. Murphy. She's a great ould gossip of a woman; 'tis no wonder Tim an' the childher are the shows of the place. I was hard put to it to shut her mouth—her tongue's longer thin my arm—an' get her to the master's studio before he came home."

"Oh, poor papa! You're surely not invading him, Bridget?"

"Aye, am I. The woman's up to her shoulders in dirty soap-suds by this time, unless she's found someone more ready to listen to her thin I was. There, Miss Mary, there's the curtain; I've made a nate job of it, haven't I?"

"You have indeed, Bridget. I wish you'd teach me some of your cleverness."

"Arrah! what would you want with the[17] like? Sure, 'tis only by rayson of a little inconvaynience that rale blood-ladies like yourselves has to lift your hands, if it was only to wash your faces."

Mary Graydon shook her head. Hers was a face which seemed irradiated with a quiet inward light, and her eyes were gentler than the eyes of doves.

"You must teach me all you know, Bridget, for I shall always be poor."

"You mane when you marry Mr. St. Leger, Miss Mary?"

The girl nodded without speaking, but a sudden rush of happy colour covered her innocent face.

"Don't be thinkin' of that, my lamb. The ould lord'll come round before that. Sure he couldn't be as hard-hearted a naygur as he lets on."

"I'm afraid not, Bridget. He has a little son of his own now, you see, and so the less reason for forgiving papa."

Bridget lifted her eyes and hands.

"Him wid a little son indeed! Cock him up wid a little son, an' him wid wan foot in the grave! Well, there's no gettin' over the ways of some people. But 'tis time for me to be gettin' about my work, or I'll be as bad as that Murphy woman. Just you call to me, Miss Mary, if you want to know anything; but don't go spoiling them eyes on Mr. Mick, puttin' too fine work into that baronite's curtains."

She went off then, and for a time there was silence in the room, broken only by the occasional efforts of Pamela's Irish terrier, Pat, to better Bridget's bed-making. The windows, brown-paper panes and all, were flung wide open, and there was a lovely prospect of plain and hill, and wood and river, stretching away into the pearl-grey distances. A little wind sang like a lullaby in the leaves of the sycamore outside the window, and from the garden below came a drowsy humming of bees.

But to the girl who sat there dreaming dreams a scene widely different presented itself. She saw a parched Indian plain and a row of low white buildings. All around there was a clearing, but beyond was the mass of the jungle, where the jackals cried by night and the lions roared thunderously. Somewhere in that baking place she saw the face she loved—the plain, honest, devoted face of Mick St. Leger, who had passed from the Militia to be a subaltern in a marching regiment. Five years at least would elapse before he came home—five years, with all their chances of trouble and loneliness, and, alas! of death.

Mary Graydon trembled over her sewing as the longing for her lover became almost intolerable. Then she snapped a thread off short, and lifted her eyes in a quiet way which had become natural to her when she was alone. She could not know what was happening to her dear boy under those deadly skies; but there was One who knew and whose love was greater still, and she could trust that love even if its will was to slay her.

There was a quick step on the stones, and the sound of someone rushing up two steps at a time.

"Oh! here you are, Molly," cried Pamela, rushing in breathless. "We've got home, papa and I; and the glass for these windows is all in a smash, and three of the new tumblers, and the youth's shaving-glass. And what do you think, darling? The youth's coming to-day—this afternoon. That dear old dunderhead of a father of ours has been reading 'Thursday' for 'Tuesday,' and has just had a telegram to undeceive him."

Mary lifted her hands in dismay.

"Dad's to meet him at Lettergort at four-thirty. It's just as well it happened, anyhow, for, instead of going into his study to read the Sentinel, I've headed him off for the stables to see if Frisky must have a shoe. So he hasn't discovered yet the terrible havoc among his household gods. Maybe, if we can get things to rights before he finds out, he'll never know his room has been cleaned at all, at all. I'm sure Mrs. Murphy will leave as few traces of the cleaning as possible."

"What are we to do, Pam?"

"Why, do nothing. It's just as well the glass is broken, for there'd be no time to put it in. Besides, I'm of Bridget's opinion, that brown paper's a deal comfortabler-looking in the could weather."

"But his dinner, Pamela?"

"Why, kill the red cock. He's been insufferable, strutting about with his hoarse crow, since he killed my dear bantam. Besides, he can't live much longer; you know he's very old."

"But won't he be tough? Besides, how are we to catch him?"

"As to the toughness, the youth will think it's the habit of Irish fowl. As to catching him, I think he might be trapped in the rose-bush opposite the hall-door, where he and his wives have taken to roosting; and a nice thing they've made of the rose-bush. He's so old, poor dear! that he goes to bed while yet the sun's high; but, mind, I'll have nothing to say to catching him, lest it should savour of revenge for my Dick."

"But, Pam, the house is upside down; and Sir Anthony comes at four-thirty, you say?"

"Four-thirty his train is due. But papa must take him a round that'll keep him till seven. You may trust Frisky, if Frisky gets a chance, though in the ordinary course of things they'd arrive here from Lettergort in[18] half an hour. Then the train may be more late than usual, to oblige us."

"I suppose papa must keep him out?"

"Yes, of course, he must. It's an interesting country and a charming day. Later on, of course, he'll find out that Lettergort Station is only round the corner, so to speak; but he'll think the long drive was an aberration of his Irish host."

"But won't he be tired after his long journey?"

"He'll be more tired if he has to help us to catch the red cock; that is, if we don't succeed in surprising the poor thing."

"Yes, I suppose we'll have to ask papa to do that. And Pam, darling, do run down and see what Mrs. Murphy is doing in the poor dear's study. He has always been so happy there that it's a shame to disturb him with the knowledge that it has been invaded."

"Leave that to me. You'd say I was a born general if you saw the way I headed him off when he came in. I'll lock Mrs. Murphy in, if necessary, and then make a prodigious search for the key."

"Don't do that, Pam, darling."

"Only as a last resource. Never you fear, I'll keep the poor darling's mind undisturbed. You'll see he never suspects anything, even when I ask him at lunch where I shall find the quotation, 'Alas, unconscious of their doom, the little infants play.'"

And Pamela did ask him at lunch, and the poor gentleman gave her innocently the information she asked. Though, as she said afterwards, it was a shame to keep him in the dark, for he loved a joke so dearly that he would have enjoyed one even at his own expense.

Mary lifted her hands in dismay.

CHAPTER III.

SIB ANTHONY TREVITHICK.

"Well, if the ould train isn't batin' herself for bein' up to time!" said Pat Sheehan, the porter at Lettergort Station. "She'll draw up at this platform twenty-five minits before she's due be the time-table, an' an hour an' twenty-five before her usual time."

[19]

"'Tis Timothy Dolan that's drivin' her," said the person addressed, a little old woman like a robin, with a soft little voice hardly bigger than a bird's twitter.

"The power of love is wonderful," she went on; "sure Tim's spakin' to Mrs. Doyle's little Katty, an' he's raced the thrain so that he can dart up an' see the little girl while the ould ingin' is pantin' the sides out of her like a dog after a gallop."

"More than punctual!" commented a young gentleman, who was standing in a first-class carriage, looking from the shining landscape to the face of his chronometer.

He was a good-looking fellow, with honest brown eyes and a face that told of constant living in the open air. He was lean as a hound, and almost as long; presumably he would fill out, but even now his long-legged youthfulness was not without its attractive side.

As the train drew up at the platform he pocketed his watch, and began to gather his belongings leisurely. They seemed to be a good many—gun-case, golf-sticks, fishing-tackle, hat-case, rugs and umbrellas, and all the rest of it. While he was thus engaged a good-natured face, belonging to the red-bearded and red-haired giant who was guard of the train, looked in at the window.

"No hurry, sir, if you're not goin' on. If you are, there'll be time to take a dander up the town an' get a bit of dinner."

"Indeed? I didn't know you made a long stop here," said the youth, pausing in his occupation of locking a small portmanteau.

"No more we do. We're supposed to skelp along wid the letters for Ballintaggart beyant the mountains there. But you see, sir"—insinuatingly—"the driver's gone to see his sweetheart. That's how we got in so early. Tim is the boy for not lettin' the grass grow under the thrain when he has a mind. I remember when this ould thrain was bet in a race wid a pig; but Tim's put another face on her."

"Oh—indeed. And when will you start again?"

"Whenever your honour likes. I wouldn't be for hurryin' a gentleman over his dinner, to say nothin' of Tim, that's a dacent boy, an' deserves a good turn."

The traveller laughed with an enjoyment that lit up a face grave in repose.

"You don't mind letting the people at Ballin—what's-its-name?—wait for their letters?"

"Och, surely not. Maybe 'tis a week before some o' them 'ud hear be chance there was a letter for 'em at the post-office, an' be that time every wan in the place'll know what's in it. It'll be: 'There's a letter below at the post-office for you, Judy, wid an order in it for a pound from your Uncle Con in Philadelphy'; or, 'Miss Geraghty below at the post-office was tellin' me there's grand news from the daughter in New York—twins, no less, an' all doin' well.' Sure, the people themselves is the last to hear, barrin' the polis."

"But why should the police be in the dark?" asked the young gentleman, as he finally concluded putting his traps together. "Here, help me out with these, please. I'm getting off here, or I'd be delighted to fix the hour for going on."

Mat Connor, the guard, beckoned to Pat Sheehan.

"Here's a man 'ull run 'em anywhere you like in his ass-cart for you, sir, an' welcome. As I was sayin', sir, the polis has nothin' to do but pick up news, and there's an objection to doin' away wid their ockypation—that's all. They're dacent men, the polis."

"I expected a carriage or something to meet me."

Mat Connor looked up and down the platform, where the little woman stood alone, enjoying the excitement of the train's arrival. Then he went to the door and looked out. As he came back he again carefully scanned the platform, as though he might have overlooked such a thing as a carriage.

"Not a sight of one I see at all, at all, sir. Where might you be for, if I may make so bould as to ask?"

"I'm going to Mr. Graydon's, of Carrickmoyle. I daresay he'll be here presently, as he knows the hour the train is due."

"Och, Mr. Graydon'll be here, never fear. He'll be rowlin' round in his little car in less thin no time. The gentleman's for Mr. Graydon's, Pat. Just get his things on the ass-cart an' run them around before another train's due."

"It is not far, then?"

"If you turned to the right when you wint out, an' kep' your eyes shut, only feelin' your way by the wall, you'd be turnin' in at the gate of Carrickmoyle in, maybe, half an hour. But sure, here's Mr. Graydon himself comin' to look for you. I suspected he wouldn't be long."

The young gentleman turned round and saw coming towards him along the platform a lively, fresh-coloured man, of fifty or thereabouts. In spite of his old Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers of grey homespun, yellowed and browned with hard wear, there was no mistaking Mr. Graydon for anything but a gentleman. His face beamed cordiality on the new arrival, and his blue eyes shone with pleasure.

"You are welcome, my dear Sir Anthony, very heartily welcome to Carrickmoyle! Have you been waiting? I'm so sorry. I made certain to be in time. Indeed, I had[20] an errand to do a little further, but, of course, I turned in as soon as I saw the train had arrived."

"You are welcome, my dear Sir Anthony."

"The train was over-punctual, sir, and I have been very well entertained while I waited."

"I daresay, I daresay. There are worse comrades than Mat. Many a pleasant day's shooting I had with Mat for companion. Eh, Mat, you don't forget the night in the Moyle river when our legs froze waiting for wild duck, and we thought we'd have to stay there till the hot weather set us free."

Mat grinned delightedly for response.

"The worst of Mat is he's a born poacher. Doesn't respect Inverbarry's preserves or anybody else's, and isn't to be frightened, though I tell him Inverbarry'll lock him up one of these days."

"Not wid your honour on the bench. But 'tisn't me that poaches. 'Tis the bit of a dog. You couldn't insinse respect for the law into that little baste's head wance he's put up a hare or a partridge."

"Well, good-bye, Mat, good-bye. Tell the old mother I was asking for her. How are you, Mrs. Kelly? What's the last news from Nora? The best, that's a good hearing. Come along, Sir Anthony. Don't drop any of the gentleman's things on your way, Pat."

Mr. Graydon bustled his new pupil out of the little station, and into the very disreputable pony car, with a blissful oblivion of its shortcomings.

"You won't mind coming to the village with me till I deliver my message? I was very near forgetting it. Then I'll have you home in less than no time. You'll be glad of a wash-up and a cup of tea."

Sir Anthony assented, but he was preoccupied, tucking his long legs away under the seat of the little car. When he had time to look at his host, he found him gravely regarding him.

"You are like your father, just such another as he was at your age."

"I am glad you think so, sir. I am proud to be like him."

"Ah, he was a fine fellow, my lad."

"He never forgot you, sir, and your old friendship, though, as he said, you had chosen to bury yourself far away from your friends. He used to say that no man had more friends, or deserved them better."

"Did he say that?" and for a second Mr. Graydon's eyes were misty. "Ah, well! he showed he remembered me when he wished his boy to be in my hands."

"You are good to have me, sir."

"Not at all, my lad. I shall be very glad of your companionship, and shall feel sometimes as if it were Gerald Trevithick beside me as of old instead of his boy. And your mother? I hope you left Lady Jane well."

"Quite well, thank you, sir."

"And what did she think of her only son burying himself in the wilds of Ireland?"

"She respected my father's wishes," said the young fellow, and Mr. Graydon detected a note of coldness in the voice which had[21] been so tender when he spoke of his dead father.

"Ah, here we are," said Mr. Graydon, as they turned into a tiny street of mud cabins and drew up in front of a general shop. "Just take the reins for a minute while I give Mrs. Lennan my daughter's orders. Oh, is it yourself, Mrs. Lennan? You shouldn't have troubled to come out. You're looking bonny in spite of the hot weather."

"The same to you, Mr. Graydon," said the little rosy-cheeked woman, curtseying. "What can I do for your honour to-day?"

"I've a list here as long as a woman's tongue, Mrs. Lennan, though the tongue isn't yours or we'd wish it to be always wagging. Let me see—here it is: soap, candles, matches—there, you'd better take it inside and get Mike to read it for you. He's a fine scholar, I hear."

"Indeed, then, he is, sir, though his mother oughtn't to be talkin' about it. Thank you, sir. I'll put the things together in less time than you'd say them over."

While they waited in the village street, Mr. Graydon beguiled the time by genial gossip with every man, woman, and child who came the way.

"How well you get on with the people, sir," Sir Anthony could not help saying.

"Do you think so?" said Mr. Graydon, with a little surprise. "You see, we've known each other so long. Things and people change little in these out-of-the-way places."

"I couldn't do it, if it was to save my life. Besides, the people where I come from wouldn't understand it."

"Ah, I suppose not. We Irish are more of a large family—which is, perhaps, the reason why we wrangle sometimes."

"I don't know how you recollect all their ailments, and the names and conditions of their families, and all the rest of it."

"I am about through them so much. Your mother would understand. I daresay she plays the Lady Bountiful a good deal."

The young man's lips parted over a range of beautifully white and strong teeth.

"No," he said, a little grimly. "The mater isn't at all the district-visiting sort, I assure you, sir."

With a feeling of having blundered, Mr. Graydon changed the subject.

"I was glad to see your gun-case," he said. "There's any amount of game about here. The mountain yonder has no end of rabbits; and there's plenty of teal, woodcock, grouse, and partridge. Good fishing, too, in the Moyle—the sweetest salmon-trout that ever grilled over a clear fire; and a mile or two away there are big salmon for the taking."

"Unpreserved?" cried the youth, with sparkling eyes.

"Well, not very strictly preserved. That mountain yonder, Carrickduff, is part of my singularly unprofitable property, and the Moyle runs inside my walls."

"If you don't keep me too close to work, sir, I foresee that I shall find Carrickmoyle a paradise."

"There are worse places than Carrickmoyle," said Mr. Graydon, with a sparkle of pleasure in his eye. "Oh, I shan't overwork you. I believe in out-of-doors for young fellows. When I am busy—I daresay I shall be a little busy at times with a book which I have had in hand some years—the children will look after you."

"You have children, then?"

"Yes, three little girls. The eldest is, I'm afraid, becoming grown-up; but the others are quite children, and as wild as little hares."

By this time they had passed the rickety gate and were approaching the house, the double doors of which stood hospitably open.

Mr. Graydon drew up on the gravel-sweep opposite the door.

"I must take Frisky round," he said, "and, meanwhile, will you go into the drawing-room? It is the first door on the left. I'll be back with you in a minute, as soon as I've found little Tim to take Frisky from me—likely as not he's playing marbles in the paddock."

Sir Anthony did as he was directed. The big hall, when he had entered it, was full of sunlight, but otherwise bare as poverty. A big fireplace, where the brasses tarnished and the steel rusted; a great handsome box, intended for billets of wood, but now coldly empty; some dusty antlers and shields on the high wall—these were not cheerful.

What was, was the sound of young laughter proceeding from the door to the left—exuberant laughter, full of enjoyment, accompanied with an odd little sound of rushing hither and thither.

The young fellow's face lit up as he went forward.

"The children playing 'Puss in the Corner,'" he said to himself, and went almost on tip-toe.

But as he reached the door he was met by a sudden silvery shriek. Something feathery and very hard struck him between the eyes; then the thing dodged him, but before he could discover what it was another missile followed; at the same moment the silvery voice cried, in accents of despair:—

"Very well, you wretch! go, if you will; but you have disgraced Carrickmoyle, and left the baronet without any dinner."

But let Sir Anthony himself explain these extraordinary happenings, and how he met his fate, and the strange shape in which love came to him.

END OF CHAPTER THREE.

Our Roll of Heroic Deeds

This series of pictures of heroic deeds is fittingly inaugurated by the portrayal of the splendid heroism of the nursemaid Fanny Best, of Tiverton, who, by her courage and presence of mind, was instrumental in saving the lives of her charges when attacked by an infuriated cow. As will be seen, she kept a firm hold of the perambulator, and at the risk of her own life boldly resisted the repeated thrusts of the animal until help arrived. The Editor is always pleased to hear of such instances of self-sacrificing bravery—either in men or women—with a view to the award of the Medal of The Quiver Heroes Fund, such as was sent to Miss Best at the time.

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

By the Lord Bishop of Derry.

"Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."—St. Matthew iii., 2.

This proclamation, made by the Baptist, is the best possible beginning for a gospel, since men will never repent unless they feel that better things are open to them.

Therefore, as the next chapter informs us, these same words were the first utterance, the modest germ, of the profounder teaching of our Lord Himself, and He started from the precise point to which the forerunner had led his followers. The next step was to fill up somewhat these slender outlines by saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel" (St. Matthew iv. 17; St. Mark i. 15).

This announcement is necessary still. How often have we excused our misdeeds by the abject plea that we could not help ourselves! It is abject, it is a confession of slavery; but, if true, it is a perfect defence. None may blame us for doing what is inevitable, or failing to do what is impossible. If a giant were to force a torch into my hand and with it to explode a powder magazine, I should not be the murderer of those who perished by my hand. I should feel outraged and indignant, but not remorseful.

And whoever is really certain that he "cannot help" his intemperance, or sloth, or anger, need not feel remorseful any more, but he also ought to feel outraged and indignant. But against whom? God? or Satan? or himself, the self of other days? For, after all, an act which is quite uncontrollable now may have sprung from the wilful acts of long ago, from compliances that forged habits which have now become bands of steel.

At all events, the gospel does not deny man's debasement and thraldom; it asserts, not that you are naturally free, but that you are graciously emancipated; it is preoccupied, not with your strength, but with the approach of reinforcements. "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Now think how urgently a kingdom of heaven is required. We know to our cost that there is an awful kingdom of hell—an organised and systematic power of evil. Christ Himself said it. He declared that Satan could not cast out Satan because evil in this world is regulated, coherent, and organic—it is a house, a kingdom, working consistently, and it would fall if it were divided against itself. And we are beset by its forces, entangled, and made captive. Whatever be our frailty, they seize upon it. Am I selfish? The carelessness of others makes me dishonest. Am I uncharitable? Their failings provoke my scorn. Am I light and trifling? Their example beguiles me into excess. Am I irascible? Their injustice lashes me into fury. Am I sensitive? Their neglect discourages, their harshness ulcerates me. Am I affectionate? Their kindness disarms my judgment and drugs my conscience to sleep.

And the evil which these nurse in me becomes in turn a snare to other men.

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And all these influences are wielded and swayed by malignant and terrible intelligences, our foes, our tyrants.

Therefore we have need of a kingdom as real, a power of goodness as systematic, to overcome in us this organised pressure from beneath.

And hence it was not mere goodness, but a kingdom of organised and potent goodness, which Jesus from the first proclaimed.

What is the meaning of the phrase, "the kingdom of God"—"of heaven"? Many excellent people believe it to be something still future, the outcome in another dispensation of forces latent still, the millennium, the personal reign of Christ. And we must not deny that there are passages which indicate that such will be the fulness and triumphant issue of His kingdom. But Christ did not say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at least nineteen centuries away from you." And again, when tauntingly questioned as to when this kingdom should come, He answered that it was come already, "not with observation," yet among them.

And, indeed, He, being Himself the Anointed One, was always speaking of the kingdom; so that, while the rest of the New Testament mentions it thirty-three times, it is mentioned in the gospels one hundred and twenty-five times.

For He spoke to men who understood the phrase, being steeped in Old Testament promises of the Messianic time; and they, when their turn came, had to preach where the mention of a new kingdom would be as alarming as it was to Herod.

If, then, our Lord had even once employed a safer expression, this would so much better suit His followers as inevitably to displace among the Gentiles His own favourite phrase, "the kingdom." And so it comes that the word "church," which He is only known to have uttered on two occasions, is found elsewhere one hundred and thirteen times.

This is, indeed, an evidence of the accuracy of the reports, for if the discourses of our Lord were not genuine, how could they have been marked by this distinctive peculiarity when the Church had become used to employ a different word?

And surely it is the Church, this kingdom which our Lord spoke of as a field where tares were growing, as a little seed which became a tree, as a net which embraced alike good fish and bad?

It is the organised coherent power of the world to come, confronting evil with an influence and mastery superior to its own.

Repent, said Christ, because the empire of wickedness is tottering—because the iron sceptre of the tyrant is about to break—because the prince of this world is soon to be cast out.

What do we know of the constitution, and what of the spirit, of this divine kingdom upon earth?

Jesus declared its constitution when He said that, while the kings of this world put forth an imperious sway, and men obsequiously reckon them benefactors who exercise lordship over them, with us the conditions are reversed, and he is greatest who stoops, helps, serves, and forgets the ambitions that usurp and trample.

What encouragement for the penitent! In the realm which he now enters—where he fears to be reproached for his past rebellion—every true leader has it for an ambition to help and serve him; and he is made sharer in a vast and sublime citizenship, where all, from the Prince of Life to the lowliest true servant, are united in desiring his victory and joy.

Oh, if this is true, if the Conqueror of Death and Hell has received gifts for us, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, and if, in one grand and organised strain and stress of effort for the right, angels and principalities and powers, and things present and to come, and Paul and Cephas, all are ours, then, in the approach of such a kingdom, in the voice that bids us rally to such a standard of emancipation, what hope, what animation, what an opening of prison doors!

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

With mutual help for its constitution, now what is its aim and temper?

"The kingdom of God," said St. Paul, "is not self-indulgence, not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

It is not any one of these isolated from the rest.

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Righteousness, for instance, means conformity to rule; a sceptre of righteousness is the same thing as a straight sceptre.

But can you not imagine a life of conformity to rule, a life perfectly righteous, being hideous?

Think, for instance, of a slave in a plantation, rising early, toiling until absolute exhaustion arrested his incessant labours, perfectly temperate, sober, and obedient. But all this was because the sound of the lash was in his ears, and the scars of it on his flesh; and all the while his soul was either stupefied or frenzied.

Well, it is not practically possible, but it is conceivable in theory—and Christ conceived it—that, even thus, in the fear which has torment, one should thoroughly obey God, remembering the pangs of remorse, and foreboding those of hell. And I repeat it: such a righteousness, pressed on the reluctant soul by external forces, would be hideous. It is the righteousness of the prodigal's brother: "I never transgressed.... Thou never gavest me a kid."

But the kingdom of God is righteousness combined with peace; it is obedience to an inner law—to a law written in the heart and mind.

"Righteousness, and peace, and joy." How little of real penetrating joy comes into an average human life! "Happy," says Thackeray, who knew men so well, "happy! who is happy?" And even the calm and tranquil Wordsworth, most blameless of the children of his time, complained that—

Nor, to be frank, is the life of a Christian altogether and perfectly joyful. "Even we ourselves do groan within ourselves," wrote Paul to the same church for which he prayed that the "God of hope would fill them with all peace and joy."

But the reason he groans is because he has only the first fruits of what is coming. He groans waiting for the redemption of the body, and the old nature still has power to hinder and to thwart him. What is new in him tends to happiness, the higher and holier part of him is all for joy; that is true of him in some degree which is observed of his Master (despite one apparent exception by the grave of Lazarus), that He is often said to have His soul troubled, but only once that He rejoiced in spirit. "The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

This kingdom, Jesus said, was at hand. And when His disciples were rejected, and shook off the dust of the city from their shoes, He bade them say, "Nevertheless, of this be ye sure, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."

And it is nigh unto us to-day. It is felt in the inmost soul even of those who would be ashamed to confess its presence.

Even when you are most miserably defeated in striving to be good, most ashamed of failure, even when (to return to our starting-point) you declare that you cannot do the thing that you would, even then you do not entirely believe yourself; the conviction of lofty possibilities will not quite begone; righteousness, and peace, and joy, still haunt your imaginings and disturb your guilty pleasures; you feel, you know, that these things are your heritage, and without them you can never be content.

What does this strange, illogical, incessant experience mean?

There is a beautiful old legend of a Christian girl, betrayed to martyrdom by her pagan lover in the bitterness of his rejection, who promised as she went to die to send him, if it were allowed to her, some proof of her religion. On that same wintry night, as he sat and mourned, the legend says that a fair boy left at his door a basket filled with flowers of such bloom and fragrance as never grew in earthly gardens. Whereupon he arose and confessed Christ, and passed through the same dusky gates of martyrdom to rejoin her in the paradise of God.

Like those flowers of unearthly growth, proclaiming the reality of the unseen, so do our unworldly longings, our immortal spiritual aspirings, our feeling after a Divine Deliverer, if haply we may find Him, prove that the kingdom of God is at hand.

Every thought of God comes from God, and is already the operation of His Spirit.

Every desire for Christ is Christ's forerunner in the soul, and bids us welcome Christ.

"Repent ye, and believe the gospel."

Homes of Noble Poverty

By the Author of "England's Youth at Worship."

To be miserably poor throughout life is a burden sufficiently hard; to sink from riches to poverty is a tragedy. Yet it is a tragedy that we see constantly occurring around us. To struggle with despairing pride to preserve that outward show which is falsely termed respectability; to see fair-weather friends slink one by one away; to surrender the little luxuries, innocent enough in themselves, that have grown to become a part of life itself—that is what it means to slip down the hill of fortune. "Give me neither poverty nor riches," says the Book of Proverbs, the embodiment of wisdom for all time.

(Photo: J. G. Williams, East Molesey.)

NOBLE POVERTY AT HAMPTON COURT.

In poverty, as in all things else, there are degrees. What may be wealth to one may be destitution to another. It depends upon what the previous habits of life have been. Take, for instance, the gentlemen and ladies, many of them bearing the noblest English names, to whom the Queen grants apartments in the old Palace of Hampton Court. They are not without small incomes themselves, and the rates and taxes they have to pay amount to no inconsiderable sum. Yet to live rent free is a boon that enables them to live comfortably.

Shortly after the commencement of his reign George III. closed the Palace as a royal residence, and from that time private families commenced to occupy its innumerable rooms. These "royal squatters," as they have been called, at[27] first behaved in doubtful fashion. Many had been granted leave to stay for a few weeks, and quietly proceeded to make it a permanent residence. Worse still, they seized additional rooms when they thought they could do so in safety, and sometimes let them out at a substantial rent to their friends. News of these strange doings was carried to the king, who became very angry, as an existing letter that he wrote shows to us. It was proclaimed that no one would in future be allowed to occupy a suite of apartments save under the Lord Chamberlain's warrant. Gradually the thousand rooms of the great building were divided up into, firstly, the State apartments, and, secondly, fifty-three private suites, varying in size from ten to forty chambers. At the present time these suites are granted, as a general rule, to the widows of men who have distinguished themselves in the service of their country. To no more worthy use could the Palace have been placed; indeed, the tact and discrimination which have been exhibited by our Queen and her advisers in the distribution of these benefits cannot be too highly praised.

About the royal pensioners of Hampton Court many interesting and amusing stories are told. When debt brought imprisonment as its punishment, a certain gentleman retired to the rooms of a relation in the Palace, and claimed the immunity of a royal residence. The bailiffs knew that they could not arrest him there, and hung about at the gates, while he took his daily exercise upon the roof. One day he incautiously ventured out and was arrested; but he escaped from his enemies, swam the river, and got back into safety again. Red-tape rules supreme in the management of the royal buildings, as the pensioners know to their cost. Certain windows, for instance, are never properly cleaned, owing to the fact that the Woods and Forests Department washes the outside of the panes and the Lord Steward's Department the inside. As the two departments rarely manage to do their cleaning on the same day, the windows are usually in a state of semi-obscurity. To obtain the use of an old staircase that led from her rooms to the gardens, a lady had to successively petition the Lord Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, the Lord Steward and Board of Green Cloth, the First Commissioner of Her Majesty's Works, and, finally, the Woods and Forests!

Photo Cassell and Co., Ltd.)

HOUSES OF THE MILITARY KNIGHTS, WINDSOR CASTLE.

While chronicling the movements of the Queen, reference is now and again made in the daily press to the Military Knights of Windsor. Nevertheless, but few who read[28] about their doings know of what that order consists. They are officers who have distinguished themselves in some of our innumerable little wars, and yet in their old age find themselves solely dependent on a very diminutive pension. From the Queen they served so faithfully and well they receive an annuity and a lodging in that vast palace, Windsor Castle. The order is, indeed, a pendant to that better-known home for the veterans of the rank and file, Chelsea Hospital. Its history is peculiarly interesting. When that gallant warrior, King Edward III., founded the Order of the Garter, he ordained that each of the twenty-six companions should be allowed to present an "alms-knight" to the provision made for them by the king. According to the original grant, these veterans were to be "such as through adverse fortune were brought to that extremity that they had not of their own wherewith to sustain them nor to live so genteely as became a military condition." That they might live "genteely" they were given a lump sum of forty shillings a year, and twelve pence each day they attended the royal chapel—a small pension, it seems to us, but it must be remembered that money has vastly decreased in purchasing power since those early days.

A MILITARY KNIGHT OF WINDSOR.

But evil fortune awaited the alms-knights. They had been placed under the supervision of the canons of St. George's Chapel, and these priests seem to have bullied them unmercifully. Under Edward IV. the quarrel had grown to such a pitch that the king interfered. Monks carried long tales to the monarch of the insubordination shown by the stout old warriors to the rules that had been made for their government. The alms-knights replied, but in cunning they were no match for their adversaries; "deeds not words" might have been their motto. In the end they were shut off from the royal bounty, and, as an old chronicler of the times remarks, "how they next subsisted doth not fully appear." Bluff King Hal, however, took pity on the poor old gentlemen that yet remained in the land of the living, and set apart certain lands for their maintenance. Queen Bess added to their lodgings, but issued a series of strict regulations as to their behaviour, which well became the maiden Queen, however distasteful they were to the alms-knights themselves. Their old enemies, the canons of St. George's Chapel, were informed that they were to consider themselves responsible for their behaviour, and severe penalties awaited a "haunter of taverns" or a "keeper of late[29] hours." When the Queen visited Windsor they were to be ready to salute her; lastly, it was ordained that no married man could be admitted to the order, bachelors and widowers being alone eligible.

(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)

A BROTHER OF ST. CROSS.

(Of the Order of Noble Poverty.)

Until the reign of William IV. their uniform was more ornamental than comfortable. Indeed, during hot weather it must have been well-nigh intolerable, consisting as it did of a flowing red mantle, decked with a "scutcheon of St. George" upon the shoulder. Since the reform instituted by that king, however, it has consisted of a red swallow-tail coat, dark blue trousers, cocked-hat with red and white plume, crimson silk sash and a leather belt for a sword. Of course, it is only on full-dress occasions that the veterans thus gaily bedeck themselves. Remarkably well they then look, with their kind old faces beaming above the rows of medals that proclaim their past achievements. They still mourn the discontinuance of their famous banquet on St. George's Day; but presents of game from the royal preserves doubtless reconcile them to the loss of their annual feast.

(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)

THE HOSPICE OF ST CROSS, WINCHESTER.

From the old fortress of Windsor Castle, fit residence for veteran soldiers, to the quiet Hampshire country in which the Hospice of St. Cross lies is a change indeed. So cool and quiet does St. Cross seem that it might be likened to some pleasant bower left by the side of the great highway of life, along which we jostle in the heat and dust of a summer's day. It lies little more than a mile from sleepy Winchester, and the River Itchen wanders through its meadows. It was in 1136 that Henry de Blois, the famous bishop and statesman, founded St. Cross as a hospital for thirteen old men. So good a deed stood out in strong relief against the cruelty and savagery of the times. From north to south, from east to west, England was desolated by all the horrors of civil war. As the Saxon Chronicle tells us in its dying wail, "Men openly said that Christ and His saints slept." Yet Bishop Henry, in the midst of his fighting and scheming, found time to ensure comparative happiness to thirteen poor traders whom the raiding barons had reduced from prosperity to poverty. Faults the great churchman may have had in plenty; but that he had a kind and generous heart he has left sufficient proof behind him. No finer monument than St. Cross could man erect to keep his memory green.

On the death of its founder, St. Cross fell into evil times. It passed under the protection of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, a military order then more powerful than scrupulous. The Jerusalem Cross which is[30] prominent in the church of the Hospice comes from that source. After a long struggle the Bishops of Winchester triumphed over the knights, but abuses still prevailed, and the money that should have found its way into the pockets of the poor brethren was quietly appropriated by fat ecclesiastics. At last, under Henry VI., Cardinal Beaufort set to work to remedy these evils. So noble were his efforts that he almost deserves to be coupled with Bishop Henry as joint-founder of "The Hospital of Noble Poverty," as he renamed the institution. From his time St. Cross has never been in danger of destruction.

An avenue of shady trees leads to a fine gate-house, for which St. Cross is indebted to Cardinal Beaufort. Above the arch kneels the effigy of the great churchman himself. Once within the doors we almost feel as if we had shaken off the nineteenth century and dropped back into the days of the Tudors. "Wayfarers' dole," a little horn mug of beer and a slip of bread, is presented as refreshment for the weary traveller. This may seem strange enough to us, but there was a time when the custom was by no means uncommon in hospitable England. Those were the days when wayfarers were few, roads half-mud or half-dust, and inns far between. Passing on, we next find ourselves in a spacious quadrangle, having for centre a smooth lawn of that exquisite turf for which our country is deservedly famous. Round it lie the chapel, hall, cloisters, and brethren's houses. The chapel is a fine building in the Norman style. Perhaps the most interesting features of its interior are the designs that adorn the walls. During the "whitewash" period of past generations they were covered up, but now they have been restored to something like their original form and colour. In this more than one of the brethren, where they were able to do so, lent a helping hand. The little burial ground is to the south of the chapel. It would be difficult to imagine a more peaceful spot for the last resting-place of the veterans who have fought and lost in the great battle of life.

(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)

A VIEW OF THE CHARTERHOUSE.

"Have you many visitors from London itself?" I once inquired of the gate porter of the Charterhouse. "No, sir," said he. "We get a lot from the country, along with the Americans and foreigners; but precious few Londoners ever come here." It is strange how absolutely ignorant the average Londoner is concerning all that is quaint and interesting in the old buildings of the great city in which he lives. The case of the Charterhouse offers an excellent example. About it the broad streams of traffic pour unceasingly day after day; yet, though the little backwater wherein the grey old houses lie is but a few dozen yards away, few of the busy crowds can either spare the time or take the trouble to visit it.

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The history of the Charterhouse is a strange one. In 1348 all London was trembling in the grasp of the Black Death. The grave-diggers did not know what to do with the bodies, and finally buried them in any pit or ditch that seemed convenient. Famous Sir Walter Manny, the favourite of all the fighting heroes of Froissart, was horrified at this grave scandal. He, together with the Bishop of London, procured certain lands, which were consecrated and handed over to the city that the dead might at least receive decent burial. It is said that fifty thousand bodies were there interred in a few years. Some time later, the plague abating, the same two philanthropists commenced to build a Carthusian monastery on part of the ground. For three centuries the Charterhouse, under the rigour of that stern order, pursued its quiet path. But with Henry VIII. came evil times for the monks. There were searching examinations, and finality executions. The monastery was dissolved and the building tossed from hand to hand. Twice it was held by Dukes of Norfolk, and for a time was known as Norfolk House. Two of its ducal owners passed from it to the block on Tower Hill. Queen Elizabeth took refuge there in the reign of Mary. There were revels there while James I. was king, eighty gentlemen being knighted at one time after a banquet which had been to the royal satisfaction. Finally it was bought by a certain Thomas Sutton, and shortly afterwards we find him petitioning Parliament for licence to endow it as a home for aged men and a school for poor children.

Let us take a day in the life of one of the "old gentlemen," as the attendants always call them. About eight o'clock a "nurse" comes bustling into his sitting-room, lights his fire, and sees that his breakfast is laid ready. At nine o'clock a bell goes for chapel. Each of the brethren must attend one chapel a day on pain of a shilling fine stopped out of his allowance; but he may choose the morning or evening service as he likes. The morning service is the more popular, and to chapel we will now bend our steps. It is a venerable old building, and now that the schoolboys have left their old home and retired to Godalming there is plenty of room. On the right of the altar is a heavy carved pulpit; on the left the tomb of the founder, good Thomas Sutton, with its elaborate carving and gold-tipped railings.

ST. KATHARINE'S HOSPITAL, REGENT'S PARK.

After chapel the old gentlemen are at liberty to do what they like until dinner is served at three, an hour in itself the survival[32] of a custom long passed away. The hall, with its carved woodwork, is a most interesting spot. Wearing their gowns, the brothers file in and take their seats at the mahogany tables. Above the fireplace the Sutton arms are blazoned, and from his frame on the wall the picture of the good merchant himself smiles down upon the recipients of his bounty.

After dinner, in the summer weather, the brothers usually chat or doze in the pleasant shade of the buildings in the largest court. There are few of them that have not something out of the common about their faces, and none of them but have a hard story to tell, if they chose. They are of all ranks, but mainly drawn from the classes described in the old regulations as "poor gentlemen, old soldiers, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, and household servants of the sovereign." "We get a lot of literary men here now," said an attendant, looking knowingly at me; but I did not pursue the conversation.

Evening service is at six, and at eleven the gates are shut for the night.

With the institution known as St. Katharine's Hospital the queens of England have always been closely connected. It was founded as long ago as 1148 by Matilda, wife of King Stephen; but to Queen Eleanor the hospital owed its first charter. By it the English queens were always to be considered perpetual patronesses, and the institution was to be part of their dower. Eleanor added further revenues "for the health of the soul of her late husband and of the souls of the preceding and succeeding kings and queens."

WILLIAM THE FOURTH'S NAVAL ASYLUM, PENGE.

(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)

Henry VIII. seems to have intended at one time to quietly appropriate the revenues, but Anne Boleyn, the reigning favourite, prevented this iniquitous deed. From the Stuarts to 1824 there is little of importance to recount; the handful of royal pensioners lived in comfort, and a school for poor children was also maintained. Quiet garments were the rule, though the strict order passed by the queen of Edward III. against "striped clothes" as "tending to dissoluteness" had long been abolished. In 1824, however, came the proposal to dig out a huge dock on the ground whereon the hospital stood. After great debate Parliament granted the necessary powers. St. Katharine's Docks were begun, and at the same time the walls of a new St. Katharine's Hospital commenced to rise in Regent's Park. The present buildings can[33] scarcely be called beautiful, the chapel being a poor imitation of the one at King's College, Cambridge. The offices of master and brethren are now practically sinecures of considerable value presented by the Crown; a large number of non-resident "bedesmen and bedeswomen" are also supported out of the funds. The Queen Victoria Jubilee Nurses' Fund has of late years been connected with the Hospital.

In the year 1847 Adelaide, Queen Dowager of England, determined to found and endow an asylum for widows and orphan daughters of the officers of the Royal Navy. Penge was the spot selected, and there twelve pretty little houses were built and called "King William the Fourth's Naval Asylum." It was a graceful act of the queen, for far too little had been previously done for the destitute relatives of those to whom the country owed nine-tenths of its power and security. From its foundation the governors and trustees have all been in some way connected with the Navy, and can be relied upon to appreciate the position and look after the interests of the pensioners.

MORDEN'S COLLEGE, BLACKHEATH.

Connected also with the sea is that old and famous institution, Morden's College, Blackheath. In the middle of the seventeenth century Sir John Morden was a member of the great Turkey Company, trading in the Mediterranean. He had a "fair estate," numerous ships, and all things that in his day made up the prosperous trader. In the City of London his name stood high. But the tenure of riches and prosperity was more precarious in those days than in our own. The whole of his fleet perished on one voyage, either by pirates or storm. But honest Sir John did not relax his energy because he found fortune his foe. Steadily plodding on, he again commenced to rise in the world, until at last, like the patriarch Job, he was even greater and wealthier than before. Misfortune had taught him a lesson in charity which he never forgot. When at the lowest depths of his calamity he had vowed that if ever the Almighty again crowned his efforts with success he would provide a shelter for merchants who, like himself, had fallen upon hard times and lost their estates "by accidents, dangers, and perils of the seas."

The College is a spacious red-brick building, with two wings that form a central quadrangle, which is surrounded by piazzas. It was built according to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. At the present day it[34] houses within its hospitable walls forty pensioners, while one hundred out-pensioners receive sums varying in amount up to £80 per annum. The inmates, with £120 each, are very comfortably off. In 1844 a fine dining-hall was added, in which hang the portraits of the baronet and his lady, painted by Sir Peter Lely. The new library was bequeathed by the will of a son of a former inmate of the College. With the increasing value of property, the income of Morden's College is now little short of £18,000 a year. The generous action of the founder well merited the praise of an old member of the institution, who wrote in his gratitude a poetic effusion thus concluding:

(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)

HUGGENS' COLLEGE, NORTHFLEET.

John Huggens, who founded the College at Northfleet which bears his name, was a fine type of the business man of the early part of this century, a time when the commerce of England commenced to advance by leaps and bounds. A letter which the Rev. M. M. Ffinch, Chaplain of the College, has kindly lent me describes him as a tall, well-made man in "nankeen breeches, blue dress coat, with large gilt buttons, and a white beaver hat with the nap fully an inch long." Like many other founders of charitable institutions, he had seen that the hardest poverty of all is the poverty that will not beg and cannot, through age, infirmity, or misfortune, make enough to keep body and soul together. A hard worker all his life, he would have been the last man in the world to encourage the sloth that comes by indiscriminate charity. In 1847 he opened a small building of sufficient size to house eight pensioners who had sunk from comparative comfort into evil times through no fault of their own. "Having run our little bark into the smooth and tranquil waters of the summer evening of life," said the founder in his opening speech, "may we sail on happily to the end of our voyage here below!" Before and after his death fresh houses were added, and since the foundation of the home two hundred and twenty-nine residents have been received within its walls.

B. FLETCHER ROBINSON. 

GREAT ANNIVERSARIES

IN NOVEMBER.

By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital.

The British calendar never lacks interest. There is not a day which does not recall for us some great name in our country's history, some victory of peace or in war. Let us put ourselves in mind of a few of these—not necessarily of the most familiar or the most striking, but of some which more especially speak of movements and workers in the religious and philanthropic life of the nation.

November is the month in which the Long Parliament met, and William of Orange landed in England; it is the month of Clive's defence of Arcot, of Hawke's battle in Quiberon Bay, and of the soldiers' fight at Inkerman; it is the month that saw the birth of William III., of Laurence Sterne and Jonathan Swift, of Sir Matthew Hale, of Richard Baxter, of William Cowper, William Hogarth, Henry Havelock, John Bright, and Frederick Temple; it is the month in which Adam Smith published his "Wealth of Nations," and Charles Darwin his "Origin of Species"; it is the month in which Cardinal Wolsey, John Milton, and Admiral Benbow died; it is the month which saw the State pageant many this year have called to mind, the funeral of the Duke of Wellington.

RICHARD BAXTER.

(After a Contemporary Engraving by Robert White.)

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

(After a Drawing by Count D'Orsay.)

Sir Matthew Hale (born November 1st, 1609) is but one of the many judges who have joined to eminence in the law the example of a devout mind and a life of religious zeal. He administered justice in the times both of the Commonwealth and of the Restoration. Stillingfleet and Baxter were amongst his friends, and his life of austerity witnessed to his consistent sympathy with Puritan ideals. Before him there came John Bunyan, for the then heinous crime of frequenting conventicles. He wrote with equal facility upon law, morals, and theology, and his MSS. are still amongst the treasures of Lincoln's Inn.

DEAN SWIFT.

Richard Baxter (born November 12th, 1615) had a career of singular variety. Sometimes thought of only as a pioneer of Nonconformity and the author of the "Saint's Everlasting Rest," he shared in the startling changes of his period. He had tried in early years a courtier's life; he received holy orders from the Bishop of Worcester; he was for a time a chaplain to the Parliamentary forces; he was on Cromwell's Committee to "settle the fundamentals of religion"; he was, a few years after, a chaplain-in-ordinary to King Charles II.; he might have been Bishop of Hereford; and he lived to be tried for sedition before Judge Jeffreys. He is known to[36] many, who are not familiar with his other works, by the hymn "Lord, it belongs not to my care." Curiously enough, this hymn is said to have been repeated, during his last illness, by the late distinguished physicist, Professor James Clerk Maxwell, who also is a November worthy, born on the 13th of this month.

WILLIAM COWPER.

(From the Painting by G. Romney.)

Dean Swift (born November 30th, 1667) had little of the divine about him, though he obtained an Irish deanery and aspired to an English bishopric. Politician and satirist, some of his books are still eagerly read by those who have forgotten the circumstances which produced them, as well as the defects which stained his character. William Cowper (born November 15th, 1731) is a pleasanter memory. The Christian Church is not likely soon to forget the "Olney Hymns" and their authors, although Cowper's descriptive poetry and his letters are less familiar than they might be. And "John Gilpin"—can he ever be forgotten? With these authors we may reasonably join a moralist who taught by another art. William Hogarth (born November 10th, 1697) reproached the vices of a licentious age with a power of pictorial satire which has never been excelled. He was one of the group of distinguished artists who associated themselves with the early history of the Foundling Hospital.

THE LATE SIR H. HAVELOCK, K.C.B.

(After the Portrait by F. Goodall, A.R.A.)

Of Christian soldiers, who has appealed to us more strongly than Henry Havelock (died November 24th, 1857)? "So long," it has been truly said, "as the memory of great deeds, and high courage, and spotless self-devotion is cherished among his countrymen, so long will Havelock's lonely grave beneath the scorching Eastern sky, hard by the vast city, the scene alike of his toil, his triumph, and his death, be regarded as one of the most holy of the countless spots where Britain's patriot soldiers lie." As with many another man, his religious character owed much to the influence of his wife, a daughter of that Marshman whose name will always be remembered in the history of Indian missions. To Outram the dying man could say, "I have for forty years so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear." "Principles alone," wrote Havelock, "are worth living for or striving for." The words might stand as a motto for the life of John Bright (born November 16th, 1811), Christian statesman and orator, one of the many members of the Society of Friends who have left their names writ large in their country's history. The men who remember the struggle for Free Trade are passing away, but the part played by John Bright is not likely soon to be forgotten.

November has not been a month fruitful in the foundation of philanthropic and religious organisations. But to those who have watched the progress of the temperance movement in England, who remember the difficulties of its pioneers, and the obloquy which often fell upon them, November has a claim as the birth-month of one of the earliest and hardest of the temperance workers—Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury. Born in the Ionian Isles on November 30th, 1821, he has, all through his manhood been a vigorous exponent of the total abstinence cause. From the first he recognised no bounds of denomination in its support, and although he has been a great power to the Church of England Temperance Society, he has always lent his voice and influence to other agencies working in the same great cause. He has an invaluable helper in his wife, in both temperance and diocesan work.

ARCHBISHOP TEMPLE.

(Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W.)

HOW BARNFORD CHURCH WAS SAVED.

A Complete Story.

By Scott Graham, Author of "Pemberton's Piece," "All Through Prejudice," Etc.

When Llewellyn Percival, the new Rector, first beheld the dilapidated pile called by courtesy Barnford Church, his heart sank. The late Rector, who had just died, aged ninety, had held the living fifty years, and during his sway scarcely any repairs had been done. The parish, a remote village in the East of England, was an exceedingly poor one; and the very ancient and interesting church had literally settled down—for one side was much out of the perpendicular—to decay.

It smelt incredibly fusty, it was disfigured by hideous high pews, daubed with yellow paint, locally termed "horse-boxes"; the fine west window was blocked by a huge gallery containing the organ—an instrument so much out of order that half the notes were mute, and the pipes emitted the weirdest groans, absolutely terrifying to a stranger. The old sexton assured Llewellyn that the roof was so leaky that in wet weather the rain poured down on the congregation, and though there was a stove, it was so ill-constructed that in winter the cold was terrible. There was a fine old peal of bells, but the tower at the west end had a huge crack running from top to bottom, and seemed so unsafe that they did not dare to ring more than one.

All this was sadly disheartening; especially as the church was really a fine building, with a splendid Norman doorway, a dilapidated but still beautiful carved screen, and many interesting features.

"Is there really no rich family in the place who could help to restore it?" Llewellyn asked the sexton. "What about the people at the fine grey-stone Manor House, there among the trees?"

"Oh, them's the Lancasters—they're rich enough, but you'll not get nothing out o' them, sir. Old Squire Lancaster and the old Rector quarrelled years ago about the family pew, and ever since they've gone to Thornton Church, in the next village. Miss never gives nothing to this church now."

"Is she an elderly lady?"

"Bless you, no sir, she's quite young—twenty-four, maybe—and handsome too. She's the only child, and since th' old Squire died she's had it all her own way, for her ma's a great invaleed, and never troubles about anything."

Llewellyn sighed. It did seem unfortunate that the only rich people in the place should have quarrelled with the late incumbent. He asked an old friend, an architect, to come and stay[38] with him in the comfortable Rectory, which was such a contrast to the tumbledown church, and give his opinion about the restoration.

After due examination, Mr. Lane announced that, unless the foundations were strengthened, the tower at least partially rebuilt, the roof renewed, and the walls mended in weak places, the church could not last much longer. This would cost at least two thousand pounds, and if a new organ, new pews, and some much-needed internal improvements were also effected, a thousand more would be necessary. Poor Llewellyn—he was only thirty, and this was his first church—groaned aloud, as well he might. He had only a hundred a year of his own, besides his sorely depreciated living: and the small farmers and labourers who populated the parish were powerless to help. He might appeal to the Bishop, but the diocese was a very large and poor one, and Barnford was only one among many churches urgently needing repairs.

"Is there no rich family in the place who could help to restore it?"—p. 37.

"If you can find the money, I'll undertake the work without fees, for absolutely out-of-pocket expenses," said Lane generously. "I'd do it economically too, and save you as much as possible."

Llewellyn thanked him most heartily, but, nevertheless, the thought of that two thousand pounds weighed upon him like a nightmare. He soon made the acquaintance of the formidable Miss Lancaster at a neighbouring Vicarage. The family were descended from a wealthy banker who had bought Barnford Manor for a country house, and as sole heiress Laura had nearly five thousand a year and was a great catch. She was a tall, dark, handsome girl, with a commanding air due to the fact that from her childhood she had been flattered and petted by everybody. But she was civil to Llewellyn and invited him to call at the Manor; apologising for her mother as an invalid who never went anywhere.

Mrs. Lancaster did not appear when Llewellyn went, but Laura, who had been her own chaperon all her life, entertained him in the handsome drawing-room with great composure. He had never seen a girl with such an assured manner before.

Over his cup of tea he ventured, humbly and meekly, to hint at the restoration of the church.

"It's such a picturesque old place that it would be a shame to pull it to pieces and spoil it by injudicious restoration," returned Laura decidedly.

"It isn't a question of my own particular fads, Miss Lancaster, but the fabric is absolutely unsafe,[39] owing to an extensive settlement. The roof isn't watertight, and the windows are almost tumbling out of the walls."

"And how much would be needed?"

"A friend of mine, an architect, has most kindly offered to give his services without fees; but to make the place even decent would cost, he says, two thousand pounds."

"You clergymen are all alike!" she cried.

"You will never raise such a sum here!" was her brusque answer.

"I don't like to commence our acquaintance by begging, Miss Lancaster; but if you could see your way to do anything for what is, after all, your parish church——"

"Yes, but we always go to Thornton. Old Mr. Short was awfully rude to father years ago, and we left the church. I play the organ at Thornton and train the choir; and the Vicar and his wife are great friends of ours. I couldn't leave them in the lurch by coming back to this church now—especially as Thornton is a very poor parish too."

"Even if you don't attend the services, I should be most thankful for any offer of help towards the restoration," he patiently answered, determined not to show annoyance at her abruptness. "Something must be done, and very soon."

The heiress tapped her foot petulantly on the carpet.

"You clergymen are all alike!" she cried. "You undertake tasks too great for you, and then come to the laity for help! A poor parish like this could never raise two thousand pounds, unless we ourselves gave the whole sum, which we certainly can't afford to do. There is nobody else here to subscribe."

"Believe me, I never thought of asking you for such a large sum as two thousand pounds, or even a quarter of it, Miss Lancaster. But the smallest sum would be welcome, as the nucleus of a fund. I intend to use my uttermost efforts to raise the money, if it takes me the rest of my life!"

His fair, good-humoured, and thoroughly English face had assumed a very dogged look as he uttered the last words: and Laura, who knew a real man when she saw him, noted it approvingly. In her secret heart she relished a little wholesome opposition; it was an agreeable[40] novelty when most people were so subservient.

"But how can you raise it?" she asked doubtingly.

"This is now October, and these country villages are so dull in the winter evenings that any entertainment is welcome. If the Bishop will consent, I propose to get a very good magic-lantern, with several sets of slides, and exhibit it in the villages and small towns round, with the consent of their clergy, and paying a certain proportion of the proceeds to their own charities if they lend me a hall. I shall charge very little for seats, from a shilling down to twopence or threepence; and as I shall explain the views and work the apparatus myself, the expenses will be nothing."

"Fancy the Rector of Barnford turning showman! What a come-down!" said disdainful Laura. "I can't think you will make much! However, if you succeed, and come to me in the spring with a statement of the profits, I promise I will give you as much as they amount to."

It was more than he expected; and he thanked her warmly, despite her evident conviction that the profits would be small.

"I'll give you a written promise, if you like, to that effect," added Miss Lancaster, who was a most businesslike young woman.

"No, thank you; a lady's word is quite enough," he answered earnestly; and a genial smile stole over her handsome face as he spoke, for she was secretly pleased by his chivalrous trust.

On the whole, he quitted the Manor fairly well satisfied; for though Laura could not be described, by any stretch of courtesy, as an amiable girl, he discerned fine traits of character behind her somewhat repellent manner. "A girl who wants knowing," he decided. "She has been flattered because of her riches, and pestered by mercenary suitors, until she imagines all men are deceivers!"

II.

The Bishop, who was a liberal-minded man, and much interested in the restoration of the church, entirely approved of the projected lantern entertainment. In addition, a drawing-room meeting was held at the Palace, which produced twenty-five pounds, and the Bishop added another twenty. As Llewellyn had decided to set apart his own hundred pounds annually until the restoration was completed, he felt justified in immediately commencing the most necessary repairs at once, trusting that the printed appeals which the Bishop caused to be sent out would bring in a steady flow of subscriptions.

He inaugurated his magic-lantern entertainment at Barnford itself with great success, for the Bishop came over with several friends, and Mrs. Lancaster sent a sovereign for five tickets. But neither she nor her daughter put in an appearance, their places being filled by their servants. The principal farmer lent his biggest barn gratis, so that Llewellyn cleared over five pounds that night. And after that, though he encountered some good-natured ridicule, the Rector and his lantern were in great request. His enterprise was even commended in the London papers; and the villagers simply crowded to the entertainment everywhere, glad of some amusement in the long winter evenings. The richer farmers and tradespeople gladly paid a shilling or eighteenpence for a seat, and the smaller sums mounted up amazingly, so that, after all deductions, Llewellyn seldom received less than between two and three pounds for one evening. Although he never gave more than four exhibitions a week, being resolute not to neglect his own parish, he made over forty pounds a month.

Little could be done to the church before spring, as it proved a very severe winter, and outdoor work was impeded by frost. Tarpaulins were temporarily stretched over the cracked roof, but at best it was a very shivery and dreary spot, so that Llewellyn always returned with renewed eagerness to his magic-lantern journeys after a Sunday spent in the desolate building, where the howls of the ruined organ made the singing a mockery. In his private life he exercised the strictest self-denial, for the scanty income from his living left no margin for luxuries. He scarcely went into any society, as his engagements left him no time; for, as Miss Lancaster informed everybody, he was a perfect maniac on the subject of restoring the church. He met her now and then in going about the roads; and[41] sometimes she passed him with a brief nod, though occasionally she would stop to ask, with some mockery in her tones, how the magic-lantern was getting on. She never appeared at his church, though it was so much nearer than Thornton, and the duty-calls he paid at the Manor were few and brief.

In February the long frost broke up, whereupon Mr. Lane arrived one Saturday night at the Rectory with a view to commencing work in earnest. After the Sunday morning service Llewellyn felt impelled to rebuke the old sexton, who was supposed to clean the church. "When did you dust the pews last, Reed? The very air seems choked with it; the reading-desk and my books and the communion rails are in a disgraceful state!"

The old man began the rigmarole he always employed when criticised. "I served Mr. Short, man and boy, for fifty years, and never was told the church was dirty afore! I cleaned it out reg'lar, on Saturday, I did, and dusted everything, sir!"

The Rector shrugged his shoulders as he looked round at the dust which he could see lying thick on every moulding and ledge, but said no more to Reed. On reaching home, however, he mentioned the matter to his friend Lane, who had not been at church, having caught a bad cold on the journey. To his intense amazement, no sooner had he mentioned the amount of dust in the church than Lane started up, and, disregarding all remonstrances, flung on his overcoat and hat, and started off through the churchyard at a tremendous pace to examine the tower from outside. Although carefully shored up in the autumn, the crack in it had widened perceptibly even to Llewellyn's sight, and was extending across the wall of the south aisle.

She hastened to the churchyard.—p. 42.

"It's the frost," said the architect ruefully, after a thorough examination both inside and out. "It has assisted in disintegrating the masonry, and caused a further settlement that may bring the old tower down with a run any minute. Being Sunday, we can't do anything to prevent it, even if that were possible now. The dust in the church is no fault of old Reed, but is simply caused by the stones of the tower grinding together, because every moment they are becoming more displaced. To-morrow, if it stands till then, I'll try and get men to take it down."

Poor Llewellyn looked very dejected. "Oh, Lane, this is bad news! If the tower falls, it will wreck half the church!"

[42]

"It's a pity, certainly, but it's nobody's fault. You mustn't have service in it again, for it really isn't safe."

Fortunately, during the dark winter months Llewellyn, at the urgent request of the inhabitants at the other end of his very large and straggling parish, was accustomed to hold service on alternate Sunday evenings in a large room at the outskirts of the village, and was due there that night. He decided not to say anything about the tower, for fear of alarming his parishioners; but he carefully locked the churchyard gate so that no one could enter it, and, returning home, he took the key of the church from the nail where it usually hung, telling his old servant Dorcas that nobody must go into the church on any pretext whatsoever, as he feared it was unsafe.

That afternoon he called to soothe old Reed's wounded feelings by saying in confidence what had caused the dust. He strictly enjoined the sexton in case any strangers came to inspect the church, as they did sometimes, not to admit them on any account. Reed promised faithfully; but that Sunday was a sadly anxious time for Llewellyn, who expected every moment to hear a mighty crash and see the tower fall.

Early next day Lane set off to engage men and appliances; for the old tower, to his great surprise, was still standing, though perceptibly more out of the perpendicular. Llewellyn departed to the school, and had not been gone long, when an imperative knock sounded at the Rectory door. Dorcas opened it to behold Miss Lancaster and another girl, Daisy Staples, an old schoolfellow, who was staying at the Manor.

"I've come to borrow the key of the church, please. I want my friend to see it, and I'll bring back the key when we've done with it." Laura, it is needless to say, had heard no whisper of the precarious state of the tower.

Dorcas, who, like all the villagers, stood considerably in awe of Miss Lancaster, was much taken aback. "I'm very sorry, miss," stammered she, "but you mustn't go into the church—master says it's not safe; and I wasn't to give the key to anybody."

"Not safe!" cried Laura incredulously. She had seen the old place shored up with timber so long that the spectacle had lost all its significance. "What nonsense! I'm sure it's just as safe as it ever was, and I particularly want my friend to see it. So give me the key, please, and we'll go."

"I haven't got it, miss, indeed. Master took it away, and left word nobody was to go inside."

The spoilt heiress, unaccustomed to opposition, turned upon her heel in high dudgeon. "Then I can only say your master is a most arbitrary and disagreeable man!" she cried angrily. "Mr. Percival is just like all the rest of the clergy, Daisy!" she grumbled to her friend as they went away. "They love to show their power by tyrannising over the laity! I don't believe the church is really unsafe at all! Probably the Rector thinks that because I won't go to his services on Sundays I don't deserve to enter the church on weekdays, and so I am to be refused the key!"

Angry people are very seldom dignified; and Laura, knowing that Daisy was keenly interested in architecture, was determined to try and accomplish her project somehow. "After all, I'm a parishioner, and I've a right to enter the church!" she exclaimed. "The old sexton has a key, and we'll go and get his, since that cross woman refused the Rector's."

But the sexton was out. As no answer was returned to her knocks, Laura, who was well acquainted with his habits, tried the door, which was unfastened, and, looking in, saw the large church key hanging on its accustomed nail in his little kitchen. She snatched at it in triumph, and hastened to the churchyard; only to find her progress once more barred.

"Mr. Percival has actually gone and locked the gate!" she exclaimed, descending to slipshod English in her excitement. "Now, I should say that must be distinctly illegal! At any rate, here goes!"

They vaulted over, with the agility of modern girls practised in gymnastics, and very soon were inside the church. The dust was thicker than ever, but in the excitement of displaying the various points of interest Laura hardly noticed it; and they poked about everywhere, little dreaming of the appalling risk they ran.

Llewellyn, on quitting the school, came round to speak to Reed; and found the old man, who had just returned, standing staring stupidly at the bare nail[43] on the wall. "Did you come and fetch the church key away, sir?" he began.

"I? I've never touched it—never seen it! And yet it's gone from the nail! Surely it can't be that somebody has taken it to go inside the church! Lane says the tower can't possibly last out the day."

For an instant they gazed at each other with scared faces; and then Llewellyn rushed away, mad with fear, clearing first the churchyard fence, and then the tombstones with incredible bounds. As he went a curious, dull rumble was audible, and to his horror he distinctly saw the massive tower first sway slightly, and then commence to slip, slip with a horrible motion unlike anything he had ever seen before. The church door was ajar—there must be somebody inside! Pray Heaven he might be in time!

"I couldn't rest till I saw you," she faltered.—p. 44.

Meanwhile the girls, poring over an old floor-brass, were startled by the rumbling; whilst the dust grew so much thicker that Laura exclaimed, "Pah! What a stuffy old place! That rumble must be thunder—there it is again!"

Still not suspecting their danger, they leisurely retraced their steps to the south door, at the bottom of the church, very near the fatal tower. Laura could distinctly remember turning past the last pew; but after that nothing was clear. She only knew that some man, unrecognisable in the cloud of dust and mortar which suddenly obscured everything,[44] threw himself, as a still louder rumble occurred, with what then seemed absolutely brutal violence upon her and Daisy. Seizing her with a force which for days left bruises on her arms, he positively hurled her and her friend before him through the open door. Then before he had himself quite crossed the threshold the entire fabric of the tower fell with a terrific crash, wrecking the whole of that end of the church.

III.

When Llewellyn Percival, after some time, recovered from the effects of a serious wound on his head from a falling stone, and a broken arm, it was to find himself a popular hero. To his own mind, he had only done a most ordinary thing, such as any man would naturally do; and he could not understand why all the papers should publish glowing accounts of his bravery. The poor old sexton, who had faithfully followed him on his errand of mercy, and had only been deterred by his age and feebleness from arriving in time, deserved quite as many thanks as he did, Llewellyn maintained. But the fickle public did not think so, and subscriptions for Barnford Church literally poured in.

It is a fine thing to be a popular idol, even for a day; and Llewellyn received so much kindness during his illness that he had never been happier in his life. An old aunt came to nurse him; and on the first day he was allowed to come downstairs a humble message was brought that Miss Lancaster would like to see him for a moment, if it would not tire him too much. She and her mother had been incessant in their inquiries, besides sending fruit, flowers, and invalid delicacies daily.

"Show her in," said Llewellyn, unheeding his aunt's remonstrance; and in a minute she was bending over the chair from which he feebly strove to rise, her dark eyes full of tears. "I couldn't rest till I saw you," she faltered. "But oh! if you had been killed, I should have felt like a murderess! It was all my fault, for being so obstinate and wicked! When Dorcas told me I couldn't have the key of the church, I thought"—and she hung her head—"I said, indeed, that it was a piece of spiteful tyranny on your part, just to assert your arbitrary authority. Oh, how could I ever think it of you? Say you forgive me—only say so!"

With the tears of genuine repentance and humility streaming down her face, it was not possible for mortal man to refuse her anything. "My dear Miss Lancaster, pray don't distress yourself! We are all liable to errors of judgment, and, believe me, I forgive you from my heart—if, indeed, I have anything to forgive."

"Besides that, I've always been horrid to you," she sighed remorsefully. "I wouldn't help about the restoration, nor do anything in the parish, and I sneered at your magic-lantern. Oh, yes, I did—you can't deny it. But I hope now you won't worry any more about raising funds. Daisy and I, as a thank-offering for the great mercy vouchsafed to us, are going to finish the restoration, if you'll only tell us what you'd like. No, not a word of thanks—at least, not to me—I feel I really don't deserve it."

And the dignified, self-complacent Miss Lancaster fairly bolted from the room; conscious that her face was quite unfit to be seen, and that it was absolutely necessary to have her cry out somewhere. Llewellyn leaned back in his chair, almost overwhelmed by the knowledge that he was about to attain his heart's desire at last.

The restored Barnford Church was such a dream of beauty that sometimes Llewellyn would ask himself whether it were a real building or only a fairy vision. The light fell through beautiful painted windows; an excellent organ replaced the old one; and oak pews, exquisitely carved, filled the nave. A huge gilt cock strutted proudly above the restored tower, and a brass tablet near the pulpit declared the restoration to be the thank-offering of two grateful hearts. People came from far and near to the services, eager to see the beautiful church, but the largest crowd that ever assembled in the building came on the occasion of the marriage of the Rector to Laura Lancaster.

EX-SPEAKER PEEL.     MR. SPEAKER GULLY.
(Photo: Russell and Sons.)     (Photo: Bassano, Ltd.)     

AS CHAPLAIN TO MR SPEAKER

Some Reminiscences of Parliament.

By F. W. Farrar, D.D., Dean of Canterbury.

I knew something about the Houses of Legislature, and had been present at not a few debates, long before I had the high honour of being a Chaplain to the Speaker. Many years ago, when I was a master at Harrow, I had the privilege of knowing the late Lord Charles Russell, whose son, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, was once in my form, and who always treated me with conspicuous kindness. Lord Charles was for a long time the highly popular Serjeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons. There are only two persons who enjoy the privilege of having "private galleries" at their disposal at the end of the House—the Speaker and the Serjeant-at-Arms. Whenever there was likely to be a very important debate, which excited keen public interest, Lord Charles used to offer us two seats in his gallery. I availed myself of this exceptional privilege as often as I could, and in that way I have been present at some of those deeply interesting political and oratorical displays which may almost be said to have become things of the past. The speaking of the most distinguished leaders in the House of Commons is still manly, forcible, and lucid: but I do not think that I am only speaking as a laudator temporis acti, Me puero, when I say that never—or, at any rate, only on the rarest occasions—do we now hear those flashing interchanges of wit, or those utterances of sustained, impassioned, and lofty eloquence which were by no means unfrequent thirty years ago. It may be that the pressure of affairs is greater,[46] owing to the immense and ever-extending interests of the British Empire; or that there is not, at the present moment, the intense political excitement which once prevailed; or that the prevalent taste in such matters is different:—but, whatever be the reason, it would, I think, be generally admitted that, in nine cases out of ten, debates in these days are more unexciting and more severely practical than once they were, so that speeches full of "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" are now rarely delivered before our assembled senators. For that reason the debates are far less interesting and memorable than they were in former times.

There are still many speakers in the House to whom all must listen with pleasure and admiration. Sir W. Harcourt, Sir Henry Fowler, Mr. Morley, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Balfour, always set forth their arguments with force and dignity; and it would, I think, be generally conceded that few speakers could surpass Mr. Chamberlain in the skill and fearless forthrightness with which he enunciates his views. There are still a few debaters who might bear comparison with Sir Robert Peel in the dignified enunciation of views full of sober wisdom; or with Mr. Cobden in his "unadorned eloquence"; or with Lord Palmerston in his unstudied and lively geniality:—but since first Mr. Bright, and then Mr. Gladstone, stepped out of the political arena, anyone who could be called "a great orator" has become very uncommon in Parliamentary debates. No orator in the House has acquired, or perhaps even aims at, the fame for eloquence obtained in the political arena by men like O'Connell, Sheil, Lord Macaulay, Sir Edward Bulwer, Mr. Disraeli, John Bright, Lord Sherbrooke when he was at his best, or William Ewart Gladstone. We do not now have speeches which, like that of Lord Brougham in the House of Lords on the Reform Bill, occupied six hours in the delivery; or, like the famous "Civis Romanus sum" speech of Lord Palmerston in the Don Pacifico debate, are prolonged "from the dusk of a summer evening to the dawn of a summer day."

(Photo: Mendelssohn, Pembridge Cres.)

MR. H. D. ERSKINE.

(The Present Serjeant-at-Arms.)

(From an Engraving by Joseph Brown.)

LORD CHARLES RUSSELL.

(Late Serjeant-at-Arms.)

PRAYERS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

(Conducted by Canon Wilberforce, the Present Chaplain.)

[47]

This may partly be due to the fact that we have not, for many years, passed through political crises in which the hearts of men have been so powerfully stirred as they were in the times of the first Reform Bill; or in the early struggles of the Irish party; or in the debates on the abolition of the corn laws; or during the thrilling incidents of the Crimean War. In these days speeches are shorter, less formal, less ornate, less impassioned. But if the passions of men should again be stirred as they were by those anxious issues, doubtless the same stormy eloquence might once more be evoked. In those days the hearts of millions beat like the heart of one man. One or two historic incidents may serve to illustrate the intensity of national feeling.

While the great issues at stake in the first Reform Bill were filling the thoughts of all, only one Bishop, Dr. Philpotts of Exeter, voted (I believe) in favour of the Bill. The consequence was that the whole bench of Bishops was for a time overwhelmed with national hatred. The late genial and kind-hearted Duke of Buccleuch told me that he had been severely hurt in an attempt to protect the Bishops from popular insult as they came out of the House of Lords. The Bishops had to sign a common protest that they were no longer able to carry out their legislative duties because they could not attend the House of Lords with safety. Even in Canterbury, when the kindly Archbishop Howley visited his metro-political city, he was assaulted by the mob in the streets, pelted with mud and dead cats, prevented from dining at the Guildhall, and was only saved by two or three courageous gentlemen from being dragged out of his carriage and brutally ill-treated. Lord Macaulay's celebrated description of the scene which took place in the House of Commons when the Bill was passed by a very small majority proves how much less inflammable is the present state of the political atmosphere.

ARCHBISHOP HOWLEY ASSAULTED BY THE MOB.

[48]

He tells us that not only did the members who attached supreme importance to the passing of the Bill clasp each other by the hand with tears, but that, with unprecedented disregard of the decorous traditions of Parliament, they leapt upon the benches, and stood there waving their hats, and cheering themselves hoarse.

Take again the scene which the House witnessed during a memorably eloquent speech of Mr. Bright. He was addressing a House which in those days all but unanimously rejected his opinions, though time has since then shown how well deserving they were of consideration; and yet he moved many to tears who were little accustomed to give open signs of their emotion. He always spoke in a style of nervous Saxon English, and his words on that occasion were a singular mixture of unconventional homeliness and profound pathos.

JOHN BRIGHT SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

He mentioned that he had met Colonel Boyle, a well-known member of the House—"at Mr. Westerton's, the bookseller's I think it was, at the corner of Hyde Park"—and had asked him whether he was going out to the Crimea. He answered that he was afraid he was. "It was not fear for himself; he knew not that. 'But,' he said, 'to go out to the war is a serious thing for a man who has a wife and five children.' The stormy Euxine is his grave; his wife is a widow; his children are fatherless." And then, after alluding to other well-known members who had perished in the Crimean War, he added, "The Angel of Death has been among us; we may almost hear the beating of his wings."

BRIGHT RECITING HIS SPEECH TO HIS FRIENDS.

As he spoke many of the assembled gentlemen of England were seen indignantly dashing away, or furtively wiping[49] from their eyes, the tears of which no one need have been for one moment ashamed. When Lord Palmerston arose to answer the oration, and to repeat to the House its own predominant convictions, the bursts of cheering with which his entirely unoratorical speech was welcomed were heard even in the House of Lords. But what the members cheered was not Lord Palmerston's eloquence, for to eloquence he had scarcely the smallest pretence, but the British pluck which would not succumb to the intense feeling which the great orator had aroused by appeals that had held his audience "hushed as an infant at the mother's breast."

A CHARACTERISTIC ATTITUDE OF THE LATE MR. GLADSTONE.

On the evening before this speech Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden had been the guests of a former kind friend of mine, Mr. W. S. Lindsay, M.P., in his beautiful house on the banks of the Thames. Mr. Lindsay had been the warm ally of both these great leaders in the Free Trade agitation, and he told me this curious anecdote. Mr. Bright, as is well known, carefully studied his speeches and committed them to memory word for word, delivering them in such measured, yet often thrilling, tones as gave to each word its utmost force. Mr. Lindsay said that the evening before—knowing the extreme importance of the speech, and the fact that he would be trying to persuade a multitude of hearers against their will—Mr. Bright had recited to these two friends in the drawing-room the arguments which he intended to enunciate. But he had not then brought in the allusion to the Angel of Death. The three members were sitting side by side during the debate; and it was perhaps as a relief to his own over-burdened feelings that Mr. Cobden, when the tumult of applause which followed the speech had subsided, said to Mr. Bright, "Where did you get hold of that passage about the angel, John? You did not say it to us last night." "No," answered the orator; "I only thought of it while I was dressing this morning." "Now, if you had said 'the flapping of his wings,' instead of 'the beating of his wings,'" said Cobden, "everyone would have laughed." I have no doubt that in this apparently trivial criticism Cobden was only seeking to lighten the oppression[50] of his own misgivings about the national policy of that time; but, curiously enough, I several times heard Dean Stanley allude to the great speech, both in conversation and in sermons, and he always quoted the passage, "We may almost hear the flapping of his wings."

(Photo: Elliott and Fry, Baker Street, W.)

RICHARD COBDEN.

Several of Mr. Bright's best points seem to have occurred to him suddenly. In the days when there was the secession from the Liberal party to which he gave the popular nickname of "the Cave of Adullam," speaking of the fact that the members of the party seemed to be all on an equality, and to have no acknowledged leader, he convulsed the House with laughter by comparing them to one of those shaggy lapdogs of which it was difficult to distinguish which was the head and which was the tail. One leading member of this party was the late Mr. Horsman—a very forcible debater, who used sometimes to be spoken of as "the wild Horsman." I once heard a little passage of arms between him and the late Lord Houghton. "Ah!" said Mr. Horsman, "you can't boast of a Cave of Adullam in the House of Lords!" "No," replied Lord Houghton, with the readiness of a rapier thrust, "in the House of Lords we have nothing so hollow!"

It is extraordinary how much our judgment of oratory is affected by our opinion as to the point at issue. I once heard Mr. Bright deliver a speech of great force and beauty on the second Reform Bill; and his speeches were always eloquent and admirable so that he never seemed to sink below himself. Indeed, one secret of his splendid success was the care and study which he devoted to master every detail of what he intended to say; so that—to the astonishment of Mr. Gladstone, who had the happy art of falling to sleep as soon as he laid his head on the pillow—Mr. Bright's speeches often caused him sleepless nights. The oration to which I refer was delivered, if I remember rightly, in 1857. I was listening with admiration in the Speaker's gallery, when suddenly an ardent Conservative, who was sitting next to me, showed himself so entirely impervious to the charm and power of the orator that he flung himself back in his seat with the contemptuous remark, "I thought the fellow could speak!"

This reminds me of one or two incidents in the great debate on the Disestablishment of the Irish Church in the House of Lords. The Earl of Tankerville, whose son was a boy in my house at Harrow, had very kindly given me a seat in the gallery, and I heard a great part of that very famous discussion. The learned and lovable Archbishop Trench had to plead the cause of his Church; but he was old and deeply depressed, and his speech was naturally ineffective. At the very beginning he made an unfortunate slip, which, trivial as it was—and it is by no means unfrequently the case that a "trifle light as air" makes an impression, favourable or unfavourable, far beyond what might seem to be its proper importance—at once marred the effect of what he was about to urge. For, at the beginning of his speech, he unluckily addressed the assembled peers as "My brethren!"—or, as he pronounced it, "My brathren"—instead of "My Lords"; and, hastily as he corrected himself, the scarcely suppressed titter which ran through the House was alike disconcerting to the speaker and injurious to the effect of his words. A stranger was seated next to me, who was burning with enthusiasm for the Irish Church, and expected a powerful defence of its[51] position from its eminent Archbishop. But the prelate's somewhat lachrymose appeal seemed to him quite below the importance of the occasion; and, with a sigh of deep disappointment, he leaned back with the murmur, "Oh dear! he's as heavy as lead and as dull as ditch-water!"

(Photo: S. A. Walker, 230, Regent Street, W.)
LORD DERBY (14th EARL).

(The "Rupert of Debate.")

The greatest speech on that occasion was that of the late Archbishop Magee, who had then been recently appointed Bishop of Peterborough. I had, shortly before, heard his powerful sermon in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, at the Church Congress, while the fate of the Irish Church was still trembling in the balance. He had chosen the text, "And they beckoned to their partners, who were in the other ship, to come over and help them." The text was so singularly appropriate that Archdeacon Denison is said to have started up from his seat and almost to have clapped his hands aloud! Great things were expected of the speech, and the recently appointed Bishop fully rose to the occasion. As we went out of the House, one of the peers told me that the late Lord Ellenborough (the famous Viceroy of India) had pronounced Dr. Magee's speech to be the most eloquent he had ever heard, except one (I think) of Lord Erskine's. Yet I could not help fancying at the time that political circumstances had tended to the undue extolment of this speech—eloquent and powerful as it undoubtedly was above its intrinsic merits. I perfectly remember the scene and all the circumstances, and even the manner and accent with which it was delivered; but neither then nor afterwards was I at all impressed by the arguments, nor can I now recall them. This is far from being the case with another speech delivered in the same debate by Dr. Connop Thirlwall, the very able and learned Bishop of St. Davids. He was dealing with the charge of "sacrilege," which was freely brought against the Bill, and he endeavoured to show that there were acts which some might characterise by such a stigma which might, on the contrary, be deeds actuated by the highest justice and mercy.

"MY BRATHREN."

(Archbishop Trench addressing the House of Lords.)

I witnessed a humorous little incident in the House of Lords during the debate on the Public Schools Bill. The late Earl of Clarendon was in charge of it, and the Earl of Derby, "the Rupert of debate," was opposed to it. A number of head-masters, whose methods and interests would be affected by the Bill, had been permitted to stand by the throne in the part of the House where members of the House of Commons are allowed to take their place when they want to hear a debate. Lord Clarendon[52] in his speech was gently complaining that Lord Derby, in characterising the Bill, had said of it (as Lord Clarendon misquoted it)—"Sunt bona; sunt quædam mediocria; sunt plŭrŭ māla." This quotation, as the amused head-masters instantly noticed with a smile, involved two very glaring false quantities on the part of the statesman who was introducing the Bill for the improvement of the education of the country. Instantly Lord Derby started up with the words, "Will the noble Lord repeat what he has just attributed to me?" Innocent of the little trap which had been thus laid for him, Lord Clarendon repeated his "Sunt plŭrŭ māla." "I never said anything of the kind!" said Lord Derby with humorous indignation. "I am sure," said Lord Clarendon, "that I shall be in the recollection of all when I repeat that the noble Lord, though he must have forgotten the fact, quoted the line which I have just repeated to the House." "Nothing of the kind!" said Lord Derby, with great emphasis; "what I said was very different. It was" (and the quotation was emphasised by pointed finger and slow enunciation), "'Sunt bona; sunt quædam mediocria; sunt mŭlŭ plūra.'" Lord Clarendon laughed good-humouredly, and apologised for the slip; but he was evidently a little discomfited.

(From the Bust by C. Moore.)

RICHARD LALOR SHEIL.

To return for a few moments to the House of Commons, a friend of mine once asked Mr. Gladstone who was the most eloquent speaker whom he had ever heard in the House of Commons. He answered, as he has replied to others, "that he thought he had never heard anyone more eloquent than Richard Lalor Sheil." Anyone who will read Mr. Sheil's published volume of speeches will not be surprised at this remark. The one celebrated outburst which is best remembered, thrilled all who heard it, and sounded like the sudden sweep of a tornado. Lord Lyndhurst, in a recent speech, had unwisely and unfairly spoken of the Irish as "aliens." Alluding to this, Mr. Sheil burst out with the fine passage from which I will only quote a part: "Aliens!" he exclaimed. "Was Arthur Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, 'Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty!'... On the field of Waterloo the blood of Englishmen and Scotchmen and Irishmen flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned their dead lay cold and stark together; in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall they not be permitted to participate? And shall we be told as a requital that we are 'aliens' from the noble country for whose salvation our lifeblood was poured out?"

The effect of such a passage delivered as Richard Lalor Sheil delivered it, can better be imagined than described. He was a man of short figure and somewhat insignificant appearance; and his voice was high and shrill, and never well-modulated like the voices of such orators as Lord Chatham or Mr. Bright. But he spoke with genuine feeling and enthusiasm. The impression produced by such earnestness can never be resisted. The tones of passion are very penetrating, and they vibrate in the memory. "But did not Mr. Sheil scream a good deal in his speeches, Mr. Gladstone?" asked his friend. "Sir," was the answer, "he was all scream!" And yet few Parliamentary debaters have ever produced a deeper impression!

THE INTERVENTION OF TODDLELUMS.

A Complete Story. By Helen Boddington.

Bang! bang! went the fist of Toddlelums on the window-pane, as the little hand tried to capture a cunning fly which always managed to escape his grasp. Toddlelums was curled up on the window-seat, with such big, big thoughts coursing through his little brain. Not unspoken thoughts. Oh, no! Toddlelums at six always did his thinking out loud. "Ah! you silly, silly, little fly," he said in his cooing voice; "I wonder what you are made of, and where you go to when you die. Ah!" with another bang and a little chuckle. "I nearly caught you that time."

"Toddlelums, what are you doing?" said his mother, from the other end of the room.

Toddlelums rolled off the window-seat, picked himself up, put his hands in the pockets of his knickers, and finally placed himself with his back to the fire. "I was only trying to catch one little fly, mammie."

"Ah! but, my pet, it is rather cruel to kill the poor flies."

"Oh! I wasn't going to kill it, only catch it and make a tiny cage between my two hands"—putting the palms of his hands together—"then I would let it fly away again, right away."

The mother sat there watching her boy and thinking how like his father he was growing. Presently he edged up to her and leant against her knee, and then she put her arm round him, and bent her head so that her cheek touched his brown curls. "Mother's baby," she said softly; "mother's little Toddlelums," and there was a quaver in her voice.

Toddlelums did not notice it, though, for he turned to her with a merry twinkle in his great brown eyes and twined his arms lovingly round her neck. "Let's play, mammie; let's play bears," he cried, trying to drag her out of her chair with fearless hands which were certain of no repulse.

She stood up, laughing. How tall and graceful she was, and how young! Soft golden hair, brown eyes like Toddlelums', only with a sad, sad look in them even when she smiled. Toddlelums thought his mother was beautiful, and Toddlelums was right. A romp was in full swing when a man's step sounded in the hall. In a flash the boy with his rosy face and rumpled hair made a bolt for the door, as a deep voice called, "Toddlelums!"

"It's dad, it's dad!" he shouted, battling with the knob of the door. Then two little feet scampered down the hall, and Toddlelums was raised up high into the air and smothered with kisses. The mother was cognisant of all this, yet she did not attempt to follow. She merely gave little touches to the disordered hair, took up her work, and seated herself once again. Where was the smile now? Where had the tender look gone? Vanished at the sound of a man's voice—and that man her husband!

"Mammie and me were just playing bears," said the son, as he came in perched on his father's shoulder. "Wasn't it fun, mammie?" looking at his mother with a joyous smile.

"Yes, dear," she answered, without looking up; and her husband, glancing at her, noticed that she bit her under lip and a flush suddenly dyed her cheeks.

They had been married seven years, and during that time never one word of love had passed the lips of either. It had been a mariage de convenance, his and her fathers' estates joined, and, as she told him afterwards, she had seen nobody she liked better. It had seemed easy enough at first even without love, but[54] gradually—neither knew exactly how—a coldness sprang up, they drifted apart. There was no actual quarrel, only a few hard, bitter words on both sides, but the barrier grew and grew until there seemed little hope of its being broken down.

At the end of the first year Toddlelums came, and then, if anything, matters became worse, for all the mother's thoughts were centred in her baby, all her love was lavished on him—the father was left to his own devices. As the child grew older, instinct told him to divide his love between father and mother, and then cruel pangs of jealousy visited the mother's breast.

So the years passed, Toddlelums with his sweet baby voice making sunshine in the home where lurked so many shadows. Toddlelums never saw the shadows, though, for mother and father vied with each other in keeping them out of his path.

"Vanished at the sound of a man's voice."—p. 53

During the last few months, almost unknown to herself, something had been stirring in Grace Millroe's heart; some strange feeling hitherto quite foreign to it. Perhaps it was the constant vision of a man's grave, patient face with the sad look on it which seemed of late to have grown sadder. That may or may not be; but, in any case, before she was aware, love, which had lain dormant so long, was awakened. Then at last, when[55] it came upon her with its mighty full force it brought her only sorrow, for, as she cried within herself, "There is so little use in loving when there is no return." And so this day, when her husband came in after her game with Toddlelums, the flush on her cheeks, which he attributed to annoyance at his approach, was in reality caused by the quickened beatings of her heart.

Later, when Toddlelums was fast asleep in his tiny crib and the house was silent, she sat alone in the drawing-room and he in his study, as was invariably the case when there was no visitor before whom to keep up appearances.

She wanted the second volume of the book she was reading, and so presently she rose from her comfortable chair near the fire, slowly crossed the large, old-fashioned hall, and softly opened the study door. How cosy the room looked, with its crimson curtains drawn closely before the great windows, the fire and shaded lamp combined filling it with ruddy light! She stood with the knob of the door in her hand and with her eyes riveted on the figure at the writing-table.

His arms were folded on the table, his head was buried in them, and, surely, that was a low, despairing moan which came to her across the stillness!

"Ah!" she thought, "if he only loved me, I could make him happy." Then she noticed for the first time that the black hair was streaked with grey. Her lips quivered, she made a step forward; then she drew back, passed out of the room, and softly closed the door after her. In the impulse of the moment she had intended saying some comforting word, and then she thought of his usual cold, passionless look, and refrained.

How could she know that if she had made an advance the man would have gladly, most gladly, responded? A few minutes after he lifted his head, and, had she been there, she would have seen that the face was full of passion, and on it were deeply drawn lines of pain.

In the meanwhile she bent over her little one's cot, and, kissing the tiny face, which was flushed with sleep, she whispered, "Ah, my little Toddlelums! if daddy only loved me as he loves his boy, I would be content to die this minute, even if I had to leave you, my baby, behind."

She stood with her eyes riveted on the figure at the table.

And yet, after all the passionate[56] feeling of the night, when morning came they met—outwardly, at least—with the usual cool indifference in their bearing towards each other. At breakfast Toddlelums was with them in his white pinafore, seated on a high chair which was drawn up very close to the table.

"Mammie," he said, "may nurse take me down to the river to play with Frankie Darrel this afternoon? We want to swim our boats."

"Yes, dear, but you must swim them in the shallow part."

"And don't get too near the edge, old chap. Remember, if you roll in, daddy won't be there to fetch you out, and you'll be gobbled up by the little fishes."

Toddlelums was looking at his father with great, round eyes. "Gobbled up by the little fishes?" he echoed; but his father did not hear, for he was saying in an undertone to his wife, "Tell nurse to be careful; the river is swollen after the rain."

Afternoon came, and off went Toddlelums, carrying in his arms a boat with big, white sails, while the young mother threw kisses to him as she drove away in the carriage.

Ah, little Toddlelums, go your way, sail your small craft! Unconsciously, you will guide it through the deep waters, but the land will be reached at last!

It was evening, and Grace Millroe, entering the hall on her return from her drive, found her husband standing at the foot of the stairs apparently waiting for her, with a look on his face which she had never seen there before. He made no movement, one hand clutched the balustrade with a tight grip, and twice his drawn lips opened to say words which refused to come. She rushed to his side—she clung to his arm, while the fair face, working with some wild, fearful emotion, looked imploringly into his. "Edgar, what is it? What is the matter?"

"Daddy, you do love mammie, don't you?"

"It is——"

"It is Toddlelums. Oh, Edgar! for mercy's sake, don't say it is Toddlelums!" and her hold tightened on his arm.

He turned his head away, for he[57] could not bear to see the agony on her face.

"Yes, Grace, it is Toddlelums. He fell into the water, but—ah! don't look like that—he may live yet, the doctors are doing their best for him."

Together, mother and father ascended the stairs, she faltering on every step, while hard, dry sobs shook her frame. Ah! what a wan, white Toddlelums lay on his little bed, and, but for the faint breathing, the mother must have known herself childless. The doctors were doing their work, while the agonised parents stood watching and waiting. She would have clasped him in her arms—she would have pressed his little cold body to her breast—but first the doctors had their part to do; the mother must wait.

"Edgar," and she turned to him with great, dry eyes, "will my baby die? No, no, it cannot be!" she moaned plaintively. "It would kill me to lose my little Toddlelums."

"Dear," he said, and somehow she felt comfort in knowing that his arms were round her; "if I could, I would give my life for his."

"No, no," she said, and then she sprang to the bedside; for the doctors had moved away, and Toddlelums was calling "Mammie."

"Mother's darling, mother's precious baby!" she cried, twining her arms round him.

"And daddy's too," said the weak little voice, for Toddlelums was a very shadowy Toddlelums still.

"Yes, and daddy's too," she said, as the man bent over his son and held one tiny hand.

"Daddy, you do love mammie, don't you? He said, that horrid Frankie said, that you hated each other"—looking at the two faces. "He said he knew it was true because he heard his mother and father say so. And I told him it was a big, big story, and I fighted him hard—very hard—and then he gave me a push, and I went down, down into the cold water. It isn't true, daddy, is it?" looking at his father with great, earnest eyes; "you do love my mammie?" and he stroked her face tenderly.

The man hesitated, looked across at the woman; then he said, "Yes, darling, I love her more than my life."

A few seconds of silence, a sigh of content from Toddlelums. Then the mother's voice saying, "And I love my little child, but I love his father more."

Eyes meet eyes, hands clasp hands, and the two hearts severed so long are united at last.

Blessed little Toddlelums, with your sweet baby face and your manly little heart!—gallantly you fought your first battle, and the victory is yours. The deep waters encompassed you, and the Valley of the Shadow was very near; but the Captain of the Host has yet a greater battle for you to fight, and that is the Battle of Life.

LOVE'S DEBT.

"From every portion, from every department, of Nature comes the same voice. Everywhere we hear Thy name, O God; everywhere we see Thy love. Creation in all its length and breadth, in all its depth and height, is the manifestation of Thy Spirit; and without Thee the world were dark and dead."

THE COLOURED JEWS.

Strange Survivals of the Scattered Tribes.

Where are they? Rather, where are they not? Dispersed to the four corners of the earth, this nation of exiles, ever loyal to the Government under which they live, still look for a better country and fix their eyes on Palestine, their ancient home. One of their learned men, Dr. Hertzl, has lately appealed to his fellow-Jews to rise and re-people the land. But nothing can be done, he tells them, without the enthusiasm of the whole nation: "The idea must make its way into the most distant and miserable holes where the people dwell."

A CHINESE ISRAELITE.

It was just at a time when the Philistines said, "Behold the Hebrews come forth out of their holes where they had hid themselves," that Israel's captivity was turned to freedom. It may be that history will repeat itself.

THE HEBREW LAW OF THE CHINESE JEWS.

(Facsimile of a page from Deuteronomy.)

In many unexpected corners of India, China, Africa, and Persia representatives of an indestructible people have been discovered. They wear the dress of the[59] natives and submit to their laws, but century after century they have remained, proof against absorption. Neither poverty, contempt, nor persecution shakes their belief—the faith that is the heritage of their fathers—that they are the remnant of a chosen people.

Jerusalem will see an amazing sight if it calls upon all the remotest holes and corners to deliver up its children. Jews white, black, and brown from India, dusky from Abyssinia, arrayed in the costume and sporting the pigtail of China, as well as Jews rich and poor, high and humble, from Europe and America—all will bring with them the divers ways, tongues, and customs of their adopted countries, and assemble as one nation.

(Photo supplied by the Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews.)

JEWISH SCHOOL CHILDREN IN PERSIA.

(With Mr. Norollah and Native Teachers.)

Amongst the most remote colonies are the Jews of China, who have aroused interesting inquiry and been the theme of many French writers. Early in the seventeenth century, and shortly after the Italian missionaries had come to Pekin, one of them, Matthew Ricci, received a morning call. His visitor wore the gorgeous Chinese dress, including the queue; but the figure and face were not Mongolian, and the smiling countenance was not in keeping with the dignified solemnity of a Chinaman. This gentleman's name was Ngai, and he had heard of the arrival of some foreigners who worshipped one Lord of heaven and earth, and who yet were not Mohammedans; he belonged to the same religion, he explained, and had called to make their acquaintance.

(Photo supplied by the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission.)

A MISSION-SCHOOL GROUP OF INDIAN JEWS.

Now Master Ngai made it clear that he was an Israelite, a native of Kae-fung-foo, the capital of Honan. He had come to Pekin to pass an examination for a mandarin degree, and had been led by curiosity and brotherly feeling to call at the mission house. In his native city, he said, there were ten or twelve families of Israelites, and a synagogue which they had recently restored at the expense of 10,000 crowns, and they had a roll of the law four or five 
[61] hundred years old. The missionary's letters described this synagogue. It occupied a space of between three and four hundred feet in length by about a hundred and fifty in breadth, and was divided into four courts. It had borrowed some decorative splendour from China. The inscription in Hebrew, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, blessed be the name of the glory of His Kingdom for ever and ever," and the Ten Commandments were emblazoned in gold. Silken curtains inclosed the "Bethel" which enshrined the sacred books, and which only the Rabbi might enter during the time of prayer.

Every detail of this place, with its incense, its furniture, and all its types of good things yet to come, is interesting. There in the last century the children of Israel at Kae-fung-foo worshipped the God of their fathers with the rites that pointed to the Messiah of whose advent, as far as it can be ascertained, they never heard until the arrival of the Italian missionaries. Learned men have entered into discussions as to whether these people were Jews or Israelites, whether they came to China from the Assyrian captivity or the Roman dispersion. They themselves say that their forefathers came from the West; and it is probable that the settlers arrived by way of Khorassan and Samerkand. They must have been numerous in the ninth century, for two Mohammedan travellers of that period describe a rebel, named Bae-choo, taking Canton by storm in A.D. 877 and slaughtering 120,000 Jews, Mohammedans, Christians, and Parsees. More than one Jew of Kae-fung-foo is known to have gained the right to wear the little round button on the top of his cap so dear to the ambition of a Chinaman. The Tai-ping Rebellion dispersed the settlement, and the remnant who remain faithful to the memory of old traditions are chiefly poor and distressed. The Chinamen distinguish them by the name of "T'iao chiao" (the sect which pulls out the sinew), for these "children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day." They are said to often repeat the words of the dying Jacob, "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord." This is to them like the cry of an infant in the night. They have waited so long that it is little wonder if the words have lost their triumphant ring and their ancient accompaniment of faith in future blessings.

READING THE LAW ON THE SABBATH DAY.

(From an Original Drawing by a Persian Jew.)

The Persian Jews, from whom the colony in China sprang, are interspersed over the Shah's country. The missionaries of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews make long tours to seek them out and shepherd them. A convert from amongst them, the Rev. M. Norollah, found in 1890 that of his own people in Isfahan, numbering 5,000, not more than ten could read or write the language of the country. He started a school for the children in the very heart of this Mohammedan city. This school and others besides have flourished, and been the means of making friends with the parents.

Of all the colonies in Asia, none seems to have preserved their traditions more carefully and lived up to them more worthily than the Jews in India. According to the last census, they number, 17,180.

Privileged travellers in the south-west have been shown a charter much older than the great English pledge of liberty. The first glance is not imposing. It is a copper plate, scratched with letters of such out-of-date character that they bear little resemblance to any that are[62] now in use. But this is a priceless treasure to the Jews of Malabar. Some authorities believe it was granted about the year A.D. 500; others say that the renowned Ceram Perumal was the donor, and this prince appears to have been in the zenith of his power in A.D. 750. All agree that the charter is at least a thousand years old.

According to the native annals of Malabar and the Jews' own traditions, 10,000 emigrants arrived on the coast about A.D. 70, shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple and the final desolation of Jerusalem. It is supposed that of these 7,000 at once settled on a spot then called Mahodranpatna, but now known as Cranganore.

Unhappily, this flourishing community fell out amongst themselves. After Jewish emigrants from Spain and other countries joined them a dispute arose, and they called an Indian king to settle it. The fable of the quarrel for an oyster was illustrated. The mediator took possession of the place; the fat oyster became his, and death and captivity represented the shells which he divided amongst the disputants. Some fugitives obtained an asylum from the Rajah of Cochin, and built a little town on a piece of ground which he granted to them, close to his palace.

In this lovely native state live their descendants—two classes of Jews, one known as the Jerusalem or White Jews, the other as the Black Jews. The White trace their descent from the first settlers; throughout the centuries they have preserved the fair skin, fine features, and broad, high foreheads that usually belong to Europe, whilst amongst the men blonde or reddish curly beards prevail. The Black Jews are too intensely black to be akin to the Hindoos; they are said to have sprung from Jewish proselytes from amongst the aboriginal races of the district. The Black and White Jews inhabit the same quarter of the town of Cochin; they follow the same customs, join in the same forms of prayer, but never intermarry.

The Jews of Cochin seem to excel all others scattered over India in strict religious observances, but they are apparently quite distinct from the Jews or the Beni Israel of the north and west. Some ladies of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society were welcomed into the houses of Jewesses in Calcutta. They recognised the noticeably Jewish features, in spite of the clear brunette complexion which belonged to neither the White nor Black Jews of the south. This community availed themselves of day schools and Sunday schools started for the children, which have now become part of the organisation of the Old Church Hebrew Mission, and responded to friendly overtures. One Jewish lady spoke to her visitors of the return of her people to Jerusalem, and she said, "We will go in your arms." "You will probably go in our railway trains," answered the Englishwoman, and this idea satisfied both.

The Beni Israel, or Sons of Israel, of the north and west say that their first ancestors in India were persecuted refugees from Persia, seven men and seven women who escaped from a shipwreck near Chaul, about thirty miles south-east of Bombay, and managed to save a Hebrew copy of the Pentateuch. Some assert that this happened eight hundred, others one thousand six hundred years ago. Their number is now reckoned as upwards of 5,000. They are said to resemble the Arabian Jews in features. They keep strictly the Mosaic fasts and feasts, yet in many houses visited by the ladies of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, the New as well as the Old Testament is studied.

For nearly half a century a principal man of the community has been in the service of the Free Church of Scotland at Alibag, about twenty-four miles to the south of the city of Bombay. For in this place, at one time famous as the centre of a small pirate kingdom, handsome, intelligent children, with marked Semitic features, and names familiar in the Book of Genesis, delight in attending school.

In Karachi the Beni Israel are also numerous. One of the missionaries of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, who work amongst them, was invited to a wedding in the synagogue. She noticed that, as a part of the ceremony, the bride received a cup, and after raising it to her lips threw it down and broke it. This, some of the guests explained, was a sign that even in the midst of their mirth they remembered Jerusalem with sorrow.

To many, such words and symbols are[63] very real. During the present year a rich Jew of Karachi has left his adopted home to build a synagogue in Jerusalem, where the Sultan has shown the Jews great toleration.

(Photo supplied by the Zenana Bible Mission.)

INDIAN JEWISH CONVERTS AT BOMBAY.

But though the Turkish Empire has been a refuge for them, none can exceed the Mohammedans in cruelty and intolerance when they are roused to fanatical zeal for their Prophet. This has been specially manifest in Africa. Abyssinia, perhaps, has the oldest colony of Jews. They go by the name of Falashas, which means exiles or emigrants, and claim an ambitious origin. King Solomon, they believe, added the Queen of Sheba to his many wives, and their son Menelek was educated in Jerusalem. On his growing to manhood, the Jewish nobles foresaw political disturbances, and begged the king to send him to his mother. King Solomon consented on condition that each Jew should send his first-born son with Menelek to Abyssinia. There he became king of Abyssinia, and his Israelite companions married native women, so a new nation sprang into existence.

Traditions of noble descent are of less value than nobility of character in the descendants. The church amongst the Falashas has been sown in the blood of martyrs. When the followers of the Mahdi became masters of Western Abyssinia, they massacred or made captives all the inhabitants who had not secured safety by flight. Jews and Christians, whether men or women, had to choose between Mohammed and death. A Falasha family, converts of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, were overtaken by the Mahdists. They were told to say the Mohammedan creed, "Allah ilahu ill Allah wa Mohammed e rasah Allah." These few words would save their lives, but these words would deny their Master.

"Never will we deny Him Who died for us on the cross," they answered. "We are born Falashas, but have been converted to Christ. He is our Saviour, and not Mohammed."

[64]

ARABIAN JEWS.

The parents were strong to endure, but could they bear to see their five children put to a cruel death? They not only lived through this ordeal, but the father encouraged the younger martyrs. "It is only a short suffering," he cried, "and you will gain the crown of everlasting life." Then came the mother's turn. Only let her deny Christ and she might live. Her heart and her voice were broken, but she managed to answer clearly, "I love Him, I do not fear death." Her husband saw her butchered. His courage rose higher when his tormentors offered him not only life but riches—anything that he chose to ask—if he would become a Mohammedan. "You may torture me, you may cut me in pieces, I will not deny Him Who died for me." He too joined the white-robed army of martyrs—a spectacle to other captives, one of whom afterwards escaped and described the scene.

Six years ago the Falashas themselves became persecutors. They brought a prisoner in chains before the Governor of the province. They could find no charge against this ex-Falasha priest except that he had become a Christian; and therefore they declared that it would be a God-pleasing work to kill him. The Governor warned the Falashas that they would be punished if they attempted to take his life. Then he asked his prisoner if he would again become a Falasha, or if he chose to risk being robbed or beheaded. "I go to my Lord and to my Father," answered the dignified old man. "I would rather die than continue in life as an apostate."

AN EGYPTIAN JEW.

The situation was suddenly reversed. Instead of passing sentence, the Governor said, "Honoured father, give me your blessing." Faith and meekness had gained the victory over violence.

THE CAPTIVE MAID.

By M. L. Gow, R.I.

In North Africa the Jews have adopted many Mohammedan customs. Child marriage, for instance, has become a curse amongst them. Sometimes men of forty wed little wives of eight or ten. At the[65] same time, in Morocco, an independent Moslem empire, the purity of their lives is in noticeable contrast to their neighbours. Algeria, where the Jews number 50,000, as well as Tunisia, is under French protection. It is little wonder if the anti-Jewish feeling of the French in Algiers should rouse an anti-Christian feeling in the Jews, and that here their opposition should be added to the many difficulties that meet Christian missions in Moslem lands. But many Jews rise superior to prejudices, and missionaries of the North Africa Mission find refreshment in studying the Scriptures with Hebrew scholars and Hebrew seekers after more light. In 1897, on the fast of Gedaliah, a missionary attended the synagogue. His friend, the Rabbi, mentioned his presence, and the worshippers, all of them pure Arabs and dressed accordingly, pronounced a benediction on him and commended him to God's grace.

(Photo: Bonfils)

JEWISH VILLAGE GIRLS OF PALESTINE.

AN ALGERIAN JEWISH GIRL.

(Photo supplied by the Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews.)

Tyranny and dispersion have failed to exterminate the Jews. In the name of patriotism, the king of Egypt made their life a burden. In the name of religion and reverence for the Holy Sepulchre, the Crusaders brought horrible calamities upon them. In the name of uniformity, but with special reference to the Jews, the machinery of the Inquisition was set at work in Spain. Yet the 3,000,000 slaves who came out of Egypt have increased, as far as it can be calculated, to four times the number. Their affliction has been a refining furnace. From the day when Moses, himself a Hebrew fugitive, turned aside to see why an insignificant mimosa bush was not consumed by a devouring fire, the history of the chosen people has been a witness of the unchangeableness of God's Word: "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."

D. L. Woolmer.

THE MINOR CANON'S DAUGHTER

THE STORY OF A CATHEDRAL TOWN.

By E. S. Curry, Author of "One of the Greatest," "Closely Veiled," Etc.

CHAPTER I.

A LETTER OF APOLOGY.

The afternoon's summer sun shone in on the chestnut head of a girl, bent sedulously over a book. She was Marjorie Bethune, only daughter of one of the minor canons of Norham. She was hard at work constructing a sonnet, to the accompaniment of the great organ in the cathedral, where her father was taking the service. The words of the psalms and anthem were almost audible, as well as their music, through the open windows, stimulating the girl's reluctant fancy. There were other helps, too, to her imagination—the twitter of birds in the flowering trees near the further window, the hum of the bees in the lime-trees, the scents of syringa and lilies.

The room in which she sat had a much-lived-in air and a pleasant old-fashioned shabbiness of aspect. There was a large round table covered with papers and books, calf-bound and large for the greater part—the books and litter of a scholar. Books also were heaped on the quaint spindle-legged side-table with deep drawers, ornamented with carving and brass Tudor roses; and wherever in the room was any wall-space low bookshelves of a peculiar pattern filled it. The wall-colouring above was a rich tan and red, the whole making a harmonious background to the girl's burnished head and brilliantly fair complexion.

A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She lifted her eyes to the further end of the room, where on a sofa near the pretty window lay a fragile-looking woman. The extreme youthfulness of her appearance was not contradicted by the brilliancy of the beautiful dark eyes she turned now on Marjorie.

"Mother, I wish you would tell me exactly what father said when he proposed to you. I suppose he did propose?" questioningly, gazing in doubtful sympathy at the colour flooding her mother's face at her question.

"You will know for yourself some day, Marjorie," Mrs. Bethune said softly.

"I? But I want to know now. Just the facts. You can't make up things on nothing," disconsolately. "Our literary guild next month wants a poem—a sonnet by preference—on Love. Such a subject! I could imagine a lot. But I don't know."

Mrs. Bethune's eyes were full of laughter, but her face was grave as she looked at her discontented young daughter.

"People's experiences vary," she said reminiscently.

"Do they? But yours would do, mother—just to get a fact for a foundation. Love seems such a shimmery, slippery thing."

"It was behind the door—at a party first. He had asked me to look at a picture——"

"Behind the door! Father!" exclaimed Marjorie, breaking in on the reminiscence. "Oh, mother!"

Mrs. Bethune laughed. "You'll understand some day, Marjorie. That was the beginning; after that, I kept out of his way——" She paused.

[67]

"Yes?" said Marjorie interestedly. "I don't wonder. Behind the door! I couldn't put that in a sonnet."

"It was difficult to meet alone," went on the mother. "We lived four miles apart, And I was afraid. I didn't want him to speak, and yet——"

"Didn't you love him then? Perhaps I could put that. Or did loving him make you shy?"

"Perhaps. But he was masterful—he found a way."

"Masterful," mused Marjorie, much exercised at this new presentation of her scholarly father. "Then love alters characters, if it made father masterful and you shy. Well, those are at least some facts. Thank you. What else, mother? Tell me exactly, please."

"One day after lunch, when he had come over, I remembered that I had dropped my thimble under the table, and I went back to the dining-room to look for it."

"And he followed?"

"Yes; he followed, and he then and there proposed."

"But, mother," with misgivings, "do you think that was sonnet-sort of love?"

"Sure of it, Margie."

"It sounds so ordinary. However, I wanted facts," in a tone of resigned dejection.

Impatient steps sounded in the hall. Hats and books were flung down outside, and two boys of seven and nine respectively came into the room. Marjorie's glance fell upon her young brothers dispassionately, staying her reflections on love.

"You look as if you had been in mischief," she remarked, as a certain air of agitation conveyed itself to her perception.

"Yes; and found out, too," said Sandy, the seven-year-old, disgustedly.

"You know that new man at 'The Ridges,' mother," burst in the older boy. "He's had the cheek to say we're not to go that way any more."

"But have you been, David, since the General died?"

"Of course we have, mother; why not? I'd got the keys."

"As if keys mattered anyhow!" put in Sandy. "Anyone can climb over that wanted to. It's the nearest way."

"But it's private ground, not a public path. Only the General was kind to you."

"Yes, and this man's a beast," viciously.

Then he went on, with a pretty little lisp between the two lost teeth left on a field of battle: "But we've had some fun all these weeks, mother, dodging the work-people. They couldn't find out how we got in and out," delightedly, "even when we forgot the keys; there's always holes, somewhere. We didn't let 'em know; we just 'peared, and walked past the house, riling them. And if they ran us, didn't we just dodge 'em down the hill!"

"And now he says," put in David, "that he's written to father, and that he'll have no trespassing. Trespassing, indeed!"

"An' Dave called back that he was the trespasser, 'trudin' where he wasn't wanted," said Sandy gleefully, "an' that he'd better go back to Blackton, an' not fink he could come here and be a gentleman, cos no one would look at him!"

"Oh, David," said his mother reproachfully, "how could you? He will think we don't grow gentlemen here."

"Don't care for his thinks," muttered David. "Heard Charity and Mrs. Lytchett say it."

"No, David," put in Marjorie. "Charity said anyone from Blackton would feel like an intrusion, and all Mrs. Lytchett said was, that if he didn't like it he could always go back."

"That's exactly what I said, too, on'y the words came different."

"If he finks we're goin' all that way round twice a day, he's jolly w'ong," remarked Sandy injuredly. "We'd have to start hours an' hours earlier—not us!"

Again the door opened, and a tall man came in, whose first look of anxious inquiry was directed towards the table where his papers were lying. Sandy's impatient elbow was dug into the middle of them, as he fidgeted about on one leg. Mr. Bethune sat down in the three-cornered chair before the table, and rescued his papers, at the same time keeping Sandy by his side.

"So you two have been in mischief again?" he said gently, looking gravely at his sons.

"I'm afraid David has been rude, too," put in the mother, a little anxiously.

David, with a put-on air of unconcern, looked out of the window, where two more sturdy boys, younger, but made after the same pattern as the two inside, were now visible on the garden path. They were dilatorily obeying a call from Marjorie, and making for the window.

"I have had a letter," went on Mr. Bethune. "It's a nice letter, and what Mr. Pelham says is reasonable."

"Bounder!" muttered David, and Sandy said "Beast!"

The father lifted his eyes from the letter.

"You will have to apologise. Mr. Pelham is quite right. You have no business there. I will write a letter, and you will take it. Marjorie, will you see if tea is ready?" in a fatigued tone. "Mother looks tired out."

"Come, boys," said Marjorie. And the clamour that immediately ensued round the tea-table in the next room showed that rebellion and anarchy were in the air.

[68]

When they had gone their father laughed quietly.

"It is a nice letter. I expect they will find he will give them leave, if they behave themselves. But they have been playing tricks on the workmen—and on his servants, as I gather."

"They are always in mischief," said their mother, and her tone was not the tone of one who lamented. "But they are not generally rude. I am afraid they have heard the things that are being said against this man. Perhaps Marjorie had better go with them? He will not be rude to her?"

"No. 'This man,' as you call him, is one of the Pelhams of Lente. Yes, she can take them. Mrs. Lytchett was suggesting to me just now that she was growing up, and that she ought to have some lessons——"

"I wish Mrs. Lytchett would mind her own business!" flashed out the mother. "Marjorie is as well educated as she is, though I should be sorry to see her so meddlesome."

Then her ill-temper vanished, and she smiled serenely.

"Marjorie was writing a sonnet on Love whilst you were at church. She seemed quite equal to the composition, but lacked facts."

"Marjorie's lack of facts doesn't often curb her imagination," her father said. "I do not think it was her education that Mrs. Lytchett thought wanted improving—though it does—but her deportment, whatever that is, and—and manners."

"She carries herself like a queen," asserted her mother, "even though she is thin and awkward yet. And her manners—should you wish them altered, father?"

"She is ours, my dear," he said tenderly; "and I think her simplicity natural and charming. But perhaps she has said something—she does sometimes—to Mrs. Lytchett."

"She does often. Mrs. Lytchett was here yesterday. I know she is good, but she is irritating, John. She condoled with me about your litter, and wondered if I couldn't arrange a room for you up in the attics. And she said she was sure all the boys were behaving badly in church on Sunday afternoon—and why didn't Marjorie sit between them, instead of at the end of the pew, where the corner was a temptation to her to lounge? And then she made a set at the stocking basket, and criticised the darning, and pitied us dreadfully for so many boys, all with knees, as well as red heads. And then Marjorie broke out. She thought the heads were beautiful, also the knees, and that the boys behaved in church like saints; and that you'd be miserable in the attics without me—though she could understand that with a nagging woman always about a man must have somewhere to hide himself."

"I hope Marjorie won't turn into a virago," her father said anxiously, after a pause. "That was rude, even if it were true. She is cramped here—it is a cramping place; and we are to blame—we put too much upon her."

He sighed, and rose to take his wife's cup, and then stretched himself before the fireless grate. "She has a dangerous gift of imagination. Will she ever be satisfied with Warde? I have told him he may speak now. But she is a child still, she has no idea——" he paused.

An inroad of boys, come to be inspected by their mother before starting on their errand, brought their father back to the table and the letter they were to take. Sandy, balancing on the arm of his chair, superintended its composition.

"Father's put 'Dear Sir,' 'stead of 'Horrid Fellow,'" he announced aloud to the others. They were standing round the table; the smallest of them, aged three, could just rest his chin upon it, and was listening in solemn admiration of Sandy's sentiments.

"Are you going to take all this horde with you, Marjorie?" her mother asked, her observant eyes glancing from collar to collar and from boot to boot.

"Yes, mother; I thought it would economise matters. They're all mischievous, and will need apologising for some time; it is such a convenient way to school."

"'My little sons will, I hope, make their 'pologies in person for their rudeness. I am extwemely sorry——'" sang out Sandy, raising himself on his elbows, dug into the table, the better to see what his father was writing.

"Don't put 'little,' father," he pleaded; "he'll think it's Ross or Orme, 'stead of us."

"I suppose you know what an apology is, Sandy?" Mr. Bethune bethought himself to inquire as he finished writing, and looked down at the curly head bobbing across his arm.

"Ought to," grunted Sandy, panting in his efforts to plant his toes between the spokes of his father's chair. "Never do so no more—till next time."

"If it is that, I shall be sorry, Sandy, in this case, because this gentleman's a stranger."

"Oh," said Sandy, dropping to the floor and glancing up into the grave blue eyes, of which his own were an exact reproduction, without the gravity.

"You look as if you had been in mischief," she remarked.—p. 67.

"'Pologies is funny things," he said, pensively. "Mrs. Lytchett said we ought to be whipped when we made the peacocks scream, an' we 'pologises; and Charity boxed Dave's ears for treadin' on her fine new 
[70] frock, an' he 'pologised—an' the Dean 'pologised back for her crossness. An' now, seems as if 'pologies did 'stead of leavin' off doin' what you want. Them peacocks screamed again to-day at dinner-time, an' to-morrer we——"

A quick frown from his elder brother stopped the admission that was coming.

"Your morality, your deductions, and your grammar are equally matched, Sandy," said his father. "Who is going to carry this letter?"

"Me, me!" implored the baby, advancing a chubby hand, plucked from his mouth for the purpose. He looked like one of Sir Joshua's cherubs—nothing visible of him over the edge of the table but a round moon face of exquisite fairness, with a large background of soft white hat instead of cloud.

"You'll see that the boys behave and apologise properly, Marjorie," her father said, sinking back into his chair with such an expression of peace on his face as quite compensated his young daughter for the annoyance of the errand on which she was conducting her young brothers.

CHAPTER II.

ANTONY PELHAM.

The surroundings of Norham Cathedral were the great attraction of the little town to Antony Pelham. Large, airy houses, set in gardens to match, with here and there a field running down to the street, formed one side of the main thoroughfare of the town. It was wide and shady, bounded on its other side by the Canons' Walk, a gravelled terrace, extending the whole length of the cathedral graveyard, over-arched by "immemorial elms," where the rooks, year after year, cawed their noisy affairs into the ears of those below. At the eastern end of the cathedral the Canons' Court terminated the Walk, and provided residences for the minor canons almost under the cathedral walls. The Deanery stood at one end of the Court, and the gardens of all the houses extended southwards to enclosed fields called the Parks, on which also the grounds of the old palace, on the southern side of the cathedral, abutted.

Beyond the boundaries of the Cathedral Precincts the town developed into a small, compact area of shops, and then sprawled on into suburbs. These, called respectively Easton and Weston, had little to do with each other, and less with the exclusive Precincts. They had a church and parish apiece, served by two of the minor canons.

The spacious houses round the cathedral had been built originally to serve as town houses for the county families. They were now often used as dower houses, or pleasant homes to retire to from the active work of life. Their owners formed a sufficiently large circle to make society pleasant, but they admitted no one into their midst who was not "one of them."

When old General Orme died, he left no one to occupy the fine old house on the hill called "The Ridges," beyond which the "Green," with its complement of houses—also old, but filling the more useful rôles of Grammar School, Sessions House, and such like—descended into the valley. Here, as far off as possible, the necessary lock-up and railway station hid their commonness out of sight.

It was with amazement, and incredulity at his audacity, that the news gradually was received of the purchase of "The Ridges," by Antony Pelham, a lawyer from the big town of Blackton, eight miles away. This manufacturing town had superseded Norham as the county town—since which it was scarcely ever mentioned, much less visited, by the Norhamites. Not only had he bought "The Ridges" but, with an extraordinary fatuity, he meant to go on with his business and travel backwards and forwards.

After hearing this, nobody troubled to make any further inquiries about him—he was beneath notice. It was stated by the neighbours whose grounds adjoined his that an army of workmen had been sent from somewhere, and were, of course, making a wreck of the beautiful old house. But no interest was taken in their proceedings, except by David and Sandy Bethune, who rapturously availed themselves of the kindly circumstances attending his advent. The short cut to school on the Green, up a gravelled path on the edge of the field, which the old General had put at the service of his friends who wished to visit the Green, had become lately to the Bethune boys a way to bliss. Marjorie and her brothers now slowly ascended the hill to "The Ridges" by this path.

As they walked along, more like owners than suppliants for forgiveness, David pointed out to his sister the hiding-places they had found convenient. Marjorie's own conscience was asleep on the matter, and she did not put herself out to rebuke him. The man was angry. Her father had written that his boys would apologise. She supposed they would. They were generally able to do so when necessary, without in the least considering themselves bound thereby as to future action.

Marjorie looked with interest at the places pointed out to her on the way up. She even enlarged a hole in the undergrowth to admit Sandy's plump body. But a vague irresolution and faint sense of discomfort came into her mind as the old red-brick house[71] came in sight, and a blaze of colour from the flower-beds before the windows struck upon her vision.

"Boys," she said, softly, "David, you will be nice, even if this man is a cad. Do you hear, Sandy?" she said more sternly, as Sandy panted to her side, returning from some exploration.

"All right," said Sandy; "there he is!"

They had emerged from the shrubbery path and had reached the edge of the lawn, which was divided from the long field by some white palings. Steadying herself by these, and an occasional grip at her father's trousers, as he walked beside her, was a little two-year-old girl. Her nurse was visible at some distance, sitting at needlework under the trees.

"Father's put 'Dear Sir,' 'stead of 'Horrid Fellow,'" he announced.—p. 68.

Undecided whether to advance on to the lawn, or to go further and ring at the front-door bell, Marjorie paused. The man's back was towards her. It did not present the appearance she had somehow expected. Why her imagination should have invested the new-comer with the attributes of a vulgar old man she could not afterwards recollect. But she had expected this. Instead, the back was young, and slim, and well-coated; and the finely poised head above it was adorned with a crop of short dark curls. Seeing him thus, Marjorie was conscious of a little embarrassment. A filtering doubt, creeping through her mind, made her give a hasty glance round at her young brothers.

David's eyes were glaring at the figure of his enemy, his face wearing an expression of deep disgust. Sandy had put on the air of jaunty unconcern with which he always met a difficulty. Ross, aged four, was looking distrustfully at the baby, whilst only on little Orme's cherubic face was there any appreciation of the situation. He gave an exclamation of delight, unloosed his hand from the[72] relaxing grasp of Marjorie, and hurried over the grass, head foremost, as was his wont when in a hurry. This youngest Bethune, like his brothers before him, had a sociable disposition; and was apt at making friends of every person, especially every infant person, he came near. From the private study of the Bishop—whereto his way was by a friendly window—to the cottage hearths he occasionally visited through convenient open doors when on his rambles—Orme Bethune was a welcome guest. To him girl-babies were a special fascination. He made advances to this one immediately.

Sitting down on the grass, to accommodate his three years to her two, he essayed to draw her nearer. She responded femininely. First she hid her face behind her father's legs. Then she unloosed his trousers and steadied her approach by the big brim of Orme's hat. With the other hand she rained blows upon his face. Bashing her dolls' heads was, with this baby, a preliminary to loving them. Finding this one to be flesh and blood, she crowed with glee, and sat down suddenly beside him.

Mr. Pelham had advanced a step or two on beholding Marjorie, her face an unexpected marvel of youth and fairness, against the dark background of the trees. Then his eyes fell on David's scowling countenance; he stopped, and his face flushed.

"Father has sent you a letter," Marjorie began. "Which of you has got it?" turning to the boys.

"Not me," said David sullenly, his manner conveying that no power on earth could have induced him to touch it.

"Nor me," said Sandy cheerfully.

"Surely you brought it?" Marjorie asked, a certain severity in her tone. "You, Ross?" hopefully.

Ross's face had just lighted up with the intention of making a trio of the charming duet on the lawn. He was slower than his more agile brothers—but sure, and none the less mischievous, for that his mischief was better matured beforehand. He opened his hands to show his innocence, and, murmuring "Me go find it!" he joined Orme.

Marjorie's eyes were lifted in an appealing fashion, the prettiness of which she would have been the last to believe, to the dark eyes somewhat haughtily questioning hers.

"My father wrote," she was beginning, when a skirmish and a squeal made her stop. Ross was rifling his little brother's pockets with an air of business. Orme was wriggling and fighting, and the baby was kicking and screaming in his defence, a vivid little vixen.

"Here," said Ross proudly, as having overturned Orme and left him prostrate, he held up Mr. Bethune's letter.

Marjorie's colour rose at the aspect of the dishevelled note. Its appearance, indeed, was not that of a missive calculated to appease the anger of an offended man. She watched a little amusedly the expression of the long fingers which daintily received and opened the crumpled paper. Then it struck her that in the character of suppliants they were not behaving properly.

She looked at David. His face now wore an expression of absolute vacuity. She wondered if by any possibility it would be taken for penitence. She hoped it might, as it certainly expressed nothing else. Laying her hand on his shoulder—after all, he was only nine, and could not have done much mischief, even if he had behaved badly—Marjorie gave him a gentle push forward.

"My little brother is sorry," she began, as the dark eyes, smiling now, were uplifted from the note.

But David, beating off her hand, said fiercely, "I'm not!"

"Oh, David!" said Marjorie, helplessly. "Then, if you aren't, why did we—you come?" a sudden passion in her tone.

"Margie! Margie!" called the cheerful voice of Sandy. And Marjorie turned her eyes hopefully to the speaker. He, at least, would not fail her in this emergency—he was always ready to say something nice.

Sandy was staggering towards them laden with the baby. His cap had fallen off, and she was alternately thumping his tight curls and laying her face down upon them in gurgling delight. This living head, with its silky adornments, was quite a new sort of toy in her hitherto child-solitary life.

Mr. Pelham made an alarmed step forward. He expected nothing less than the sudden destruction of his baby. But Sandy, grasping her tightly with both sturdy arms, eluded his outstretched hand and went on to Marjorie.

"Ain't she a nice baby, Margie? She's a girl. Don't you wish we'd got a girl 'stead of on'y boys? Can I take this'n home?" he demanded, suddenly fixing brilliant blue eyes on the baby's owner.

"Oh, Sandy, Sandy! are you as artless as you seem?" thought Marjorie, watching with sympathy the magnetic change on the father's face as he looked down at his child.

"I am sorry. I can't spare her," he said gently, looking kindly at the eager beggar.

"Can't you?" disappointedly; "I should like her ever so."

"Me, too," cried Orme, standing by with straddled legs and wide-open eyes fixed on Mr. Pelham.

[73]

"Me yike her ever so," chimed in Ross, ambling up and joining the group, murmuring, as no one attended to him, that he would carry her in his two arms.

Sandy was staggering towards them laden with the baby.

In her dark, flashing beauty this baby, with her vivid face, her quick movements, her vitality, her curious coquetry of advance and withdrawal, was a revelation to the little boys. Only David—silent and superior—still held aloof, till the baby suddenly saw him and claimed him for another slave.

"Up!—up!" she called, in the imperious monosyllables by which she declared her will, holding out her arms to David and beating an impatient tattoo on Sandy with her toes. No boy could have resisted the flattery—least of all David, whom his mother often set to "mind" the babes because he was so good to them. And David—a sudden flush and smile illumining his face—took her from Sandy's unwilling clasp.

No apologies were made that day. In David's arms the baby accompanied her new friends—all clamouring, all seeking to amuse—down the hill to the gate.

Marjorie and Mr. Pelham followed slowly. If the man found the young girl interesting, he was to her equally so. She had come across no one like him before. He had come out of a world of which she knew nothing—of which, until to-day, she had never thought. Not many working people had hitherto come under her notice.

"Have you pictures?" she had asked, in surprise at a remark.

"A few—I wish I had shown them to you, as you care for them."

"But you have altered the old house?" There was a world of reproach in her tone.

"Not for the worse, I hope. It has been most carefully restored."

"Ah, yes—restored!" said Marjorie slightingly. The word was an abomination, savouring of destruction, in Norham.

Mr. Pelham smiled. "Come and see some day," he said. "I should like Mr. Bethune's opinion. My friend, the architect, wondered that I had not claimed his counsel."

"Why didn't you? People do."

"I realised my—presumption," he answered, pausing a moment for a word.

Marjorie turned to look at him.

[74]

"My father——" she began; "you are laughing at us. I know what you mean. We are old-fashioned, behind the times, prejudiced, narrow—I wonder you came."

He laughed. "It was just for that I came. I wanted my little one to have, a beautiful home, and all beside that you have said."

"But you, of course, despise old things! Do you?" she asked—"even that!"

They had reached in their descent of the hill an opening in the trees whence across the field stood out blackly against the luminous western sky the stately cathedral. Fore-shortened against the sky, the great length of the building was not perceptible. But the twin spires, the great central tower, the dome of the chapter-house, and the length of the northern transept, suggested a building raised for all time, if not for eternity.

"That is old," said Marjorie, a world of possessive delight in her voice.

"You share your father's love for it?" he said, turning to look at the face beside him, its fairness accentuated by the evening glow.

"How do you know? You know my father?" And a man less acute than this one would have seen the way straight before him into the girl's heart.

"Don't you think you can know a man in his books?" he asked. "Even if I had not heard him read the paper, I think I should have understood by that little book how he loved the cathedral."

"I did not know you were that sort," she said slowly, as into her eyes there crept a friendliness, which the man, recognising, found very pleasant to meet.

"But I am afraid I am not that sort," he said. "I am ignorant and he is learned. But I can feel the fascination of it. And I want my baby to grow up amongst it all—amongst you all," he corrected. "You remember what Ruskin says about homes? That passage after he has described what houses, homes, should not be, 'tottering, foundationless shells of splintered wood and mutilated stone, comfortless, unhonoured dwellings which men build in the hope of leaving.' Instead, I would have our homes like temples, built to last, and to be lovely, something God has lent to us for our life, and that our children will love." He paused. "That is the sort of home I want to make for my little one."

They had reached the iron gate leading into the road. Sandy, with an air of possession, drew forth his key and threw it open, and the action brought recollection back to Marjorie.

"Oh!" with a sudden start, "we came to apologise, and I forgot. Sandy, give Mr. Pelham his key, and remember——"

Sandy came forward, holding out the key with a twinkle in his merry eyes. "I 'pologise," he said.

Mr. Pelham laughed. "Keep the key, and come in and see my baby as you go backwards and forwards; she has no playfellows."

The baby flashed her smiles and kissed her hands.

[75]

The baby from her father's arms flashed her smiles and kissed her hands, as the two stood watching through the gate the receding figures of the Bethunes.

CHAPTER III.

THE BEGINNINGS OF LOVE.

"Marjorie, I've met the new man."

"What man?" Marjorie, sitting in the garden, looked up from the polishing of her poem at her visitor, a girl of about her own age, the Dean's only child.

"The man from Blackton. He dined with us last night. I made father ask him in the train. Oh—don't think I did it out of charity," she said, laughing. "He was staying at Oldstead—you know we've been there. Orme, you cherub! what cheeks you've got!" and she caught up the three-year-old and kissed him.

"He'll spoil your grand frock," cautioned Marjorie. "They've been making mud-pies in their hovel."

"Pies," said Orme, wriggling down from Charity's knee, and dragging at her hand; nor desisting, till she got up to accompany him.

Marjorie looked after her brilliant friend, who was adored by all the Bethune children in turn, until they reached the age of nine; after which their admiration congealed. Soon, she turned her thoughts again to her labour. It was difficult making sonnets, in her busy life. She had to snatch moments when she could.

"Of course, 'lone' would rhyme with 'atone,'" she murmured; "but it is so obvious. Love doesn't want a crowd—I gathered that from mother. Have you done your sonnet, Charity?" as the other girl ran back and sat down again, Orme and Ross following in pursuit, as fast as their fat legs would allow.

"My sonnet? Not I! I've been basking in the Duchess's smiles and wearing my new frocks. She asked after you; she didn't know you'd got back. I put on this new one to show you, Marjorie."

"You look very silvery and cloudy," Marjorie said. "It suits you, but it wouldn't stand much work."

"Neither should I. Oh, Marjorie—hateful word! Don't distil Mrs. Lytchett. I was forgetting Mr. Pelham. He sings divinely—a sort of baritony tenor, that floats, and melts—I can't describe it. What stupids we've all been about him!"

"How?"

"Thinking him so deep down in Blackton smoke. He knew all the people at Oldstead. Blackton seems the fashion there, like an East-End. It was too silly having to be introduced, when he lives on the other side of the road. He seemed to know you, Marjorie."

"Yes—I went there."

"You went there? To call?"

"To apologise, as usual," laughing; "the boys had been in mischief."

"Why, he said what jolly boys they were, and that his baby was quite happy with them; and he was so glad she should have some companions. I thought he little knew.'

"Yes—he forgave them."

Her visitor laughed. "Now, Marjorie, don't be so hoity-toity. Why did you go if you didn't want to be forgiven?"

"Why? To save father bother." Unconsciously, the young voice took a pathetic tone. "Do you think we would have demeaned ourselves otherwise?"

There was the sound of the clatter of voices. Marjorie sprang up to try and stop an excursion into the drawing-room. Her friend leant back in her chair, and looked after her.

"If Marjorie were well-dressed," she thought, "she'd be a beauty. That girl they were fussing after isn't in with her—only she's got clothes; clothes mean so much. Why, Sandy, what have you got there?"

Sandy panted to her side, both his arms laden with a baby. She did not appear to mind her uncomfortable position; but when deposited upon Charity's lap, bent her brows in a scowl, as she studied Miss Francklin's dainty finery.

"It's the baby from 'The Ridges'—she's got a name a mile long; we call her Barbe. We found her, so we brought her. We wanted a girl down here."

"You don't mean," said Marjorie, overhearing, and turning to David, "that you've brought her without leave? Oh, David!"

"She was sittin' in her carriage, all silks and satins, and we saw the nurse's petticoats whisk in; so we just ran the pram down the hill, and left it inside the gate. That nurse finks a deal too much of herself," explained Sandy.

"You'll have to go this very minute and say where she is," said Marjorie. "Go, David, both of you—run!" she urged, remembrance coming of the father's face as he looked at his child.

"I'll go with you," Charity exclaimed good-naturedly, springing up. "Come, boys—hadn't we better take her back with us, Marjorie?"

"Perhaps you had," said Marjorie. "But why should you trouble?"

"It's no trouble. I wanted to go to the Green, and I am ready."

The four disappeared, chattering and laughing,[76] and Marjorie once more applied herself to her poem. Her eyes rested vaguely on the flowers before her. Her thoughts would not come. Instead, came others—on dress, and the inequalities of life. Charity looked very fluffy and soft—very different her dress was from Marjorie's green linen. Marjorie looked down on her skirts disparagingly, not exactly envying the soft summer dress of her friend, but seeing the contrast. Charity could have everything she wanted. Money was never lacking, and she had an indulgent father. Marjorie's father—here the girl's face took on a tender look—had no money to spare. The two boys at Winchester cost so much, and there were the others to follow. But not for a moment would Marjorie have parted with one of them—pervasive, noisy, unsettling, costly, too, though they were. Her thoughts ran on, finishing at last with: "You've got to face facts. Charity is Charity, by herself. And I am I, one of seven. I had better brush my frock."

The Bishop passed on to greet Marjorie.

The Precincts, as they gradually thawed to the new-comer, reprobated his choice of companions for his little daughter.

"The Bethune boys are the last you should encourage," said Mrs. Lytchett to him, the night he first dined at the Palace. "They've had no bringing up. Their father doesn't look after them, and their mother can't, poor thing. Marjorie is a spitfire, and has only just left off mischief herself—if she has. There's nothing they're not capable of—nothing!"

"Your little girl is a delight to the Bethune boys," the Bishop said in his kind tones, later. "They brought her to see me this morning. Oh! they won't do her any harm, just the contrary," in reply to an anxious question, "if they aren't led away by their adventurous spirits. They are honest, plucky boys, and chivalric in a peculiar manner. And their sister—ah! there she is!"

The Bishop passed on to greet Marjorie, without the meed of praise he was on the point of bestowing; but Mr. Pelham, watching them, gathered that Marjorie was a favourite. She was looking well, distinguished, in her youthful, immature way, in a graceful, soft dress, whose clinging folds suited her height and slimness. Charity's pink prettiness, aided by every careful detail of dress and ornament, faded to nothing beside her. Marjorie had not been dining, but had come in through the conservatory, her wrap over her arm. There was a look of grave purity and freshness about her, that sort of expectancy on a young face which gives a beholder a pang, knowing how soon it will be disturbed by the wisdom and cares of the world. But the beholder to-night thought it beautiful. It drew him to her, more than any mere beauty would have done. "Just like that"—the unspoken wish arose in his heart—"may my little one grow up!" Another thought followed, stabbing him for a moment with a pang.

He was roused by Charity's soft blandishments.

"Will you come and sing with me, Mr. Pelham? Mrs. Lytchett wants some music. It is such a comfort to have another good tenor, instead of only Mr. Warde. That is he," she said softly, directing his glance to a man who had just joined the Bishop and Marjorie.

"Who is he?" he asked, something in the manner of the lingering handshake, some air of possession, striking coldly on Mr. Pelham.

"One of the minor canons. He is very well off and, as you see, good-looking, and[77] fancies himself a little." Charity laughed lightly. "Also," lowering her voice, "he is said to fancy Marjorie. I believe it is an understood thing. He wanted her a year ago, but she was only seventeen. She is a year younger than I am, but you wouldn't think it, would you?"

Mr. Pelham, as he turned with Charity to the piano, felt a sudden wrath at the man—a man much older than himself—who had the insolence to pretend to claim that slim girl.

A little later he made his way to the sofa, where Marjorie was sitting with Mrs. Lytchett. That lady, full of kindliness to Marjorie, fully intending to chaperon her during the winter to all the festivities, yet liked to remind her pretty frequently of her, as yet, unintroduced and unimportant condition. The skirmishes between them were hot; and Marjorie had just flashed out, "After all, mother has her wits, even if she has to lie on her sofa," when Mr. Pelham said:

"The Bishop has asked me to persuade Miss Bethune to play to us."

"Yes, Marjorie, go and play one of your little pieces," Mrs. Lytchett said, dismissing Marjorie and her flash of temper as she would have sent off a child.

Marjorie got up immediately.

"No, thank you," she said, sitting down before the piano, and smiling up at Mr. Pelham standing beside her. "My little pieces are here," lifting slightly the slender hands resting on her knee.

Wondering what this girl could have to say in such a language, unwilling to hear anything crude or jarring that should spoil the perfection of simplicity he was beginning to see in her, Mr. Pelham moved aside, his eyes resting disappointedly on her bent head. She raised her hands, and struck the opening notes.

The Bishop sank down into a large chair near, with a soft sigh. The buzz of conversation slowly died away. A delicate melody, in some unaccustomed minor mode, stole through the vaulted room, and Mr. Pelham drew a breath of relief. He need not have feared. There was nothing crude or jarring here.

After a few minutes her hands fell, with the lingering soft repetition of an unfinished phrase, and Marjorie lifted her eyes, liquid and dreamy with the thoughts that filled her mind. They met a look from dark unfamiliar eyes, never again through all her life to seem to her as the eyes of a stranger. They held her own, fascinated, arrested, almost like a voice speaking through the silence.

Her lips parted, as with a soft little sigh, her eyes fell.

Remembering she had stood there with him.

"Is that all?" the Bishop asked, disappointedly.

"Yes, that is all."

Antony Pelham's heart, as he walked up the hill in the moonlight, was full. He was only twenty-eight, and desperately lonely, after the year of brightness and delight he had shared with his young wife. Marjorie reminded him of her in some strangely familiar way—in her simplicity, her immaturity, her withdrawals. He turned to look at the cathedral, shining white in the moonlight, remembering that she had stood there with him, and that their talk had been about a home.

"I will win her," he said, as he turned, and set his face to climb the hill.

END OF CHAPTER THREE.

A NEW CREATION

By The Rev W.W. Tulloch, D.D.

"In Christ—a new creature."—2 Corinthians v. 17.

I fancy that we have all felt the need of a change of air, of life, of our physical surroundings, our mental and moral environment; and we have experienced the good that such a change has done us. We have toiled on through the bad weather, the hard work, the much worry of a long winter; or we have been kept at our post and laboured listlessly through a hot and oppressive summer. The wheels of life have dragged slowly. We have felt below par. Everything has been more or less a trouble to us. The routine of daily duty has become dismally monotonous. The zest has departed. Our very sleep is not refreshing. We lie down with our weariness and trouble about us and in us, and when we awaken we are still surrounded and dominated by it. The burden seems no lighter for our repose. No new strength seems to have been gained to face the calls of the new day—a day which it is a trouble even to think about.

Well, we are ordered a change, or, driven by our instincts, we seek one, or the blessed holiday season comes round at last. We go away, and in fresh air, in a change of occupation, amid new interests and associations, we begin to feel quite different. The old lassitude and weariness have passed away. We have not been long in our changed place of abode, when we begin to say to ourselves and to write home that we feel quite new persons—a different man, a different woman. And when we return our very appearance, our talk, the whole attitude in which we regard life, the eagerness with which we take up the old task, tell to all who are interested in us how much improved we are, how much healthier and better we look. More to the purpose, we ourselves feel better in every way. The change has done us ever so much good. In it we have found our old self and yet a new self, and we rejoice and are glad.

A somewhat similar experience often comes to us after reading some book which has influenced us strongly. It has opened to us a longer vista and a higher reach of life. It has given to us new views, new ideas, new aspirations,[79] and made us live with a higher ideal before us. "It has made a new man of me," we say. Old things have passed away. Or we have come under the influence of some pure love, some self-sacrificing devotion, such as made the late Professor Tyndall say in writing of his wife to a friend that she had given him quite a new idea as to the possibilities of human nature. Or in daily association with some active brain, some large-hearted companion, we have formed at once new motives and new interests. All things have become new.

Or, again, we have found a new vocation. The consciousness of the possession of higher powers, of perhaps our real powers, has come to us. We have discovered that we have been endowed with the possession of some gift of which we were not aware. Some power has been lying dormant. It has now been awakened, and upon the very threshold of what we feel must now be a better and a higher life, we realise that we are new creatures.

I was lately reading the life of a famous singer, Jenny Lind, "the Swedish Nightingale," as she was called. She had been singing in public for some time, but she had only been feeling her wings, as the saying goes. But on a certain day there came the moment of moments. "I got up that morning one creature," she herself often said; "I went to bed another creature. I had found my power." And all through her life she kept that day with a religious solemnity. She would ask to have herself remembered on it with prayers. She treated it as a second birthday. And rightly, for on that day she awoke to herself. She became artistically alive. She felt the inspiration and won the sway she now knew she was given to hold. And this consciousness was not merely the recognition that she was singing better than ever. It was more of the nature of a new fact in her life, a disclosure, a revelation. "It was a step," says her biographer, "into a new world of dominion. She knew at last where it was that she stood and what she was to do upon the earth. She learned something of her mission. For to her religious mind the discovery of a gift was the discovery of a mission. She saw the responsibility with which she was charged, through the mere possession of such a power over men." The singer with the gift of God—that was what she became on that evening. She became a new creature.

Well, all these are only illustrations of the greatest truth in the world—that in Christ we may all become new creatures or a new creation.

We are prone by nature to do what is wrong rather than what is right; we are born with passions wild and strong, and early give the reins to evil desires. By the strength of our animal propensities we are often carried to ruin unless we are arrested in our headlong and miserable career. Sometimes—nay, thank God, often—we are thus arrested. For a time, the voice of conscience may have been hushed. Our heart is cold and dead, and there is no spring of life in it at all. But something happens. We are led to think. We come to see the evil of our ways, the ruin that we are bringing on others as well as ourselves—on the wife whom we swore to love and cherish, the children whom we are neglecting, perhaps starving.

And then, all at once, it is borne in upon us that we must change our life's course. A bolt from heaven descends on us in the shape of some punishment or affliction. Our darkness and distress are revealed to us.

We seek the only refuge for the sinner. We flee to Christ, as the belated and weary traveller would flee to a hiding-place from the wind, a refuge from the storm, a covert from the tempest, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. We become converted. In Christ we become a new creation. Oh, happy is it when we do so! Appalling and terrible it is when we do not. How sad and awful is the fate of one given over to the slavery, the bondage, the tyranny of some wicked habit! Unless such an one is visited by the grace of God, unless the heinousness of his guilt is brought home to him, unless divine light strikes in upon his darkened life, he will sink deeper and deeper into degradation, until, perhaps, he is driven to self-destruction like one of whom I lately read, and who left these terribly touching words behind him. "I am now about to finish a revolting, cruel, and wretched existence by an act of my own. I have broken every law of God and man, and can only hope that my memory will rot in the minds of all who knew me. Drink has brought me to this fearful end. I am dying hopeless,[80] friendless, penniless and an outcast." And it might have been so different! Oh, that all who are giving way to any sin would listen to these terrible words of warning, that they would close at once with Christ's offer to make their lives different, to make them new creatures—once more fresh and fair creatures of God, that the old man with his corrupt affections and desires, be put off, and the new man in Christ Jesus be put on, that they would be in Christ!

To be in Christ—you know what is meant by that. You are in Christ if you are living in and by His Spirit; if you are breathing it into your life; giving it forth again, if your life is engrafted on His life as a branch is engrafted upon a tree. He is the Vine; we ought to be as the branches which thus derive their vitality, their beauty, their power of bearing leaf and fruit from the tree. The same soil nourishes it; the same dews feed it; the same breezes fan it. So we ought to have our life fed through Christ from God. If we are in Christ, we shall have the same hatred of sin as He had. We shall be removing ourselves further from evil; we shall ever be getting more like Christ, ever increasing in personal holiness and helpfulness to others, ever also willing to accept whatever He sends us, subordinating our weak, wayward wills to His holy and perfect will. If we let these words of charm, "In Christ," be written over our lives, we shall feel the old fetters fall off, the old unhappiness disappear, the old insubordination cease to assert itself.

(Photo: J. Moffat, Edinburgh.)

THE REV. W. W. TULLOCH, D.D.

We shall hardly know ourselves, the joy of the new life is so great. It is a joy, too, which we cannot keep to ourselves; we wish others to share our happy experience. We are constrained to wish this by the new and imperial impulse by which we are dominated. Because we carry heaven in our hearts we wish that others should do so, too. We look upon the sinner as upon some streamlet of water which is dwindling away day by day and will soon be dried up and the rocky channel left bare. Why? Because it is cut off from the fountain head, from the source away up in the hills near God's sky. And what we wish to do is to open the connection between the two, so that the stream may be fed and do what it is intended to do—flow along in full volume, making melody as it goes and fertilising the region through which it passes. In Christ, we are like the stream connected with its source: like it, we live melodious days and carry music to others. Or look at that branch separated from its parent stem; it is withering, it is dying. Again, a planet cut off from the central force and power—the sun—rushes through the dark night and is lost. So—if we be not in Christ, if we be separated from the true fountain, the living root, the centrifugal force—we shrivel up, we wither, we go to ruin here and hereafter, we die to all that makes existence tolerable and of value; and it might have been so different!

Shall we for the future, if need be, try to make life different to ourselves and others?

Then, if any of us become new creatures, the fact is at once recognised. People ask—What has come to So-and-so? His very appearance is changed; his gait, everything about him is altered for the better. He is regularly at his[81] work and in his place in church. He has a pleasant smile and a kind word for everybody. His wife, who used often to look dull and unhappy, is now bright and cheerful. His children are better dressed than they were; they are more frank and free with him; they take his hand; they go to meet him when he comes home; they consult him about their little joys and sorrows. He is altogether quite different. What has come over him? Oh, the explanation is a very simple one: he has ceased to do evil, he has learned to do well. He has left some course of sin; he is following after a life of holiness. He has left the service of a bad master—the worst of all masters; he is now serving a new master—the best of masters. He has made the friendship of the best of friends; Christ is his master, his friend, his example. He is in Christ. That is the reason of the change, of the new creation. That is the reason of the sunshine he carries about with him, and which he scatters on others. He is like Christ Himself, for all true Christians carry Christ with them, wherever they go; just as every leaf we take off some plants, put into soil, will become a plant exactly like the parent stem from which it is taken, so the Christ-life in a man, if it be genuine, will reproduce its source and origin. The least tiny speck of musk, carry it where you may, diffuses the same kind of fragrance as the plant from which it came. So lives thus hid in Christ with God will be redolent of Him in all places and at all times.

Let us, then, if we would be happy in our present lives—happy in the memories we leave behind us—happy in the great Hereafter—see that we are now in Christ, that we now know the glory and joy of feeling a new creature. It is a great joy to think that old things have passed away, that all things have become new. Then the very earth upon which we live will have a new beauty for us. We shall look upon it as the creation of our Heavenly Father, as the place in which we are to work for Him, making our little corner of it better, happier, more blessed than we found it. Then, too, we shall regard our fellow-men and women quite differently. We find that they are related to us in new ways and with holier, more sacred ties; they are our veritable brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. We can do them no harm, injure them in no way; rather shall we find it to be our highest duty and privilege to be helpful to them. Then, too, will pain and sorrow assume a different and new aspect. They cease to be altogether evils; they are seen to be blessings in disguise—crosses, indeed, but only sent to bring us nearer to God and to Christ; bitter medicine, indeed, but needed for our spiritual health.

Lastly, death itself, the old foe of the human race, as he is supposed by many to be, takes a new form. The awful and awesome shroud in which he seems to be enveloped falls off, and what we recognise is not the spectral skeleton with the hollow eyes coming to consign us to darkness and to death, but a radiant angel, a sweet, blessed messenger from the Father, bidding us come with him to our happy and eternal Home to meet our loved and lost, to be in Christ and with Christ for ever, with no chance any more of breaking off from Him or losing Him. And, recognising this, we shall go with him with the eagerness of a child to begin a new life, to enter upon a higher existence, to do nobler work with a more untiring zeal and energy, to love with a greater love; and as we stand for a moment to look back upon our earthly life, in the freshness of the Eternal Morning, in the beauty of our new Home, we shall realise that in Christ's Heaven, which through His great mercy and sacrifice we have reached, we are to be new creatures for evermore.

W. W. Tulloch.

Told in Sunshine Room.]

Donkey Boy to the Queen.

A True Incident. By Alfred T. Story.

One dull though calm afternoon, when the century was younger by nearly half its years than it is to-day, two bright-faced, handsome boys, dressed in Highland costume, were quietly fishing in a mountain stream, when they were disturbed in their contemplative pastime by the piteous cries of a dog. Barely had they time to look round before a poor, miserable little cur ran past them, followed by an irate youth brandishing a stout cudgel. As the dog turned and cowered behind their creel, and seemed to crave their protection, the elder of the brothers—for such they were—stepped between the poor brute and its tormentor, asking the latter what the dog had done that it should be so ill-treated.

Said the lad gruffly, resenting the boys' interference:

"What's it to ye? She's ma dug, an' I'll do what I like wi' her."

"You shan't hit her with that stick," replied the sturdy youth, who, though tall for his age, was not so thick-set as his opponent, and was evidently a couple of years his junior.

"Mebbe I will, mebbe I willna," returned the lad, who, though not ill-looking, was poorly clad, and, for the time being, ugly with passion. "But I'll hae th' dug," and with the word he tried to push past the obstructer. A scuffle ensued, in which the younger boy wrested the cudgel from the dog's tormentor, but, as his share, received a blow on the nose which brought blood.

"Gie me ta stick," said the owner of the dog, surprised that he had so far underrated his antagonist.

The latter's answer was to cast it into the stream.

This still more astonished the peasant lad, who seemed as though he would again fall upon his antagonist. But there was something about the youth's straight, well-knit figure, his handsome face, and flashing eye that caused him to reflect; whereupon he lowered his fists, which had risen to the bravado of attack, and, in a less defiant tone, said:

"Weel, let me hae Meg, an' I'll say naethin' aboot ta stick."

"Promise me not to beat her then."

The young callant gave the required undertaking, and the next minute he had the shrinking little animal in his arms and was walking away with it the way he had come. But, turning round when he had gone a few rods, he saw the youth who had withstood him bending over the stream, laving his face in the cool water.

Now, for the first time, Tam, as he was called, noticed something about the boys which in his anger he had failed to mark.[83] It was not their dress—though that betokened rank above the common; it was something more intimate than that; something in the air, in the manner, of them which made him uneasy in his mind, and caused him to steal home with lagging gait and eyes that sought the ground.

His home was a little bracken-thatched one-storey cottage, or hut, with stone walls, planted in a green oasis of a few yards square, amid a wilderness of rock and shingle, overgrown with moss and heather and other rough vegetation, from which a few stray sheep and stunted cattle gathered a scanty subsistence. These were Tam's charge. For not far from the little two-roomed cot which he called his home were other huts like it, inhabited by poor, hard-working people like his grandparents, each having a few sheep, or a cow or two, and one or another a donkey or wild-looking Highland pony; and he, having to look after his grandfather's little stock, was paid a trifle by the others to tend theirs too.

Tam Jamison had done this since he was five, at which age he was left an orphan by the death of his mother, who died broken-hearted at the loss of her husband, fighting in a distant land against Britain's foes.

He was now twelve; and though he loved the braes and the mountain streams, he was beginning to chafe at his narrow life, wanting to be off now with the drovers, now with the sportsmen and gillies, or the coachmen who drove their teams daily in the season past his grandfather's croft. It was a hard task for the old folks, Donal and Yetta Jamison, to retain him at home, impossible to make him content. They did their best to keep him under control; but it was chiefly done by coaxing, a good deal by petting. This in the end did not lighten their task. Every day Tam became more wayward and difficult; every other day there were complaints of his negligence on the one hand, of his mischief on the other; and then, to cap all, it came to the old people's ears that their Tam—it could be no other—had dared to raise his fist against one of the princes of the blood, no less than the Prince of Wales.

That very evening the news was all over the country-side. The next morning there was such a hubbub as never was heard. Everybody said Tam would certainly be sent to jail, if no worse thing befell him. Tam, braving the thing out, said he "didna mind"; but the old folks, greatly caring, put on their Sunday best, and set out to walk to Braemar to see and intercede with the Queen on the boy's behalf. They found her not at home, and so had their long trudge for nothing. However, one of the domestics drew from them what their business was; and the next day a little lady, very plainly dressed, riding on a wee, shaggy pony, stopped at the door, and, being helped to dismount by a man who was with her, entered the hut and asked for Tam's grandparents.

A little lady on a shaggy pony stopped at the door.

They were not afraid of the little lady, because she looked so good and kind, and spoke so gently, but when they discovered that she was from Braemar, and that it was to learn all about Tam that she had come, they were almost tremblingly anxious. Thinking that the Queen had sent her, they apologised very humbly for the boy's misbehaviour, saying it did not arise from any badness in him so much as from wilfulness and daring. They hoped the Queen wouldna be severe on the laddie; he was little more than a child, and though masterful and not to be said, he had not a bad heart. It was partly their fault, no doubt, as Tam, having no parents, had been left to them very young, and they, perhaps, had spoiled him just a little.

So the old folks went on, the tears often in their eyes.

In a few minutes the good lady from Braemar had made herself acquainted with all the circumstances of Tam's birth and rearing, had heard the catalogue of his faults and shortcomings, and been posted as to his restlessness and discontent. It was a long and interesting human inventory, wound up with the declaration, tearfully attested by both Donal and Yetta, that "he wasna sae bad as wilfu'"; albeit they confessed to being greatly afraid, if he went away from them, as he wished, lest his masterfulness should lead him into evil ways.

"And where is this masterful one, this Tam?" asked the Lady of Braemar. "One would like to see him."

Tam, however, could nowhere be found. The old man looked up and down for him, neighbours joined in the search; but it was only too plain that Tam had hidden himself away somewhere.

"Well," said the Lady, at length, "I cannot tarry any longer. But the boy cannot be far away; so when he is found bring him to Braemar, and we will see what can be done."

Donal and Yetta promised that such should be their care, and, as a last word, ere the Lady rode away, they begged that she would intercede on Tarn's behalf "wi' the gude and gracious Queen."

The Lady promised to do her utmost, and so departed.

The next day, the "sodger's laddie," as Tam was called, having in the meanwhile been found, the grey-headed old crofter and his wife, both of them bent with toil and drooping with care, once more made their way over the hills to Braemar; Tam, downhearted, demure, and in his Sabbath claes, padding the turf by their side.

Arrived at their destination, Tam hung a low head; for in front of the house was congregated a little party, chiefly of children, preparing to set out for a ride; among the number being the two young gentlemen whom he knew.

The elder of them, the Prince of Wales, at once recognising his antagonist of three days ago, stepped up to him and said, with a frank and kindly smile:

[84]

"Good-morning, Tam! You haven't forgotten me, have you?"

Tam uttered a barely audible "Nae."

"And you hold no grudge against me for throwing your stick in the river, do you?"

Another demure "Nae" found its way between Tam's half-closed teeth; but this time he allowed his blue eyes to meet the young Prince's in a surprised gaze.

"Then let us shake hands and be friends," said the Prince.

Tam extended his brown paw, and they clasped in token of mutual goodwill.

The little scene transacted itself almost as quickly as it can be read—so quickly, indeed, that Tam's grandparents witnessed it in mute astonishment; and before they had recovered their self-possession, the Lady who had called at the hut on Tam's account issued from the house, looking much as she had done the previous day, with the exception that a broad-brimmed straw hat covered her head in place of a sun-bonnet.

"So you found the little runagate, did you?" said she, addressing the old folks.

"Yes, madam," replied Donal. "Mister Fargus found him at night in a cave in the birch-wood above the burn."

"What made you run away, Tam?" said the Lady, turning to the youth.

Tam was silent.

"Tell me. You need not be afraid."

"I thought mebbe I had hurt him"—with a nod in the direction of the Prince.

"Oh, you didn't hurt me! You only brought a little of the red juice out of my nose, and that can hurt nobody," said the Heir-Apparent.

Prince Alfred, who was standing by, smiled at his brother's sally, as did also the Lady in the straw hat.

Tam laughed outright. He had never heard or known of a bleeding nose being treated so lightly, and at the same time so funnily. His poor grandparents, however, were shocked at his levity, and Yetta gave him a vigorous nudge to recall him to a due sense of his position.

"If you like," said the Prince, "I'll give you one of my sticks in place of the one I threw away," adding, with nice diplomacy, "but I can tell you it's too proud a stick to hit a dog."

Tam smiled, and said he would not use it in that way.

"And I think we must ask you to promise not to think of ever running[85] away from your grandparents," said the Lady.

That seemed to strike Tam as a large order.

"I wouldna like to bide on the croft when I get bigger."

"Why, what do you wish to be when you grow bigger?"

"I want to be a soldier, like my father."

Yetta drew a pained breath; Donal's lips twitched.

"You would not like him to go for a soldier?" queried the Lady.

"Baith my sons focht and deed for their kintra," said Donal.

"And you would like to keep your grandson to comfort you in your old age?"

The old folks bowed; their trembling lips could hardly frame an audible "Yes."

"It is quite natural. You hear that, Tam? You would not like to go away to the wars, as your father and your uncle did, and be killed, and so grieve your poor grandparents."

"I dinna want to grieve 'em," replied Tam. "But I'd like to be a soldier and fight for the Queen."

At this answer there was more than one moistened eyelid in the little group, whereof Tam, for the time being, constituted the central figure.

After a brief pause, his interlocutor continued:

"But, my boy, there are other ways of serving the Queen than by becoming a soldier—many other ways."

That was a new aspect of things to the boy, and his eyes, when he lifted them up to meet the Lady's, contained each a large note of interrogation.

"For instance," she continued, "the Queen wants a donkey-boy now, to attend her or the children when they drive about in their little phaeton." The boy's eyes brightened, then fell.

"You think the care of a donkey beneath you?"

"Then let us shake hands," said the Prince.

"Nae, but I doubt that the Queen wouldna hae me to be her donkey-boy."

"Why not?"

"'Cos I hae nae bin a donkey-boy, an' I might do things wrang."

"But you could learn—everybody has to learn. And if you did your best there could not be much fault-finding."

"I'd do my best."

"Nobody could say better than that," replied the Lady.

"Ah, if your leddyship," faltered Yetta, "could get her Majesty to mek' him her donkey-boy, or to 'point him to any sic position, he would still be near to us, an' a comfort in our old age."

"Ay, an' he would think nae mair o' running away," added Donal.

"You may be sure the matter will be taken into her earnest consideration," said the Lady. "And now, after you have had some refreshment, which I will ask them to give you, you had better go home, and in the course of a few days you will doubtless hear further."

TO BE CONCLUDED.

The Jeshurun[1] of Christ.

"There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun."—Deut. xxxiii. 26. "Peace—upon the Israel of God."—Gal. vi. 16.

AN ORIGINAL HYMN

By the Rev. S. J. Stone, Author of "Lays of Iona," "The Church's One Foundation," &c.

Music specially composed by Sir George Martin, Mus.D.
(Organist of St. Paul's Cathedral.)

mf moderato

TEMPERANCE NOTES AND NEWS.

By a Leading Temperance Advocate.

No apology is needed for opening a temperance department in The Quiver, for in the story of the temperance reformation the name of John Cassell will assuredly always hold an honoured place. At the time when he was enlisted in the ranks—1835—as a youth of seventeen, the movement had few friends and many opponents. Having once signed the "teetotal pledge," Cassell never deserted, but, on the contrary, became one of the most persuasive advocates the cause has ever had. He itinerated through the length and breadth of the land, and, under the name of "The Manchester Carpenter," gained a large number of adherents, some of whom subsequently achieved great reputations as temperance leaders. Even before Cassell had settled down in London as a publisher, he had learnt to value the printing press as an aid to temperance work, and not a few of the pamphlets, tracts, and broadsheets which played such an important part in the early days of the propaganda, owed their origin to his enterprising initiative. By-and-by he was in a position to command his own printing machines, and as early as March, 1846, he launched the Teetotal Times and Monthly Temperance Messenger, which was followed in July, 1848, by the Standard of Freedom, of which a temperance column was a leading feature. Anyone who takes the trouble to look over these early publications cannot fail to be struck by the comprehensive and statesmanlike grip of the drink difficulty which they present. It was to John Cassell that Richard Cobden wrote in 1849:—"I don't know how it is that I have never made the plunge and joined the teetotallers. Nobody has more faith than I in the truth of your doctrine, both from a physical and moral point of view, for the more work I have had to do the more I have resorted to the pump and the teapot. As for the moral bearings of the question, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that all other reforms together would fail to confer as great blessings upon the masses as that of weaning them from intoxicating drinks." Cassell passed away at the early age of forty-eight, on April 2nd, 1865, on the same day as Cobden himself, whose friendship he had enjoyed for nearly twenty years.

JOHN CASSELL.

(Temperance Leader and Founder of "The Quiver.")

COMING EVENTS.

Among the important events fixed for this month may be named two meetings convened by the National Temperance League for November 2nd, in Oxford, to be addressed by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and Professor Victor Horsley, F.R.S., the distinguished surgeon. One meeting is specially intended for undergraduates, while the other will be open to the townsfolk. On November 4th by permission of the Lord Mayor of London, the Mansion House will extend its hospitality to the Police Court Mission of the C.E.T.S., and Bishops, Members of Parliament, and Police Court Magistrates will plead the cause of this deserving charity. On November 27th the Nonconformist Churches will observe their annual Temperance Sunday, and on November 30th a function anticipated with keen interest, the first Lees-Raper Memorial Lecture will take place in the Church House, Westminster.

MR. A. F. HILLS

Photo: Elliot and Fry, Baker Street, W.)

SUNDAY CLOSING.

Thanks to the munificent generosity of Mr. Arnold F. Hills, who has promised a donation of £5,000, conditional upon temperance friends making up another £5,000, a determined effort is to be made to press forward the Sunday Closing question in view of the reassembling of Parliament early in the new year. The whole-hearted ardour and enthusiasm which have marked Mr. Hills' temperance labours during the past ten years have made his name a household word. He started out with the settled conviction that the greatest need of the time was the union of[88] the temperance forces; and in the face of difficulties and obstacles which would have disheartened ninety-nine men out of a hundred, he has ceaselessly concentrated his energies to this end. The United Temperance Council, with its network of county councils and district councils throughout the United Kingdom, is the creation of his active brain; while the Temperance Parliament, which has given an opportunity to all the friends of temperance legislation to discuss their various projects, is another child of Mr. Hills' parentage.

IRISH EXAMPLE.

Visitors to Belfast cannot pass along the streets of this thriving, go-ahead city without being brought face to face with the practical efforts of the Irish Temperance League to counteract the public-houses. The League has set up nearly twenty attractive coffee stands in various parts of the town, and these do a very large business and are extremely popular. The movement was commenced in 1874, the first stand being opened on a site granted by the Harbour Commissioners, for a nominal rent, near to the berths of the cross-Channel steamers. As many as 10,000 persons have patronised the stands in one day. The hours of opening and closing are regulated according to the locality. No intoxicating liquors are allowed to be consumed on the premises; the best of food is provided; the most scrupulous cleanliness is observed; and no bills of any kind are exhibited, or anything likely to jar on the religious or political feelings of the customers.

STREET COFFEE STAND, BELFAST.

THE LEES-RAPER MEMORIAL.

It will be a long time before temperance folk will forget the shock which was occasioned in May, 1897, by the sudden deaths within ten days of each other, of Dr. Lees and Mr. J. H. Raper. These two devoted workers were known in both hemispheres, and it would be impossible in such limited space to give an adequate appreciation of their marvellous gifts. Dr. F. R. Lees was ever a fighter. From his boyhood up to his honoured old age he was always eager for the fray. As a keen controversialist he was literally without a rival. The winning personality of James Hayes Raper carried all before it. He was unquestionably a platform king. Nothing could be more charming than the extraordinary facility with which he rapidly placed himself in touch with an audience; and he possessed in a rare degree the gift of being able to make an acceptable "last speech" in a programme. The Committee charged with the promotion of a memorial to these temperance worthies is to be congratulated upon having raised nearly £1,700. Of this amount, £1,500 has been invested in a terminable annuity for a period of twenty years. A Lees-Raper lectureship has been founded, and, as already stated, the inaugural lecture will be given by Dean Farrar, of Canterbury, at the Church House, Westminster, on November 30th. The Archbishop of Canterbury will preside, and the Dean has chosen as his theme "Temperance Reform as Required by Righteousness and Patriotism."

J. H. RAPER

Photo: Lambert, Weston and Son,
Folkestone.)

DR. F. R. LEES

Photo: William Coles, Watford.)

The House Beautiful

The HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

By Orman Cooper, Author of "We Wives," Etc.

"In the fields of taste it is always much easier to point out paths which should be avoided than to indicate the road which leads to excellence."

Such are the words of a well-known artist of the present day. I feel them to be true as I begin this paper on the House Beautiful. Taste differs so widely that it would be futile to try to set up a positive standard of beauty. Furniture has its fashions, too, though they change but slowly. So we can only lay down broad general rules with regard to the plenishment of our homes. We cannot insist on detail.

There is no single point on which a gentlewoman is more jealous of disparagement than the question of taste. Yet it is a lamentable fact that this very quality is often—I may say generally—deficient even amongst the most cultured classes. The bubble of fashion is blown in our drawing-rooms just as surely and even more foolishly than elsewhere. Individuality is seldom seen.

In order to have lovely homes inside four commonplace walls we must remember that simplicity is one true element of beauty. The best and most picturesque furniture of all ages has been simple in general form. Next, good design is always compatible with sturdy service, and can accommodate itself to the most fastidious notions of convenience. Thirdly, every article of manufacture to be really beautiful should indicate by its general design the purpose to which it will be applied. In other words, shams and make-believes must be utterly tabooed.

Taking these three principles as the basis of our plans for our own particular House Beautiful, let us consider how best we may secure such. Our halls and kitchens are perhaps the best instances of simplicity of design. In them we seldom have more utensils or articles than we need. Parquetry, or inlaying with various-coloured wood, is an ideal floor covering, even for our modern narrow hall. Next to it ranks tiling, and a plain linoleum is admissible. All these secure cleanliness. Warmth must next be suggested. To obtain this, we lay down rugs of various colours and hang heavy curtains. An oak chair, solid to look at (N.B.—Curves in furniture should suggest repose, which is out of place in a passage), a chest to hold rugs and cloaks, a small, narrow mirror to lighten up the gloom, and you have all that is necessary. A few brass dishes on the wall, a tall palm by one curtain, elks' antlers, etc., are permissible where space is obtainable. Do not, however, ever be tempted to hang muslin in the alcove or to drape with flimsy materials. Leave plenty of room for visitors to pass in and out, without finding entrance or exit blocked with exasperating detail. Colour is what really redeems a hall from monotony. This the wall-paper and curtains and rugs should give without help from trivial ornamentation.

Our kitchens are perhaps the most really beautiful spots in our homes, if we take true beauty to consist of absolute fitness for the work to be done therein. The severe wooden dresser, with its wide undershelf and commodious cupboards, is as picturesque an object as can be found. From time immemorial its shape has been unaltered, and its beauty consists in its suggestions of utility. Traditional work is mostly beautiful, as evidenced by the fact that the lines of a plough have always been the admiration of artists. Plainness is not ugliness, and the dresser, glorified, is now one of the necessary beauty spots even in our drawing-rooms. Then those Windsor chairs, with their slightly sloping backs and hollowed seats, are restful to both eye and body. The bright steel or copper range fitted with necessary[90] knobs and useful doors is another example of the beauty of fitness. In fact, both stove and dresser are forms of truth and realism.

The two great faults to be avoided in the dining-room of our House Beautiful are dreariness and overcrowding. The French salle-à-manger is really an ideal to work towards. Unfortunately, few of us can consecrate the parlour to meals alone; this living-room has to serve many purposes. We should have it as spacious, thou, and airy as possible. Round tables have gone out of fashion, unfortunately; yet the claw-leg pedestal table is the most convenient, and consequently the most decorative, of its kind. It economises space, and is easily beautified. I have in memory a dining-room I should like to see reproduced in many a home. Just an ordinary square chamber, with two straight windows looking out on a lawn; a round table, its centre encircled with flowers; a plain sideboard, guiltless of plate-glass, but enlivened by old silver wine coolers, napkin rings, and goblets; a wide brass-bound fireplace with hobs; a high mantelpiece, surrounded with a brazen grating; a screen, and a few fine chairs. The beauty of it—and it was very beautiful—consisted in fitness for the end for which it was designed. The walls were covered with a light-tinted background for pictures (not with ornamental garden stuff in perspective). Its heavy, rich curtains hung by visible rings from a real pole; its coal-scoop was of copper, not papier-maché tinware; its cupboards full of glass that might be wanted, and silver often called for; its napery and napkins fine and fair; its thick carpet guiltless of grating greens and crude crimsons; its windows made to open, and its iron-flanged door made to shut. There was no meaningless or characterless ornamental work about this old room; no inappropriate decoration spoiled its well-designed and well-constructed tout ensemble.

As I have sketched an ideal parlour, so would I limn a bedroom I have seen. It was a queer-shaped room, with rather high windows set over some panelling in a little, crooked, dome-shaped alcove, a tiny dressing-room opened off it. The paper was yellow; the paint all white. A bed with plain brass spindles and rails stood away from draught and light, headed with creamy chintz sprinkled with Scotch rosebuds and lined with gold. The curtains of shiny chintz hung from half-inch brass rods only to the window-sill. A wide box couch under them formed a restful seat. Crossways stood a dressing-table, its toilet glass flanked with brass candle-holders, and its jewel drawers fitted with old beaten drop handles; it, as well as the wardrobe, was enamelled white. A frame screen of the same purity, its yellow silk curtains dependent by tiny rings from tiny rods, stood before the dressing-room door, and effectually shut away all washing apparatus. The floor of this room was polished all over (kept in order by weekly applications of beeswax and turpentine). On it lay white Kurd and Scinde rugs. The mantelpiece was wooden, and the chimney corner decorated with shelves painted like wainscotting and doors. These little shelves supplied vantage-grounds for lots of blue-and-white china, and though the colour-scheme may sound monotonous, infinite variety was introduced by the etceteras of the toilette. Of course, blue or terra-cotta, carried out as faithfully, would give an equally satisfactory symphony of tint. However we may decorate our bedrooms, we must not forget that space and head-room are the two requisites for health therein. Simplicity, careful keeping, and radiant cleanliness should be the keynotes of every bedroom in the House Beautiful.

In approaching the drawing-room, I feel I am treading on difficult ground—in fact, an impossible one. Abundantly diverse in everything are some of the reception-rooms I should call beautiful. Wide-mouth pickle jars swathed in art muslin are positively wrong. So are painted rolling-pins or banjos. As to cardboard plaques representing china, and paper frills cut out to look like lace—away with them! A plain brown jug full of real daisies is far more beautiful than a glass bottle covered with varnished pictures and filled with paper or silk imitations. One bit of quaint crackle or Venetian ware on our chimney-piece is restful to the eye; highly coloured shams are distressful. "Although we may tolerate insipid prettiness in perishable confectionery, we ought not to do so in objects which become associated with our daily life." Power of design and power of imitation are the two widely divergent qualities of mind required to produce a beautiful drawing-room. Ostentation of money should be avoided here.

In concluding this paper, I should like to remind my readers that all yearnings after the beautiful are legitimate and right. God has placed a love for the lovely in every human heart. He Himself—in all reverence be it spoken—has led the way. When designing furniture for the Tabernacle built for glory and for beauty in the far-away desert, He made it in the most artistic, most serviceable, and most simple of forms. Look at the description of those golden candlesticks, with their golden almond-shaped knops and elegant branches. Think of the curtains of scarlet and blue and purple, and fine twined linen. Think of the snuffers and spoons and ouches, and bolts and rings and staves, all of pure gold. Truth and grace were evermore wedded together in these patterns of the heavenly things. "Go, and do thou likewise."

SCRIPTURE LESSONS
FOR SCHOOL AND HOME

INTERNATIONAL SERIES

With Illustrative Anecdotes and References.

November 20th.—Manasseh's Sin and Repentance.

To read—2 Chron. xxxiii. 9-16. Golden Text—1 St. John i. 9.

Manasseh, son of good King Hezekiah, yet for many years very wicked. Must have been taught to do right by his father; good seed sown, but choked by tares of sin and worldliness; a long time before bore good fruit—not till tares pulled out.

I. Manasseh's Sin (9-11). Only a boy of twelve when began reign. Many would flatter and spoil. Just an age to need good advice and guidance. But many to lead him wrong, as other kings had been led before him (xxiv. 17, 18). So he chose wrong.

Idolatry. Undid all Hezekiah's work by building up again altars for Baal (ver. 3); even set up idol in house of God itself (ver. 7), besides seeking counsel from witches, etc. (ver. 6), instead of God. Sinned worse than heathen, for he knew right, which they did not.

Punishment. God tried remonstrances, probably by prophets, but in vain. His heart and his people's hardened against God by sin; so God sent captains of King of Assyria, who took him prisoner, and carried him bound in chains to Babylon, capital of Assyria.

II. Manasseh's Repentance (12-16). The captive. The King, far from home, in strange land; what does he think about? His father—how little he has copied his example; his home—how he has forfeited it; his life—how wicked it has been; his companions—how they have led him astray; his God—he has sinned too deeply—can he possibly be forgiven?

The repentance. What does he do? He humbles himself—first step in true repentance, he confesses his sin as David did (Ps. xxxii. 5); he asks forgiveness; he promises amendment. Was such prayer ever in vain? (Golden Text).

The restoration. Sent back to his throne; became prosperous; fortified the cities. Best of all, put away idols, repaired Temple, offered sacrifices; did all in his power to undo effects of his former sin. Commanded the people to serve God.

Lesson. How to repent. Ask for true sorrow. Confess to God all sin. Seek grace to change life.

Repentance.

A man of the world, who had spent the greater part of his life in dissipation, was converted to God. He gave up all his property, and went to live with a well-known clergyman in Cornwall. There he devoted himself entirely to the service of Christ. One day he met a miner whom he had long been trying to bring to repentance. He persuaded him to enter the church; and there, kneeling side by side, they prayed for a long time, not ceasing till the miner felt a sense of the greatness of his sin and of the pardoning love of God. Many other souls was he the means of bringing back to God. There was joy in heaven over that repentant sinner as there was over Manasseh.

November 27th.—A Temperance Lesson.

To read—Prov. iv. 10-19. Golden Text—Ver. 10.

This book, written by Solomon, contains a selection of his numerous "proverbs" or wise sayings. The early chapters are especially intended for the young, and are in praise of "wisdom," the practical carrying out of knowledge.

I. The Blessing of Wisdom (10-13). Long life often promised as the result of a godly life, e.g. to those who honour parents (fifth commandment); also to those who obey God (Deut. xxx. 20).

Right paths, i.e. right dealing with men, e.g. Abraham paying for burying-place (Gen. xxiii. 13); David in all his life (2 Sam. xxii. 21).

No stumbling. Life like a narrow path. A man burdened by sin walks, as it were, with shackles on legs. A Christian is held up by God's arms (Deut. xxxiii. 27); kept from stumbling to his ruin.

Eternal life. Wisdom (i. 20) personified as Christ, the Divine Word, in Whom is all knowledge (Col. ii. 3). To know Him is everlasting life (St. John xvii. 3).

II. The Folly of Wickedness (14-17). Sin to be avoided. Remind of Eve: of Lot choosing to live in wicked Sodom. The disastrous results: Eve turned out of Paradise—Lot losing home and wife.

Sin grows. Evil takes such hold that some prefer it to good—day and night plan evil, e.g. thieves, drunkards, etc., and take pleasure in leading others wrong.

III. Results. The just. A Christian's course like the light, increasing from early dawn till full light of noon. Perfection, not all at once. Good seed brings forth fruit "with patience," i.e. gradually (St. Luke viii. 15). Christ increased in wisdom as He grew taller and older (St. Luke ii. 52). So we must "grow in grace and knowledge." The more a Christian knows of God, the more clearly does God's light show itself in him.

The wicked. Are in darkness, and so stumble. Sin blinds their eyes (St. John xii. 35); they confuse right and wrong. Example: Saul, blinded by prejudice against Jesus of Nazareth, thought he did God service when he persecuted the Christians.

[92]

Lessons. 1. Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!

2. Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.

The Toil and Folly of Sin.

There was a man in a certain town who used, till he was caught, to steal all his firewood. He would get up on cold nights and prowl around, helping himself from the well-stacked piles. A calculation was made, and it was found that he had worked harder and spent more time to get fuel in this way than if he had earned it honestly by hard work. One day he was caught in the act of theft, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. "The way of transgressors is hard."

December 4th.—The Book of the Law Found.

To read—2 Kings xxii. 8—20. Golden Text—Ps. cxix. 2.

Josiah, grandson of Manasseh, like him, began to reign very young (eight years), but, unlike him, began well. Now about eighteen years old. Already been two reformations since his succession (2 Chron. xxxiv. 3—7). Now Temple being repaired.

I. The Book Found (8—14). The place. Temple found in great disorder. Amon, the last King, in two years had done much evil—idolatry again. Now Temple cleansed under superintendence of Hilkiah, high priest. Rubbish turned over; large "roll of a book" discovered. What can it be? The authentic copy of Law of God, i.e. books of Moses, kept near the Ark in the Holy of Holies. What a find!

The scribes. Two scribes, readers and keepers of the Law, with Hilkiah when the roll was found. They read it themselves; one of them, Shaphan, takes it to the King; reports the collection made for the repairs, how the work is going on, and the discovery. He reads the book aloud. The King much moved by the words of the Law and God's wrath against sinners (Deut. xxix. 27). Sends to Huldah the prophetess to inquire further of the Lord. He sees how little the words of the book have been obeyed.

Lesson. The Word of God is quick and powerful.

II. God's Message to Josiah (15—20). As in time of Judges, when Deborah was prophetess (Judges iv. 4), God speaks by a woman; double message.

To the people. A terrible punishment, as foretold in the Law, because of their sin. Had forsaken God—turned aside to other gods. Had not repented, therefore His wrath kindled against them.

To Josiah. His heart was humble; attended to God's message; he did weep for the people's sin. God has heard him—he shall be spared. The judgment shall not come in his time; his end shall be peace.

Lessons. 1. God ever the same. He must punish sin. He will deliver the just.

2. As then, so now, He sends warning by His Book, His ministers, and teachers.

3. Why will ye die? Return unto the Lord.

The Bible a Delight.

One day, when walking through Wales, Mr. Hone, the author, stopped at a cottage door and found a little girl reading the Bible. He asked for a glass of water, which was quickly brought to him. Getting into conversation with the girl, he asked her how she liked learning her task out of the Bible. "Oh," she said, "it is not a task to read it; I love it." Seeing his surprise, she added, "I thought everybody loved the Bible." The arrow went home. Hone pondered over her remark and began to read the Bible for himself, and from that time read the sacred book constantly. Before long, instead of being an opponent of the Bible, he became one of its strongest defenders, for he, like the child, had learned to love it.

December 11th.—Trying to Destroy God's Word.

To read—Jer. xxxvi. 20-32. Golden Text—Isaiah xl. 8.

Josiah the last godly King. At his death Jerusalem fell back into corruption. Jeremiah the prophet warns in vain of coming destruction—is hated by nobles—imprisoned by King; bids Baruch write God's words in a roll of a book (ver. 6).

I. The Roll Read (ver. 20). Hitherto Jeremiah spoke his prophecies. Why written now? To be read in various places while he was shut up (ver. 5), and kept for our instruction. Great excitement this day in Jerusalem. Large assembly of people heard—princes heard and were afraid (ver. 16); King Jehoiachim is told of it. Courtiers round the King tell him what they recollect of the warnings; he is interested—perhaps alarmed. Sends for the roll, hidden in the council chamber.

II. The Roll Burned (21-26). Picture the King sitting in his study; bright wood fire on the hearth in the winter-house. Jehudi sent to fetch roll. Nobles and other courtiers stand around; the roll is read. The King is angry; after hearing three or four columns he stops the reader, cuts the roll into pieces with penknife, flings them on the fire. Some of princes approve; three try to stop him. The parchment crackles, roll is destroyed. Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah ordered to be imprisoned. Is all over? King could destroy roll, but not God's Word.

III. The Roll Re-written (26-32). King's efforts all in vain. Man fights in vain against God. King despises the prophecy. Another roll written; more severe judgments. God laughs him to scorn. This is his punishment:—The King shall have no heir to succeed him. He shall have a dishonoured death—no burial. The whole nation shall be severely punished. King of Babylon shall take the people captive.

Lessons. 1. God's Word shall not return void.

2. The folly of trying to resist God.

3. The certainty of coming judgment for sin.

God's Word True.

A man and his wife became possessed of a Bible, which they had never read before. The man began to read it, and, one night, as he sat by the fire with the open book, he said, "Wife, if this book is right, we are wrong." He continued reading, and a few days afterwards he said, "Wife, if this book is right, we are lost!" More eager than ever to see what the Word of the Lord was, he continued to study the book, until one night he joyfully exclaimed, "Wife, if this book is true, we are saved!" This is the glory of God's Word; it tells of sin and punishment, but it tells also of salvation. King Jehoiachim, hearing God's Word, tried to destroy it and was lost; but King Josiah, hearing it, turned to God and was saved.

Short Arrows

Notes of Christian Life & Work.

Two County Medallists.

We have pleasure in presenting our readers with the portraits of two recent Silver Medallists in connection with our Roll of Honour for Sunday-school Teachers. Miss Susan Hammond is the veteran of the county of Essex, having completed fifty-four years' service at the Wesleyan Sunday-school, Bradfield; whilst to Mr. William Fletcher belongs the honour of being the doyen of the Sunday-school Teachers of Lincolnshire, he having to his credit the magnificent record of seventy years' service at the Scamblesby Sunday-school.

(Photo: W. Gill, Colchester).

MISS HAMMOND.

(The Essex County Medallist.)

The Real Winners.

A hurried and unceremonious burial is often all that can be given to the dead after a great battle. They are the harvest of war; but the dead, though in comparison to the living victors they may be said to be at least unhonoured, have often been the real winners of the battle. It was over their dead bodies or over the way they made that the survivors rushed to victory. So it is that when we allow self to die we accomplish most Christian work and win the fight of faith.

(Photo: Carlton and Sons, Horncastle.)

MR. WILLIAM FLETCHER.

(Who holds the Lincolnshire Record for Seventy Years' Sunday-school Service.)

For Prizes or Presents.

There are already many indications that the Christmas festival is slowly but surely drawing near, and not the least significant is the deluge of new stories suitable for presents and prizes which has already commenced. To many a boy and girl Christmas would lose half its charms if it did not bring with it a new story from old favourites, such as Gordon Stables, Emma Marshall, or G. A. Henty, and the young people will not be disappointed this year. Messrs. Nisbet have just issued Dr. Stables's latest story, which he has entitled "Off to Klondyke." Its very title is suggestive of exciting experiences at the fascinating goldfields of the Yukon, and many boys—both young and old—will follow with breathless interest the numerous wonderful adventures which are related therein. From the same publishers comes an equally interesting story of an English boy's adventures in the great French War under the expressive title "Face to Face with Napoleon." There is plenty of romantic incident in this story, and as the author, Mr. O. V. Caine, has carefully verified the historical portions of the work, it will serve the double purpose of entertaining and instructing.[94] Our old friend, Mrs. Emma Marshall, is to the fore with an excellent story for girls, entitled "Under the Laburnum Tree" (Nisbet and Co.), which will be eagerly welcomed in many a home and school.—The last volume before us is entitled "Yule Logs," and is edited for Messrs. Longmans by Mr. G. A. Henty. Unlike the books previously mentioned, this does not contain a single long story, but is made up of a series of short stories by such well-known writers as Henry Frith, Manville Fenn, John Bloundelle-Burton, and, of course, the editor himself. The stories deal with extraordinary adventures on land and sea, in both ancient and modern times, and are of such variety as to satisfy the most exacting reader.

"Mousie."

A poor little lad died a few weeks ago in a narrow and crowded street of Central London after four years of terrible suffering from hip disease. His sweet and uncomplaining nature endeared him in a particular way to the friends who visited him, and one of them has taken a picture of him, as he sat up in bed, surrounded by his flowers and small comforts, not long before his death. "Mousie" got his pet name from the doctors at a big hospital, who were so struck by his gentleness, and by the quiet courage with which he endured his painful operations. He had been originally knocked down by a cab, and his feeble constitution never recovered from the accident. Once, to his great delight, he was well enough to attend a meeting of the Ministering Children's League, of which he was a member. He was supported on a table, and helped to make a cushion for a sick old woman. But he was soon obliged to keep to his room and his couch altogether. Even then "Mousie" was often thinking of others. "Can't I do a toy for some poor child who has none?" he would say, and with the wool that was given him he would make balls for babies. "It is not Jesus who sends me this pain," he once explained to the friend who pens this brief memory of him; "He is far too kind: it was my own fault for getting in the way of the cab." Poor "Mousie"! he was only ten years old, but he had his own solution of the mystery of pain. He loved to hear hymns. Someone sang "There is a Happy Land" to him the night before he died, and a little later those who were watching him were surprised to hear him croon the first verse all through in quite a strong clear, voice. Then he sighed pitifully, "Lord Jesus, do take me!" and said to his mother, "I shan't have a bit of pain there, you know!" And after a few unconscious hours "Mousie" knew why God had permitted his pain.

(Photo: Mr. W. T. Piper.)

"MOUSIE."

Always Rejoicing.

When, in 1849, the American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was dismissed from being a surveyor, his wife thus writes of the supposed calamity in a letter to her mother: "It has come in the way of an inevitable providence to us (whatever knavery some people may have to answer for who have been the agents in the removal), and I never receive inevitable providences with resignation merely, but with joy, as certainly, undoubtedly, the best possible events that can[95] happen for me." Surely this is the right way to regard the changes and so-called chances of this mortal life, if we believe that our Heavenly Father orders the lives of each one of us with individual care.

(1) THOMAS BROWN.
(Gordon Boys' Home.)

(2) HARRY CASTLEDINE.
(Orphan Working School.)

(3) CLARA A. LANGDON.
(Orphan Working School.)

(4) FLORENCE ANDERSON.
(National Refuges.)

(5) EDWARD M. NYE.
(Reedham Orphanage.)

(6) CHARLES E. SMITH.
(Reedham Orphanage.)

THE QUIVER GOOD CONDUCT PRIZE WINNERS, 1898.

An Interesting Group.

The Quiver Prize has long since become an annual institution in several representative orphanages, and as our object is to encourage honesty, industry, and general good conduct, it is awarded each year to those inmates who have shown greatest progress in these respects during the preceding twelve months. We publish a group of the winners for 1898, who represent respectively the Orphan Working School, the Reedham Orphanage, The Gordon Boys' Home, and the National Refuges.

THE QUIVER FUNDS.

The following is a list of contributions received from September 1st up to and including September 30th, 1898. Subscriptions received after this date will be acknowledged next month:—

For "The Quiver" Waifs' Fund: J. J. E., Govan (130th donation), 5s.; A Glasgow Mother (100th donation), 1s.; M. G., Leeds, 1s.; Oxford, 5s.

For Dr. Barnardo's Homes: An Irish Girl, 12s. 6d.; N. L. E., 10s. We are also asked to acknowledge the following donations sent direct:—J. E. D., 10s.; Inasmuch, 4s.; H. M. H., 5s.

For The British and Foreign Bible Society: A Thank-Offering, 1s.

ROLL OF HONOUR FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS.

The Special Silver Medal and Presentation Bible offered for the longest known Sunday-school service in the county of Northumberland (for which applications were invited up to September 30th) have been gained by

Mr. Thomas C. Hinton,
Fame Bank,
Gosforth, Newcastle,

who has distinguished himself by fifty years' service in the John Knox Church Sunday-school, Newcastle.

As already announced, the next territorial county for which claims are invited for the Silver Medal is

LEICESTER,

and applications, on the special form, must be received on or before October 31st, 1898. We may add that Sussex is the following county selected, the date-limit for claims in that case being November 30th, 1898. This county, in its turn, will be followed by Wiltshire, for which the date will be one month later—viz. December 31st, 1898.

The names of members recently enrolled will be found in our advertisement pages.

[96]

THE QUIVER SANTA CLAUS.

The children's festival—as the Christmas season is rightly called—is already within the horizon of preparation. A few weeks more, and our young people will be enjoying the delights of Yule-tide, not the least of which is the perennial Christmas Stocking. Most of us remember the eager—almost feverish—anticipation with which we tied up our little stocking at the head of our small bed, in the full faith that the mysterious but kindly visitant of Christmas Eve would cram into it all sorts of lovely things; and how when morning dawned, our first thought was to reach it down to our pillow and explore its wonderful recesses. But there are thousands of little children to whom these raptures are unknown. They do not appear to have been put upon Santa Claus's visiting list; and it seems hard that this venerable gentleman should pass them over. These poor and friendless little ones, to be found in every town and in many of our villages, want a kind-hearted neighbour who will mention their names and addresses to that genial but omniscient saint, and then, presto! there's joy for a forlorn little chap or maiden "on Christmas Day in the morning." We therefore earnestly invite all fathers and mothers, and uncles and aunts, and all who love to see the children glad on the Saviour's birthday, to co-operate with us in providing Christmas stockings for those forlorn youngsters, into whose life scarcely a ray of brightness ever enters. Not much is needed to give them this boon by way of the Christmas stocking. A few wholesome goodies and a simple toy will amply suffice to supply them with a fund of innocent excitement and enjoyment. A sum of one shilling will furnish a stocking and pay the postage, when combined in a large contract. We have the happiness to announce that the proprietors of The Quiver have kindly consented to head our subscription list with a sum sufficient to provide the contents of

FIVE HUNDRED CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS FOR POOR
AND FRIENDLESS CHILDREN.

This is a good start, but this number will be quite inadequate to the innumerable demands which are sure to be made upon us. We therefore earnestly ask for further contributions from all child-lovers who would sorely regret to see any tiny mite left disappointed on Christmas Day.

We shall also be glad to receive recommendations from our readers (as before in the case of our Christmas Hamper Fund) of suitable cases for the supply of stockings. The special forms for this purpose will be supplied in our Extra Christmas Number, and if filled up in accordance with the directions there given will be dealt with in the order in which they reach the Editor, as far as the funds will permit. All contributions to the Christmas Stocking Fund should be sent to the Editor of The Quiver, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C., and all amounts of one shilling and upwards will be thankfully acknowledged in our pages.

Special Presentation Plate.

A separate large-size reproduction, printed in colours, of Mr. W. Holman Hunt's great picture, "The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple," is presented with this part; and, should there be any difficulty in obtaining it, our readers are requested to communicate at once with the publishers, giving the name and address of the bookseller or other agent from whom they purchased the number.

"THE QUIVER" BIBLE CLASS.

(BASED ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCRIPTURE LESSONS.)

QUESTIONS.

1. What action of Manasseh, king of Judah, shows how terribly the people had sunk into idolatry?

2. In what way did Manasseh seek to protect his country from invasion?

3. What is remarkable in the latter part of Manasseh's life?

4. Quote a proverb which warns us of the danger of evil companions.

5. In what way does the wise man express the beauty of a holy life?

6. In whose reign do we find the king sending to a woman for advice?

7. What great discovery was made while the Temple was being repaired in the reign of Josiah?

8. What proof have we that at one time the Jews were fire-worshippers?

9. In whose reign did God carry out the judgment which He pronounced against the altar at Bethel which Jeroboam had made?

10. Of what gross act of contempt against God was Jehoiakim, king of Judah, guilty?

11. What acts of cruelty are recorded against King Jehoiakim?

12. In what way did God punish Jehoiakim for his iniquity?

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON PAGE 1147.

133. A tax of half a shekel of silver for every male of twenty years old and upward (Exod. xxx. 12-14).

134. Joash, king of Judah, in order to obtain money for the restoration of the Temple (2 Chron. xxiv. 6-9).

135. 2 Chron. xxiv. 8.

136. Isaiah is generally considered to have been the grandson of King Joash, and thus has sometimes been called the royal prophet (Isa. i. 1).

137. The altar seen by Isaiah in his vision was the altar of burnt offering, on which the fire which came down from heaven was perpetually burning (Isa. vi. 6; Lev. vi. 13; 2 Chron. vii. 1).

138. The effect of the teaching of the Gospel is to bring peace on earth (Isa. xi. 6-10).

139. Isa. xi. 9.

140. In the reign of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxx. 2; Numbers ix. 10, 11).

141. Because the Temple was not cleansed until the sixteenth day of the first month (2 Chron. xxix. 3, 16-18).

142. It was the first Passover after the separation of Israel and Judah at which any of the children of Israel were present (2 Chron. xxx. 1).

143. By Sennacherib, whose army was destroyed by God in one night (2 Kings xviii. 17 and xix. 34, 35).

144. In the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4).