Times Out of Joint
Alte der Meere,
Komm und hore;
Meine Frau, die Ilsebill,
Will nicht als ich will!
Life at Compton Poynsett was different from what it had been when
the two youngest sons had been at home, and Julius and Rosamond in
the house. The family circle had grown much more stiff and quiet,
and the chief difference caused by Mrs. Poynsett's presence was that
Raymond was deprived of his refuge in her room. Cecil had taken a
line of polite contempt. There was always a certain languid amount
of indifferent conversation, 'from the teeth outward,' as Rosamond
said. Every home engagement was submitted to the elder lady with
elaborate scrupulousness, almost like irony. Visitors in the house
or invitations out of it, were welcome breaks, and the whirl of
society which vaguely alarmed Joanna Bowater was a relief to the
inhabitants of the Hall.
Anne's companionship was not lively for her mother-in-law, but she
was brightening in the near prospect of Miles's return, and they had
established habits that carried them well through the evening. Anne
covered screens and made scrap-books, and did other work for the
bazaar; and Mrs. Poynsett cut out pictures, made suggestions, and
had associations of her own with the combinations of which Anne had
little notion. Or she dictated letters which Anne wrote, and
through all these was a kindly, peaceful spirit, most unlike the
dreary alienation in which Cecil persevered.
To Cecil this seemed the anxious desire for her lawful rights. She
had been used to spend the greater part of the evening at the piano,
but her awakened eyes perceived that this was a cover to Raymond's
conversations at his mother's sofa; so she sat tying knots in stiff
thread at her macrame lace pillow, making the bazaar a plea for
nothing but work. Raymond used to arm himself with the newspapers
as the safest point d'appui, and the talk was happiest when it
_only_ languished, for it could do much worse.
"Shall you be at Sirenwood to-morrow, Cecil?" asked Mrs. Poynsett,
as she was wheeled to her station by the fire after dinner. "Will
you kindly take charge of a little parcel for me? One of the Miss
Strangeways asked me to look for some old franks, so Anne and I have
been turning out my drawers."
"Are they for sale?" asked Raymond.
"Yes," said Cecil. "Bee Strangeways is collecting; she will pay for
all that are new to her, and sell any duplicates."
"Has she many?" asked Mrs. Poynsett, glad of this safe subject.
"Quantities; and very valuable ones. Her grandfather knew
everybody, and was in the Ministry."
"Was he?" said Raymond, surprised.
"Lord Lorimer?" said Mrs. Poynsett. "Not when I knew them. He was
an old-fashioned Whig, with some peculiar crotchets, and never could
work with any Cabinet."
"Beatrice told me he was," said Cecil, stiffly.
"I rather think he was Master of the Buckhounds for a little while
in the Grey Ministry," said Mrs. Poynsett, "but he gave it up
because he would not vote with ministers on the poor laws."
"I knew I was not mistaken in saying he was in the Ministry," said
Cecil.
"The Master of the Buckhounds is not in the Cabinet, Cecil," said
her husband.
"I never said he was. I said he was in office," returned the
infallible lady.
Mrs. Poynsett thought it well to interrupt by handing in an envelope
franked by Sir Robert Peel; but Cecil at once declared that the
writing was different from that which Bee already owned.
"Perhaps it is not the same Sir Robert," said Mrs. Poynsett.
"She got it from the Queen, and they are all authenticated. The
Queen newspaper, of course" (rather petulantly).
"Indisputable," said Raymond; "but this frank contained a letter
from the second Sir Robert to my father."
Mrs. Poynsett made a sign of acquiescence, and Cecil pouted in her
dignified way, though Mrs. Poynsett tried to improve matters by
saying, "Then it appears that Miss Strangeways will have a series of
Peel autographs, all in fact but the first generation."
Common sense showed she was right, but Cecil still felt
discontented, for she knew she had been resisted and confuted, and
she believed it was all Mrs. Poynsett's doing instead of Raymond's.
And she became as mute as Anne for the next half-hour, nor did
either Raymond or his mother venture on starting any fresh topic,
lest there might be fresh jarring.
Only Anne presently came up to Mrs. Poynsett and tenderly purred
with her over some little preparation for Miles.
Certainly Anne was the most improved in looks of all the three
brides, who had arrived just a year ago. The thin, scraggy Scotch
girl, with the flabby, washed-out look alternating with angular
rigidity was gone, but the softening and opening of her expression,
the light that had come into her eyes, and had made them a lovely
blue instead of pale gray; the rose-tint on her cheeks, the delicate
rounded contour of her face, the improved carriage of her really
fine figure, the traces of style in the braiding of her profuse
flaxen hair, and the taste that was beginning to conquer in the
dress, were all due to the thought that the Salamanca might soon be
in harbour. She sat among them still as a creature whose heart and
spirit were not with them.
That some change must come was felt as inevitable by each woman, and
it was Mrs. Poynsett who began, one forenoon when her son had
brought a lease for her to sign. "Raymond," said she, "you know
Church-house is to be vacant at Michaelmas. I wish you would look
at it, and see what repairs it wants, and if the drawing-room
windows could be made to open on the lawn."
"Are you hoping to tempt Miles to settle there?"
"No, I fear there is no hope of that; but I do not think an old
broken-backed invalid ought to engross this great house."
"Mother, I cannot hear you say so! This is your own house!"
"So is the other," she said, trying to smile, "and much fitter for
my needs, with Susan and Jenkins to look after me."
"There is no fit place for you but this. You said that once."
"Under very different circumstances. All the younger boys were
still under my wing, and needed the home, and I was strong and
vigorous. It would not have been acting right by them to have given
up the place; but now they are all out in the world, and I am laid
by, my stay here only interferes with what can be much better
managed without me or my old servants."
"I do not see that. If any one moves, it should be ourselves."
"You are wanted on the spot continually. If Sirenwood were in the
market, that might not be so much amiss."
"I do not think that likely. They will delay the sale in the hope
of Eleonora's marrying a rich man; besides, Mr. Charnock has set his
mind upon Swanslea. I hope _this_ is from nothing Cecil has said or
done!"
"Cecil wishes to part then? She has said nothing to me, but I see
she has to you. Don't be annoyed, Raymond; it is in the nature of
things."
"I believe it is all Lady Tyrrell's doing. The mischief such a
woman can do in the neighbourhood!"
"Perhaps it is only what any friend of Cecil would advise."
"It is the very reverse of what I intended," said Raymond, shading
his face.
"My dear Raymond, I know what you meant, and what you wish; but I am
also certain it is for no one's happiness to go on in this way."
He groaned.
"And the wife's right comes first."
"Not to this house."
"But to this man. Indeed I see more hope of your happiness now than
I did last year."
"What, because she has delivered herself over bound hand and foot to
Camilla Vivian?"
"No, because she is altered. Last year she was merely vexed at my
position in the house. Now she is vexed at my position with you."
"Very unjustly."
"Hardly so. I should not have liked your father to be so much
devoted to his mother. Remember, jealousy is a smoke that cannot
exist without some warmth."
"If she had any proper feeling for me, she would show it by her
treatment of you."
"That would be asking too much when she thinks I engross you."
"Mother, while you show such marvellous candour and generosity, and
she--"
"Hush! Raymond, leave it unsaid! We cannot expect her to see more
than her own side of the question. She has been put into an
avowedly trying position, and does not deserve hard judgment for not
being happy in it. All that remains is to relieve her. Whether by
my moving or yours is the question. I prefer the Church-house
plan."
"Either way is shame and misery to me," broke out Raymond in a
choked voice.
"Nonsense," said his mother, trying to be cheerful. "You made an
impracticable experiment, that's all. Give Cecil free scope, let
her feel that she has her due, and all will come right."
"Nothing can be done till after the Wil'sbro' business," said
Raymond, glad of the reprieve. He could not bear the prospect of
banishment for his mother or himself from the home to which both
were rooted; and the sentence of detachment from her was especially
painful when she seemed his only consolation for his wife's
perverseness. Yet he was aware that he had been guilty of the
original error, and was bound to give such compensation to his wife
as was offered by his mother's voluntary sacrifice. He was slow to
broach the subject, but only the next morning came a question about
an invitation to a dull house.
"But," said Cecil, "it is better than home." She spoke on purpose.
"I am sorry to hear you say so."
"I can't call it home where I am but a guest."
"Well, Cecil, my mother offers to leave the home of her life and
retire into Church-house."
Cecil felt as if the screw she had been long working had come off in
her hands. She frowned, she gazed, collecting her senses, while
Raymond added, "It is to my intense grief and mortification, but I
suppose you are gratified."
"Uh, it would never do!" she exclaimed, to his surprise and
pleasure.
"Quite right," he returned. "Just what I felt. Nothing can make me
so glad as to see that you think the idea as socking as I do."
"Our going to Swanslea would be much better--far more natural, and
no one could object. We could refurnish, and make it perfect;
whereas nothing can be done to this place, so inconveniently built
and buried in trees. I should feel much freer in a place of my
own."
"So that is what you meant when I thought you were thinking of my
mother?"
"I am obliged to take thought for myself when you take heed to no
one but her," said Cecil; and as the carriage was at that moment
announced, she left him. Which was the most sick at heart it would
be hard to say, the wife with the sense that she was postponed in
everything to the mother, the husband at the alienation that had
never before been so fully expressed. Cecil's errand was a council
about the bazaar; and driving round by Sirenwood, Lady Tyrrell
became her companion in the carriage. The quick eyes soon perceived
that something had taken place, and confidence was soon drawn forth.
"The ice is broken; and by whom do you think?"
"By la belle mere? Skilful strategy to know when the position is
not tenable."
"She wants to retreat to Church-house."
"Don't consent to that."
"I said I should prefer Swanslea for ourselves."
"Hold to that, whatever you do. If she moves to the village you
will have all the odium and none of the advantages. There will be
the same daily haunt; and as to your freedom of action, there are no
spies like the abdicated and their dependents. A very clever plan,
but don't be led away by it."
"No," said Cecil, resolutely; but after a moment: "It would be
inconvenient to Raymond to live so far away from the property."
"Swanslea will be property too, and a ride over on business is not
like strolling in constantly."
"I know I shall never feel like my own mistress in a house of hers."
"Still less with her close by, with the Rectory family running in
and out to exchange remarks. No, no, hold fast to insisting that
she must not leave the ancestral halls. That you can do dutifully
and gracefully."
Cecil knew she had been betrayed into the contrary; but they were by
this time in the High Street, bowing to others of the committee on
their way to the town-hall, a structure of parti-coloured brick in
harlequin patterns, with a peaked roof, all over little sham domes,
which went far to justify its title of the Rat-house, since nothing
larger could well use them. The facade was thus somewhat imposing;
of the rear the less said the better; and as to the interior, it was
at present one expanse of dust, impeded by scaffold-poles, and all
the windows had large blotches of paint upon them.
It required a lively imagination to devise situations for the
stalls; but Mrs. Duncombe valiantly tripped about, instructing her
attendant carpenter with little assistance except from the well-
experienced Miss Strangeways. The other ladies had enough to do in
keeping their plumage unsoiled. Lady Tyrrell kept on a little
peninsula of encaustic tile, Cecil hopped across bird-like and
unsoiled, Miss Slater held her carmelite high and dry, but poor Miss
Fuller's pale blue and drab, trailing at every step, became
constantly more blended!
The dust induced thirst. Lady Tyrrell lamented that the Wil'sbro'
confectioner was so far off and his ices doubtful, and Miss Slater
suggested that she had been making a temperance effort by setting up
an excellent widow in the lane that opened opposite to them in a
shop with raspberry vinegar, ginger-beer, and the like mild
compounds, and Mrs. Duncombe caught at the opportunity of exhibiting
the sparkling water of the well which supplied this same lane. The
widow lived in one of the tenements which Pettitt had renovated
under her guidance, and on a loan advanced by Cecil, and she was
proud of her work.
"Clio Tallboys would view this as a triumph," said Mrs. Duncombe,
as, standing on the steps of the town-hall, she surveyed the four
tenements at the corner of the alley. "Not a man would stir in the
business except Pettitt, who left it all to me."
"Taking example by the Professor," said Lady Tyrrell.
"It is strange," said Miss Slater, "how much illness there has been
ever since the people went into those houses. They are in my
district, you know."
"You should make them open their windows," said Mrs. Duncombe.
"They lay it on the draughts."
"And stuff up my ventilators. That is always the way they begin."
The excellent widow herself had a bad finger, which was a great
impediment in administering the cooling beverages, but these were so
excellent as to suggest the furnishing of a stall therewith for the
thirsty, as something sure to be popular and at small expense.
Therewith the committee broke up, all having been present but Miss
Moy, whose absence was not regretted, though apologized for by Mrs.
Duncombe. "I could not get her away from the stables," she said.
"She and Bob would contemplate Dark Hag day and night, I believe."
"I wouldn't allow it," said Lady Tyrrell.
Mrs. Duncombe shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "That's Mr. Moy's
look-out," she said.
"You don't choose to interfere with her emancipation," said Lady
Tyrrell.
"Clio would tell you she could take care of herself at the stables
as well as anywhere else."
"Query?" said Lady Tyrrell. "Don't get into a scrape, Bessie. Does
your Captain report on the flirtation with young Simmonds?"
"Who is he?" asked Cecil
"The trainer's son," said Bessie. "It is only a bit of imitation of
Aurora Floyd."
"You know she's an heiress," said Lady Tyrrell. "You had better
take care how you put such a temptation in his way."
"I don't suppose the Moys are anybody," said Cecil.
"Not in your sense, my dear," said Lady Tyrrell, laughing; "but from
another level there's a wide gap between the heiress of Proudfoot
Lawn and the heir of the training stables."
"Cecil looks simply disgusted," said Bessie. "She can't bear the
Moys betwixt the wind and her nobility."
"They are the great drawback to Swansea, I confess," said Cecil.
"Oh! are you thinking of Swanslea?" cried Mrs Duncombe.
"Yes," said Lady Tyrrell, "she is one to be congratulated on
emancipation."
"Well can I do so," said Mrs. Duncombe. "Don't I know what mothers-
in-law are? Mine is the most wonderful old Goody, with exactly the
notions of your meek Mrs. Miles."
"Incompatibility decidedly," said Lady Tyrrell.
"Only she was the Spartan mother combined with it," continued Mrs.
Duncombe. "When Bob was a little urchin, he once, in anticipation
of his future tastes, committed the enormity of riding on a stick on
Sunday; so she locked him up till he had learnt six verses of one of
Watts's hymns about going to church being like a little heaven
below, isn't it?"
"Increasing his longing that way," said Lady Tyrrell.
"She doesn't even light the drawing-room fire on Sunday, for fear
people should not sit in their rooms and meditate," continued Mrs.
Duncombe. "Bob manages to be fond of her through all; but she
regularly hates me."
"Not very wonderful," said Lady Tyrrell, laughing. "I suppose there
is a charming reciprocity of feeling."
"I think I can afford to pity her," said Mrs. Duncombe, lightly.
"Just fancy what I must have been to her! You know I was brought up
in a convent at Paris. The very bosom of the scarlet woman."
"But," interrupted Cecil, "you were never a Roman Catholic, Bessie!"
"Oh dear, no; the Protestant boarders were let entirely alone.
There were only two of us, and we lay in bed while the others went
to mass, and played while they went to confession, that was all. I
was an orphan; never remember my mother, and my father died abroad.
Luckily for me, Bob was done for by my first ball. Very odd he
should have liked a little red-haired thing like me; but every one
is ticketed, I believe. My uncle was glad enough to get rid of me,
and poor old Mrs. Duncombe was unsuspecting till we went home--and
then!"
"And then?"
"Cecil may have some faint idea."
"Of what you underwent?"
"She wanted to begin on me as if I were a wild savage heathen, you
know! I believe she nearly had a fit when I declined a prayer-
meeting, and as to my walking out with Bob on Sunday evening!"
"Did she make you learn Watts's hymns?"
"No! but she did what was much worse to poor Bob. She told him she
had spent the time in prayer and humiliation, and the poor fellow
very nearly cried."
"Ah, those mothers have such an advantage over their sons," said
Lady Tyrrell.
"I determined I would never go near her again after that," said Mrs.
Duncombe. "Bob goes; he is really fond of her; but I knew we should
keep the peace better apart. I let her have the children now and
then, when it is convenient, and oddly enough they like it; but I
shall soon have to stop that, for I won't have them think me a
reprobate; and she has thought me ten times worse ever since I found
out that I had brains and could use them."
"Quite true," said Camilla; "there's no peacemaker like absence."
"The only pity is that Swanslea is no further off," returned Bessie.
And so it was that Cecil, backed by her two counsellors, held her
purpose, and Raymond sadly spoke of the plan of separation to
Julius. Both thought Mrs. Poynsett's own plan the best, though they
could not bear the idea of her leaving her own house. Raymond was
much displeased.
"At least," he said, "there is a reprieve till this frantic
fortnight is over. I envy your exemption from the turmoil."
"I wish you would exempt yourself from the races," said Julius.
"The mischief they have done in these villages is incalculable! The
very men-servants are solicited to put into sweepstakes, whenever
they go into Wil'sbro'; and only this morning Mrs. Hornblower has
been to me about her son."
"I thought he was the great feather in Herbert Bowater's cap."
"Showing the direction of the wind only too well. Since Herbert has
been infected with the general insanity, poor Harry Hornblower has
lapsed into his old ways, and is always hanging about the 'Three
Pigeons' with some of the swarm of locusts who have come down
already to brawl round the training stables. This has come to
Truelove's ears, and he has notice of dismissal. At the mother's
desire I spoke to Truelove, but he told me that at last year's races
the lad had gambled at a great rate, and had only been saved from
dishonesty by detection in time. He was so penitent that Truelove
gave him another trial, on condition that he kept out of temptation;
but now he has gone back to it, Mr. Truelove thinks it the only way
of saving him from some fresh act of dishonesty. 'It is all up with
them,' he says, 'when once they take that turn.'"
"You need not speak as if I were accountable for all the
blackguardism."
"Every man is accountable who lends his name and position to bolster
up a field of vice."
"Come, come, Julius. Remember what men have been on the turf."
"If those men had withheld their support, fashion would not have led
so many to their ruin."
"Hundreds are present without damage. It is a hearty out-of-doors
country amusement, and one of the few general holidays that bring
all ranks together."
"You speak of racing as it has been or might be in some golden age,"
said Julius. "Of course there is no harm in trying one horse's
speed against another; but look at the facts and say whether it is
right to support an amusement that becomes such an occasion of
evil."
"Because a set of rascals choose to bring their villainies there you
would have the sport of the whole neighbourhood given up. 'No cakes
and ale' with a vengeance!"
"The cakes and ale that make a brother offend ought to be given up."
"That sentences all public amusements."
"Not necessarily. The question is of degree. Other amusements may
have evil incidentally connected with them, and may lead to
temptation, but it is not their chief excitement. The play or the
opera is the prime interest, and often a refined and elevated one,
but at races the whole excitement depends upon the horses, and is so
fictitious that it needs to be enhanced by this betting system. No
better faculty is called into play. Some few men may understand the
merits of the horse; many more, and most of the ladies, simply like
the meeting in numbers; but there is no higher faculty called out,
and in many cases the whole attraction is the gambling, and the
fouler wickedness in the background."
"Which would be ten thousand times worse if all gentlemen stood
aloof."
"What good do these gentlemen do beyond keeping the contest
honourable and the betting in which they are concerned? Do not they
make themselves decoys to the young men on the border-land who would
stay away if the turf were left to the mere vulgar? Why should they
not leave it to drop like bull-baiting or cock-fighting?"
"Well done, Julius!" said Raymond. "You will head a clerical
crusade against the turf, but I do not think it just to compare it
with those ferocious sports which were demoralizing in themselves;
while this is to large numbers simply a harmless holiday and excuse
for an outing, not to speak of the benefit to the breed of horses."
"I do not say that all competitions of speed are necessarily wrong,
but I do say that the present way of managing races makes them so
mischievous that no one ought to encourage them."
"I wonder what Backsworth and Wil'sbro' would say to you! It is
their great harvest. Lodgings for those three days pay a quarter's
rent; and where so many interests are concerned, a custom cannot
lightly be dropped."
"Well," said Raymond with a sigh, "it is not pleasure that takes me.
I shall look on with impartial eyes, if that is what you wish."
Poor Raymond! it was plain that he had little liking for anything
that autumn. He rode over to Swanslea with Cecil, and when he said
it was six miles off, she called it four; what he termed bare,
marshy, and dreary, was in her eyes open and free; his swamp was her
lake; and she ran about discovering charms and capabilities where he
saw nothing but damp and dry rot, and, above all, banishment.
Would she have her will? Clio would have thought her lecture had
taken effect, and mayhap, it added something to the general temper
of self-assertion, but in fact Cecil had little time to think, so
thickly did gaieties and preparations crowd upon her. It was the
full glory and importance of the Member's wife, her favourite ideal,
but all the time her satisfaction was marred by secret heartache as
she saw how wearily and formally her husband dragged through
whatever fell to his lot, saw how jaded and depressed he looked, and
heard him laugh his company laugh without any heart in it. She
thought it all his mother's fault, and meant to make up for
everything when she had him to herself.
Julius had his troubles. When Rosamond found that races were what
she called his pet aversion, she resisted with all her might. Her
home associations were all on fire again. She would not condemn the
pleasures she had shared with her parents, by abstinence from them,
any more than she would deviate from Lady Rathforlane's nursery
management to please Mrs. Poynsett and Susan. A bonnet, which
Julius trusted never to see in church, was purchased in the face of
his remark that every woman who carried her gay attire to the stand
made herself an additional feather on the hook of evil. At first
she laughed, and then grew tearfully passionate in protests that
nothing should induce her to let her brothers see what their own
father did turned into a crime; and if they went without her to take
care of them, and fell into mischief, whose fault would that be?
It was vain to hint that Tom was gone back to school, and Terry
cared more for the Olympic dust than that of Backsworth. She had
persuaded herself that his absence would be high treason to her
father, whom she respected far more at a distance than when she had
been struggling with his ramshackle, easy-going ways. Even now, she
was remonstrating with him about poor Terry's present misery. His
last half year had been spent under the head-master, who had
cultivated his historical and poetical intelligence, whereas Mr.
Driver was nothing but an able crammer; and the moment the lad
became interested and diverged from routine, he was choked off
because such things would not 'tell.' If the 'coach' had any
enthusiasm it was for mathematics, and thitherwards Terry's brain
was undeveloped. With misplaced ingenuity, he argued that sums came
right by chance and that Euclid was best learnt by heart, for 'the
pictures' simply confused him; and when Julius, amazed at finding so
clever a boy in the novel position of dunce, tried to find out what
he did know of arithmetic, his ignorance and inappreciation were so
unfathomable that Julius doubted whether the power or the will was
at fault. At any rate he was wretched in the present, and dismal as
to the future, and looked on his brother-in-law as in league with
the oppressors for trying to rouse his sense of duty.
Remonstrance seemed blunted and ineffective everywhere. When
Herbert Bowater tried to reclaim Harry Hornblower into giving up his
notorious comrades, he received the dogged reply, "Why should not a
chap take his pleasure as well as you?" With the authority at once
of clergyman and squire's son, he said, "Harry, you forget yourself.
I am not going to discuss my occupations with you."
"You know better," rudely interrupted the lad. "Racketing about all
over the country, and coming home late at night. You'd best not
speak of other folks!"
As a matter of fact, Herbert had never been later than was required
by a walk home from a dinner, or a very moderate cricket supper; and
his conscience was clear as to the quality of his amusements; but
instead of, as hitherto, speaking as youth to youth, he used the
language of the minister to the insulting parishioner. "I am sorry
I have disturbed Mrs. Hornblower, but the case is not parallel.
Innocent amusement is one thing--it is quite another to run into
haunts that have _already_ proved dangerous to your principles."
Harry Hornblower laughed. "It's no go coming the parson over me,
Mr. Bowater! It's well known what black coats are, and how they
never cry out so loud upon other folks as when they've had a jolly
lark among themselves. No concealment now, we're up to a thing or
two, and parsons, and capitalists, and squires will have to look
sharp."
This oration, smacking of 'The Three Pigeons,' was delivered so loud
as to bring the mother on the scene. "O, Harry, Harry, you aren't
never speaking like that to Mr. Bowater!"
"When folks jaw me about what's nothing to them I always give them
as good as they bring. That's my principle," said Harry, flinging
out of the house, while the curate tried to console the weeping
mother, and soon after betook himself to his Rector with no mild
comments on the lad's insolence.
"Another warning how needful it is for us to avoid all occasion for
misconstruction," said Julius.
"We do, all of us," said Herbert. "Even that wretched decoction,
Fuller, and that mere dictionary, Driver, never gave cause for
imputations like these. What has the fellow got hold of?"
"Stories of the last century 'two-bottle men,'" said Julius,
"trumped up by unionists now against us in these days. The truth is
that the world triumphs and boasts whenever it catches the ministry
on its own ground. Its ideal is as exacting as the saintly one."
"I say Rector," exclaimed the curate, after due pause, "you'll be at
Evensong on Saturday? The ladies at Sirenwood want me to go to
Backsworth with them to hear the band."
"Cannot young Strangeways take care of his sisters?"
"I would not ask it, sir, but they have set their heart on seeing
Rood House, and want me to go with them because of knowing Dr.
Easterby. Then I'm to dine with them, and that's the very last of
it for me. There's no more croquet after this week."
"I am thankful to hear it," said Julius, suppressing his distaste
that the man he most reverenced, and the place which was his haven
of rest, should be a mere lion for Bee and Conny, a slight pastime
before the regimental band!