of an ordinary whiskerless blond, and it seemed difficult to refer a certain air

  of distinction about him to anything in particular, unless it were his delicate

  hands and well-shapen feet.

  It was a great anomaly to the Milby mind that a canting evangelical parson, who

  would take tea with tradespeople, and make friends of vulgar women like the

  Linnets, should have so much the air of a gentleman, and be so little like the

  splayfooted Mr Stickney of Salem, to whom he approximated so closely in

  doctrine. And this want of correspondence between the physique and the creed had

  excited no less surprise in the larger town of Laxeter, where Mr Tryan had

  formerly held a curacy; for of the two other Low Church clergymen in the

  neighbourhood, one was a Welshman of globose figure and unctuous complexion, and

  the other a man of atrabiliar aspect, with lank black hair, and a redundance of

  limp cravat?in fact, the sort of thing you might expect in men who distributed

  the publications of the Religious Tract Society and introduced Dissenting hymns

  into the Church.

  Mr Tryan shook hands with Mrs Linnet, bowed with rather a preoccupied air to the

  other ladies, and seated himself in the large horse-hair easychair which had

  been drawn forward for him, while the ladies ceased from their work, and fixed

  their eyes on him, awaiting the news he had to tell them.

  "It seems," he began, in a low and silvery tone, "I need a lesson of patience;

  there has been something wrong in my thought or action about this evening

  lecture. I have been too much bent on doing good to Milby after my own plan?too

  reliant on my own wisdom."

  Mr Tryan paused. He was struggling against inward irritation.

  "The delegates are come back, then?" "Has Mr Prendergast given way?" "Has

  Dempster succeeded?"?were the eager questions of three ladies at once.

  "Yes; the town is in an uproar. As we were sitting in Mr Landor's drawing-room

  we heard a loud cheering, and presently Mr Thrupp, the clerk at the bank, who

  had been waiting at the Red Lion to hear the result, came to let us know. He

  said Dempster had been making a speech to the mob out of the window. They were

  distributing drink to the people, and hoisting placards in great letters,?'Down

  with the Tryanites!' 'Down with cant!' They had a hideous caricature of me being

  tripped-up and pitched head foremost out of the pulpit. Good old Mr Landor would

  insist on sending me round in the carriage; he thought I should not be safe from

  the mob; but I got down at the Crossways. The row was evidently preconcerted by

  Dempster before he set out. He made sure of succeeding."

  Mr Tryan's utterance had been getting rather louder and more rapid in the course

  of this speech, and he now added, in the energetic chest-voice, which, both in

  and out of the pulpit, alternated continually with his more silvery notes,?

  "But his triumph will be a short one. If he thinks he can intimidate me by

  obloquy or threats, he has mistaken the man he has to deal with. Mr Dempster and

  his colleagues will find themselves checkmated after all. Mr Prendergast has

  been false to his own conscience in this business. He knows as well as I do that

  he is throwing away the souls of the people by leaving things as they are in the

  parish. But I shall appeal to the Bishop?I am confident of his sympathy."

  "The Bishop will be coming shortly, I suppose," said Miss Pratt, "to hold a

  confirmation?"

  "Yes; but I shall write to him at once, and lay the case before him. Indeed, I

  must hurry away now, for I have many matters to attend to. You, ladies, have

  been kindly helping me with your labours, I see," continued Mr Tryan, politely,

  glancing at the canvass-covered books as he rose from his seat. Then, turning to

  Mary Linnet: "Our library is really getting on, I think. You and your sister

  have quite a heavy task of distribution now."

  Poor Rebecca felt it very hard to bear that Mr Tryan did not turn towards her

  too. If he knew how much she entered into his feelings about the lecture, and

  the interest she took in the library. Well! perhaps it was her lot to be

  overlooked? and it might be a token of mercy. Even a good man might not always

  know the heart that was most with him. But the next moment poor Mary had a pang,

  when Mr Tryan turned to Miss Eliza Pratt, and the preoccupied expression of his

  face melted into that beaming timidity with which a man almost always addresses

  a pretty woman.

  "I have to thank you, too, Miss Eliza, for seconding me so well in your visits

  to Joseph Mercer. The old man tells me how precious he finds your reading to

  him, now he is no longer able to go to church."

  Miss Eliza only answered by a blush, which made her look all the handsomer, but

  her aunt said,

  "Yes, Mr Tryan, I have ever inculcated on my dear Eliza the importance of

  spending her leisure in being useful to her fellow-creatures. Your example and

  instruction have been quite in the spirit of the system which I have always

  pursued, though we are indebted to you for a clearer view of the motives that

  should actuate us in our pursuit of good works. Not that I can accuse myself of

  having ever had a self-righteous spirit, but my humility was rather instinctive

  than based on a firm ground of doctrinal knowledge, such as you so admirably

  impart to us."

  Mrs Linnet's usual entreaty that Mr Tryan would "have something?some

  wine-and-water and a biscuit," was just here a welcome relief from the necessity

  of answering Miss Pratt's oration.

  "Not anything, my dear Mrs Linnet, thank you. You forget what a Rechabite I am.

  By the by, when I went this morning to see a poor girl in Butcher's Lane, whom I

  had heard of as being in a consumption, I found Mrs Dempster there. I had often

  met her in the street, but did not know it was Mrs Dempster. It seems she goes

  among the poor a good deal. She is really an interesting-looking woman. I was

  quite surprised, for I have heard the worst account of her habits?that she is

  almost as bad as her husband. She went out hastily as soon as I entered. But,"

  (apologetically) "I am keeping you all standing, and I must really hurry away.

  Mrs Pettifer, I have not had the pleasure of calling on you for some time; I

  shall take an early opportunity of going your way. Good evening, good evening."

  CHAPTER IV.

  Mr Tryan was right in saying that the "row" in Milby had been preconcerted by

  Dempster. The placards and the caricature were prepared before the departure of

  the delegates; and it had been settled that Mat Paine, Dempster's clerk, should

  ride out on Thursday morning to meet them at Whitlow, the last place where they

  would change horses, that he might gallop back and prepare an oration for the

  triumvirate in case of their success. Dempster had determined to dine at

  Whitlow: so that Mat Paine was in Milby again two hours before the entrance of

  the delegates, and had time to send a whisper up the back streets that there was

  promise of a "spree" in the Bridge Way, as well as to assemble two knots of

  picked men?one to feed the flame of orthodox zeal with gin-and-water, at the

  Green Man, near High Street; th
e other to solidify their church principles with

  heady beer at the Bear and Ragged Staff, in the Bridge Way.

  The Bridge Way was an irregular straggling street, where the town fringed off

  raggedly into the Whitlow road: rows of new red-brick houses, in which

  ribbon-looms were rattling behind long lines of window, alternating with old,

  half-thatched, half-tiled cottages?one of those dismal wide streets where dirt

  and misery have no long shadows thrown on them to soften their ugliness. Here,

  about half-past five o'clock, Silly Caleb, an idiot well known in Dog Lane, but

  more of a stranger in the Bridge Way, was seen slouching along with a string of

  boys hooting at his heels; presently another group, for the most part out at

  elbows, came briskly in the same direction, looking round them with an air of

  expectation; and at no long interval, Deb Traunter, in a pink flounced gown and

  floating ribbons, was observed talking with great affability to two men in

  sealskin caps and fustian, who formed her cortege. The Bridge Way began to have

  a presentiment of something in the wind. Phib Cook left her evening wash-tub and

  appeared at her door in soap-suds, a bonnet-poke, and general dampness; three

  narrow-chested ribbon-weavers, in rusty black streaked with shreds of

  many-coloured silk, sauntered out with their hands in their pockets; and Molly

  Beale, a brawny old virago, descrying wiry Dame Ricketts peeping out from her

  entry, seized the opportunity of renewing the morning's skirmish. In short, the

  Bridge Way was in that state of excitement which is understood to announce a

  "demonstration" on the part of the British public; and the afflux of remote

  townsmen increasing, there was soon so large a crowd that it was time for Bill

  Powers, a plethoric Goliath, who presided over the knot of beerdrinkers at the

  Bear and Ragged Staff, to issue forth with his companions, and, like the

  enunciator of the ancient myth, make the assemblage distinctly conscious of the

  common sentiment that had drawn them together. The expectation of the delegates'

  chaise, added to the fight between Molly Beale and Dame Ricketts, and the

  illadvised appearance of a lean bull-terrier, were a sufficient safety-valve to

  the popular excitement during the remaining quarter of an hour; at the end of

  which, the chaise was seen approaching along the Whitlow road, with oak boughs

  ornamenting the horses' heads, and, to quote the account of this interesting

  scene which was sent to the Rotherby Guardian, "loud cheers immediately

  testified to the sympathy of the honest fellows collected there, with the

  public-spirited exertions of their fellow-townsmen." Bill Powers, whose

  bloodshot eyes, bent hat, and protuberant altitude, marked him out as the

  natural leader of the assemblage, undertook to interpret the common sentiment by

  stopping the chaise, advancing to the door with raised hat, and begging to know

  of Mr Dempster, whether the Rector had forbidden the "canting lecture."

  "Yes, yes," said Mr Dempster. "Keep up a jolly good hurray."

  No public duty could have been more easy and agreeable to Mr Powers and his

  associates, and the chorus swelled all the way to the High Street, where, by a

  mysterious coincidence often observable in these spontaneous "demonstrations,"

  large placards on long poles were observed to shoot upwards from among the

  crowd, principally in the direction of Tucker's Lane, where the Green Man was

  situated. One bore, "Down with the Tryanites!" another, "No Cant!" another,

  "Long live our venerable Curate!" and one in still larger letters, "Sound Church

  Principles and no Hypocrisy!" But a still more remarkable impromptu was a huge

  caricature of Mr Tryan in gown and band, with an enormous aur?ole of yellow hair

  and upturned eyes, standing on the pulpit stairs and trying to pull down old Mr

  Crewe. Groans, yells, and hisses?hisses, yells, and groans?only stemmed by the

  appearance of another caricature representing Mr Tryan being pitched

  head-foremost from the pulpit stairs by a hand which the artist, either from

  subtilty of intention or want of space, had left unindicated. In the midst of

  the tremendous cheering that saluted this piece of symbolical art, the chaise

  had reached the door of the Red Lion, and loud cries of "Dempster for ever!"

  with a feebler cheer now and then for Tomlinson and Budd, were presently

  responded to by the appearance of the public-spirited attorney at the large

  upper window, where also were visible a little in the background the small sleek

  head of Mr Budd, and the blinking countenance of Mr Tomlinson.

  Mr Dempster held his hat in his hand, and poked his head forward with a butting

  motion by way of bow. A storm of cheers subsided at last into dropping sounds of

  "Silence!" "Hear him!" "Go it, Dempster!" and the lawyer's rasping voice became

  distinctly audible.

  "Fellow Townsmen! It gives us the sincerest pleasure?I speak for my respected

  colleagues as well as myself?to witness these strong proofs of your attachment

  to the principles of our excellent Church, and your zeal for the honour of our

  venerable pastor. But it is no more than I expected of you. I know you well.

  I've known you for the last twenty years to be as honest and respectable a set

  of rate-payers as any in this county. Your hearts are sound to the core! No man

  had better try to thrust his cant and hypocrisy down your throats. You're used

  to wash them with liquor of a better flavour. This is the proudest moment in my

  own life, and I think I may say in that of my colleagues, in which I have to

  tell you that our exertions in the cause of sound religion and manly morality

  have been crowned with success. Yes, my fellow Townsmen! I have the

  gratification of announcing to you thus formally what you have already learned

  indirectly. The pulpit from which our venerable pastor has fed us with sound

  doctrine for half a century is not to be invaded by a fanatical, sectarian,

  double-faced, Jesuitical interloper! We are not to have our young people

  demoralised and corrupted by the temptations to vice, notoriously connected with

  Sunday evening lectures! We are not to have a preacher obtruding himself upon

  us, who decries good works, and sneaks into our homes perverting the faith of

  our wives and daughters! We are not to be poisoned with doctrines which damp

  every innocent enjoyment, and pick a poor man's pocket of the six-pence with

  which he might buy himself a cheerful glass after a hard day's work, under

  pretence of paying for bibles to send to the Chicktaws!

  "But I'm not going to waste your valuable time with unnecessary words. I am a

  man of deeds" ("Ay, damn you, that you are, and you charge well for 'em too,"

  said a voice from the crowd, probably that of a gentleman who was immediately

  afterwards observed with his hat crushed over his head.) "I shall always be at

  the service of my fellow-townsmen, and whoever dares to hector over you, or

  interfere with your innocent pleasures, shall have an account to settle with

  Robert Dempster.

  "Now, my boys! you can't do better than disperse and carry the good news to all

  your fellow-townsmen, whose hearts are as sound as your ow
n. Let some of you go

  one way and some another, that every man, woman, and child in Milby may know

  what you know yourselves. But before we part, let us have three cheers for True

  Religion, and down with Cant!"

  When the last cheer was dying, Mr Dempster closed the window, and the

  judiciously instructed placards and caricatures moved off in divers directions,

  followed by larger or smaller divisions of the crowd. The greatest attraction

  apparently lay in the direction of Dog Lane, the outlet towards Paddiford

  Common, whither the caricatures were moving; and you foresee, of course, that

  those works of symbolical art were consumed with a liberal expenditure of dry

  gorse-bushes and vague shouting.

  After these great public exertions, it was natural that Mr Dempster and his

  colleagues should feel more in need than usual of a little social relaxation;

  and a party of their friends was already beginning to assemble in the large

  parlour of the Red Lion, convened partly by their own curiosity, and partly by

  the invaluable Mat Paine. The most capacious punch-bowl was put in requisition;

  and that born gentleman, Mr Lowme, seated opposite Mr Dempster as "Vice,"

  undertook to brew the punch, defying the criticisms of the envious men out of

  office, who, with the readiness of irresponsibility, ignorantly suggested more

  lemons. The social festivities were continued till long past midnight, when

  several friends of sound religion were conveyed home with some difficulty, one

  of them showing a dogged determination to seat himself in the gutter.

  Mr Dempster had done as much justice to the punch as any of the party; and his

  friend Boots, though aware that the lawyer could "carry his liquor like Old

  Nick," with whose social demeanour Boots seemed to be particularly well

  acquainted, nevertheless thought it might be as well to see so good a customer

  in safety to his own door, and walked quietly behind his elbow out of the

  inn-yard. Dempster, however, soon became aware of him, stopped short, and,

  turning slowly round upon him, recognised the well-known drab waistcoat sleeves,

  conspicuous enough in the starlight.

  "You twopenny scoundrel! What do you mean by dogging a professional man's

  footsteps in this way? I'll break every bone in your skin if you attempt to

  track me, like a beastly cur sniffing at one's pocket. Do you think a gentleman

  will make his way home any the better for having the scent of your

  blacking-bottle thrust up his nostrils?"

  Boots slunk back, in more amusement than illhumour, thinking the lawyer's "rum

  talk" was doubtless part and parcel of his professional ability; and Mr Dempster

  pursued his slow way alone.

  His house lay in Orchard Street, which opened on the prettiest outskirt of the

  town?the church, the parsonage, and a long stretch of green fields. It was an

  old-fashioned house, with an overhanging upper story; outside, it had a face of

  rough stucco, and casement windows with green frames and shutters; inside, it

  was full of long passages, and rooms with low ceilings. There was a large heavy

  knocker on the green door, and though Mr Dempster carried a latch-key, he

  sometimes chose to use the knocker. He chose to do so now. The thunder resounded

  through Orchard Street, and, after a single minute, there was a second clap

  louder than the first. Another minute, and still the door was not opened;

  whereupon Mr Dempster, muttering, took out his latch-key, and, with less

  difficulty than might have been expected, thrust it into the door. When he

  opened the door the passage was dark.

  "Janet!" in the loudest rasping tone, was the next sound that rang through the

  house.

  "Janet!" again?before a slow step was heard on the stairs, and a distant light

  began to flicker on the wall of the passage.

  "Curse you! you creeping idiot! Come faster, can't you?"

  Yet another few seconds, and the figure of a tall woman, holding aslant a