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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hetty Wesley, by Sir Arthur Thomas
+Quiller-Couch
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Hetty Wesley
+
+
+Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 17, 2005  [eBook #16890]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY WESLEY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Lionel Sear
+
+
+
+HETTY WESLEY.
+
+by
+
+ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO ANDREW LANG.  A GOOD CHAMPION OF HETTY.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+BOOK I.
+
+     PROLOGUE.
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+
+     CHAPTER VII.
+
+     CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+     PROLOGUE.
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+
+     CHAPTER VII.
+
+     CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     CHAPTER IX.
+
+     CHAPTER X.
+
+     CHAPTER XI.
+
+     CHAPTER XII.
+
+     CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     CHAPTER XV.
+
+     CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+
+     CHAPTER III.
+
+     CHAPTER IV.
+
+     CHAPTER V.
+
+     CHAPTER VI.
+
+     CHAPTER VII.
+
+     CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+     CHAPTER I.
+
+     CHAPTER II.
+
+     EPILOGUE.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+
+     "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world
+      and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for
+      his soul?"
+
+At Surat, by a window of his private office in the East India
+Company's factory, a middle-aged man stared out upon the broad river
+and the wharves below.  Business in the factory had ceased for the
+day: clerks and porters had gone about their own affairs, and had
+left the great building strangely cool and empty and silent.
+The wharves, too, were deserted--all but one, where a Hindu sat in
+the shade of a pile of luggage, and the top of a boat's mast wavered
+like the index of a balance above the edge of the landing-stairs.
+
+The luggage belonged to the middle-aged man at the window: the boat
+was to carry him down the river to the _Albemarle_, East Indiaman,
+anchored in the roads with her Surat cargo aboard.  She would sail
+that night for Bombay and thence away for England.
+
+He was ready; dressed for his journey in a loose white suit, which,
+though designed for the East, was almost aggressively British.
+A Cheapside tailor had cut it, and, had it been black or gray or
+snuff-coloured instead of white, its wearer might have passed all the
+way from the Docks to Temple Bar for a solid merchant on 'Change--a
+self-respecting man, too, careless of dress for appearance' sake, but
+careful of it for his own, and as part of a habit of neatness.
+He wore no wig (though the date was 1723), but his own gray hair,
+brushed smoothly back from a sufficiently handsome forehead and tied
+behind with a fresh black ribbon.  In his right hand he held a straw
+hat, broad-brimmed like a Quaker's, and a white umbrella with a green
+lining.  His left fingered his clean-shaven chin as he gazed on the
+river.
+
+The ceremonies of leave-taking were done with and dismissed; so far
+as he could, he had avoided them.  He had ever been a hard man and
+knew well enough that the clerks disliked him.  He hated humbug.
+He had come to India, almost forty years ago, not to make friends,
+but to make a fortune.  And now the fortune was made, and the room
+behind him stood ready, spick and span, for the Scotsman who would
+take his chair to-morrow.  Drawers had been emptied and dusted, loose
+papers and memoranda sorted and either burnt or arranged and
+docketed, ledgers entered up to the last item in his firm
+handwriting, and finally closed.  The history of his manhood lay shut
+between their covers, written in figures terser than a Roman classic:
+his grand _coup_ in Nunsasee goods, Abdul Guffere's debt commuted for
+500,000 rupees, the salvage of the _Ramillies_ wreck, his commercial
+duel with Viltul Parrak . . . And the record had no loose ends.
+He owed no man a farthing.
+
+The door behind him opened softly and a small gray-headed man peered
+into the room.
+
+"Mr. Annesley, if I might take the liberty--"
+
+"Ah, MacNab?"  Samuel Annesley swung round promptly.
+
+"I trust, sir, I do not intrude?"
+
+"'Intrude,' man?  Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, sir," answered the little man vaguely, with a dubious
+glance at Mr. Annesley's eyes.  "Only I thought perhaps--at such a
+moment--old scenes, old associations--and you leaving us for ever,
+sir!"
+
+"Tut, nonsense!  You have something to say to me.  Anything
+forgotten?"
+
+"Nothing in the way of business, sir.  But it occurred to me--"
+Mr. MacNab lowered his voice, "--Your good lady, up at the
+burial-ground.  You will excuse me--at such a time: but it may be
+years before I am spared to return home, and if I can do anything in
+the way of looking after the grave, I shall be proud.  Oh no--" he
+went on hurriedly with a flushed face: "for _love_, sir; for love, of
+course: or, as I should rather say, for old sake's sake, if that's
+not too bold.  It would be a privilege, Mr. Annesley."
+
+Samuel Annesley stood considering his late confidential clerk with
+bent brows.  "I am much obliged to you, MacNab; but in this matter
+you must do as you please.  You are right in supposing that I was
+sincerely attached to my wife--"
+
+"Indeed yes, sir."
+
+"But I have none of the sentiment you give me credit for.  'Let the
+dead bury the dead'--that is a text to which I have given some
+attention of late, and I hope to profit by it in--in the future."
+
+"Well, God bless you, Mr. Annesley!"
+
+"I thank you.  We are delaying the boat, I fear.  No"--as Mr. MacNab
+made an offer to accompany him--"I prefer to go alone.  We have
+shaken hands already.  The room is ready for Mr. Menzies, when he
+comes to-morrow.  Good-bye."
+
+A minute later Mr. MacNab, lingering by the window, saw him cross the
+road to the landing-stage and stand for a moment in talk with the
+Hindu, Bhagwan Dass.  Then his straw hat disappeared down the steps.
+The boat was pushed off; and Bhagwan Dass, after watching it for a
+while, turned without emotion and came strolling across to the
+factory.
+
+On board the _Albemarle_ Mr. Annesley found the best cabin prepared
+for him, as became his importance.  He went below at once and was
+only seen at meal-times during the short voyage to Bombay, a town
+that of late years had almost eclipsed Surat in trade and importance.
+Here Captain Bewes was to take in the bulk of his passengers and
+cargo, and brought his vessel close alongside the Bund.  During the
+three days occupied in lading and stowing little order was
+maintained, and the decks lay open to a promiscuous crowd of coolies
+and porters, waterside loafers, beggars and thieves.  The officers
+kept an eye open for these last: the rest they tolerated until the
+moment came for warping out, when the custom was to pipe all hands
+and clear the ship of intruders by a general rush.
+
+The first two days Mr. Annesley spent upon the poop, watching the mob
+with a certain scornful interest.  On the third he did not appear,
+but was served with _tiffin_ in his cabin.  At about six o'clock, the
+second mate--a Mr. Orchard--sought the captain to report that all
+was ready and waiting the word to cast off.  His way led past
+Mr. Annesley's cabin, and there he came upon an old mendicant
+stooping over the door handle and making as if to enter and beg; whom
+he clouted across the shoulders and cuffed up the companion-ladder.
+Mr. Orchard afterwards remembered to have seen this same beggar man,
+or the image of him, off and on during the two previous days, seated
+asquat against a post on the Bund, and watching the _Albemarle_,
+with his crutch and bowl beside him.
+
+When the rush came, this old man, bent and blear-eyed, was swept
+along the gangway like a chip on the tide.  In pure lightness of
+heart a sailor, posted at the head of the plank, expedited him with a
+kick.  "That'll do for good-bye to India," said he, grinning.
+
+The old man showed no resentment, but was borne along bewildered,
+gripping his bowl to his breast.  On the quay's edge he seemed to
+find his feet, and shuffled off towards the town, without once
+looking back at the ship.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"MILL--mill!  A mill!"
+
+At the entrance of Dean's Yard, Westminster, a small King's Scholar,
+waving his gown and yelling, collided with an old gentleman hobbling
+round the corner, and sat down suddenly in the gutter with a squeal,
+as a bagpipe collapses.  The old gentleman rotated on one leg like a
+dervish, made an ineffectual stoop to clutch his gouty toe and wound
+up by bringing his rattan cane smartly down on the boy's shoulders.
+
+"Owgh!  Owgh!  Stand up, you young villain!  My temper's hasty, and
+here's a shilling-piece to cry quits.  Stand up and tell me now--is
+it Fire, Robbery, or Murder?"
+
+The youngster pounced at the shilling, shook off the hand on his
+collar, and darted down Little College Street to Hutton's Boarding
+House, under the windows of which he pulled up and executed a
+derisive war-dance.
+
+     "Hutton's, Hutton's,
+      Put up your buttons,
+      Hutton's are rottenly Whigs--"
+
+"Mill--mill!  Come out and carry home your Butcher Randall!
+You'll be wanted when Wesley has done with him."
+
+He was speeding back by this time, and flung this last taunt from a
+safe distance.  The old gentleman collared him again by the entry.
+
+"Stop, my friend--here, hold hard for a moment!  A fight, you said:
+and Wesley--was it Wesley?"
+
+The boy nodded.
+
+"Charles Wesley?"
+
+"Well, it wouldn't be Samuel--at _his_ age: now would it?"  The boy
+grinned.  The Reverend Samuel Wesley was the respected Head Usher of
+Westminster School.
+
+"And what will Charles Wesley be fighting about?"
+
+"How should I know?  Because he wants to, belike.  But I was told it
+began up school, with Randall's flinging a book at young Murray for a
+lousy Scotch Jacobite."
+
+"H'm: and where will it be?"
+
+The boy dropped his voice to a drawl.  "In Fighting-green, I believe,
+sir: they told me Poets' Corner was already bespoke for a turn-up
+between the Dean and Sall the charwoman, with the Head Verger for
+bottle-holder--"
+
+"Now, look here, young jackanapes--"  But young jackanapes, catching
+sight of half a dozen boys--the vanguard of Hutton's--at the street
+corner, ducked himself free and raced from vengeance across the yard.
+
+The old gentleman followed; and the crowd from Hutton's, surging
+past, showed him the way to Fighting-green where a knot of King's
+Scholars politely made room for him, perceiving that in spite of his
+small stature, his rusty wig and countrified brown suit, he was a
+person of some dignity and no little force of character.  They read
+it perhaps in the set of his mouth, perhaps in the high aquiline arch
+of his nose, which he fed with snuff as he gazed round the ring while
+the fighters rested, each in his corner, after the first round: for a
+mill at Westminster was a ceremonious business, and the Head Master
+had been known to adjourn school for one.
+
+"H'm," said the newcomer; "no need to ask which is Wesley."
+
+His eyes set deep beneath brows bristling like a wire-haired
+terrier's--were on the boy in the farther corner, who sat on his
+backer's knee, shoeless, stripped to the buff, with an angry red mark
+on the right breast below the collar-bone; a slight boy and a trifle
+undersized, but lithe, clear-skinned, and in the pink of condition; a
+handsome boy, too.  By his height you might have guessed him under
+sixteen, but his face set you doubting.  There are faces almost
+uncannily good-looking: they charm so confidently that you shrink
+from predicting the good fortune they claim, and bethink you that the
+gods' favourites are said to die young: and Charles Wesley's was such
+a face.  He tightened the braces about his waist and stepped forward
+for the second round with a sweet and serious smile.  Yet his mouth
+meant business.
+
+Master Randall--who stood near three inches taller--though nicknamed
+"Butcher," was merely a dull heavy-shouldered Briton, dogged, hard to
+beat; the son of a South Sea merchant, retired and living at Barnet,
+who swore by Walpole and King George.  But at Westminster these
+convictions--and, confound it! they were the convictions of England,
+after all--met with scurrilous derision; and here Master Randall
+nursed a dull and inarticulate resentment in a world out of joint,
+where the winning side was a butt for epigrams.  To win, and be
+laughed at!  To have the account reopened in lampoons and witticisms,
+contemptible but irritating, when it should be closed by the mere act
+of winning!  It puzzled him, and he brooded over it, turning sulky in
+the end, not vicious.  It was in no viciousness that he had flung a
+book at young Murray's head and called him a lousy Jacobite, but
+simply to provoke Wesley and get his grievance settled by
+intelligible weapons, such as fists.
+
+He knew his to be the unpopular side, and that even Freind, the Head
+Master, would chuckle over the defeat of a Whig.  Outside of
+Hutton's, who cheered him for the honour of their house, he had few
+well-wishers; but among them was a sprinkling of boys bearing the
+great Whig names--Cowpers, Sackvilles, Osborns--for whose sake and
+for its own tradition the ring would give him fair play.
+
+The second round began warily, Wesley sparring for an opening,
+Randall defensive, facing round and round, much as a bullock fronts a
+terrier.  He knew his game; to keep up his guard and wait for a
+chance to get in with his long left.  He was cunning, too; appeared
+slower than he was, tempting the other to take liberties, and,
+towards the end of the round, to step in a shade too closely.  It was
+but a shade.  Wesley, watching his eye, caught an instant's warning,
+flung his head far back and sprang away--not quickly enough to avoid
+a thud on the ribs.  It rattled him, but did no damage, and it taught
+him his lesson.
+
+Round 3.  Tempted in turn by his slight success, Randall shammed slow
+again.  But once bitten is twice shy, and this time he overreached
+himself, in two senses.  His lunge, falling short, let in the little
+one, who dealt him a double knock--rap, rap, on either side of the
+jaw--before breaking away.  Stung out of caution he rushed and
+managed to close, but took a third rap which cut his upper lip.
+First blood to Wesley.  The pair went to grass together, Randall on
+top.  But it was the Tories who cheered.
+
+Round 4.  Randall, having bought his experience, went back to sound
+tactics.  This and the next two rounds were uninteresting and quite
+indecisive, though at the end of them Wesley had a promising black
+eye and Randall was bleeding at mouth and nose.  The old gentleman
+rubbed his chin and took snuff.  This Fabian fighting was all against
+the lighter weight, who must tire in time.
+
+Yet he did not look like tiring, but stepped out for Round 7 with the
+same inscrutable smile.  Randall met it with a shame-faced grin--
+really a highly creditable, good-natured grin, though the blood about
+his mouth did its meaning some injustice.  And with this there
+happened that which dismayed many and puzzled all.  Wesley's fists
+went up, but hung, as it were impotent for the moment, while his eyes
+glanced aside from his adversary's and rested, with a stiffening of
+surprise, on the corner of the ring where the old gentleman stood.
+A cry went up from the King's Scholars--a groan and a warning.
+At the sound he flung back his head instinctively--as Randall's left
+shot out, caught him on the apple of the throat, and drove him
+staggering back across the green.
+
+The old gentleman snapped down the lid of his snuffbox, and at the
+same moment felt a hand gripping him by the elbow.  "Now, how the--"
+he began, turning as he supposed to address a Westminster boy, and
+found himself staring into the face of a lady.
+
+He had no time to take stock of her.  And although her fingers
+pinched his arm, her eyes were all for the fight.
+
+It had been almost a knock-down; but young Wesley just saved himself
+by touching the turf with his fingertips and, resting so, crouched
+for a spring.  What is more, he timed it beautifully; helped by
+Randall himself, who followed up at random, demoralised by the happy
+fluke and encouraged by the shouts of Hutton's to "finish him off."
+In the fall Wesley had most of his remaining breath thumped out of
+him; but this did not matter.  He had saved the round.
+
+The old gentleman nodded.  "Well recovered: very pretty--very pretty
+indeed!"  He turned to the lady.  "I beg your pardon, madam--"
+
+"I beg yours, sir."  She withdrew her hand from his arm.
+
+"If he can swallow that down, he may win yet."
+
+"Please God!"
+
+She stood almost a head taller than he, and he gazed up into a
+singularly noble face, proud and strong, somewhat pinched about the
+lips, but having such eyes and brows as belong to the few accustomed
+to confront great thoughts.  It gave her the ineffable touch of
+greatness which more than redeemed her shabby black gown and antique
+bonnet; and, on an afterthought, the old gentleman decided that it
+must have been beautiful in its day.  Just now it was pale, and one
+hand clutched the silk shawl crossed upon her bosom.  He noted, too,
+that the hand was shapely, though roughened with housework where the
+mitten did not hide it.
+
+She had scarcely glanced at him, and after a while he dropped his
+scrutiny and gazed with her across the ring.
+
+"H'm," said he, "dander up, this time!"
+
+"Yes," the lady answered, "I know that look, sir, though I have never
+seen it on _him_.  And I trust to see him wear it, one day, in a
+better cause."
+
+"Tut, madam, the cause is good enough.  You don't tell me I'm talking
+to a Whig?--not that I'd dispute with a lady, Whig or Tory."
+
+"A Whig?"  She fetched up a smile: she had evidently a reserve of
+mirth.  "Indeed, no: but I was thinking, sir, of the cause of
+Christ."
+
+"Oh!" said the old gentleman shortly, and took snuff.
+
+They were right.  Young Wesley stepped out this time with a honeyed
+smile, but with a new-born light in his hazel eyes--a demoniac light,
+lambent and almost playful.  Master Randall, caressed by them, read
+the danger signal a thought too late.  A swift and apparently
+reckless feint drew another of his slogging strokes, and in a flash
+the enemy was under his guard.  Even so, for the fraction of a
+second, victory lay in his arms, a clear gift to be embraced: a quick
+crook of the elbow, and Master Wesley's head and neck would be snugly
+in Chancery.  Master Wesley knew it--knew, further, that there was no
+retreat, and that his one chance hung on getting in his blow first
+and disabling with it.  He jabbed it home with his right, a little
+below the heart: and in a second the inclosing fore-arm dragged limp
+across his neck.  He pressed on, aiming for the point of the jaw; but
+slowly lowered his hands as Randall tottered back two steps with a
+face of agony, dropped upon one knee, clutching at his breast, and so
+to the turf, where he writhed for a moment and fainted.
+
+As the ring broke up, cheering, and surged across the green, the old
+gentleman took snuff again and snapped down the lid of his box.
+
+"Good!" said he; then to the lady, "Are you a relative of his?"
+
+"I am his mother, sir."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+She moved across the green to the corner where Charles was coolly
+sponging his face and chest over a basin.  "In a moment, ma'am!" said
+he, looking up with a twinkle in his eye as the boys made way for
+her.
+
+She read the meaning of it and smiled at her own mistake as she drew
+back the hand she had put out to take the sponge from him.  He was
+her youngest, and she had seen him but twice since, at the age of
+eight, he had left home for Westminster School.  In spite of the
+evidence of her eyes he was a small child still--until his voice
+warned her.
+
+She drew back her hand at once.  Boys scorn any show of feeling, even
+between mother and son; and Charles should not be ridiculed on her
+account.  So he sponged away and she waited, remembering how she had
+taught him, when turned a year old, to cry softly after a whipping.
+Ten children she had brought up in a far Lincolnshire parsonage, and
+without sparing the rod; but none had been allowed to disturb their
+father in his study where he sat annotating the Scriptures or turning
+an heroic couplet or adding up his tangled household accounts.
+
+A boy pushed through the group around the basin, with news that
+Butcher Randall had come-to from his swoon and wished to shake hands:
+and almost before Charles could pick up a towel and dry himself the
+fallen champion appeared with a somewhat battered grin.
+
+"No malice," he mumbled: "nasty knock--better luck next time."
+
+"Come, I say!" protested Charles, shaking hands and pulling a mock
+face, "Is there going to be a next time?"
+
+"Well, you don't suppose I'm _convinced_--" Randall began: but Mrs.
+Wesley broke in with a laugh.
+
+"There's old England for you!"  She brought her mittened palms
+together as if to clap them, but they rested together in the very
+gesture of prayer.  "'Won't be convinced,' you say? but oh, when it's
+done you are worth it!  Nay--don't hide your face, sir!  Wounds for
+an honest belief are not shameful, and I can only hope that in your
+place my son would have shown so fair a temper."
+
+"Whe-ew!" one of the taller boys whistled.  "It's Wesley's mother!"
+
+"She was watching, too: the last two rounds at any rate.  I saw her."
+
+"And I."
+
+"--And so cool it might have been a dog-fight in Tuttle Fields.
+Your servant, ma'am!"  The speaker made her a boyish bow and lifted
+his voice: "Three cheers for Mrs. Wesley!"
+
+They were given--the first two with a will.  The third tailed off;
+and Mrs. Wesley, looking about her, laughed again as the boys,
+suddenly turned shy or overtaken by a sense of delicacy, backed away
+sheepishly and left her alone with her son.
+
+"Put on your shirt," said she, and again her hand went out to help
+him.  "I want you to take a walk with me."
+
+Charles nodded.  "Have you seen Sam?"
+
+"Yes.  You may kiss me now, dear--there's nobody looking.  I left him
+almost an hour ago: his leg is mending, but he cannot walk with us.
+He promises, though, to come to Johnson's Court this evening--I
+suppose, in a sedan-chair--and greet your uncle Annesley, whom I have
+engaged to take back to supper.  You knew, of course, that I should
+be lodging there?"
+
+"Sammy--we call him Sammy--told me on Sunday, but could not say when
+you would be arriving here."
+
+"I reached London last night, and this morning your uncle Matthew
+came to my door with word that the _Albemarle_ had entered the river.
+I think you are well enough to walk to the Docks with me."
+
+"Well enough?  Of course I am.  But why not take a waterman from the
+stairs here?"
+
+"'Twill cost less to walk and hire a boat at Blackwall, if necessary.
+Your father could give me very little money, Charles.  We seem to be
+as poorly off as ever."
+
+"And this uncle Annesley--" he began, but paused with a glance at his
+mother, whose face had suddenly grown hot.  "What sort of a man is
+he?"
+
+"My boy," she said with an effort, "I must not be ashamed to tell my
+child what I am not ashamed to hope.  He is rich: he once promised to
+do much for Emmy and Sukey, and these promises came to nothing.
+But now that his wife is dead and he comes home with neither chick
+nor child, I see no harm in praying that his heart may be moved
+towards his sister's children.  At least I shall be frank with him
+and hide not my hope, let him treat it as he will."  She was silent
+for a moment.  "Are _all_ women unscrupulous when they fight for
+their children?  They cannot all be certain, as I am, that their
+children were born for greatness: and yet, I wonder sometimes--"
+She wound up with a smile which held something of a playful irony,
+but more of sadness.
+
+"Jacky could not come with you?"
+
+"No, and he writes bitterly about it.  He is tied to Oxford--by lack
+of pence, again."
+
+By this time Charles had slipped on his jacket, and the pair stepped
+out into the streets and set their faces eastward.  Mrs. Wesley was
+cockney-bred and delighted in the stir and rush of life.  She, the
+mother of many children, kept a well-poised figure and walked with
+the elastic step of a maid; and as she went she chatted, asking a
+score of shrewd questions about Westminster--the masters, the food,
+the old dormitory in which Charles slept, the new one then rising to
+replace it; breaking off to recognise some famous building, or to
+pause and gaze after a company of his Majesty's guards.  Her own
+masterful carriage and unembarrassed mode of speech--"as if all
+London belonged to her," Charles afterwards described it--drew the
+stares of the passers-by; stares which she misinterpreted, for in the
+gut of the Strand, a few paces beyond Somerset House, she suddenly
+twirled the lad about and "Bless us, child, your eye's enough to
+frighten the town!  'Tis to be hoped brother Sam has not turned
+Quaker in India; or that Sally the cook-maid has a beefsteak handy."
+
+Mr. Matthew Wesley, apothecary and by courtesy "surgeon," to whose
+house in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, they presently swerved aside,
+had not returned from his morning's round of visits.  He was a
+widower and took his meals irregularly.  But Sally had two covers
+laid, with a pot of freshly drawn porter beside each; and here, after
+Charles's eye had been attended to and the swelling reduced, they ate
+and drank and rested for half an hour before resuming their walk.
+
+So far, and until they reached the Tower, their road was familiar
+enough; but from Smithfield onwards they had to halt and inquire
+their way again and again in intervals of threading the traffic which
+poured out of cross-streets and to and from the docks on their
+right--wagons empty, wagons laden with hides, jute, scrap-iron,
+tallow, indigo, woollen bales, ochre, sugar; trollies and
+pack-horses; here and there a cordon of porters and warehousemen
+trundling barrels as nonchalantly as a child his hoop.  The business
+of piloting his mother through these cross-tides left Charles little
+time for observation; but one incident of that walk he never forgot.
+
+They were passing Shadwell when they came on a knot of people and two
+watchmen posted at the corner of a street across which a reek of
+smoke mingled with clouds of gritty dust.  Twice or thrice they heard
+a crash or dull rumble of falling masonry.  A distillery had been
+blazing there all night and a gang of workmen was now clearing the
+ruins.  But as Charles and his mother came by the corner, the knot of
+people parted and gave passage to a line of stretchers--six
+stretchers in all, and on each a body, which the bearers had not
+taken the trouble to cover from view.  A bystander said that these
+were men who had run back into the building to drink the flaming
+spirit, and had dropped insensible, and been crushed when the walls
+fell in.  The boy had never seen death before; and at the sight of it
+thrust upon him in this brutal form, he put out a hand towards his
+mother to find that she too was swaying.
+
+"Hallo!" cried the same bystander, "look out there! the lady's
+fainting."
+
+But Mrs. Wesley steadied herself.  "'Tis not _that_," she gasped,
+at the same time waving him off; "'tis the fire--the fire!"
+And stepping by the crossing she fled along the street with Charles
+at her heels, nor ceased running for another hundred yards.
+"You do not remember," she began, turning at length; "no, of course
+you do not.  You were a babe, not two years old; nurse snatched you
+out of bed--"
+
+The odd thing was that, despite the impossibility, Charles seemed to
+remember quite clearly.  As a child he had heard his sisters talk so
+often of the fire at Epworth Rectory that the very scene--and
+especially Jacky's escape--was bitten on the blank early pages as a
+real memory.  He had half a mind now to question his mother about it
+and startle her with details, but her face forbade him.
+
+She recovered her colour in bargaining with a waterman at Blackwall
+Stairs.  Two stately Indiamen lay out on the river below, almost
+flank by flank; and, as it happened, the farther one was at that
+moment weighing her anchor, indeed had it tripped on the cathead.
+A cloud of boats hung about her, trailing astern as her head-sails
+drew and she began to gather way on the falling tide.
+
+The waterman, a weedy loafer with a bottle nose and watery blue eyes,
+agreed to pull across for threepence; but no sooner were they
+embarked and on the tide-way, than he lay on his oars and jerked his
+thumb towards the moving ship.  "Make it a crown, ma'am, and I'll
+overhaul her," he hiccupped.
+
+Mrs. Wesley glanced towards the two ships and counted down threepence
+deliberately upon the thwart facing her, at the same time pursing up
+her lips to hide a smile.  For the one ship lay moored stem and stern
+with her bows pointed up the river, and the other, drifting past, at
+this moment swung her tall poop into view with her windows flashing
+against the afternoon sun, and beneath them her name, the _Josiah
+Childs_, in tall gilt letters.
+
+"Better make it a crown, ma'am," the waterman repeated with a drunken
+chuckle.
+
+Mrs. Wesley rose in her seat.  Her hand went up, and Charles made
+sure she meant to box the man's ears.  He could not see the look on
+her face, but whatever it was it cowed the fellow, who seized his
+oars again and began to pull for dear life, as she sat back and laid
+her hand on the tiller.
+
+"Easy, now," she commanded, after twenty strokes or so.  "Easy, and
+ship your oar, unless you want it broken!"  But for answer he merely
+stared at her, and a moment later his starboard oar snapped its
+tholepin like a carrot, and hurled him back over his thwart as the
+boat ran alongside the _Albemarle's_ ladder.
+
+"My friend," said Mrs. Wesley coolly, "you have a pestilent habit of
+not listening.  I hired you to row me to the _Albemarle_, and this, I
+believe, is she." Then, with a glance up at the half-dozen grinning
+faces above the bulwarks, "Can I see Captain Bewes?"
+
+"Your servant, ma'am."  The captain appeared at the head of the
+ladder; a red apple-cheeked man in shirt-sleeves and clean white
+nankeen breeches, who looked like nothing so much as an overgrown
+schoolboy.
+
+"Is Mr. Samuel Annesley on board?"
+
+Captain Bewes rubbed his chin.  He had grown suddenly grave.  "I beg
+your pardon," said he, "but are you a kinswoman of Mr. Annesley's?"
+
+"I am his sister, sir."
+
+"Then I'll have to ask you to step on board, ma'am.  You may dismiss
+that rascal, and one of my boats shall put you ashore."
+
+He stepped some way down the ladder to meet her and she took his hand
+with trepidation, while the _Albemarle's_ crew leaned over and
+taunted the cursing waterman.
+
+"There--that will do, my man.  I don't allow swearing here.
+Steady, ma'am, that's right; and now give us a hand, youngster."
+
+"Is--is he ill?" Mrs. Wesley stammered.
+
+"Who?  Mr. Annesley?  Not to my knowledge, ma'am."
+
+"Then he is on board?  We heard he had taken passage with you."
+
+"Why, so he did; and, what's more, to the best of my knowledge, he
+sailed.  It's a serious matter, ma'am, and we're all at our wits'
+ends over it; but the fact is--Mr. Annesley has disappeared."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+That same evening, in Mr. Matthew Wesley's parlour, Johnson's Court,
+Captain Bewes told the whole story--or so much of it as he knew.
+The disappearance from on board his ship of a person so important as
+Mr. Samuel Annesley touched his prospects in the Company's service,
+and he did not conceal it.  He had already reported the affair at the
+East India House and was looking forward to a highly uncomfortable
+interview with the Board of Governors: but he was concerned, too, as
+an honest man; and had jumped at Mrs. Wesley's invitation to sup with
+her in Johnson's Court and tell what he could.
+
+Mr. Matthew Wesley, as host, sat at the head of his table and puffed
+at a churchwarden pipe; a small, narrow-featured man, in a
+chocolate-coloured suit, with steel buttons, and a wig of
+professional amplitude.  On his right sat his sister-in-law, her
+bonnet replaced by a tall white cap: on his left the Captain in his
+shore-going clothes.  He and the apothecary had mixed themselves a
+glass apiece of Jamaica rum, hot, with sugar and lemon-peel.
+At the foot of the table, with his injured leg supported on a
+cushion, reclined the Reverend Samuel Wesley, Junior, Usher of
+Westminster School, his gaunt cheeks (he was the plainest-featured of
+the Wesleys) wan with recent illness, and his eyes fixed on Captain
+Bewes's chubby face.
+
+"Well, as I told you, Mr. Annesley's cabin lay beside my state-room,
+with a window next to mine in the stern: and, as I showed Mrs. Wesley
+to-day, my stateroom opens on the 'captain's cabin' (as they call
+it), where I have dined as many as two dozen before now, and where I
+do the most of my work.  This has three windows directly under the
+big poop-lantern.  I was sitting, that afternoon, at the head of the
+mahogany swing table (just as you might be sitting now, sir) with my
+back to the light and the midmost of the three windows wide open
+behind me, for air.  I had the ship's chart spread before me when my
+second mate, Mr. Orchard, knocked at the door with word that all was
+ready to cast off.  I asked him a few necessary questions, and while
+he stood there chatting I heard a splash just under my window.
+Well, that might have been anything--a warp cast off and the slack of
+it striking the water, we'll say.  Whatever it was, I heard it,
+turned about, and with one knee on the window-locker (I remember it
+perfectly) took a glance out astern.  I saw nothing to account for
+the sound: but I knew of a dozen things which might account for it--
+anything, in fact, down to some lazy cabin-boy heaving the
+dinner-scraps overboard: and having, as you'll understand, a dozen
+matters on my mind at the moment, I thought no more of it, but turned
+to Mr. Orchard again and picked up our talk.  To this day I don't
+know that there was anything in the sound, but 'tis fair to tell you
+all I can."--Captain Bewes took a sip at his grog, and over the rim
+looked down the table towards Samuel, who nodded.
+
+The Captain nodded back, set down his glass, and resumed.  "Quite so.
+The next thing is that Mr. Orchard, returning to deck two minutes
+later and having to pass the door of Mr. Annesley's cabin on his way,
+ran against an old Hindu beggar crouching there, fingering the
+door-handle and about to enter--or so Orchard supposed, and kicked
+him up the companion.  He told me about it himself, next day, when we
+found the cabin empty and I began to make inquiries.  'Now here,'
+says you, 'here's a clue,' and I'm not denying but it may be one.
+Only when you look into it, what does it amount to?  Mr. Annesley--
+saving your presence--was known for a stern man: you may take it for
+certain he'd made enemies over there, and these Hindus are the devil
+(saving your presence again, ma'am) for nursing a grudge.  'Keep a
+stone in your pocket seven years: turn it, keep it for another seven;
+'twill be ready at hand for your enemy'--that's their way.  But, to
+begin with, an old _jogi_ is nothing strange to meet on a ship before
+she clears.  These beggars in the East will creep in anywhere.
+And, next, you'll hardly maintain that an old beggarman ('seventy
+years old if a day,' said Orchard) was going to take an active man
+like Mr. Annesley and cram him bodily through a cabin window?
+'Tis out of nature.  And yet when we broke into his cabin,
+twenty-four hours later, there was not a trace of him: only his boxes
+neatly packed, his watch hanging to the beam and just running down, a
+handful of gold and silver tossed on to the bunk--just as he might
+have emptied it from his pockets--nothing else, and the whole cabin
+neat as a pin."
+
+"But," objected Mr. Matthew Wesley, "if this _jogi_--or whatever you
+call him--had entered the cabin for no good, he would hardly have
+missed the money lying on the bunk."
+
+"Sir, you must not judge these eastern mendicants by your London
+beggars.  They are not thieves, nor avaricious, but religious men
+practising self-denial, who collect alms merely to support life, and
+believe that money so bestowed blesses the giver."
+
+"A singularly perverted race!" was the apothecary's comment.
+
+Captain Bewes turned towards Mr. Samuel, who next spoke from the
+penumbra at the far end of the table.  "I believe, Captain," said he,
+"that these mendicants are as a rule the most harmless of men?"
+
+"Wouldn't hurt a fly, sir.  I have known some whose charity extended
+to the vermin on their own bodies."
+
+Mrs. Wesley sat tapping the mahogany gently with her finger-tips.
+"To my thinking, the key of this mystery, if there be one, lies at
+Surat.  My brother had powerful enemies: his letters make that clear.
+We must inquire into _them_--their numbers and the particular grudge
+they bore him--and also into the state of his mind.  He was not the
+sort of person to be kidnapped in open day."
+
+--"By a Thames waterman, for instance, madam?" said Captain Bewes,
+jocularly, but instantly changed his tone.  "You suggest that he may
+have disappeared on his own account?  To avoid his enemies, you
+mean?"
+
+"As to his motives, sir, I say nothing: but it certainly looks to me
+as if he had planned to give you the slip."
+
+"Tut-tut!" exclaimed Matthew.  "And left his money behind?
+Not likely!"
+
+"We have still his boxes to search--"
+
+"Under power of attorney," Sam suggested.  "We must see about getting
+it to-morrow."
+
+"Well, madam"--Captain Bewes knocked out his pipe, drained his glass,
+and rose--"the boxes shall be delivered up as soon as you bring me
+authority: and I trust, for my own sake as well as yours, the
+contents will clear up this mystery for us.  I shall be tied to my
+ship for the next three days, possibly for another week--"
+
+He was holding out his hand to Mrs. Wesley when the door opened
+behind him, and Sally appeared.
+
+"If you please," she announced, "there's a gentleman without, wishes
+to see the company.  He calls himself Mr. Wesley."
+
+"It cannot be Charles?"  Mrs. Wesley turned towards her son Sam.
+"But Charles must be at Westminster and in bed these two hours!"
+
+"Surely," said he.
+
+"'Tis not young Master Charles, ma'am, nor anyone like him: but a
+badger-faced old gentleman who snaps up a word before 'tis out of
+your mouth."
+
+"Show him in," commanded Matthew: and the words were scarcely out
+before the visitor stood in the doorway.  Mrs. Wesley recognised him
+at once as the old gentleman who had stood beside her that morning
+and watched the fight.
+
+"Good evening, ma'am.  I learned your address at Westminster: or, to
+be precise, at the Reverend Samuel Wesley's.  You are he, I
+suppose?"--here he swung round upon Sam--"Your amiable wife told me I
+should find you here: and so much the better, my visit being on
+family business.  Eh?  What?  I hope I'm not turning out this
+gentleman?"--indicating Captain Bewes--"No?  Well, if you were
+leaving, sir, I won't detain you: since, as I say, mine is family
+business.  Mr. Matthew Wesley, I presume?"--with a quick turn towards
+his host as Captain Bewes slipped away--"And brother of this lady's
+husband?  Quite so.  No, I thank you, I do not smoke; but will take
+snuff, if the company allows.  I have heard reports of your skill,
+sir.  My name is Wesley also: Garrett Wesley, of Dangan, County
+Meath, in Ireland: I sit for my county in Parliament and pass in this
+world for a respectable person.  You'll excuse these details, ma'am;
+but when a man breaks in upon a family party at this hour of the
+night, he ought to give some account of himself."
+
+Mrs. Wesley rose from her chair and dropped him a stately curtsey.
+"The name suffices for us, sir.  I make my compliments to one of my
+husband's family."
+
+"I'm obliged to you, ma'am, and pleased to hear the kinship
+acknowledged.  A good family, as families go, though I say it.
+We have held on to Dangan since Harry Fifth's time; and to our name
+since Guy of Welswe was made a thane by Athelstan.  We have a knack,
+ma'am, of staying the course: small in the build but sound in the
+wind.  It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for
+the last round."
+
+"Excuse me--" put in Samuel, pushing a candle aside and craning
+forward (he was short-sighted) for a better look at the visitor.
+
+"Ha?  You have not heard?  Well, well--oughtn't to tell tales out of
+school, and certainly not to the Usher: but your mother and I, sir,
+had the fortune, this morning, to witness a bout of fisticuffs--Whig
+against Tory--and perhaps it will not altogether distress you to
+learn that the Whig took a whipping.  I like that boy of yours,
+ma'am: he has breed.  I do not forget"--with another bow--"his
+mother's descent from the Annesleys of Anglesea and Valentia: but she
+will forgive me that, while watching him, I thought rather of his
+blood derived from my own great-great-grandfather Robert, and of our
+common ancestors--Walter, the king's standard-bearer, Edward, who
+carried the heart of the Bruce to Palestine--but I weary Mr. Matthew
+perhaps?"
+
+"Not at all, sir," the apothecary protested: rubbing a lump of sugar
+on the rind of a lemon.  "You will suffer me to mix you a glass of
+punch while I listen?  I am a practical man, who has been forced to
+make his own way in the world, and has made it, I thank God.  I never
+found these ancestors of any use to me; but if one of them had time
+and leisure to carry the heart of the Bruce to Jerusalem I hope I
+have the leisure to hear about it.  Did he return, may I ask?"
+
+"He did not, sir.  The Saracens slew him before the Holy Sepulchre,
+and in fact the undertaking was, as you would regard it,
+unprofitable.  But it gave us the palmer-shells on our coat of arms--
+argent, a cross sable, in each corner three escallops of the last.
+I believe, ma'am, the coat differs somewhat in your husband's branch
+of the family?"  He spread a hand on the table so that the
+candle-light fell on his signet ring.
+
+Mrs. Wesley smiled.  "We keep the scallops, sir."
+
+"Scallops!"  grunted the apothecary.  "Better for you, Susanna, if
+your husband had ever found the oyster!"
+
+Garrett Wesley glanced at him from under his badger-gray brows.
+"We may be coming to the oyster, sir, if you have patience.  Crest, a
+wivern proper: motto, 'God is love.'  I am thinking, ma'am, a child
+of yours might find some use for that motto, since children of my own
+I have none."
+
+"There could be none nobler, sir," Mrs. Wesley answered.
+
+"'Tis his then, ma'am, if you can spare me your son Charles."
+
+The lump of sugar dropped from old Matthew's fingers and splashed
+into the tumbler, and with that there fell a silence on the room.
+Samuel half rose from his couch and passed a nervous hand over his
+thick black hair.  His purblind eyes sought his mother's; hers were
+fastened on this eccentric kinsman, but with a look that passed
+beyond him.  Her lips were parted.
+
+"God is love," she repeated it, soft and low, but with a thrill at
+which Garrett Wesley raised his head.  "If ever I had distrusted it,
+that love is manifested here to-night.  There was a kinsman, sir,
+from whom I hoped much for my son; to-day I learn that he is lost--
+dead, most like--and those hopes with him.  He was my brother, and
+God--who understands mothers, and knows, moreover, how small was ever
+Samuel Annesley's kindness--must forgive me that I grieved less for
+him than for Charles's sake.  The tale was brought us by the honest
+man who has just left, and it is scarcely told when another kinsman
+enters and lays his fortune in Charles's hands.  Therefore I thank
+God for His goodness and"--her voice wavered and she ended with a
+frank laugh at her own expense--"you, on your part, may read the
+quality of the gratitude to expect from me.  At least I have been
+honest, sir."
+
+"Ma'am, I have lived long enough to value honesty above gratitude.
+I make this offer to please myself.  The point is, Do I understand
+that you accept?"
+
+"As for that," she answered deliberately--and Sam leaned forward
+again--"as for that, I am a married woman, and have learnt to submit
+to my husband's judgment.  To be sure I have acquired some skill in
+guessing at it."  She smiled again.  "My husband is no ordinary man
+to jump at this offer.  He has three sons, besides his women folk--"
+
+"Whom he neglects," put in Matthew.
+
+"His dearest ambition is to see each of these three an accredited
+servant of Christ.  He desires learning for them, and the priest's
+habit, and the living God in their hearts.  It will appear strange to
+you that he should rate these above wealth and a castle in Ireland
+and a seat in Parliament; but in fact he would.  I know him.  Think
+what you will of his ambition, it has this much of sincerity, that he
+is willing to pinch and starve for it.  This, too, I have proved."
+
+"You might add, mother," interposed Sam, "that he would like all
+these the better with a little success to season them."
+
+"No, I will add that he has perhaps enough respect for me to listen
+to my entreaties and allow Charles to choose for himself.  And this
+for the moment, sir, is all I can promise, though I thank you from
+the bottom of my heart."
+
+"Tut, woman!"  snapped the apothecary.  "Close with the offer and
+don't be a fool.  My brother, sir, may be pig-headed--sit down,
+Susanna!"
+
+"You and I, sir," said Garrett Wesley, "as childless men, are in no
+position to judge a parent's feelings."
+
+"Children?  Let me tell you that I had a son, sir, and he broke my
+heart.  He is in India now, I believe; a middle-aged rake.  I give
+you leave to find and adopt _him_, so long as you don't ask me to see
+his face again.  One was too many for me, and here's a woman with ten
+children alive--Heaven knows how many she's buried--ten children
+alive and half-clothed, and herself the youngest of twenty-five!"
+He broke off and chuckled.  "Did you ever hear tell, sir, what old
+Dr. Martin said after baptizing Susanna here?  Someone asked him
+'How many children had Dr. Annesley?'  'I forget for the moment,'
+said the doctor, but 'tis either two dozen or a quarter of a
+hundred.'  And here's a woman, sir, with such a sense of her
+offspring's importance that she higgles over accepting a fortune for
+one of 'em!"
+
+"Can you suffer this, ma'am?" Garrett Wesley began.  But the
+apothecary for the moment was neither to hold nor to bind.
+
+"Sam!  _You_ have a grain of sense in your head.  Don't sit there
+mum-chance, man!  Speak up and tell your mother not to be a fool.
+You are no child; you know your father, and that, if given one chance
+in a hundred to act perversely, he'll take it as sure as fate.
+For heaven's sake persuade your mother to use common caution and keep
+his finger out of this pie!"
+
+"Nay, sir," answered Sam, "I think she has the right of it, that my
+father ought to be told; and that the chances are he will leave it to
+Charles to decide."
+
+Matthew Wesley flung up his hands.  "'Tis a conspiracy of folly!
+Upon my professional word, you ought all to be strait-waistcoated!"
+He glared around, found speech again, and pounced upon Sam.
+"A pretty success _you've_ made of your father's ambitions--you, with
+your infatuation for that rogue Atterbury, and your born gift of
+choosing the cold side of favour!  You might have been Freind's
+successor, Head Master of Westminster School!  Where's your
+chance now?  You'll not even get the under-mastership, I doubt.
+Some country grammar school is your fate--I see it; and all for lack
+of sense.  If you lacked learning, lacked piety, lacked--"
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but these are matters I have no mind to discuss with
+you.  When Freind retires Nicoll will succeed him, and Nicoll
+deserves it.  Whether I get Nicoll's place or no, God will decide,
+who knows if I deserve it.  Let it rest in His hands.  But when you
+speak of Bishop Atterbury, and when I think of that great heart
+breaking in exile, why then, sir, you defeat yourself and steel me
+against my little destinies by the example of a martyr."
+
+He said it awkwardly, pulling the while at his bony knuckles; but he
+said it with a passion which cowed his uncle for the moment, and drew
+from his mother a startled, almost expectant, look.  Yet she knew
+that Sam's eyes could never hold (for her joy and terror) the
+underlying fire which had shone in her youngest boy's that morning,
+and which mastered her--strong woman though she was--in her
+husband's.  And this was the tragic note in her love for Sam--the
+more tragic because never sounded.  Sam had learning, diligence,
+piety, a completely honest mind; he had never caused her an hour's
+reasonable anxiety; only--to this eldest son she had not transmitted
+his father's genius, that one divine spark which the Epworth
+household claimed for its sons as a birthright.  An exorbitant, a
+colossal claim!  Yet these Wesleys made it as a matter of course.
+Did the father know that one of his sons had disappointed it?
+Sam knew, at any rate; and Sam's mother knew; and each, aware of the
+other's knowledge, tried pitifully to ignore it.
+
+Matthew Wesley bounced from his chair, unlocked the glazed doors of a
+bookcase behind him and pulled forth a small volume.
+
+"Here you have it, sir, '_Maggots: by a Scholar_'--that's my brother.
+'_Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled,_'--that's the man
+all over.  You may wager that if any man of sense had ever hit on
+these subjects, my brother had never come within a mile of 'em.
+Listen: 'The Grunting of a Hog,'  'To my Gingerbread Mistress,'
+'A Box like an Egg,'  'Two Soldiers killing one another for a Groat,'
+'A Pair of Breeches,'  'A Cow's Tail'--there's titles for you!
+Cow's tail, indeed!  And here, look you, is the author's portrait for
+a frontispiece, with a laurel-wreath in his hair and a maggot in
+place of a parting!  'Maggots'!  He began with 'em and he'll end with
+'em.  Maggots!"  He slammed the two covers of the book together and
+tossed it across the table.
+
+Mr. Garrett Wesley, during this tirade, had fallen back upon the
+attitude of a well-bred man who has dropped in upon a painful family
+quarrel and cannot well escape.  He had taken his hat and stood with
+his gaze for the most part fastened on the carpet, but lifted now and
+then when directly challenged by the apothecary's harangue.
+The contemned volume skimmed across the table and toppled over at his
+feet.  With much gravity he stooped and picked it up; and as he did
+so, heard Mrs. Wesley addressing him.
+
+"And the curious part of it is," she was saying calmly, "that my
+brother-in-law means all this in kindness!"
+
+"No, I don't," snapped Matthew; and in the next breath, "well, yes, I
+do then.  Susanna, I beg your pardon, but you'd provoke a saint."
+He dropped into his chair.  "You know well enough that if I lose my
+temper, 'tis for your sake and the girls'."
+
+"I know," she said softly, covering his hand with hers.  "But you
+must e'en let us go our feckless way.  Sir,"--she looked up--
+"must this decision be made to-night?"
+
+"Not at all, ma'am, not at all.  The lad, if you will, may choose
+when he comes of age; I have another string to my bow, should he
+refuse the offer.  But meantime, and while 'tis uncertain to which of
+us he'll end by belonging, I hope I may bear my part in his school
+fees."
+
+"But that, to some extent, must bind him."
+
+"No: for I propose to keep my share of it dark, with your leave.
+But you shall hear further of this by letter.  May I say, that if I
+chose his father's son, I have come to-day to set my heart on his
+mother's?  I wish you good night, ma'am!  Good night, sirs!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+In a corner of the Isle of Axholme, in Lincolnshire, and on the
+eastern slope of a knoll a few feet above the desolate fenland, six
+sisters were seated.  The eldest, a woman of thirty-three, held a
+book open in her lap and was reading aloud from it; reading with
+admirable expression and a voice almost masculine, rich as a
+deep-mouthed bell.  And, while she read, the glory of the verse
+seemed to pass into her handsome, peevish face.
+
+Her listeners heard her contentedly--all but one, who rested a little
+lower on the slope, with one knee drawn up, her hands clasped about
+it, and her brows bent in a frown as she gazed from under her
+sun-bonnet across the level landscape to the roofs and church-tower
+of Epworth, five miles away, set on a rise and facing the evening
+sun.  Across the field below, hemmed about and intersected with dykes
+of sluggish water, two wagons moved slowly, each with a group of
+labourers about it: for to-night was the end of the oat-harvest, and
+they were carrying the last sheaves of Wroote glebe.  After the
+carrying would come supper, and the worn-out cart-horse which had
+brought it afield from the Parsonage stood at the foot of the knoll
+among the unladen kegs and baskets, patiently whisking his tail to
+keep off the flies, and serenely indifferent that a lean and lanky
+youth, seated a few yards away with a drawing-board on his knee, was
+attempting his portrait.
+
+The girl frowned as she gazed over this group, over the harvesters,
+the fens, the dykes, and away toward Epworth: and even her frown
+became her mightily.  Her favourite sister, Molly, seated beside her,
+and glancing now and again at her face, believed that the whole world
+contained nothing so beautiful.  But this was a fixed belief of
+Molly's.  She was a cripple, and in spite of features made almost
+angelic by the ineffable touch of goodness, the family as a rule
+despised her, teased her, sometimes went near to torment her; for the
+Wesleys, like many other people of iron constitution, had a healthy
+impatience of deformity and weakness.  Hetty alone treated her always
+gently and made much of her, not as one who would soften a defect,
+but as seeing none; Hetty of the high spirits, the clear eye, the
+springing gait; Hetty, the wittiest, cleverest, mirthfullest of them
+all; Hetty, glorious to look upon.
+
+All the six were handsome.  Here they are in their order: Emilia,
+aged thirty-three (it was she who held the book); Molly,
+twenty-eight; Hetty, twenty-seven; Nancy, twenty-two, lusty,
+fresh-complexioned, and the least bit stupid; Patty, nearing
+eighteen, dark-skinned and serious, the one of the Wesleys who could
+never be persuaded to see a joke; and Kezzy, a lean child of fifteen,
+who had outgrown her strength.  By baptism, Molly was Mary; Hetty,
+Mehetabel; Nancy, Anne; Patty, Martha; and Kezzy, Kezia.  But the
+register recording most of these names had perished at Epworth in the
+Parsonage fire, so let us keep the familiar ones.  Grown women and
+girls, all the six were handsome.  They had an air of resting there
+aloof; with a little fancy you might have taken them, in their plain
+print frocks, for six goddesses reclining on the knoll and watching
+the harvesters at work on the plain below--poor drudging mortals and
+unmannerly:
+
+     "High births and virtue equally they scorn,
+      As asses dull, on dunghills born;
+      Impervious as the stones their heads are found,
+      Their rage and hatred steadfast as the ground."
+
+(The lines were Hetty's.) When the Wesleys descended and walked among
+these churls, it was as beings of another race; imperious in pride
+and strength of will.  They meant kindly.  But the country-folk came
+of an obstinate stock, fierce to resent what they could not
+understand.  Half a century before, a Dutchman, Cornelius Vermuyden
+by name, had arrived and drained their country for them; in return
+they had cursed him, fired his crops, and tried to drown out his
+settlers and workmen by smashing the dams and laying the land under
+water.  Fierce as they were, these fenmen read in the Wesleys a will
+to match their own and beat it; a scorn, too, which cowed, but at the
+same time turned them sullen.  Parson Wesley they frankly hated.
+Thrice they had flooded his crops and twice burnt the roof over his
+head.
+
+If the six sisters were handsome, Hetty was glorious.  Her hair,
+something browner than auburn, put Emilia's in the shade; her brows,
+darker even than dark Patty's, were broader and more nobly arched;
+her transparent skin, her colour--she defied the sunrays carelessly,
+and her cheeks drank them in as potable gold clarifying their blood--
+made Nancy's seem but a dairymaid's complexion.  Add that this
+colouring kept an April freshness; add, too, her mother's height and
+more than her mother's grace of movement, an outline virginally
+severe yet flexuous as a palm-willow in April winds; and you have
+Hetty Wesley at twenty-seven--a queen in a country frock and cobbled
+shoes; a scholar, a lady, amongst hinds; above all, a woman made for
+love and growing towards love surely, though repressed and thwarted.
+
+Emilia read:
+
+     "So spake our general mother, and, with eyes
+      Of conjugal attraction unreproved,
+      And meek surrender, half-embracing leaned
+      On our first father; half her swelling breast
+      Naked met his, under the flowing gold
+      Of her loose tresses hid; he, in delight
+      Both of her beauty and submissive charms,
+      Smiled with superior love (as Jupiter
+      On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds
+      That shed May flowers), and pressed her matron lip
+      With kisses pure.  Aside the Devil turned
+      For envy, yet with jealous leer malign
+      Eyed them askance; and to himself thus plained:--
+     'Sight hateful, sight tormenting!' . . ."
+
+Molly interrupted with a cry; so fiercely Hetty had gripped her wrist
+of a sudden.  Emily broke off:
+
+"What on earth's the matter, child?"
+
+"Is it an adder?" asked Patty, whose mind was ever practical.
+"Johnny Whitelamb warned us--"
+
+"An adder?"  Hetty answered her, cool in a moment and deliberate.
+"Nothing like it, my dear; 'tis the old genuine Serpent."
+
+"What do you mean, Hetty?  Where is it?"
+
+"Sit down, child, and don't distress yourself.  Having rendered
+everybody profoundly uncomfortable within a circuit of two miles and
+almost worried itself to a sun-stroke, it has now gone into the house
+to write at a commentary on the Book of Job, to be illustrated with
+cuts, for one of which--to wit, the War-horse which saith, 'Ha, ha,'
+among the trumpets--you observe Johnny Whitelamb making a study at
+this moment."
+
+"I think you must mean papa," said Patty; "and I call it very
+disrespectful to compare him with Satan; for 'twas Satan sister Emmy
+was reading about."
+
+"So she was: but if you had read Plutarch every morning with papa, as
+I have, you would know that the best authors (whom I imitate)
+sometimes use comparisons for the sake of contrast.  Satan, you
+heard, eyed our first parents askance: papa would have stepped in
+earlier and forbidden Adam the house.  Proceed, Emilia!  How goes
+Milton on?--
+
+     "Adam and Eve and Pinch-me
+      Went to the river to bathe:
+      Adam and Eve were drown'd,
+      And who do you think was saved? . . ."
+
+Molly drew her wrist away hurriedly.  "Hetty!" she cried, as Emilia
+withdrew into her book in dudgeon.  "Hetty, dear! I cannot bear you
+to be flippant.  It hurts me, it is so unworthy of you."
+
+"Hurts you, my mouse?"--this was one of Hetty's tender, fantastic
+names for her.  "Why then, I ask your pardon and must try to amend.
+You are right.  I _was_ flippant; you might even have said vulgar.
+Proceed, Emilia,--do you hear?  I beg your pardon.  Tell us more of
+the Arch-Rebel--
+
+     "And courage never to submit or yield
+      And what is else not to be overcome . . ."
+
+Say it over in your great voice, Emmy, and purge us poor rebels of
+vulgarity."
+
+"Pardon me," Emilia answered icily, "I am not conscious of being a
+rebel--nor of any temptation to be vulgar."
+
+Molly shot an imploring glance at Hetty: but it was too late, and she
+knew it.
+
+"Hoity-toity!  So we are not rebellious--not even Emilia when she
+thinks of her Leybourne!"  Emilia bit her lip.  "Nor Patty when she
+thinks of Johnny Romley?  And we are never vulgar?  Ah, but forgive
+your poor sister, who goes into service next week!  You must allow
+her to practise the accomplishments which will endear her to the
+servants' hall, and which Mr. Grantham will pay for and expect.
+Indeed--since Milton is denied us--I have some lines here; a petition
+to be handed to mother to-night when she returns.  She may not grant
+it, but she must at least commend her daughter's attempt to catch the
+tone."  And drawing a folded paper from her waistband, she drawled
+the following, in the broadest Lincolnshire accent:
+
+      "_Hetty the Serving-maid's Petition to her Mother._"
+       "Dear mother, you were once in the ew'n [oven],
+        As by us cakes is plainly shewn,
+        Who else had ne'er come arter:
+        Pray speak a word in time of need,
+        And with my sour-looked father plead
+        For your distressed darter!"
+
+Nancy and Kezzy laughed; the younger at the absurd drawl, which hit
+off the Wroote dialect to a hair; Nancy indulgently--she was safely
+betrothed to one John Lambert, an honest land-surveyor, and Mr.
+Wesley's tyranny towards suitors troubled her no longer.  But the
+others were silent, and a tear dropped on the back of poor Molly's
+hand.
+
+As Hetty took it penitently, Patty spoke again.  "You are wrong, at
+all events," she persisted, "about papa's being in the house, for I
+saw him leave it, more than half an hour ago, and walk off on the
+Bawtry road."
+
+"He has gone to meet mother, then," said Kezzy, "and poor Sander will
+have to trudge the last two miles."
+
+"Pray Heaven, then, they do not quarrel!" sighed Emilia, shutting the
+book.
+
+"My dear!" Hetty assured her, "that is past praying for.  She will be
+weary to death; and he, as you know, is in a mood to-day!  Though you
+thought it unfeeling, I rejoiced when he announced he was not riding
+to Bawtry to meet her but would send Sander instead: for whatever
+news she brought he would have picked holes in it and wrangled all
+the way home.  But this is his masterpiece.  It contrives to get the
+most annoyance out of both plans.  I often wonder"--here Hetty
+clasped her knee again, and, leaning back against the turf, let her
+eyes wander over the darkening landscape--"if our father and mother
+love each other the better for living together in one perpetual rasp
+of temper?"
+
+"What is the hour?" asked Emilia.
+
+Hetty glanced at the sun.
+
+"Six, or a few minutes past."
+
+"She cannot be here before half-past seven, and by then the moon will
+be rising.  We will give her a regal harvest-supper, and enthrone her
+on the last sheaf.  I have sent word to have it saved.  And there
+shall be a fire, and baked potatoes."
+
+Kitty clapped her hands.
+
+"And," Hetty took up the tale, "she shall sit by the embers and tell
+us all her wanderings, like Aeneas, till the break of morning.
+But before we bid Johnny Whitelamb desist from drawing and build a
+fire, let us be six princesses here and choose the gifts our mother
+shall bring home from town."
+
+"You know well enough she has no money to buy gifts," objected Patty.
+
+"Be frugal, then, in wishing, dear Pat.  For my part, I demand only a
+rich Indian uncle: but he must be of solid gold.  He should come to
+us along the Bawtry road in a palanquin with bells jingling at the
+fringes.  Ann, sister Ann, run you to the top of the mound and say if
+you see such an uncle coming.  Moll, dear, 'tis your turn to wish."
+
+"I wish," said Molly, "for a magic mirror."  Hetty gave a start,
+thinking she spoke of a glass which should hide her deformity.
+But Molly went on gravely.  "I should call it my Why Mirror, for it
+would show us why we live as we do, and why mother goes ill-clothed
+and sometimes hungry.  No, I am not grumbling; but sometimes I wish
+to _know_--only to _know!_  I think my mirror would tell me something
+about my brothers, and what they are to do in the world.  And I am
+sure it would tell me that God is ordering this for some great end.
+But I am weak and impatient, and, if I knew, I could be so much
+braver!"  She ended abruptly, and for a moment or two all the sisters
+were silent.
+
+"Come, Nancy," said Hetty at length.  "Patty will wish for a harp,
+for certain"--Patty's burning desire to possess one was as notorious
+in the family as her absolute lack of ear for music--"and Emmy will
+ask for a new pair of shoes, if she is wise."  Emilia tucked a foot
+out of sight under her skirt.
+
+"But I don't understand this game," put in Kezzy.  "A moment ago it
+was _Blue Beard_, and now it seems to be _Beauty and the Beast_.
+Which is it?"
+
+"We may need Molly's mirror to tell us," Hetty answered lightly: and
+with that she glanced up as a shadow darkened the golden sky above
+the mound, and a voice addressed the sisters all.  "Good evening,
+young ladies!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+A broad-shouldered man looked down on them from the summit of the
+knoll, which he had climbed on its westward side; a tradesman to all
+appearance, clad in a dusty, ill-fitting suit.  So far as they could
+judge--for he stood with the waning light at his back--he was not
+ill-featured; but, by his manner of mopping his brow, he was most
+ungracefully hot, and Molly declared ever afterwards that his thick
+worsted stockings, seen against the ball of the sun, gave his calves
+a hideous hairiness.  She used to add that he was more than half
+drunk.  His manner of accosting them--half uneasy, half familiar--
+froze the Wesley sisters.
+
+"Good evening, young ladies!  And nice and cool you look, I will say.
+Can any of you tell me if Parson Wesley's at home?"
+
+"He is not," Emilia answered.  "He has gone towards Bawtry."
+
+"Well now, that's what the maid told me at the parsonage: but I
+thought, maybe, 'twas a trick--a sort of slip-out-by-the-back and
+not-at-home to a creditor.  I've heard of parsons playing that game,
+and no harm to their conscience, because no lie told."
+
+"Sir!"  Emilia rose and faced him.
+
+"Oh, no offence, miss! I believe _you_; and for that matter the
+wench seemed fair-spoken enough, and gave me a drink of cider.
+'Tis the matter of a debt, you see."  He drew a scrap of dirty
+paper from his pocket.  "Twelve-seventeen-six, for repairs done to
+Wroote Parsonage; new larder, fifteen; lead for window-casements,
+eight-six; new fireplace to parlour, one-four-six: ancettera.
+I'm a plumber by trade--plumber and glazier--and in business at
+Lincoln.  William Wright's my name, and Right by nature."  Here he
+grinned.  "Your father would have everything of the best; Epworth
+tradesman not worth a damn, excuse me, and meaning no offence.
+So he said, or words to that effect.  A very particular gentleman,
+and his nose at the time into everything.  But a man likes to be
+paid, you understand?  So, having a job down Owston way, I thought
+I'd walk over and jog his reverence's memory."
+
+"The money will be paid, sir, in due course, I make no doubt," said
+Emilia bravely.  Some of her sisters were white in the face.
+Hetty alone seemed to ignore the man's presence, and gazed over the
+fields towards Epworth.
+
+"Ah, 'in due course!'  Let me tell you, miss, that if all the money
+owing to me was paid, I'd--I'd--"  He broke off.  "I have ambitions,
+_I_ have: and a head on my shoulders.  London's the only place for a
+man like me.  Gad, if _these_ were only full"--he slapped his
+pockets--"there's no saying I wouldn't up and ask one of you to come
+along o' me!  There's that beauty, yonder," he jerked his thumb at
+Hetty.  "She's the pick.  My word, and you _are_ a beauty, bridling
+to yourself there, and thinking dirt of me.  Go on, I like you for
+it: you can't show too much spirit for William Wright."  Molly's hand
+closed over Hetty's two, clasped and lying in her lap: Hetty sat
+motionless as a statue.  "If only your father would trade you off
+against an honest debt--But you're gentry: I knows the sort.
+Well, well, 'tis a long tramp back to Owston: so here's wishing you
+good night, missies all.  If I take back no money, and no pay but a
+pint of sour cider, I've seen the prettiest picter in all
+Lincolnshire; so we'll count it a holiday."
+
+He was gone.  With the dropping of the sun a chilly shadow had fallen
+on the mound, and for some moments the sisters remained motionless,
+agonised, each in her own way distraught.
+
+"The brute!" said Kezzy at length, drawing a long breath.
+
+Hetty rose deliberately.  "Child," she said, and her voice was hard,
+"don't be a goose!  The poor creature came for his money.  He had the
+right to insult us."
+
+She smoothed the dew from her skirt and walked swiftly down the
+slope.
+
+At the foot of it Johnny Whitelamb had risen and was holding his
+drawing aslant, in some hope, perhaps, that the angle might correct
+the perspective of old Mettle's portrait.  Certainly it was a
+villainous portrait, as he acknowledged to himself with a sigh.
+Parts of it must be rubbed out, and his right hand rummaged in his
+pocket and found a crust.  But Johnny, among other afflictions,
+suffered from an unconscionable appetite.  While he doubted where to
+begin, his teeth met in the bread, and he started guiltily, for it
+was more than half eaten when Hetty swooped down on him.
+
+"Quick, Johnny! run you to the woodstack while I unpack the baskets.
+Mother will be arriving in an hour, and we are to give her supper out
+here, with baked potatoes.  Run, that's a good soul: and on your way
+get Jane to give you a tin of oatmeal--tell her I must have it if she
+has to scrape the bottom of the bin; _and_ a gridiron, _and_ a
+rolling-pin.  We will have griddle-cakes.  Run--and whatever you do,
+don't forget the rolling-pin!"
+
+Johnny ran with long ungainly strides, his coat-tails flapping like a
+scarecrow's.  The coat, in fact, was a cast-off one of Mr. Wesley's,
+narrow in the chest, short in the sleeves, but inordinately full in
+the skirts.  The Rector had found and taken Johnny from the Charity
+School at Wroote to help him with the maps and drawings for his great
+work, the _Dissertationes in Librum Jobi_, and in return the lad
+found board and lodging and picked up what scraps he could of Greek
+and Latin.  He wrote a neat hand and transcribed carefully; his
+drawings were atrocious, and he never attempted a woodcut without
+gashing himself.  But he kept a humble heart, and for all the family
+a devotion almost canine.  To him the Rector, with his shovel-hat and
+stores of scholarship, was a god-like man; with his air, too, of
+apostolical authority--for Johnny, whom all Epworth set down as good
+for nothing, reflected the Wesley notions of the Church's majesty.
+In his dreams--but only in his dreams--he saw himself such a man, an
+Oxford scholar, treading that beatific city of which the Rector
+disclosed a glimpse at times; his brows bathed by her ineffable aura,
+and he--he, Johnny Whitelamb--baptized into her mysteries, a
+participant with the Rector's second son John, now at Christ Church--
+of whom (he noted) the family spoke but seldom and with a constraint
+which hinted at hopes too dear to be other than fearful.  Meanwhile
+he did his poor tasks, stayed his stomach when he could, and rewarded
+his employers with love.
+
+He loved them all: but Hetty he worshipped.
+
+He knew his place.  For an hour past he had been sitting, as became a
+servant, beyond earshot of the sisters' talk, yet within call, should
+they summon him.  Now the goddess had descended from her mountain
+with a command, and he ran toward the woodstack as he would have run
+and plunged into the water-dyke, had she bidden him.
+
+He returned to find her waiting with her sleeves tucked above her
+elbows.
+
+"Oh, Johnny--I forgot the tinder-box!" she cried.
+
+He dropped his burdens and produced it triumphantly from his tail
+pocket.
+
+"I thought of that!"
+
+"But you must not!"--as he dropped on his knees and began to unbind
+and break up the sticks.  "This is my business.  I am going into
+service, in ten days--at Kelstein: and you must watch and tell me
+what I do amiss."
+
+She pulled the faggot towards her, broke up the sticks, and built the
+fragments daintily into a heap, with a handful of dry leaves as
+basis.  The twilight deepened around them as she built.  Next she
+struck flint on steel, caught the spark on tinder, and blew.
+Johnny watched the glow on her cheeks wakening and fading, and,
+watching, fell into a brown study.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, straightening herself upon her knees as the
+blaze caught.  "Is that a good omen for Kelstein?"
+
+Her eyes were on the sticks, and in their crackling she did not
+listen for his answer, but commanded him to take a pitcher of water
+and pour, while she mixed and kneaded the meal.  To the making of
+bread, cakes, pastry, Hetty brought a born gift; a hand so light,
+quick, and cool, that Johnny could have groaned for his own fumbling
+fingers.  A dozen cakes were finished and banked in the wood-ashes as
+the fire died down to a steadily glowing mass.  By this time the
+landscape about them lay flat to the eye and gray, touched with the
+faint gold of moonrise, and just then Emilia called down from the
+mound that the travellers were in sight on the Bawtry road.
+
+The others ran to meet them: but Hetty remained by her task, silent,
+and Johnny silent beside her.  Together they spread the two meals,
+one beside the fire for the family, the other some fifty yards off
+for the harvesters, now moving towards the rick-yard with the last
+load.
+
+Hetty was not her mother's favourite.  Emilia and Patty divided that
+honour by consent, though the balance appeared now and then to
+incline towards Patty.  But between Mrs. Wesley and her fairest
+daughter there rested always a shadow of restraint, curious enough in
+its origin, which was that they knew each other better than the rest.
+Often and quite casually Hetty would guess some thought in her
+mother's mind hidden from her sisters.  She made no parade of this
+insight, set up no claim upon it; merely gave proof of it in passing,
+and fell back on her attitude of guarded affection.  And Mrs. Wesley
+seemed to draw back uneasily from these reflections of herself, and
+take refuge in Patty, who, of all her children, understood her the
+least.
+
+So now when the others brought their mother to the feast in triumph,
+Hetty swept her a curtsey with skirt held wide, then went straight
+and kissed her on both cheeks.
+
+"Ah, what a dear truant 'tis! and how good 'tis to have her home
+again!"
+
+She did not ask (as Nancy or Patty would assuredly have asked) what
+had become of her father.  She noted, even in the half-light, a flush
+on her mother's temples, and guessed at once that there had been a
+duel of tempers on the road, and that, likely enough, papa had
+bounced into the house in a huff.  The others had, in fact, witnessed
+this exit.  Hetty, who divined it, went the swiftest way to efface
+the memory.  She alone, on occasion, could treat her mother
+playfully, as an equal in years; and she did so now, taking her by
+the hand, and conducting her with mock solemnity to the seat of
+honour.
+
+"It _is_ good to be home," Mrs. Wesley admitted as they seated her,
+dusted her worn shoes, and plied her with milk and hot griddle-cakes,
+potatoes slit and sprinkled with salt upon appetising lumps of
+butter.  She forgot her vexation.  Even the Wroote labourers seemed
+less surly than usual.  One or two, as they gathered, stepped forward
+to welcome her and wish her health before ranging themselves at their
+separate meal: and soon a pleasant murmur of voices went up from
+either group at supper in the broad meadow under the moon.
+
+"But where have you left uncle Annesley?" asked Kezzy.  "And are we
+all to be rich and live in comfort at last?"
+
+Mrs. Wesley shook her head.  "He was not on board the _Albemarle_."
+She told of her visit to the ship and the captain's story; adding
+that their uncle's boxes, when handed over and examined, contained no
+papers at all, no will, no bonds, not so much as a scrap to throw
+light on the mystery.  And as they sat silent in dismay, she went on
+to tell of Garrett Wesley and the fortune unexpectedly laid at
+Charles's feet.
+
+Emilia was the first to find speech.  "So," she commented bitterly
+"yet another of our brothers is in luck's way.  Always our brothers!
+Westminster and Oxford for them, and afterwards, it seems, a fortune:
+while we sit at home in rags, or drudge and eat the bread of service.
+Oh, why, mother?  You and we suffer together--do you believe it can
+be God's will?"
+
+Hetty drew a long breath.  "Perhaps," she said drearily, "Charles
+will clothe us when he gets this money.  Perhaps he will even find us
+wooers in place of those to whom papa has shown the door."
+
+"I am not sure your father will allow Charles to accept," said Mrs.
+Wesley gently; "though I may persuade him to let the lad decide for
+himself when he comes of age.  Until then the offer stands open."
+
+"I sometimes wonder," Emilia mused, "if our father be not staring
+mad."
+
+"Hush, child! That is neither for you to say nor for me to hear.
+You know it has been almost a vow with him to dedicate your three
+brothers to God's service."
+
+"Charles might inherit Dangan Castle and serve God too.  There is no
+law that an Irish squire must spend all his time cock-fighting."
+
+"These vows!" murmured Hetty, flinging herself back in her favourite
+attitude and nursing her knee.  "If folks will not obey Christ's
+command and swear not at all, they might at least choose a vow which
+only hurts themselves.  Now, papa"--Hetty shot a glance at her
+mother, who felt it, even in the dusk, and bent her eyes on the
+smouldering fire.  The girl had heard (for it was kitchen gossip)
+that Mr. Wesley had once quarrelled with his wife over politics, and
+left Epworth rectory vowing never to return to her until she
+acknowledged William III. for her rightful king; nor indeed had
+returned until William's death made the vow idle and released him.
+"Now, papa"--after a pause--"has an unfortunate habit, like Jephthah,
+of swearing to another's hurt.  For instance, since Sukey married
+Dick Ellison, he seems to have vowed that none of us shall have a
+lover; and, so, dear mother, you might have found us just now, like
+six daughters of Jephthah, bewailing our fates upon a hill."
+
+"He has no fault to find with my John Lambert," put in Nancy.
+
+Hetty did not heed.  "I have no patience with these swearers.  A man,
+or a woman for that matter, should have the courage to outbrave an
+oath when it hurts the innocent.  Did God require the blood of
+Jephthah's daughter? or of the sons of Rizpah?  Think, mother, if
+this fire were lit in the fields here, and you sitting by it to scare
+the beasts from your three sons!  I cannot like that David.
+Saul, now, was a man and a king, every inch of him, even in his dark
+hours.  David had no breeding--a pretty, florid man, with his curls
+and pink cheeks; one moment dancing and singing, and the next weeping
+on his bed.  Some women like that kind of man: but his complexion
+wears off.  In the end he grows nasty, and from the first he is
+disgustingly underbred."
+
+"Hetty!"
+
+"I cannot help it, mother.  Had I been Michal, and Saul's daughter,
+and had seen that man capering before the ark, I should have scorned
+him as she did."
+
+And Hetty stood up and strode away into the darkness.
+
+In the darkness, almost an hour later, Molly found her by the edge of
+a dyke.  She had a handkerchief twisted between her fingers, and kept
+wringing it as she paced to and fro.  Why had she given way to
+passion?  Why, on this night of all nights, had she saddened her
+mother?  And why by an outburst against David, of all people in the
+world?
+
+She could not tell.  When the temper is overcharged it overflows,
+nine times out of ten, into a channel absurdly irrelevant.
+
+What on earth had David to do with it?  She halted and laughed while
+Molly entreated her.  In the dyke the black water crawled at her
+feet, and upon it a star shone.
+
+"Star Mary--_stella maris_, if only you will shine steadily and guide
+me!  Kiss me now, and hear that I am sorry."
+
+But it was Molly who, later that night, put out both arms in the bed
+where they slept together: and with a wail which lasted until Hetty
+enfolded her and held her close.
+
+"I was dreaming,"  she muttered.  "I dreamt--of that man."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+For six months of the year, sometimes for longer, the thatched
+parsonage at Wroote rose out of a world of waters, forlorn as a
+cornstack in a flood, and the Rector of Epworth journeyed between his
+two parishes by boat, often in soaked breeches, and sometimes with a
+napkin tied over his hat and wig.  But in this harvest weather, while
+the sun shone and the meadow-breezes overcame the odours of damp
+walls and woodwork, of the pig-sty at the back and of rotting weed
+beyond, the Wesley household lived cheerfully enough, albeit pinched
+for room; more cheerfully than at Epworth, where the more spacious
+rectory, rebuilt by Mr. Wesley at a cost of 400 pounds, remained
+half-furnished after fourteen years--a perpetual reminder of debt.
+
+Here at any rate, although Wroote tithe brought in a bare 50 pounds a
+year, they could manage to live and pay their way, and feel meanwhile
+that they were lessening the burden.  For Dick Ellison, Sukey's
+husband, had undertaken to finance Epworth tithe, and was renting the
+rectory for a while with the purpose of bringing his father-in-law's
+affairs to order--a filial offer which Mr. Wesley perforce accepted
+while hating Dick from the bottom of his heart, and the deeper
+because of this necessity.
+
+Dick was his "wen," "more unpleasant to him than all his physic"--a
+red-faced, uneducated squireen, with money in his pockets (as yet), a
+swaggering manner due to want of sense rather than deliberate
+offensiveness, and a loud patronising laugh which drove the Rector
+mad.  Comedy presided over their encounters; but such comedy as only
+the ill-natured can enjoy.  And the Rector, splenetic, exacting,
+jealous of authority, after writhing for a time under Dick's candid
+treatment of him as a child, usually cut short the scene by bouncing
+off to his library and slamming the door behind him.
+
+Even Mrs. Wesley detested her son-in-law, and called him "a coarse,
+vulgar, immoral man "; but confessed (in his absence) that they were
+all the better off for his help.  Ease from debt she had never known;
+but here at Wroote the clouds seemed to be breaking.  Duns had been
+fewer of late.  With her poultry-yard and small dairy she was earning
+a few pounds, and this gave her a sense of helpfulness she had not
+known at Epworth; a pound saved may be a pound gained, but a pound
+earned can be held in the hand, and the touch makes a wonderful
+difference.  The girls had flung themselves heartily into the
+farm-work: they talked of it, at night, around the kitchen hearth
+(for of the two sitting-rooms one had been given up to their father
+for his library, and the other Hetty vowed to be "too grand for the
+likes of dairy-women."  Also the marsh-vapours in the Isle of Axholme
+can be agueish after sunset, even in summer, and they found the fire
+a comfort).  Hetty had described these rural economies in a long
+letter to Samuel at Westminster, and been answered by an "Heroick
+Poem," pleasantly facetious:
+
+     "The spacious glebe around the house
+      Affords full pasture to the cows,
+      Whence largely milky nectar flows,
+       O sweet and cleanly dairy!"
+
+     "Unless or Moll, or Anne, or you,
+      Your duty should neglect to do,
+      And then 'ware haunches black and blue
+       By pinching of a fairy."
+
+--With much in the same easy vein about "sows and pigs and porkets,"
+and the sisters' housewifely duties:
+
+     "Or lusty Anne, or feeble Moll,
+        Sage Pat or sober Hetty."
+
+And the sisters were amused by the lines and committed them to heart.
+
+They had learnt of the pleasures of life mainly through books; and
+now their simple enjoyment was, as it were, more real to them because
+it could be translated into verse.  In circumstances, then, they were
+happier than they had been for many years: nor was poverty the real
+reason for Hetty's going into service at Kelstein; since Emilia had
+been fetched home from Lincoln (where for five years she had been
+earning her livelihood as teacher in a boarding-school) expressly to
+enjoy the family's easier fortune, and with a promise of pleasant
+company to be met in Bawtry, Doncaster and the country around Wroote.
+
+This promise had not been fulfilled, and Emilia's temper had soured
+in consequence.  Nor had the Rector's debts melted at the rate
+expected.  The weight of them still oppressed him and all the
+household: but Mrs. Wesley knew in her heart that, were poverty the
+only reason, Hetty need not go.  Hetty knew it, too, and rebelled.
+She was happy at Wroote; happier at least than she would be at
+Kelstein.  She did not wish to be selfish: she would go, if one of
+the sisters must.  But why need any of them go?
+
+She asked her mother this, and Mrs. Wesley fenced with the question
+while hardening her heart.  In truth she feared what might happen if
+Hetty stayed.  They had made some new acquaintances at Wroote and at
+Bawtry there was a lover, a young lawyer . . . a personable young
+man, reputed to be clever in his profession. . . . Mrs. Wesley knew
+nothing to his discredit . . . and sure, Hetty's face might attract
+any lover.  So her thoughts ran, without blaming the girl, whose
+heart she believed to be engaged, though she could not tell how
+deeply.  But the Rector must be considered, and he had taken an
+instant and almost frantic dislike for the youth.  There was nothing
+unusual in this: for, like many another uxorious man (with all his
+faults of temper he was uxorious), Mr. Wesley hated that anyone
+should offer love to his daughters.  This antipathy of his had been a
+nuisance for ten years past; since the girls were, when all was said,
+honest healthy girls with an instinct for mating, and not to be
+blamed for making their best of the suitors which Epworth and its
+neighbourhood provided.  But since Sukey's marriage it had deepened
+into something like a mania, and now, in Hetty's case, flared up with
+a passion incomprehensible if not quite insane.  He declared his
+hatred of lawyers--and certainly he had suffered at their hands: he
+forbade the young man to visit the house, to correspond with Hetty,
+even to see her.
+
+Mrs. Wesley watched her daughter and was troubled.  The Rector's veto
+had been effective enough once or twice with Hetty's sisters.
+Emilia, on a visit with her uncle Matthew in London, had fallen
+passionately in love with a young Oxonian named Leybourne.  But Sam's
+wife had discovered something to his discredit and had spoken to Sam,
+and Sam to the Rector.  The match was broken off, and Emilia
+renounced her love, though she never forgave the mischief-maker.
+Patty again had formed an attachment for John Romley, who had been a
+pupil of Sam's, had afterwards graduated at Lincoln College, Oxford,
+and was now the ambitious young master of the Free School at Epworth.
+Again the Rector interfered, and Patty sighed and renounced her
+romance.  Would Hetty, too, renounce and acquiesce?  Mrs. Wesley
+doubted: nay, was even afraid.  Hetty alone had never been overawed
+by her father, had never acknowledged the _patria potestas_ with all
+its exorbitant claims.  She had never actually revolted, but she
+defied, somehow, the spell he had cast upon the others: and somehow--
+here was the marvel--Mrs. Wesley, who more than any other of the
+family had yielded to the illusion and fostered it, understood Hetty
+the better for her independence.  The others, under various kinds of
+pressure, had submitted: but here was the very woman she might have
+been, but for her own submission!  And she feared for that woman.
+Hetty must leave Wroote, or there was no knowing how it might end.
+
+"Mother, I believe you are afraid of what I may do."
+
+Mrs. Wesley, incapable of a lie or anything resembling it, bent her
+head.  "I have been afraid, once or twice," she said.
+
+"So you send me away?  That seems to me neither very brave nor very
+wise.  Will there be less danger at Kelstein?"
+
+Her mother started.  "Does _he_ know of your going?  You don't tell
+me he means to visit you there?"
+
+"Forgive me, dearest mother, but your first question is a little
+foolish--eh?"  Hetty laughed and quoted:
+
+     "But if she whom Love doth honour
+      Be conceal'd from the day--
+      Set a thousand guards upon her,
+      Love will find out the way."
+
+She put up her chin defiantly.
+
+"I wish, child, you would tell me if--if this is much to you," said
+Mrs. Wesley wistfully, with a sudden craving to put her arms around
+her daughter and have her confidence.
+
+Hetty hesitated for a fatal moment, then laughed again.  "I am not a
+child precisely; and we read one another, dear, much better than we
+allow.  Your second question you have no right to ask.  You are
+sending me away--"
+
+"No right, Hetty?"
+
+"You are sending me away," Hetty repeated, and seemed to be
+considering.  After a pause she added slowly: "You others are all
+under papa's thumb, and you make me a coward.  But I will promise you
+this"--here her words began to drag--"and to strengthen me no less
+than to ease your fears, I promise it, mother.  If the worst come to
+the worst, it shall not be at Kelstein that I choose it, but here
+among you all.  I think you will gain little by sending me to
+Kelstein, mother: but you need not be afraid for me there."
+
+"You speak in enigmas."
+
+"And my tone, you would say, is something too theatrical for your
+taste?  Well, well, dear mother, 'tis the privilege of a house with a
+doom upon it to talk tragedy: for, you know, Molly declares we have a
+doom upon us, though we cannot agree what 'tis.  I uphold it to be
+debt, or papa's tantrums, or perhaps Old Jeffrey [apparently the
+Wesley family ghost] but she will have it to be something deeper, and
+that one day we shall awake and see that it includes all three."
+
+"It appears to be my doom," said Mrs. Wesley, her face relaxing, "to
+listen to a deal of nonsense from my daughters."
+
+"And who's to blame, dear?  You chose to marry at twenty, and here
+you have a daughter unmarried at seven and twenty.  Now I respect and
+love you, as you well know: but every now and then reason steps in
+and proves to me that I am seven years your senior--which is absurd,
+and the absurder for the grave wise face you put upon it.  So come
+along, sweet-and-twenty, and help me pack my buskins."  Hetty led the
+way upstairs humming an air which (though her mother did not
+recognise it) was Purcell's setting of a song in _Twelfth Night_:
+
+     "Journeys end in lovers meeting,
+      Every wise man's son doth know."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+On the day fixed, and at nine in the morning, Dick Ellison, who had
+promised to drive Hetty over to Kelstein, arrived with his gig.
+Sukey accompanied him, to join in the farewells and spend a few hours
+at the parsonage pending his return.
+
+Now these visits of Sukey's were a trial to her no less than to her
+mother and sisters.  She knew that they detested her husband, and
+(what was worse) she had enough of the Wesley in her to perceive why
+and how: nevertheless, being a Wesley, she kept a steady face on her
+pain.  Stung at times to echo Dick's sentiments and opinions, as it
+were in self-defence, she tried to soften them down and present them
+in a form at least tolerable to her family.  It was heroic, but
+uncomfortable; and they set aside the best parlour for it.
+
+Sukey would have preferred the kitchen.  In person she was short and
+plump, and her face expressed a desire to be cheerful.  She had
+little or none of that grace by which her sisters walked in the
+commonest cotton frocks as queens.  In childhood she had been noted
+for her carelessness in attire, and now obediently flaunted her
+husband's taste in bonnets.
+
+Her headdress to-day had a dreadful coquettishness.  Dick had found
+it at Lincoln and called on the company to admire.  It consisted of
+three large mock water-lilies on a little mat of muslin, and was
+perched on her piled hair so high aloft that their gaze, as they
+scanned it, seemed to pass far over her head.  She longed to tear it
+down, cast it on the floor, and be the Sukey they knew.
+
+The plate of cake and biscuits on the table gave the parlour a last
+funereal touch.  Dick was boisterously talkative.  The others
+scarcely spoke.  At length Hetty, who had been struggling to swallow
+a biscuit, and well-nigh choking over it, rose abruptly, kissed her
+mother, and went straight to her father's room.
+
+He sat at his writing-table, busy as usual with his commentary upon
+the Book of Job.  At another table by the window Johnny Whitelamb
+bent over a map, with his back to the light.  He glanced up as she
+entered: she could not well read his eyes for the shadow, and perhaps
+for some dimness in her own: but he rose, gathered his papers
+together, and slipped from the room.
+
+"Papa, Dick Ellison is in the parlour."
+
+"So my ears inform me."
+
+"He wishes to see you."
+
+"Then you may take him my compliments and assure him that he will
+not."
+
+"But, papa, the gig is at the door.  I have come to say good-bye."
+
+"Ah, in that case I will step out to the door and see you off; but I
+will not be button-holed by Dick Ellison." He rose and stood eyeing
+her, pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger.  "You have
+something to say to me, I suspect."
+
+"I am going to Kelstein," Hetty began firmly.  "I would like to obey
+you there, sir, as the others do at home.  I do not mean outwardly:
+but to feel, while I am absent, that I am earning--"  She paused and
+cast about for a word.
+
+"You will be earning, of course.  There is always satisfaction in
+that."
+
+"I am not thinking of money."
+
+"Of my approval, then?  Your employer, Mr. Grantham, is an honest
+gentleman: I shall trust his report of you."
+
+"Papa, I came to beg you for more than that.  Will you not let me
+feel that I am earning something more?--that if, as times goes on, my
+conduct pleases you, you will be more disposed to consider--to grant
+me--"
+
+"Mehetabel!"
+
+"I love him, papa!  I cannot help it.  Sir--!"
+
+She put out both hands to him, her eyes welling.  But he had turned
+sharply away from her cry, and strode across the room in his
+irritation.  Her hands fell, and one caught at the edge of the table
+for support while she leaned, bowing her head.
+
+He came abruptly back.  "Are you aware, Mehetabel, that you have
+proposed a bargain to me?  I do not bargain with my children:
+I expect obedience.  Nor as a father am I obliged to give my reasons.
+But since you are leaving us, and I would not dismiss you harshly,
+let me say that I have studied this man for whom you avow a fondness;
+and apart from his calling--which I detest--I find him vain, foppish,
+insincere.  He has _levitas_ with _levitas_: I believe his heart to
+be as shallow as his head.  I know him to be no fit mate for one of
+my daughters; least of all for you who have gifts above your
+sisters--gifts which I have recognised and tried to improve.
+Child, summon your pride to you, and let it help your obedience."
+He broke off and gazed out of the window.  "If," said he more softly,
+"our fate be not offered to us, we must make it.  If, while our true
+fate delays, there come to us unworthy phantoms simulating it, we
+should test them; lest impatient we run to embrace vanity, and
+betray, not our hopes alone, but the purpose God had in mind for us
+from the beginning."
+
+Hetty looked up.  She might have thought that she was twenty-seven,
+and asked herself how long was it likely to be before a prince came
+across those dreary fields to the thatched parsonage, seeking her.
+But her heart was full of the man she loved, and she thought only
+that her father did him bitter injustice.
+
+She shivered and lifted her face.  "Good-bye, papa," she said coldly.
+
+He kissed her on the cheek, and took a step to follow her to the
+door; but thought better of it and returned to the window.  He heard
+the door close upon her, and five minutes later saw her whisked away
+in the gig by Dick Ellison's side.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+He continued to stare out of the window long after the gig had
+disappeared over the low horizon: a small, nervous, indomitable
+figure of a man close upon his sixty-second birthday, standing for a
+while with his back turned upon his unwieldy manuscripts and his jaw
+thrust forward obstinately as he surveyed the blank landscape.
+He had the scholar's stoop, but this thrust of the jaw was habitual
+and lifted his face at an angle which gave an "up-sighted" expression
+to his small eyes, set somewhat closely together above a long
+straight nose.  Nose, eyes, jaw announced obstinacy, and the eyes,
+quick and fiery, warned you that it was of the aggressive kind which
+not only holds to its purpose, but never ceases nagging until it be
+attained.  In build he was lean and wiry: in carriage amazingly
+dignified for one who (to be precise) stood but 5 feet 5 and a half
+inches high.
+
+His father had been a non-juring clergyman, one of the many ejected
+from their livings on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1662; and he himself had
+been educated as a Nonconformist at Mr. Morton's famous academy on
+Newington Green, where Daniel Defoe had preceded him as a pupil, and
+where he had heard John Bunyan preach.  At the conclusion of his
+training there he was pitched upon to answer some pamphlets levelled
+against the Dissenters, and this set him on a course of reading which
+produced an effect he was far from intending: for instead of writing
+the answer he determined to renounce Dissent and attach himself to
+the Established Church.  He dwelt at that time with his mother and an
+old aunt, themselves ardent Dissenters, to whom he could not tell his
+design.  So he arose before daybreak one morning, tramped sixty miles
+to Oxford, and entered himself at Exeter College as a poor scholar.
+This was in August, 1683.
+
+He took up his residence in Oxford with forty-five shillings in his
+pocket.  He studied there five years, and during that time received
+from his family and friends just five shillings; obtained his
+Bachelor's degree, and departed seven pounds and fifteen shillings
+richer than when he entered the University.  The winter of 1683 was a
+hard beginning for a scholar too poor to buy fuel, the cold being so
+severe in the Thames valley that coaches plied as freely on the river
+from the Temple to Westminster as if they had gone upon the land.
+Yet "I tarried," he afterwards wrote, "in Exeter College, though I
+met with some hardships I had before been unacquainted with, till I
+was of standing sufficient to take my Bachelor's degree; and not
+being able to subsist there afterwards, I came to London during the
+time of my Lord Bishop of London's suspension by the High Commission,
+and was instituted into deacon's orders by my Lord Bishop of
+Rochester, at his palace at Bromley, August 7th, 1688."
+
+He had maintained himself by instructing wealthier undergraduates and
+writing their exercises for them (as a servitor he had to black their
+boots and run their errands); also by scribbling for John Dunton, the
+famous London bookseller, whose acquaintance he had made during his
+last year at Mr. Morton's.  With all this he found time and the will
+to be charitable, and had visited the poor creatures imprisoned in
+the Castle at Oxford--many for debt.  He lived to take the measure of
+this kindness, and to see it repeated by his sons.
+
+_Maggots: or Poems on Several Subjects never before Handled_ was no
+very marketable book of rhymes.  Yet it served its purpose and helped
+him, through Dunton, to become acquainted with a few men of letters
+and learning.  He had something better, too, to cheer his start in
+London.  Dunton in 1682 had married Elizabeth, one of the many
+daughters of Dr. Samuel Annesley, the famous Dissenter, then
+preaching at a Nonconformist church which he had opened in Little St.
+Helen's, Bishopsgate.  Young Wesley, a student at Newington Green,
+had been present at the wedding, with a copy of verses in his pocket:
+and there, in a corner of the Doctor's gloomy house in Spital Yard,
+he came on the Doctor's youngest daughter, a slight girl of fourteen,
+seated and watching the guests.
+
+She was but a child, and just then an unhappy one, though with no
+childish trouble.  Minds ripened early in Annesley House, where
+scholars and divines resorted to discuss the battle raging between
+Church and Dissent.  Susanna Annesley had listened and brooded upon
+what she heard; and now her convictions troubled her, for she saw, or
+thought she saw, the Church to be in the right, and herself an alien
+in her father's house, secretly rebellious against those she loved
+and preparing to disappoint them cruelly.  She knew her father's
+beliefs to be as strong and deep as they were temperately expressed.
+
+So it happened that Samuel Wesley, halting awkwardly (as a
+hobbledehoy will) before this slip of a girl and stammering some
+words meant to comfort her for losing her sister, presently found
+himself answering strange questions, staring into young eyes which
+had somehow surprised his own doubts of Dissent, and beyond them into
+a mind which had come to its own decision and quietly, firmly,
+invited him to follow.  It startled him so that love dawned at the
+same moment with a lesser shock.  He seated himself on the window
+cushion beside her, and after this they talked a very little, but
+watched the guests, feeling like two conspirators in the crowd,
+feeling also that the world was suddenly changed for them both.
+
+And thus it came about that Samuel Wesley dropped his pen, packed his
+books, and tramped off to Oxford.  He was back again now, after five
+years, with his degree, but no money as yet to marry on.  He started
+with a curacy at 28 pounds a year; was appointed chaplain on board a
+man-of-war, when his income rose to 70 pounds; and began an epic poem
+on the Life of Christ, scribbling (since he had leisure) at the rate
+of two hundred couplets a day; but soon returned to London, where he
+obtained a second curacy and 30 pounds year.  His pen earned him
+another 30 pounds, and on this he decided to marry.
+
+Between him and Susanna Annesley there had been little talk of love,
+but no doubt at all.  She was now close upon twenty, and ready to
+marry him when he named the day.  So married they were, in 1689.
+Less than a year later their first child, Samuel, was born in their
+London lodgings, and soon after came an offer, from the Massingberd
+family, through the Marquis of Normanby, of the living of South
+Ormsby in Lincolnshire.  Thither accordingly they journeyed on
+Midsummer Day, 1690, and there resided until the spring of 1697 in a
+vicarage little better than a mud-built hut.  There Mrs. Wesley bare
+Emilia, Susannah and Molly, besides other children who died in
+infancy, and there the Rector put forth his _Life of our Blessed Lord
+and Saviour Jesus Christ.  A heroic poem in ten books_: besides such
+trifles as "The Young Student's Library: containing Extracts and
+Abridgments of the most Valuable Books printed in England and in the
+Foreign Journals from the year '65 to this time.  To which is added
+A New Essay upon all sorts of Learning."
+
+Close by the parish church stood the Hall, the great house of the
+Lord Marquis of Normanby who in 1694 made Mr. Wesley his domestic
+chaplain.  The Marquis was a rake, and he and his mistresses gave the
+poor clergyman many searchings of heart.  There was one who took
+a fancy to Mrs. Wesley and would be intimate with her.  Coming home
+one day and finding this visitor seated with his wife, Mr. Wesley
+went up to her, took her by the hand and very fairly handed her out.
+It cost him his living: but the Marquis, being what is called a good
+fellow in the main, bore him no grudge; nay, rather liked his spirit,
+and afterwards showed himself a good friend to the amount of twenty
+guineas, to which the Marchioness (but this is more explicable) added
+five from her own purse.
+
+By good fortune the living of Epworth fell vacant just then, and in
+accordance with some wish or promise of the late Queen Mary, to whom
+he had dedicated his _Life of Christ_, Mr. Wesley was presented to
+it, a decent preferment, worth about 200 pounds a year in the
+currency of those times.  But by this time his family was large; he
+was in debt; the fees to be paid before taking up the living ate
+farther into his credit; a larger house had to be maintained, with
+three acres of garden and farm-buildings; and his new parishioners
+hated his politics and made life as miserable for him as they could.
+They were savage fighters, but they found their match.  In 1702 they
+set fire secretly to the parsonage-house, and burned down two-thirds
+of it.  In the winter of 1704 they destroyed a great part of his crop
+of flax.  This was the year of Blenheim, and upon news of the victory
+Mr. Wesley sat down to commemorate it in heroic verse.  The poem
+(published in the early days of 1705), if inferior to Mr. Addison's
+on the same occasion, ran to five hundred and ninety-four lines, and
+contained compliments enough to please the great Duke of
+Marlborough, who sent for its author, rewarded him with the
+chaplaincy of Colonel Lepelle's regiment, and promised him a
+prebend's stall.  The Dissenters, who (with some excuse, perhaps)
+looked upon Mr. Wesley as that worst of foes, a deserter from their
+own ranks, using their influence in Parliament and at Court, had him
+deprived of his regiment and denied the stall.  In April Queen Anne
+dissolved Parliament, and in May the late Tory members for the county
+of Lincoln, Sir John Thorold--and the Dymoke who then held--as his
+descendant holds to-day--the dignity of Royal Champion, fought and
+lost an election with the Whig candidates, Colonel Whichcott and
+Mr. Albert Bertie.  The Dissenters of course supported these; and
+Mr. Wesley, scorning insults and worse, the unpopular side: with what
+results we may read in these extracts from letters to the Archbishop
+of York.
+
+                                       Epworth, June 7th, 1705.
+
+     I went to Lincoln on Tuesday night, May 29th, and the election
+     began on Wednesday, 30th.  A great part of the night our Isle
+     people kept drumming, shouting, and firing of pistols and guns
+     under the window where my wife lay, who had been brought to bed
+     not three weeks.  I had put the child to nurse over against my
+     own house; the noise kept his nurse waking till one or two in
+     the morning.  Then they left off, and the nurse being heavy with
+     sleep, overlaid the child.  She waked, and finding it dead, ran
+     over with it to my house almost distracted, and calling my
+     servants, threw it into their arms.  They, as wise as she, ran
+     up with it to my wife and, before she was well awake, threw it
+     cold and dead into hers.  She composed herself as well as she
+     could, and that day got it buried.
+
+     A clergyman met me in the castle yard and told me to withdraw,
+     for the Isle men intended me a mischief.  Another told me he had
+     heard near twenty of them say, "if they got me in the castle
+     yard, they would squeeze my guts out."  My servant had the same
+     advice.  I went by Gainsbro', and God preserved me.
+
+     When they knew I was got home, they sent the drum and mob, with
+     guns etc.  as usual, to compliment me till after midnight.
+     One of them, passing by on Friday evening and seeing my children
+     in the yard, cried out "O ye devils!  We will come and turn ye
+     all out of doors a-begging shortly."  God convert them, and
+     forgive them!
+
+     All this, thank God, does not in the least sink my wife's
+     spirits.  For my own, I feel them disturbed and
+     disordered. . . .
+
+The rebuilding of the parsonage and some unhappy essays in farming
+his glebe had run the Rector still farther in debt: and now, not
+satisfied with winning the election, his enemies struck at him
+privily.  His next letter is dated not three weeks later from the
+debtors' ward in Lincoln.
+
+                             Lincoln Castle, June 25th, 1705.
+
+     My Lord,--Now I am at rest, for I am come to the haven where I
+     have long expected to be.  On Friday last (June 23rd), when I
+     had been, in christening a child, at Epworth, I was arrested in
+     my churchyard by one who had been my servant, and gathered my
+     tithe last year, at the suit of one of Mr. Whichcott's relations
+     and zealous friends (Mr Pinder) according to their promise when
+     they were in the Isle before the election.  The sum was not
+     thirty pounds, but it was as good as five hundred.  Now they
+     knew the burning of my flax, my London journey, and their
+     throwing me out of my regiment had both sunk my credit and
+     exhausted my money.  My adversary was sent to, when I was on the
+     road, to meet me, that I might make some proposals to him.
+     But all his answer was that 'I must immediately pay the whole
+     sum, or go to prison.'  Thither I went, with no great concern to
+     myself: and find much more civility and satisfaction here than
+     _in brevibus gyaris_ of my own Epworth.  I thank God, my wife
+     was pretty well recovered and churched some days before I was
+     taken from her; and hope she'll be able to look to my family, if
+     they don't turn them out of doors as they have often threatened
+     to do.  One of my biggest concerns was my being forced to leave
+     my poor lambs in the midst of so many wolves.  But the great
+     Shepherd is able to provide for them and to preserve them.
+     My wife bears it with that courage which becomes her, and which
+     I expected from her.
+
+     I don't despair of doing some good here (and so I sha'n't quite
+     lose the end of living), and it may be, do more in this new
+     parish than in my old one: for I have leave to read prayers
+     every morning and afternoon here in the prison, and to preach
+     once a Sunday, which I choose to do in the afternoon when there
+     is no sermon at the minster.  And I'm getting acquainted with my
+     brother jail-birds as fast as I can; and shall write to London
+     next post, to the Society for propagating Christian Knowledge,
+     who, I hope, will send me some books to distribute among
+     them. . . .
+
+The next letter, dated from prison on September 12th, proves that he
+had reasons only too good to be fearful.
+
+     The other matter is concerning the stabbing of my cows in the
+     night since I came hither, but a few weeks ago; and endeavouring
+     thereby to starve my forlorn family in my absence; my cows being
+     all dried by it, which was their chief subsistence; though I
+     hope they had not the power to kill any of them outright. . . .
+
+     The same night the iron latch of my door was twined off, and the
+     wood hacked in order to shoot back the lock, which nobody will
+     think was with an intention to rob my family.  My housedog, who
+     made a huge noise within doors, was sufficiently punished for
+     his want of politics and _moderation_, for the next day but one
+     his leg was almost chopped off by an unknown hand.  'Tis not
+     every one could bear these things; but, I bless God, my wife is
+     less concerned with suffering them that I am in the writing, or
+     than I believe your Grace will be in reading them. . . . Oh, my
+     lord!  I once more repeat it, that I shall some time have a more
+     equal Judge than any in this world.
+
+     Most of my friends advise me to leave Epworth, if e'er I should
+     get from hence.  I confess I am not of that mind, because I may
+     yet do good there; and 'tis like a coward to desert my post
+     because the enemy fire thick upon me.  They have only wounded me
+     yet and, I believe, _can't_ kill me.  I hope to be home by
+     Xmass.  God help my poor family! . . .
+
+By the end of the year (the Archbishop and other friends assisting) a
+good part of his debts had been paid and Mr. Wesley was at home
+again.  From Epworth he refused to budge; and there, for three years
+and more, the rage of his enemies slumbered and his affairs grew
+easier.  John (if we do not count the poor infant overlaid) had been
+the last child born before his imprisonment.  Now arrived Patty, in
+the autumn of 1706, and Charles, in December, 1707.  A third was
+expected, and shortly, when in the night of February 9th, 1709, the
+parsonage took fire again and burned to the ground in fifteen
+minutes.
+
+     On Wednesday last, at half an hour after eleven at night, in a
+     quarter of an hour's time or less, my house at Epworth was
+     burned down to the ground--I hope by accident; but God knows
+     all.  We had been brewing, but had done all; every spark of fire
+     quenched before five o'clock that evening--at least six hours
+     before the house was on fire.  Perhaps the chimney above might
+     take fire (though it had been swept not long since) and break
+     through into the thatch.  Yet it is strange I should neither see
+     nor smell anything of it, having been in my study in that part
+     of the house till above half an hour after ten.  Then I locked
+     the doors of that part of the house where my wheat and other
+     corn lay, and went to bed.
+
+     The servants had not been in bed a quarter of an hour when the
+     fire began.  My wife being near her time, and very weak, I lay
+     in the next chamber.  A little after eleven I heard "Fire!"
+     cried in the street, next to which I lay.  If I had been in my
+     own chamber, as usual, we had all been lost.  I threw myself out
+     of bed, got on my waistcoat and nightgown, and looked out of
+     window; saw the reflection of the flame, but knew not where it
+     was; ran to my wife's chamber with one stocking on and my
+     breeches in my hand; would have broken open the door, which was
+     bolted within, but could not.  My two eldest children were with
+     her.  They rose, and ran towards the staircase, to raise the
+     rest of the house.  There I saw it was my own house, all in a
+     light blaze, and nothing but a door between the flame and the
+     staircase.
+
+     I ran back to my wife, who by this time had got out of bed,
+     naked, and opened the door.  I bade her fly for her life.
+     We had a little silver and some gold--about 20 pounds.
+     She would have stayed for it, but I pushed her out; got her and
+     my two eldest children downstairs (where two of the servant were
+     now got), and asked for the keys.  They knew nothing of them.
+     I ran upstairs and found them, came down, and opened the street
+     door.  The thatch was fallen in all on fire.  The north-east
+     wind drove all the sheets of flame in my face, as if
+     reverberated in a lamp.  I got twice to the step and was drove
+     down again.  I ran to the garden door and opened it.  The fire
+     there was more moderate.  I bade them all follow, but found only
+     two with me, and the maid with another in her arms that cannot
+     go; but all naked.  I ran with them to an outhouse in the
+     garden, out of the reach of the flames; put the least in the
+     other's lap; and not finding my wife follow me, ran back into
+     the house to seek her, but could not find her.  The servants and
+     two of the children were got out at the window.  In the kitchen
+     I found my eldest daughter, naked, and asked her for her mother.
+     She could not tell me where she was.  I took her up and carried
+     her to the rest in the garden; came in the second time and ran
+     upstairs, the flame breaking through the wall at the staircase;
+     thought all my children were safe, and hoped my wife was some
+     way got out.  I then remembered my books, and felt in my pocket
+     for the key of the chamber which led to my study.  I could not
+     find the key, though I searched a second time.  Had I opened
+     that door, I must have perished.
+
+     I ran down and went to my children in the garden, to help them
+     over the wall.  When I was without, I heard one of my poor
+     lambs, left still above-stairs, about six years old, cry out,
+     dismally, "Help me!" I ran in again, to go upstairs, but the
+     staircase was now all afire.  I tried to force up through it a
+     second time, holding my breeches over my head, but the stream of
+     fire beat me down.  I thought I had done my duty; went out of
+     the house to that part of my family I had saved, in the garden,
+     with the killing cry of my child in my ears.  I made them all
+     kneel down, and we prayed to God to receive his soul.
+
+     I tried to break down the pales, and get my children over into
+     the street, but could not; then went under the flame and got
+     them over the wall.  Now I put on my breeches and leaped after
+     them.  One of my maidservants that had brought out the least
+     child, got out much at the same time.  She was saluted with a
+     hearty curse by one of the neighbours, and told that we had
+     fired the house ourselves, the second time, on purpose! I ran
+     about inquiring for my wife and other children; met the chief
+     man and chief constable of the town going from my house, not
+     towards it to help me.  I took him by the hand and said "God's
+     will be done!"  His answer was, "Will you never have done your
+     tricks?  You fired your house once before; did you not get
+     enough by it then, that you have done it again?"  This was cold
+     comfort.  I said, "God forgive you!  I find you are chief man
+     still."  But I had a little better soon after, hearing that my
+     wife was saved; and then I fell on mother earth and blessed God.
+
+     I went to her.  She was alive, and could just speak.
+     She thought I had perished, and so did all the rest, not having
+     seen me nor any share of eight children for a quarter of an
+     hour; and by this time all the chambers and everything was
+     consumed to ashes, for the fire was stronger than a furnace, the
+     violent wind beating it down on the house.  She told me
+     afterwards how she escaped.  When I went first to open the
+     back-door, she endeavoured to force through the fire at the
+     fore-door, but was struck back twice to the ground.  She thought
+     to have died there, but prayed to Christ to help her.  She found
+     new strength, got up alone and waded through two or three yards
+     of flame, the fire on the ground being up to her knees.  She had
+     nothing on but her shoes and a wrapping gown, and one coat on
+     her arm.  This she wrapped about her breast, and got through
+     safe into the yard, but no soul yet to help her.  She never
+     looked up or spake till I came; only when they brought her last
+     child to her, bade them lay it on the bed.  This was the lad
+     whom I heard cry in the house, but God saved him almost by a
+     miracle.  He only was forgot by the servants, in the hurry.
+     He ran to the window towards the yard, stood upon a chair and
+     cried for help.  There were now a few people gathered, one of
+     whom, who loves me, helped up another to the window.  The child
+     seeing a man come into the window, was frightened, and ran away
+     to get to his mother's chamber.  He could not open the door, so
+     ran back again.  The man was fallen down from the window, and
+     all the bed and hangings in the room where he was were blazing.
+     They helped up the man a second time, and poor Jacky leaped into
+     his arms and was saved.  I could not believe it till I had
+     kissed him two or three times.  My wife then said unto me,
+    "Are your books safe?"  I told her it was not much, now she and
+     all the rest were preserved. . . .
+
+     Mr. Smith of Gainsborough, and others, have sent for some of my
+     children. . . . I want nothing, having above half my barley
+     saved in my barns unthreshed.  I had finished my alterations in
+     the _Life of Christ_ a little while since, and transcribed three
+     copies of it.  But all is lost.  God be praised!
+
+     I hope my wife will recover, and not miscarry, but God will give
+     me my nineteenth child.  She has burnt her legs, but they mend.
+     When I came to her, her lips were black.  I did not know her.
+     Some of the children are a little burnt, but not hurt or
+     disfigured.  I only got a small blister on my hand.
+     The neighbours send us clothes, for it is cold without them.
+
+The child (Kezzy) was born and lived.  The Rectory was rebuilt within
+a year, at a cost of 400 pounds.  The day after the fire, as he
+groped among the ruins in the garden, Mr. Wesley had picked up a torn
+leaf of his Polyglot Bible, on which these words alone were legible:
+_Vade; vende omnia quot habes; et attolle crucem, et sequere me_.
+He had come to Epworth a poor man: and now, after fifteen years, he
+stood as poor as then; poorer, perhaps.  He had served his
+parishioners only to earn their detestation.  But he stood unbeaten:
+and as he stared out of his window there gripped him--not for the
+first time--a fierce ironical affection for the hard landscape, the
+fields of his striving, even the folk who had proved such good
+haters.  _Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and
+thou shalt eat the herb of the field_--ay, and learn to relish it as
+no other food.  _In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till
+thou return unto the ground_.  Ah, but to go and surrender that
+ground to others--there lay the sting!  With him, as with many
+another true man disappointed in his fate, his hopes passed from
+himself to fasten the more eagerly on his sons.  He wanted them to be
+great and eminent soldiers of Christ, and he divined already that, if
+for one above the others, this eminence was reserved for John.
+But he wanted also a son of his loins to succeed him at Epworth, to
+hold and improve what painful inches he had gained; and again he
+could only think of John.  Could a man devote his life to this
+forsaken parish and yet be a light set on a hill for the world?
+Had not his own life taught the folly of that hope?
+
+He sighed and turned from the window.  He had quite forgotten Hetty.
+
+He stepped to the door to summon Johnny Whitelamb: but the sound of
+voices drew him across the passage to the best parlour, and there at
+the threshold his eyes fell on Sukey's headdress.
+
+"Susannah!"
+
+"Yes, father."  Sukey stepped forward to be kissed.
+
+"Take off that--that _thing_!"
+
+"Yes, father."  She untied the strings obediently.
+
+"If your husband chooses to dress and carry you about the country
+like a figure of fun, I cannot prevent him.  But in my house remember
+that I am your father, and take my assurance that, although Jezebel
+tired her head, she had the saving grace of not looking like a fool."
+
+Mr. Wesley turned on his heel and strode back to his books.
+
+
+"Why don't you stand up to him?" asked Mr. Dick Ellison suddenly, on
+the road to Kelstein.
+
+"To father?"   Hetty came out of her day-dreams with a start.
+
+"Yes: you've been having a tiff this morning, anyone can see.
+Young man is poison to him, hey?  Why don't you take a leaf out of my
+book?  'Paternal authority'--and a successor of the apostles into the
+bargain--that's his ground.  Well, I don't allow him to take it.
+'Beggars can't be choosers' is mine, and I pin him to it.  Oh, yes,
+_I'm_ poison to him, but it does him good.  'That cock won't crow,'
+I say.  He's game enough on his own dunghill, but a high-blooded lass
+like you ought to be his master by this time.  Hint that you'll cut
+the painter, kick over the traces--you needn't _do_ it, y'know.
+Threaten you'll run and join the stage--nothing unlikely in that--
+and, by George, it'd bring him up with a clove hitch!  Where's your
+invention?"
+
+Hetty gazed at the horse's ears and considered.  "It's easy for you,
+Dick, who have nothing in common with him, not even affection."
+
+"Oh, I like the old fellow well enough, for all his airs with me,"
+said Mr. Dick Ellison graciously.
+
+"If they annoyed you more, you might understand him better--and me,"
+replied Hetty.
+
+Silence fell between them again and the gig bowled on.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+The frozen canal ran straight towards the sunset, into a flooded
+country where only a line of pollard willows, with here and there an
+alder, marked the course of its left bank.  But where Hetty waited
+the banks were higher, and the red ball on the horizon sent a level
+shaft down the lane between them.
+
+She was alone.  Indeed, the only living creature within sight was a
+red-breast, hunched into a ball and watching her from a wintry willow
+bough; the only moving object a windmill half a mile away across the
+level, turning its sails against the steel-gray sky--so listlessly,
+they seemed to be numbed.
+
+She had strapped on a pair of skates--clumsy homemade things, and a
+birthday present from Johnny Whitelamb, who had fashioned them with
+pains, the Epworth blacksmith helping.  Hetty skated excellently
+well--in days, be it understood, before the cutting of figures had
+been advanced to an art with rules and text-books.  But as the poise
+and balanced impetus came natural to her, so in idle moments and
+casually she had struck out figures of her own, and she practised
+them now with the red-breast for spectator.  She was happy--her
+bosom's lord sitting lightly on his throne--and all because of two
+letters she pulled from her pocket and re-read in the pauses of her
+skating.
+
+The first was from her mother at Wroote, and told her that to-day or
+to-morrow her father would be arriving at Kelstein with her sister
+Patty.  Hetty had been expecting this for some weeks.  At Christmas
+(it was now mid-January) the Granthams had written praising her, and
+this had given Mr. Wesley the notion of proffering yet another of his
+daughters.  Two days after receiving the letter he had ridden over to
+Kelstein with the proposal.  Patty was the one chosen (Hetty could
+guess why), and poor Patty knew nothing of it at the time: but Mrs.
+Grantham had accepted almost effusively, and she was to come.
+In what capacity? Hetty wondered.  She herself taught the children,
+and she could think of no other post in the household not absolutely
+menial.  Was it selfish of her to be so glad? For one thing Patty had
+fewer whimsies than the rest of her sisters and, likely enough, would
+accept her lot as a matter of course.  She seldom wept or grumbled:
+indeed Hetty, before now, had found her patience irritating.  But to
+have Patty's company now seemed the most delightful thing in the
+world; to fling her arms around somebody who came from home!
+
+The most delightful?  Hetty turned to the second letter--and with
+that looked up swiftly as her ear caught the ringing sound of skates,
+and a young man descended, as it were, out of the sun's disc and came
+flying down the long alley on its ray.  She put out both hands.
+He swooped around her in a long curve and caught them and kissed her
+as he came to a standstill, panting, with a flush on each handsome
+cheek.
+
+"Hetty!"
+
+No answer to this but a sound like a coo of rapture.  He is, as we
+should think, a personable young fellow, frank, and taking to the
+eye, though his easy air of mastery provokes another look at Hetty,
+who is worth ten of him.  But to her he is a young god above whom the
+stars dance.  Splendid creature though she be, she must comply with
+her sex which commands her to be passive, to be loved.  With his arm
+about her she shuts her eyes and drinks delicious weakness; with a
+sense of sinking through space supported by that arm--not wholly
+relying on him as yet, but holding her own strength in reserve, if he
+should fail her.
+
+"I have raced."
+
+She laughed.  "I bargained for that.  We have so little time!"
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Mrs. Grantham expects me back in an hour at latest.  Father and
+Patty will be arriving before supper, and there are the children to
+be put to bed."
+
+"Let us go up the canal, then.  I have a surprise for you."
+
+They took hands--both her hands in his, their arms held crosswise to
+their bodies--and struck out, stroke for stroke.  By the third stroke
+they were swinging forward in perfect rhythm, each onrush held long
+and level on the outside edge and curving only as it slackened.
+The air began to sing by Hetty's temples; her skates kept a humming
+tune with her lover's.  The back of his hand rested warm against her
+bosom.
+
+"You skate divinely."
+
+She scarcely heard.  The world slipped past and behind her with the
+racing trees: she was a bird mated and flying into the sunset.
+Ah, here was bliss!  Awhile ago she had been faint with love, as
+though a cord were being tightened around her heart: it had been hard
+for her to speak, hard even to draw breath.  Now her lungs opened,
+the cord snapped and broke with a sob; and, as the sun's rim dipped,
+she flew faster, urgent to overtake and hold it there, to stay its
+red glint between the reed-beds, its bloom of brown and purple on the
+withered grasses.  The wind of her skirt caught up the dead leaves
+freshly scattered on the ice and swept them along with her, whirling,
+like a train of birds.  But, race as she would, the sun sank and the
+shadow of the world crept higher behind her shoulder.  The last gleam
+died; and, lifting her eyes, Hetty saw over its grave, poised in a
+clear space of sky, the sickle moon.
+
+She tried to disengage her hand, to point to it: but as his eyes
+sought hers with a question, she let it lie and nodded upwards
+instead.  He saw and understood, and with their faces raised to it
+they held on their flight in silence: for lovers may wish with the
+new moon, but the first to speak will have wished in vain.
+
+A tapping, as of someone hammering upon metal, sounded from a clump
+of willows ahead and upon their right.  A woman's voice joined in
+scolding.  This broke the spell; and with a laugh they disengaged
+hands, separated, and let their speed bear them on side by side till
+it slackened and they ran to a halt beside the trees.
+
+A barge lay here, hopelessly frozen on its way up the canal.  On its
+deck a woman, with arms akimbo, stood over a man seated and tinkering
+at a kettle.  She nodded as they approached.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, sir--you and the lady."
+
+Hetty looked at her lover.
+
+"It's all right," he explained: "only a surprise of mine, which seems
+to have missed fire.  I had planned a small picnic here and this good
+woman was to have had a dish of tea ready for you--"
+
+"How was I to know that man of mine had been fool enough to fill the
+kettle before tramping off to the 'Ring of Bells'?" the good woman
+broke in.  "Lord knows 'tisn' his way to be thoughtful, and when he
+tries it there's always a breakage.  When I'd melted the ice, the
+thing began to leak like a sieve; and if this tinker fellow hadn't
+come along--by Providence, as you may call it--though I'd ha' been
+obliged to Providence for a quicker workman--"
+
+Hetty was not listening.  Her eyes had caught the tinker's, and the
+warm blood had run back from her face: for he was the man who had
+startled the sisters on the knoll, that harvest evening.
+
+He nodded to her now with an impudent grin.  "Good evening, missy!
+If I'd known the job was for Miss Wesley, I'd ha' put best speed into
+it: best work there is already."
+
+"Hallo! Do you know this fellow?" her lover demanded.
+
+"'Fellow'--and a moment back 'twas 'tinker'!  Well, well, a man must
+look low and pick up what he can in these times, 'specially when his
+larger debtors be so backward--hey, miss?  Why, to be sure I know
+Miss Wesley: a man don't forget a face like hers in a hurry.  Glad to
+meet her, likewise, enjoyin' herself so free and easy.  Shall I tell
+the old Rector, miss, next time I call, how well you was lookin', and
+in what company?"
+
+Hetty saw her lover ruffling and laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Tuppence if you please, ma'am, and I'll be going.  William Wright
+was never one to spoil sport: but some has luck in this world and
+some hasn't, and that's a fact."  He grinned again as he pocketed the
+money.
+
+"If you don't take your impudent face out of this, I'll smash it for
+you," spoke up the young man hotly.
+
+The plumber's grin widened as, slinging his bag of tools over his
+shoulder, he stepped on to the frozen towpath.  "Ah, you're a
+bruiser, I dare say: for I've seen you outside the booth at Lincoln
+Fair, hail-fellow with the boxing-men on the platform.  And a buck
+you was too, with a girl on each arm; and might pass, that far from
+home, for one of the gentry, the way you stood treat.  But you're
+not: and if missy ain't more particular in her bucks, she'd do better
+with a respectable tradesman like me.  As for smashing of faces, two
+can play at that game, belike: but William Wright chooses his time."
+
+He was lurching away with a guffaw; for the tow-path here ran within
+two furlongs of the high road, and a man upon skates cannot pursue
+across _terra firma_.
+
+But he had reckoned without Hetty, who had seated herself on the edge
+of the barge and who now shook her feet free of Johnny Whitelamb's
+rough clamps, and, springing from the deck to the towpath, took him
+by the collar as he turned.
+
+"Go!" she cried, and with her open palm dealt him a stinging slap
+across the cheek.  "Go!"
+
+The man put up his hand, fell back a moment with a dazed face, and
+then without a word ran for the highway, his bag of tools rattling
+behind him.
+
+Never was route more ludicrously sudden.  Even in her wrath Hetty
+looked at her lover and broke into a laugh.
+
+"Let me skate up the canal and head him off," said he.  "Half a mile
+will give me lead enough to slip out of these things and collar him
+on the highway."
+
+"He is not worth it.  Besides, he may not be going towards Kelstein:
+in this light we cannot see the road or what direction he takes.
+Let him be, dear," Hetty persuaded, as the old woman called out from
+her cabin that the kettle boiled.  "Our time is too precious."
+
+Then, while he yet fumed, she suddenly grew grave.
+
+"Was it truth he was telling?"
+
+"Truth?" he echoed.
+
+"Yes: about Lincoln Fair?"
+
+"Oh, the boxing-booth, you mean?  Well, my dear, there was something
+in it, to be sure.  You wouldn't have me be a milksop, would you?"
+
+"No-o," she mused.  "But I meant what he said about--about those
+women.  Was that true?"
+
+He was on the point of answering with a lie; but while he hesitated
+she helped him by adding, "I am not a child, dear.  I am
+twenty-seven, and older than you.  Please be honest with me, always."
+
+He was young, but had an instinct for understanding women.
+He revised the first lie and rejected it for a more cunning one.
+"It was before I met you," he said humbly.  "He made the worst of it,
+of course, but I had rather you knew the truth.  You are angry?"
+
+Hetty sighed.  "I am sorry.  It seems to make our--our love--
+different somehow."
+
+The bargewoman brought out their tea.  She had heard nothing of the
+scrimmage on the bank, so swiftly had it happened and with so few
+words spoken.
+
+"Halloa--is the tinker gone?  And I'd cut off a crust for him.
+Well, I can eat it myself, I suppose; and after all he was low
+company for the likes of you, though any company comes well to folks
+that can't pick and choose."  In the act of setting herself on the
+cabin top she sat up stiffly and listened.
+
+"There's a horse upon the high road," she announced.
+
+"A highwayman, perhaps, if all company's welcome to you."
+
+"He won't come this way," said the woman placidly.  "I loves to lie
+close to the road like this and see the wagons and coaches rolling by
+all day: for 'tis a dull life, always on the water.  Now you wouldn't
+believe what a pleasure it gives me, to have you two here a-lovering,
+nor how many questions I'd put if you'd let me.  When is it to be, my
+dear?"--addressing Hetty--"But you won't answer me, I know.
+You're wishing me farther, and go I will as soon as you've drunk your
+tay.  Well, sir, I hope you'll take care of her: for the pretty she
+is, I could kiss her myself.  May I?" she asked suddenly, taking
+Hetty's empty cup; and Hetty blushed and let her.  "God send you
+children, you beauty!"
+
+She paused with a cup in either hand, and in the act of squeezing
+herself backwards through the small cabin-door.  "La, the red you've
+gone! I can see it with no help more than the bit of moon.  'Tis a
+terrible thing to be childless, and for that you can take my word."
+Wagging her head she vanished.
+
+Left to themselves the two sat silent.  The sound of the horse's
+hoofs died away down the road towards Kelstein.  Had Hetty known, her
+father was the horseman, with Patty riding pillion behind him.
+Over the frozen floods came the note of a church clock, borne on the
+almost windless air.
+
+"Five o'clock?" Hetty sprang up.  "Time to be going, and past."
+
+"You have not forgiven me," he murmured.
+
+"Indeed, yes."  She was, after all, a girl of robust good sense, and
+could smile bravely as she put an illusion by.  "To be loved is
+marvellous and seems to make all marvels possible: but I was wrong to
+expect--this one.  And if, since knowing me--"
+
+"You have taught me all better things."  He knelt on the ice at her
+feet and began to fasten her skates.  "Let me still be your pupil and
+look up to you, as I am looking now."
+
+"Ah!" she pressed her palms together, "but that is just what I need--
+to know that we are both better for loving.  I want to be sure of
+that, for it makes me brave when I think of father.  While he forbids
+us, I cannot help doubting at times: and then I look into myself and
+see that all the world is brighter, all the world is better since I
+knew you.  O my love, if we trust our love, and help one another!--"
+Her rich voice thrilled and broke as she leaned forward and laid a
+hand on his forehead.
+
+"See me at your feet," he whispered, looking up into eyes divinely
+dewy.  "I am yours to teach: teach me, if you will, to be good."
+
+They rose to their feet together--he but an inch or so the taller--
+and for a moment, as he took her in his arms, she held back, her
+palms against his shoulders, her eyes passionately seeking the truth
+in his.  Then with a sob she kissed him and was gone.
+
+For a moment she skated nervelessly, with hanging arms.  But,
+watching, he saw her summon up her strength and shoot down the
+glimmering ice-way like a swallow let loose from his hand.  So swift
+was her flight that, all unknowing, she overtook and passed the
+travellers jogging parallel with her on the high road; and had
+reached Kelstein and was putting her two small charges to bed, when
+her father's knock sounded below stairs.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Grantham, though pompous, were a kindly pair: and Mrs.
+Grantham, entering the library where Mr. Wesley and his daughter
+awaited her, and observing that the girl seemed frightened or
+depressed (she could not determine which), rang the bell at once and
+sent a maid upstairs for Hetty.
+
+Hetty entered with cheeks still glowing and eyes sparkling; went at
+once to her father and kissed him, and running, threw her arms around
+Patty, who responded listlessly.
+
+"She needs Kelstein air," explained Mr. Wesley.  "I protest it seems
+to agree with _you_, Mehetabel."
+
+"But tell me all the news, father," Hetty demanded, with an arm about
+her sister's waist and a glance at Mrs. Grantham, which asked pardon
+for her freedom.
+
+"Your sister shall tell it, my dear," answered that good woman,
+"while I am persuading your father to sup with us.  I have given them
+a room together," she explained to Mr. Wesley.  "I thought it would
+be pleasanter for them."
+
+"You are kindness itself, madam."
+
+Hetty led the way upstairs.  "It is all strange at first, dear: I
+know the feeling.  But see how cosy we shall be."  She threw the door
+open, and showed a room far more comfortably furnished than any at
+Wroote or Epworth.  The housemaid, who adored Hetty, had even lit a
+fire in the grate.  Two beds with white coverlets, coarse but
+exquisitely clean, stood side by side--"Though we won't use them
+both.  I must have you in my arms, and drink in every word you have
+to tell me till you drop off to sleep in spite of me, and hold you
+even then.  Oh, Patty, it is good to have you here!"
+
+But Patty, having untied the strings of her hat, tossed it on to the
+edge of her bed and collapsed beside it.
+
+"I wish I was dead!" she announced.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+John Romley was the cause of her exile.  This young man had been a
+pupil of the Rector's, and studied divinity with him for a while
+before matriculating at Lincoln College, Oxford; where in due course
+he took his degree, and whence he returned, in deacon's orders, to
+take charge of the endowed school at Epworth and to help in the
+spiritual work of the parish.  Mr. Wesley's experience of curates had
+been far from happy, but Romley promised to be the bright exception
+in a long list of failures.  (It was he who discovered and introduced
+Johnny Whitelamb to the household.) He was sociable; had pleasant
+manners, a rotund figure not yet inclining to coarseness, a pink and
+white complexion, and a mellifluous tenor voice.  To his voice, alas!
+he owed most of his misfortunes in life.
+
+The Rector had no high opinion of his brains: but tolerated him, and
+at first looked on leniently enough when he began to pay his
+addresses to Patty.  Indeed the courtship proceeded to the gentle
+envy of her sisters until one fatal night when Romley, in the rectory
+parlour at Wroote, attuned his voice to sing the _Vicar of Bray_.
+In his study Mr. Wesley heard it.  He, of all men, was no Vicar of
+Bray, albeit he had abjured Dissent: but he felt his cloth insulted,
+and by this fribble of his own order.  It was treason in short, and
+he bounced into the parlour as Mr. Romley carolled:
+
+     "When gracious Anne became our Queen,
+       The Church of England's glory,
+      Another face of things was seen,
+       And I became a Tory;
+      Occasional Conformists base--"
+
+There was a scene, and it ended in Romley being shown the door and
+Patty forbidden to have speech with him.  Actually she had not set
+eyes on him since that night: but the Rector unaccountably omitted to
+forbid their corresponding.  Now Patty, the most literally minded of
+her sex, had a niggling obstinacy in pursuit of her ends.  She would
+obey to a hair's breadth: but, nothing having been said about
+letters, letters passed.  Piecing the truth together from her
+incoherent railings, Hetty learned that the Rector had happened upon
+a scrap of Romley's handwriting, had lost his temper furiously and
+given sentence of banishment.
+
+Patty in love showed none of her sister's glorious fervour: but
+stared obtusely, even sulkily, when Hetty hinted at her own secret
+and, pressing her waist, spoke of love with fearless elation, yet as
+of a sacred thing.
+
+"Oh, you're too poetical for me!" she interrupted.
+
+This was depressing.
+
+"And I wish I was in my grave," added Patty, looking like a martyr in
+a wet blanket.
+
+Thinking to put spirit into her, Hetty became more explicit and
+proved that love might find out a way between Epworth and Kelstein--
+nay, even spoke of her own clandestine meeting that very afternoon.
+Her cheeks glowed.  Nor for a minute did she observe that Patty,
+listless at the beginning of the tale, was staring at her with round
+eyes.
+
+"You mean to tell me that you meet him!"
+
+"Why, of course I do."
+
+"But father forbade it!"
+
+"To be sure he did."
+
+"Then all I can say is"--Patty rose to her feet in the strength of
+her disapproval--"that I call it disgraceful, and I'm perfectly
+ashamed of you!"
+
+"But, good Heavens! he forbade you to see Romley."
+
+"But not to write."
+
+"O-o!" Hetty mused with her pretty mouth shaped to the letter.
+"And now, I suppose, he has forbidden that too?"
+
+"Of course he has."
+
+"And are you going to obey?"
+
+"Of course I am."
+
+It was Hetty's turn to stare wide-eyed.  "You are going to give
+Romley up?" she asked very slowly.
+
+"Yes, yes, yes--and I wish I was in my grave!"  Patty collapsed again
+dismally, but sat upright after a moment.  "As for your behaviour,
+'tis positively wicked, and I think father ought to be told of it!"
+
+Hetty put out both hands; but instead of shaking her sister (as she
+was minded to do) she let the open palms fall gently upon her
+shoulders and looked her in the face.
+
+"Then I advise you not to tell him, dear.  For in the first place it
+would do no good."
+
+"Do no good?"
+
+"Well, then, it would make no difference."
+
+"You mean to--run away--with him?" gasped Patty, her eyes
+involuntarily turning towards the window.
+
+The glance set Hetty's laughter rippling.  "Pat--Pat! don't be a
+goose.  I shall not run away with him from this house.  I promised
+mother."
+
+"You--promised--mother!" Patty was reduced to stammering echoes.
+
+"Dear me, yes.  You must not suppose yourself the only one of her
+children she understands."  Hetty, being human, could not forgo this
+little slap.  "Now wash your face, like a good girl, and come down to
+supper: and afterwards you shall tell me all the news of home.
+There's one thing"--and she eyed Patty drolly--"I can trust you to be
+accurate."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you can look father in the face--"
+But here Patty broke off, at the sound of hoofs on the gravel below.
+
+"There will be no need," said Hetty quietly, "if, as I think, he is
+mounting Bounce to ride home."
+
+"Bounce?  How did you know that Bounce brought us?"--for Bounce was
+Mrs. Wesley's nag, and the Rector usually rode an old gray named
+Mettle, but had taken of late to a filly of his own breeding.
+
+"I ought to remember Bounce's shuffle," answered Hetty.  "Nay, I
+should have recognised it on the road two miles back if--if I hadn't
+been--"
+
+She came to a full stop, in some confusion.  Nevertheless she was
+right; and the girls arrived downstairs to learn from Mrs. Grantham
+that their father had ridden off, declining her offer of supper and
+scoffing at her fears of highwaymen.
+
+And the days went by.  Hetty could not help telling herself that
+Patty was a disappointment.  But she was saved from reflecting on it
+overmuch: for Mrs. Grantham (after forty years of comfort without
+one) had conceived a desire to be waited on and have her hair dressed
+by a maid, and between Mrs. Grantham's inability to discover
+precisely what she wanted done by Patty, and Patty's unhandiness in
+doing it, and Mrs. Grantham's anxiety to fill up Patty's time, and
+Patty's lack of inventiveness, the pair kept Hetty pretty constantly
+near her wit's end.
+
+Concerning her lover she attempted no more confidences.  But, alone,
+she pondered much on Patty's reproof, which set her arguing out the
+whole case afresh.  For, absurd though its logic was, it had touched
+her conscience.  Was it conscience (she asked herself) or but the old
+habit of trembling at her father's word, which kept her so uneasy in
+disobeying him?
+
+She came to no new conclusion; for a sense of injustice gave a twist
+to her thinking from the start.  All his daughters held Mr. Wesley in
+awe: they never dreamed, for instance, of comparing their lovers with
+him in respect of dignity or greatness.  They assumed that their
+brothers inherited some portion of that greatness, but they required
+none in the men to whom they were ready to give their hands; nay,
+perhaps unconsciously rejoiced in the lack of it, having lived with
+it at home and found it uncomfortable.
+
+They were proud of it, of course, and knew that they themselves had
+some touch of it, if but a lunar glow.  They read the assurance in
+their mother's speech, in her looks; and, moving among the Epworth
+folk as neighbours, yet apart, they had acquired a high pride of
+family which derived nothing from vulgar chatter about titled, rich
+and far-off relatives; but, taking ancestry for granted, found
+sustenance enough in the daily life at the parsonage and the letters
+from Westminster and Oxford.  Aware of some worth in themselves, they
+saw themselves pinched of food, exiled from many companions, shut out
+from social gatherings for want of pocket-money and decent attire,
+while amid all the muddle of his affairs their father could tramp for
+miles and pledge the last ounce of his credit to scrape a few pounds
+for John or Charles.  They divined his purpose: but they felt the
+present injustice.
+
+They never regarded him as just.  And this was mainly his own fault,
+or at least the fault of his theory that women, especially daughters,
+were not to be reasoned with but commanded.  Hetty, for example, had
+an infinite capacity for self-sacrifice.  At an appeal from him she
+would have surrendered, not small vanities only, but desires more
+than trivial, for the brothers whom in her heart she loved to
+fondness.  But the sacrifice was ever exacted, not left to her
+good-nature; the right word never spoken.
+
+And now, under the same numbing deference, her mother had failed her
+at a moment when all her heart cried out in its need.  Hetty loved
+her lover.  Perhaps, if allowed to fare abroad, consort with other
+girls, and learn, with responsibility, to choose better, she had
+never chosen this man.  She had chosen him now.  Poor Hetty!
+
+But that she did wrong to meet him secretly her conscience accused
+her.  She had been trained religiously.  Had she no religion, then,
+upon which to stay her sense of duty?
+
+Where a mother has failed, even the Bible may fail.  Hetty read her
+Bible: but just because its austerer teaching had been bound too
+harshly upon her at home, she turned by instinct to the gentler side
+which reveals Christ's loving-kindness, His pity, His indulgence.
+All generous natures lean towards this side, and to their honour, but
+at times also to their very great danger.  For the austerity is meant
+for them who most need it.  Also the austere rules are more definite,
+which makes them a surer guide for the soul desiring goodness, but
+passionately astray.  It spurns them, demanding loving-kindness; and
+discovers too late that loving-kindness dictated them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Two mornings after Patty's arrival, Hetty sat in the schoolroom
+telling a Bible story to her pupils, George Grantham and small
+Rebecca; the one aged eight, the other barely five.  They were by no
+means clever children; but they knew a good story when they heard
+one, and Hetty held them to the adventures of Joseph and his
+Brethren, although great masses of snow were sliding off the roof,
+and every now and then toppling down past the window with a rush--
+which every child knows to be fascinating.  For the black frost had
+broken up at last in a twelve hours' downfall of snow, and this in
+turn had yielded to a soft southerly wind.  The morning sunshine
+poured in through the school-room window and took all colour out of
+the sea-coal fire.
+
+"One night Joseph dreamed a dream which he told next morning to his
+brothers.  And his dream was that they were all in the harvest-field,
+binding sheaves: and when Joseph had bound his sheaf, it stood
+upright, but the other sheaves around slid and fell flat, as if they
+were bowing on their faces before it.  When he told this, it made his
+brothers angry, because it seemed to mean that he would be a greater
+man than any of them."
+
+"I don't wonder they were angry," broke in George, who was the
+Granthams' son and heir, and had a baby brother of whom he tried hard
+not to be jealous.  "Joseph wasn't the oldest, was he?"
+
+"No: he was the youngest of all, except Benjamin."
+
+"And even if he dreamed it, he needn't have gone about bragging.
+It was bad enough, his having that coat of many colours.  I say, Miss
+Wesley--you're not a boy, of course--but how would _you_ feel if your
+father made everything of one of your brothers?"
+
+"I wonder if he dreamed it on a Friday?" piped Rebecca.
+
+"Why, child?"
+
+"Because Martha says"--Martha was the Granthams' cook--"that Friday's
+dream on Saturday told is bound to come true before you are old."
+
+"We shall find out if it came true.  Go on, Miss Wesley."
+
+"But if it _was_ Friday's dream," Rebecca persisted, "and he wanted
+it to come true, he couldn't help telling it."
+
+"Couldn't help being a sneak, I suppose you mean!"
+
+A sound outside the window cut short this argument.  All glanced up:
+but it came this time from no avalanche of snow.  Someone had planted
+a ladder against the house, and the top of the ladder was scraping
+against the window-sill.
+
+"Too short by six feet," Hetty heard a voice say, and held her
+breath.  The ladder was joggled a little and fixed again.  Footsteps
+began to ascend it.  A face and a pair of broad shoulders rose into
+sight over the sill.  They belonged to William Wright.
+
+"I--I think, dears, we had better find some other room."
+
+Hetty had sprung up and felt herself shaking from head to foot.
+For the moment he was not looking in, but stood at the top of the
+ladder with his head thrown back, craning for a view of the
+water-trough under the eaves.
+
+"About two feet to the right," he called to someone below.  "No use
+shifting the ladder; 'twon't reach.  Stay a minute, though--I don't
+believe 'tis a leak at all.  Here--"
+
+He felt the closed window with the palm of his hand, then peered
+through it into the room; and his eyes and Hetty's met.
+
+"Well, I do declare!  Good morning, miss: 'tis like fate, the way I
+keep running across you.  Now would you be so kind as to lift the
+latch on your side and push the window gently?  The frame opens
+outwards and I want to steady myself by it."
+
+She obeyed, and was turning haughtily to follow the children when
+George, who loitered in the doorway watching, called out:
+
+"Is he coming into the room, Miss Wesley?"
+
+She glanced over her shoulder and halted.  The man clearly did not
+mean to enter, but had scrambled up to the sill, and balanced himself
+there gripping the window-frame and leaning outwards at an angle
+which made her giddy.  The sill was narrow, too, and sloping.
+She caught her breath, not daring to move.
+
+He seemed to hear her, for he answered jocularly: "'Tis to be hoped
+the hinges are strong--eh, missy?--or there's an end of William
+Wright."
+
+"Do, please, be careful!"
+
+"What's that to you?  You hate me bad enough.  Look here--send the
+child out of the room and give me a push: a little one'd do, and
+you'll never get a better chance."
+
+Still she held her breath; and he went on, gazing upwards and
+apparently speaking to the eaves.
+
+"Not worth it, I suppose you'll say?--Don't you make too sure.
+Now if I can get my fingers over the launder, here--"  He worked his
+way to the right, to the very edge of the sill, and reached sideways
+and upwards, raising himself higher and higher on tip-toe.  Hetty
+heard a warning grunted from below.
+
+"No use," he announced.  "I can't reach it by six inches."
+
+"What are you trying to do?"  Hetty asked in a low voice, with a hand
+over her heart.
+
+"Why, there's a choke here--dead leaves or something--and the
+roof-water's running down the side of the house."
+
+She glanced hurriedly about the room, stepped to the fireplace and
+picked up a poker--a small one with a crook at the end.  "Will this
+help?" she asked, passing it out.
+
+"Eh? the very thing!"  He took it, and presently she heard it
+scraping on the pipe in search of the obstruction.  "Cleared it, by
+Jingo! and that's famous."  He lowered himself upon the flat of his
+broad soles.  "You ought to ha' been a plumber's wife.  My! if I had
+a headpiece like that to think for me--let alone to look at!"
+
+"Give me back the poker, please."
+
+"No tricks, now!"  He handed it back, chuckled, and lowering himself
+back to the topmost rung of the ladder, stood in safety.  "You're as
+white as a sheet.  Was you scared I'd fall?  Lord, I like to see you
+look like that! it a'most makes me want to do it again.  Look here--"
+
+"For pity's sake--"
+
+Was the man mad?  And how was it he held her listening to his
+intolerable talk?  He was actually scrambling up to the sill again,
+but paused with his eyes on hers.  "It hurts you?  Very well, then, I
+won't: but I owe you something for that slap in the face, you know."
+
+"You deserved it!" Hetty exclaimed, flushing as she recoiled from
+terror to unreasonable wrath, and at the same moment hating herself
+for arguing with him.
+
+"Did I?  Well, I bear ye no malice.  Go slow, and overlook offences--
+that's William Wright's way, and I've no pride, so I gets it in the
+end.  Now some men, after being treated like that, would have sat
+down and wrote a letter to your father about your goings-on.
+I thought of it.  Says I, 'It don't take more than a line from me,
+and the fat's in the fire.'  Mind, I don't say that I won't, but I
+ha'n't done it yet.  And look here--I'm a journeyman, as you know,
+and on the tramp for jobs.  I push on for Lincoln this afternoon; and
+what I say to you before leaving is this--you're a lady, every inch.
+Don't you go and make yourself too cheap with that fella.  He's a
+pretty man enough, but there ain't no honesty in him."
+
+He was gone.  Hetty drew a long breath.  Then, having waited while
+the ladder too was withdrawn, she fetched back the children and set
+them before their copy-books.
+
+"_Honesty is the best policy_."--She saw Master George fairly started
+on this text, with his head on one side and his tongue working in the
+corner of his mouth; and drawing out paper and ink began to write a
+letter home.
+
+"Dear Mother--," she wrote, glanced at George's copy-book, then at
+the window.  Five minutes passed.  She started and thrust pen and
+paper back into the drawer.  Patty must write.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+1.  From the Rev.  Samuel Wesley to his son John, at Christ Church,
+Oxford.
+
+                                       Wroote, January 5, 1725.
+
+     Dear Son,--Your brother will receive 5 pounds  for you next
+     Saturday, if Mr. S. is paid the 10 pounds he lent you; if not, I
+     must go to H.  But I promise you I shan't forget that you are my
+     son, if you do not that I am:
+
+                                       Your affectionate father,
+                                           Samuel Wesley.
+
+2.  From the same to the same.
+
+                                       Wroote, January 26, 1725.
+
+     Dear Son,--I am so well pleased with your decent behaviour, or
+     at least with your letters, that I hope I shall not have
+     occasion to remember any more some things that are past; and
+     since you have now for some time bit upon the bridle, I'll take
+     care hereafter to put a little honey upon it as oft as I am
+     able.  But then it shall be of my own _mero motu_, as the last
+     5 pound was; for I will bear no rivals in my kingdom.
+
+     I did not forget you with Dr. Morley, but have moved that way as
+     much as possible; though I must confess, hitherto, with no great
+     prospect or hopes of success.  As for what you mention of
+     entering into Holy Orders, it is indeed a great work; and I am
+     pleased to find you think it so, as well as that you do not
+     admire a callow clergyman any more than I do.
+
+     And now the providence of God (I hope it was) has engaged me in
+     such a work wherein you may be very assistant to me, I trust
+     promote His glory and at the same time notably forward your own
+     studies; for I have some time since designed an edition of the
+     Holy Bible, in octavo, in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint and
+     Vulgar Latin, and have made some progress in it: the whole
+     scheme whereof I have not time at present to give you, of which
+     scarce any soul yet knows except your brother Sam.
+
+     What I desire of you in this article is, firstly, that you would
+     immediately fall to work, read diligently the Hebrew text in the
+     Polyglot, and collate it exactly with the Vulgar Latin, which is
+     in the second column, writing down all (even the least)
+     variations or differences between them.  To these I would have
+     you add the Samaritan text in the last column but one, which is
+     the very same with the Hebrew, except in some very few places,
+     only differing in the Samaritan character (I think the true old
+     Hebrew), the alphabet whereof you may learn in a day's time,
+     either from the Prolegomena in Walton's Polyglot, or from his
+     grammar.  In a twelvemonth's time, sticking close to it in the
+     forenoons, you will get twice through the Pentateuch; for I have
+     done it four times the last year, and am going over it the
+     fifth, collating the Hebrew and two Greek, the Alexandrian and
+     the Vatican, with what I can get of Symmachus and Theodotian,
+     etc.  Nor shall you lose your reward for it, either in this or
+     the other world.
+
+     In the afternoon read what you will, and be sure to walk an
+     hour, if fair, in the fields.  Get Thirlby's Chrysostom
+     _De Sacerdotio_; master it--digest it.  I like your verses on
+     Psalm lxxxv., and would not have you bury your talent.  All are
+     well and send duties.
+
+     Work and write while you can.  You see Time has shaken me by the
+     hand, and Death is but a little behind him.  My eyes and heart
+     are now almost all I have left; and bless God for them.  I am
+     not for your going over-hastily into Orders.  When I am for your
+     taking them, you shall know it.
+
+                                       Your affectionate father,
+                                           Sam. Wesley.
+
+
+3.  From Mrs. Wesley to her son John.
+
+                                       February 25th, 1725.
+
+     Dear Jackey,--I was much pleased with your letter to your father
+     about taking Orders, and like the proposal well; but it is an
+     unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your father and I
+     seldom think alike.  I approve the disposition of your mind and
+     think the sooner you are a deacon the better, because it may be
+     an inducement to greater application in the study of practical
+     divinity, which I humbly conceive is the best study for
+     candidates for Orders.  Mr. Wesley differs from me, and would
+     engage you (I believe) in critical learning; which, though
+     accidentally of use, is in no wise preferable to the other.
+     I dare advise nothing: God Almighty direct and bless you!
+     I long to see you.  We hear nothing of Hetty, which gives us
+     some uneasiness.  We have all writ, but can get no answer.
+     I wish all be well.  Adieu.
+
+                                           Susanna Wesley.
+
+
+4.  From the Rev. Samuel Wesley to his son John.
+
+                                       Wroote, March 13, 1724-5.
+
+     Dear Son,--I have both yours, and have changed my mind since my
+     last.  I now incline to your going this summer into Orders.
+     But in the first place, if you love yourself or me, pray
+     heartily.  I will struggle hard but I will get money for your
+     Orders, and something more.  Mr. Downes has spoken to Mr. Morley
+     about you, who says he will inquire of your character.
+
+    "Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed."
+     This, with blessing, from your loving father,
+
+                                           Samuel Wesley.
+
+
+5.  From Emilia Wesley to her brother John.
+
+                                       Wroote, April 7th, 1725.
+
+     Dear Brother,--Yours of March 7th I received, and thank you for
+     your care in despatching so speedily the business I desired you
+     to do.  It is the last of that kind I shall trouble you with.
+     No more shall I write or receive letters to and from that
+     person.  But lest you should run into a mistake and think we
+     have quarrelled, I assure you we are perfect friends; we think,
+     wish and judge alike, but what avails it?  We are both
+     miserable.  He has not differed with my mother, but she loves
+     him not, because she esteems him the unlucky cause of a deep
+     melancholy in a beloved child.  For his own sake it is that I
+     cease writing, because it is now his interest to forget me.
+
+     Whether you will be engaged before thirty or not, I cannot
+     determine; but if my advice be worth listening to, never engage
+     your affections before your worldly affairs are in such a
+     position that you may marry very soon.  The contrary practice
+     has proved very pernicious in our family; and were I to live my
+     time over again, and had the same experience as I have now, were
+     it for the best man in England, I would not wait one year.
+     I know you are a young man, encompassed with difficulties, that
+     has passed through many hardships already, and probably must
+     pass through many more before you are easy in the world; but,
+     believe me, if ever you come to suffer the torment of a hopeless
+     love, all other afflictions will seem small in comparison of it.
+     And that you may not think I speak at random, take some account
+     of my past life, more than ever I spoke to anyone.
+
+     After the fire, when I was seventeen years old, I was left alone
+     with my mother, and lived easy for one year, having most
+     necessaries, though few diversions, and never going abroad.
+     Yet after working all day I read some pleasant book at night,
+     and was contented enough; but after we were gotten into our
+     house, and all the family were settled, in about a year's time I
+     began to find out that we were ruined.  Then came on London
+     journeys, Convocations of blessed memory, that for seven years
+     my father was at London, and we at home in intolerable want and
+     affliction.  Then I learnt what it was to seek money for bread,
+     seldom having any without such hardships in getting it that much
+     abated the pleasure of it.  Thus we went on, growing worse and
+     worse; all us children in scandalous want of necessaries for
+     years together; vast income, but no comfort or credit with it.
+     Then I went to London with design to get into some service,
+     failed of that, and grew acquainted with Leybourne.  Ever after
+     that I lived in close correspondence with him.  When anything
+     grieved me, he was my comforter; and what though our affairs
+     grew no better, yet I was tolerably easy, thinking his love
+     sufficient recompense for the absence of all other worldly
+     comforts.  Then ill fate, in the shape of a near relation, laid
+     the groundwork of my misery, and--joined with my mother's
+     command and my own indiscretion-broke the correspondence between
+     him and I [_sic_].
+
+     That dismal winter I shall ever remember; my mother was sick,
+     confined even to her bed, my father in danger of arrests every
+     day.  I had a large family to keep, and a small sum to keep it
+     on; and yet in all this care the loss of Leybourne was heaviest.
+     For nearly half a year I never slept half a night, and now,
+     provoked at all my relations, resolved never to marry.
+     Wishing to be out of their sight, I began first to think of
+     going into the world.  A vacancy happening in Lincoln boarding
+     school, I went thither; and though I had never so much as seen
+     one before, I fell readily into that way of life; and I was so
+     pleased to see myself in good clothes, with money in my pocket,
+     and respected in a strange manner by everyone, that I seemed
+     gotten into another world.
+
+     Here I lived five years and should have done longer, but the
+     school broke up; and my father having got Wroote living, my
+     mother was earnest for my return.  I was told what pleasant
+     company was at Bawtry, Doncaster, etc., and that this addition
+     to my father, with God's ordinary blessing, would make him a
+     rich man in a few years.  I came home again, in an evil hour for
+     me.  I was well clothed, and, while I wanted nothing, was easy
+     enough.  But this winter, when my own necessaries began to decay
+     and my money was most of it spent, I found what a condition I
+     was in--every trifling want was either not supplied, or I had
+     more trouble to procure it than it was worth.
+
+     I know not when we have had so good a year, both at Wroote and
+     Epworth, as this year; but instead of saving anything to clothe
+     my sister or myself, we are just where we were.  A noble crop
+     has almost all gone, beside Epworth living, to pay some part of
+     those infinite debts my father has run into, which are so many
+     (as I have lately found out) that were he to save 50 pounds a
+     year he would not be clear in the world this seven years.
+     One thing I warn you of: let not my giving you this account be
+     any hindrance to your affairs.  If you want assistance in any
+     case, my father is as able to give it now as any time these last
+     ten years; nor shall we be ever the poorer for it.  We enjoy
+     many comforts.  We have plenty of good meat and drink, fuel,
+     etc.; have no duns, nor any of that tormenting care to provide
+     bread which we had at Epworth.  In short, could I lay aside all
+     thoughts of the future, and be content with three things, money,
+     liberty, and clothes, I might live very comfortably.  While my
+     mother lives I am inclined to stay with her; she is so very good
+     to me, and has so little comfort in the world beside, that I
+     think it barbarous to abandon her.  As soon as she is in heaven,
+     or perhaps sooner if I am quite tired out, I have fully fixed on
+     a state of life; a way indeed that my parents may disapprove,
+     but that I do not regard.  And now:
+
+          "Let Emma's hapless case be falsely told
+           By the rash young, or the ill-natured old."
+
+     You, that know my hard fortune, I hope will never hastily
+     condemn me for anything I shall be driven to do by stress of
+     fortune that is not directly sinful.  As for Hetty, we have
+     heard nothing of her these three months past.  Mr. Grantham, I
+     hear, has behaved himself very honourably towards her, _but
+     there are more gentlemen besides him in the world_.
+
+     I have quite tired you now.  Pray be faithful to me.  Let me
+     have one relation I can trust: never give any hint to anyone of
+     aught I write to you: and continue to love,
+
+                          Your unhappy but affectionate sister,
+                                           Emilia Wesley.
+
+
+6.  From the Rev.  Samuel Wesley to his son John.
+
+                                       Wroote, May 10, 1725.
+
+     Dear Son,--Your brother Samuel, with his wife and child, are
+     here.  I did what I could that you might have been in Orders
+     this Trinity; but I doubt your brother's journey hither has, for
+     the present, disconcerted our plans, though you will have more
+     time to prepare yourself for Ordination, which I pray God you
+     may, as I am your loving father,
+
+                                       Samuel Wesley.
+
+
+7.  From Mrs. Wesley to her son John.
+
+                                       Wroote, June 8th, 1725.
+
+     Dear Son,--I have Kempis by me; but have not read him lately.
+     I cannot recollect the passages you mention; but believing you
+     do him justice, I do positively aver that he is extremely wrong
+     in that impious, I was about to say blasphemous, suggestion that
+     God, by an irreversible decree, has determined any man to be
+     miserable, even in this world.  His intentions, as Himself, are
+     holy, just and good; and all the miseries incident to men here
+     or thereafter spring from themselves.
+
+     Your brother has brought us a heavy reckoning for you and
+     Charles.  God be merciful to us all! Dear Jack, I earnestly
+     beseech Almighty God to bless you.  Adieu.
+
+                                           Susanna Wesley.
+
+
+8.  From the Rev. Samuel Wesley to his son John.
+
+                                       Bawtry, September 1st, 1725.
+
+     Dear Son,--I came hither to-day because I cannot be at rest till
+     I make you easier.  I could not possibly manufacture any money
+     for you here sooner than next Saturday.  On Monday I design to
+     wait on Dr. Morley, and will try to prevail with your brother to
+     return you 8 pounds with interest.  I will assist you in the
+     charges for Ordination, though I am just now struggling for
+     life.  This 8 pounds you may depend on the next week, or the
+     week after.
+
+                                           S. Wesley.
+
+
+9.  From the same to the same.
+
+                                       Gainsborough, Sept. 7th, 1725.
+
+     Dear Son John,--With much ado, you see I am for once as good as
+     my word.  Carry Dr. Morley's note to the bursar.  I hope to send
+     you more, and, I believe, by the same hand.  God fit you for
+     your great work.  Fast--watch--pray--endure--be happy; towards
+     which you shall never want the ardent prayers of your
+     affectionate father,
+
+                                           S. Wesley.
+
+On Sunday, September 19th, 1725, John Wesley, being twenty-two years
+old, was ordained deacon by Dr. John Potter, Bishop of Oxford, in
+Christ Church Cathedral.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Of the letters received from home by him during the struggle to raise
+money for his Ordination fees, the above are but extracts.  Let us go
+back to the month of May, and to Kelstein.
+
+"Patty dear," asked Hetty one morning, "have you heard lately of John
+Romley?"
+
+She was sitting up in bed with a letter in her hand.  It had come
+yesterday; and Patty, brushing her hair before the glass, guessed
+from whom.  She did not answer.
+
+"He is at Lincoln; he has gone to try for the precentorship of the
+cathedral," Hetty announced.
+
+"You know perfectly well that we do not correspond.  I have too much
+principle."
+
+"I know, dear," sighed Hetty, with her eyes fixed meditatively upon
+her sister's somewhat angular back.  "I hope he is none the worse for
+it: for I have my reasons for wishing to think of him as a good man."
+Patty paused with brush in air, her eyes on Hetty's image in the
+glass; but Hetty went on inconsequently: "But surely you get word of
+him, now and then, in those letters from home which you hide from me?
+Patty, I am a stronger woman than you: and you may think yourself
+lucky I haven't put you through the door before this, laid violent
+hands on the whole budget, and read them through at my leisure.
+You invite it, too, by locking them up; which against a determined
+person would avail nothing and is therefore merely an insult, my
+dear."
+
+"You know perfectly well why I do not show you my letters.  They are
+all crying out for news of you--mother, and Emmy and Molly: even poor
+honest Nan breaks off writing about John Lambert and when the wedding
+is to be and what she is to wear, and begs to hear if there be
+anything wrong.  And all I can answer is, that you are well, with a
+line or two about the children.  They must think me a fool, and it
+has kept me miserable ever since I came.  But more I _will_ not say.
+At least--"  She seemed about to correct herself, but came to an
+abrupt halt and began brushing vigorously.  Hetty could not see the
+flush on her sallow face.
+
+"Dear old Molly!"  Hetty murmured the name of her favourite sister.
+"But I could not write without telling her and loading her poor
+conscience."
+
+"Much you think of conscience, with a letter from him in your hand at
+this minute!"
+
+"But I do think of conscience.  And the best proof of it is, I am
+going home."
+
+"Going home!"  Patty faced about now, and with a scared face.
+
+"Yes."  Hetty put her feet out of bed and sat for a moment on the
+edge of it.  "Mrs. Grantham paid me my wages yesterday, and now I
+have three pounds in my pocket.  I am going home--to tell them."
+
+"You mean to tell them!"
+
+"Not a doubt of it.  But why look as if you had seen a ghost?"
+
+"And what do you suppose will happen?"
+
+"Mother and Molly will cry, and Emmy will make an oration which I
+shall interrupt, and Kezzy will open her eyes at such a monster, and
+father will want to horsewhip me, but restrain himself and turn me
+from the door.  Or perhaps he will lock me up--oh Patty, cannot you
+see that I'm weeping, not joking?  But it has to be done, and I am
+going to be brave and do it."
+
+"Very well, then.  Now listen to me.--You cannot."
+
+"Cannot?  Why?"
+
+"There's no room, to begin with--not a bed in the house.  Sam and his
+wife are there, and the child, on a visit."
+
+"Sam there!  And you never told me.--Oh, Pat, Pat, and I might have
+missed him!"  She sprang up from the bed and began her dressing in a
+fever of haste.
+
+"But what will you do?"
+
+"Go home and find Sam, of course."
+
+"I don't see how Sam can help you.  He did not help Emmy much: and
+his wife will be there, remember."
+
+There was no love lost between Sam's sisters and Sam's wife--a
+practical little woman with a sharp tongue and a settled conviction
+that her husband's relatives were little better than lunatics.
+She understood the Rectory's strict rules of conduct as little as its
+feckless poverty (for so she called it).  That a household which held
+its head so high should be content with a parlour furnished like a
+barn, sit down to meals scarcely better than the day-labourers' about
+them, and rest ignored by families of decent position in the
+neighbourhood, puzzled and irritated her.  "Better he paid his debts
+and fed his children," was her answer when Sam put in a word for his
+father's spiritual ambitions.  Her slight awe of the Wesleys'
+abilities--even _she_ could not deny them brains--only drove her to
+entrench herself more strongly behind her practical wisdom; and she
+never abandoned her position (which had saved her in a thousand
+domestic arguments) that her sisters-in-law had been trained as
+savages in the wilds.  She had a habit of addressing them as
+children: and her interference, some years before, between Emilia and
+young Leybourne, had been conducted by letter addressed to Mr. and
+Mrs. Wesley and without pretence of consulting Emilia's feelings.
+
+Hetty pondered this for a moment, but without pausing in her
+dressing.
+
+"Besides," urged Patty, "they may be gone by this time.  Mother did
+not say how long the visit was to last; only that Sam had brought his
+bill for Jacky and Charles, and it is enormous.  Father will be in
+the worst possible temper."
+
+"Of all the wet blankets--" began Hetty, but was interrupted by the
+ringing of a bell in the corner above her bed.  It summoned her to
+run and dress Rebecca, who slept in a small room opening out of Mrs.
+Grantham's.
+
+Hetty departed in a whirl.  Patty stood considering.  "She never
+would!  'Tis a mercy sometimes she doesn't mean all she says."
+
+But this time Hetty meant precisely what she said.  Having dressed
+Rebecca, she suddenly faced upon Mrs. Grantham, who stood watching
+her as she turned back the bed-clothes to air, and folded the child's
+nightdress.
+
+"With your leave, madam, I wish to go home to-day."
+
+"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Mrs. Grantham.  "You must be mad."
+
+"I know how singular you must think it: and indeed I am very sorry to
+put you out.  Yet I have a particular reason for asking."
+
+"Quite impossible, Miss Wesley."
+
+But, as Mr. Grantham had afterwards to tell her, a householder has no
+means in free England of coercing a grown woman determined to quit
+the shelter of his roof and within an hour.  The poor lady was
+nonplussed.  She had not dreamed that life's tranquil journey lay
+exposed to a surprise at once so simple and so disconcerting, and in
+her vexation she came near to hysterics.
+
+"What to make of your sister, I know not," she cried, twenty minutes
+later, seating herself to have her hair dressed by Patty.
+
+"Her temper was always a little uncertain," said Patty sagely.
+"I think father spoilt her by teaching her Greek and poetry and such
+things."
+
+"Greek!  You don't tell me that Greek makes a person want to walk out
+of a comfortable house at a moment's notice and leave my poor
+darlings on the stream!"
+
+"Oh, no," agreed Patty.  "You will not allow it, of course?"
+
+"Perhaps you'll tell me how to prevent it?  In all my life I don't
+remember being so much annoyed."
+
+So Hetty had her way, packed a small bundle, and was ready at the
+gate for the passing of the carrier's van which would set her down
+within a mile of home.  She had acted on an impulse, unreasoning, but
+not to be resisted.  She felt the crisis of her life approaching and
+had urgent need, before it came on her, to make confession and
+cleanse her soul.  She knew she was hurrying towards a tempest; but,
+whatever it might wreck, she panted for the clear sky beyond.  In her
+fever the van seemed to crawl and the miles to drag themselves out
+interminably.
+
+She was within a mile of her journey's end when a horseman met and
+passed the van at a jog-trot.  Hetty glanced after him, wrenched open
+the door and sprang out upon the road with a cry--
+
+"Father!"
+
+Mr. Wesley heard her and turned his head; then reined up the filly
+and came slowly back.  The van was at a standstill, the driver
+craning his head and staring aft in wholly ludicrous bewilderment.
+
+"Dropped anything?" he asked, as Hetty ran to him.  She thrust the
+fare into his hand without answering and faced around again to meet
+her father.
+
+He came slowly, with set jaws.  He offered no greeting.
+
+"I was expecting this," he said.  "Indeed, I was riding to Kelstein
+to fetch you home."
+
+"But--but why?" she stammered.
+
+"Why?"  A short savage laugh broke from him, almost like a dog's
+bark; but he held his temper down.  "Because I do not choose to have
+a decent household infected by a daughter of mine.  Because, if
+sisters of yours must needs be exposed to the infection, it shall be
+where I am present to watch them and control you.  I have received a
+letter--"
+
+She stared at him dismayed, remembering the man Wright and his
+threat.
+
+"And upon that you judge me, without a hearing?"  She let her arms
+drop beside her.
+
+"Will you deny it?  Will you deny you have been in the habit of
+meeting--no, I see you will not.  Apparently Mrs. Grantham has
+dismissed you."
+
+"Sir, Mrs. Grantham has not dismissed me.  I came away against her
+wish, because--"
+
+"Well?" he waited, chewing his wrath.
+
+It was idle now to say she had come meaning to confess.  That chance
+had gone.
+
+"I ask you to remember, sir, that I never promised not to meet him."
+Since a fight it must be, she picked up all her courage for it.
+"I had no right to promise it."
+
+His mouth opened, but shut again like a trap.  He had the
+self-control to postpone battle.  "We will see about that," he said
+grimly.  "Meanwhile, please you mount behind me and ride."
+
+As they jogged towards Wroote, Hetty, holding on by her father's
+coat, seemed to feel in her finger-tips the wrath pent up and working
+in his small body.  She was profoundly dejected; so profoundly that
+she almost forgot to be indignant with William Wright; but she had no
+thought of striking her colours.  She built some hope upon Sam, too.
+Sam might not take her part openly, but he at least had always been
+kind to her.
+
+"Does Sam know?" she took heart to ask as they came in sight of the
+parsonage.
+
+"Sam?"
+
+"Patty tells me he is here with his wife and little Philly."
+
+"I am glad to say that Patty is mistaken.  They took their departure
+yesterday."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"Oh, Hetty!" was all Molly could find to say, rushing into the back
+garret where Hetty stood alone, and clinging to her with a long kiss.
+
+Hetty held the dear deformed body against her bosom for a while, then
+relaxing her arms, turned towards the small window in the eaves.
+"My dear," she answered with a wry smile, "it had to come, you see,
+and now we must go through with it."
+
+"But who could have written that wicked letter?  Mother will not tell
+us--even if she knows, which I doubt."
+
+"I fancy I know.  And you must not exaggerate, even in your love for
+me.  I don't suppose the letter was wicked, though it may have been
+spiteful."
+
+"It accused you of the most dreadful things."
+
+"If it be dreadful to meet the man you love, and in secret, then I
+have been behaving dreadfully."
+
+"O-oh!"
+
+"And that is just what I came home to confess." She paused at the
+sight of Molly's face.  "What!  are you against me too?  Then I must
+fight this out alone, it seems."
+
+"Darling Hetty, you must not--ah, don't look so at me!"
+
+But Hetty turned her back.  "Please leave me."
+
+"If you had only written--"
+
+"That would take long to explain.  I am tired, and it is not worth
+while; please leave me."
+
+"But you do not understand.  I had to come, although for the time
+father has forbidden us to speak with you--"
+
+Hetty stepped to the door and held it open.  "Then one of his
+daughters at any rate shall be dutiful," she said.
+
+Molly flung her an imploring look and walked out, sobbing.
+
+"Is Hetty not coming down to supper?" Emilia asked in the kitchen
+that evening.  Mrs. Wesley with her daughters and Johnny Whitelamb
+supped there as a rule when not entertaining visitors.  The Rector
+took his meals alone, in the parlour.
+
+"Your father has locked her in.  Until to-morrow he forbids her to
+have anything but bread and water," answered Mrs. Wesley.
+
+"And she is twenty-seven years old," added Molly.
+
+All looked at her; even Johnny Whitelamb looked, with a face as long
+as a fiddle.  The comment was quiet, but the note of scorn in it
+could not be mistaken.  Molly in revolt!  Molly, of all persons!
+Molly sat trembling.  She knew that among them all Johnny was her one
+ally--and a hopelessly distressed and ineffective one.  He had turned
+his head quickly and leaned forward, blinking and spreading his
+hands--though the season was high summer--to the cold embers of the
+kitchen fire; his heart torn between adoration of Hetty and the old
+dog-like worship of his master.
+
+"Molly dear, she has deceived him and us all," was Mrs. Wesley's
+reproof, unexpectedly gentle.
+
+"For my part," put in Nancy comfortably, "I don't suppose she would
+care to come down.  And 'tis cosy to be back in the kitchen again,
+after ten days of the parlour and Mrs. Sam.  Emmy agrees, I know."
+
+But Emmy with fine composure put aside this allusion to her pet foe.
+"Molly and Johnny should make a match of it," she sneered.
+"They might set up house on their belief in Hetty, and even take her
+to lodge with them."
+
+John Whitelamb sprang up as if stung; stood for a moment, still with
+his face averted upon the fire; then, while all stared at him, let
+drop the arm he had half-lifted towards the mantel-shelf and relapsed
+into his chair.  He had not uttered a sound.
+
+Mrs. Wesley had a reproof upon her tongue, and this time a sharp one.
+She was prevented, however, by Molly, who rose to her feet, tottered
+to the door as if wounded, and escaped from the kitchen.
+
+Molly mounted the stairs with bowed head, dragging herself at each
+step by the handrail.  Reaching the garrets, she paused by Hetty's
+door to listen.  No light pierced the chinks; within was silence.
+She crept away to her room, undressed, and lay down, sobbing quietly.
+
+Her sobs ceased, but she could not sleep.  A full moon strained its
+rays through the tattered curtain, and as it climbed, she watched the
+panel of light on the wall opposite steal down past a text above the
+washstand, past the washstand itself, to the bare flooring.  "God is
+love" said the text, and Molly had paid a pedlar twopence for it,
+years before, at Epworth fair--quite unaware that she was purchasing
+the Wesley family motto.  She heard her mother and sisters below bid
+one another good night and mount to their rooms.  An hour later her
+father went his round, locking up.  Then came silence.
+
+Suddenly she sat up in her bed.  She had heard--yes, surely--Hetty's
+voice.  It seemed to come from outside, close below her window--
+Hetty's ordinary voice, with no distress in it, speaking some words
+she could not catch.  She listened.  Actual sound or illusion, it was
+not repeated.  She climbed out of bed and drew the curtain aside.
+Bright moonlight lay spread all about the house and, beyond, the
+fenland faded away to an unseen horizon as through veils of gold and
+silver, asleep, no creature stirring on the face of it.
+
+She let drop the corner of the curtain and on the instant caught it
+back again.  A dark form, quick and noiseless, slipped past the
+shadow by the yard-gate.  It was Rag the mastiff, left unchained at
+night: and as he padded across the yard in the full moonlight, Molly
+saw that he was wagging his tail.
+
+She watched him to his kennel; stepped to her door, lifted the latch
+cautiously and stole once more along the passage to Hetty's room.
+
+"Hetty!" she whispered.  "Hetty dear!  Were you calling?  Is anything
+wrong?"  She shook the door gently.  No answer came.  Mr. Wesley had
+left the key in the lock after turning it on the outside: and still
+whispering to her sister, Molly wrenched it round, little by little.
+No one stirred below-stairs: no one answered within.  She pushed the
+door open an inch or two, then wider, pausing as it creaked.
+A draught of the warm night wind met her as she slipped into the
+room, and--her fingers trembling and missing their hold--the door
+fell to behind her, almost with a slam.
+
+She stood still, her heart in her mouth.  In her ears the noise was
+loud enough to awake the house.  But as the seconds dragged by and
+still no sound came from her father's room, "Hetty!" she whispered
+again.
+
+Her eyes were on the bed as she whispered it, and in the pale light
+the bed was patently empty.  Still she did not comprehend.  Her eyes
+wandered from it to the open window.
+
+When she spoke again it was with the same low whisper, but a whisper
+which broke as she breathed it to follow where it might not reach.
+
+"What have they done to you?  My darling, God watch over you now!"
+
+She crept back to her room and lay shivering, waiting for the dawn.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE.
+
+
+In a chilly dawn, high among the mountains to the north of Berar, two
+Britons were wandering with an Indian attendant.  They came like
+spectres, in curling wreaths of mist that magnified their stature;
+and daylight cowed each with the first glimpse of his comrade's face,
+yellow with hunger and glassy-eyed with lack of sleep.  They were, in
+fact, hopelessly lost.  They had spent the night huddled together on
+a narrow ledge, listening hour by hour to the sound of water tumbling
+over unknown precipices; and now they moved with painful cramped
+limbs, yet listlessly, being past hope to escape or to see another
+dawn.
+
+The elder Briton was a Scotsman, aged fifty or thereabouts, a clerk
+of the H.E.I.C.; the younger an Englishman barely turned twenty, an
+officer in the same company's service.  They hailed from Surat, and
+had arrived in Berar on a trade mission with an escort of fifty men,
+of whom their present attendant, Bhagwan Dass, was the solitary
+survivor; and this came of believing that a "protection" from the
+Nizam would carry them anywhere in the Nizam's supposed dominions,
+whereas the _de facto_ rulers of Berar were certain Mahratta
+chieftains who collected its taxes and who had politely forwarded the
+mission into the fastnesses of the mountains.  There, at the ripe
+moment, the massacre had taken place, Mr. Menzies and young Prior
+escaping on their hill-ponies, with Bhagwan Dass clutching at Prior's
+stirrup-leather.  The massacre having been timed a little before
+nightfall, darkness helped them to get clear away; but Menzies, by
+over-riding his little mare, flung her, an hour later, with a broken
+fetlock, and Prior's pony being all but dead-beat, they abandoned the
+poor brutes on the mountain-side, took to their feet and stumbled on
+until the setting of the young moon.  With the first light of dawn
+they had roused themselves to start anew, lingering out the agony:
+for the slopes below swarmed with enemies in chase, and even if a
+village lurked in these heights the inhabitants would give no help,
+being afraid of their Mahratta masters.
+
+They had crossed a gully through which a mountain runlet descended,
+unrolling a ribbon of green mossy herbage on its way, and slipping
+out of sight over the edge of a precipice of two hundred feet or so.
+Beyond this the eye saw nothing but clouds of mist heaving and
+smoking to the very lip of the fall.  Young Prior halted for a moment
+on the farther slope to take breath, and precisely at that moment
+something happened which he lived to relate a hundred times and
+always with wonder.  For as his eye fell on these clouds of mist, a
+beam of light came travelling swiftly down the mountain and pierced
+them, turning them to a fierce blood-red; next, almost with an
+audible rush, the sun leapt into view over the eastern spurs: and
+while he stared down upon the vapours writhing and bleeding under
+this lance-thrust of dawn--while they shook themselves loose and
+trailed away in wreaths of crimson and gold and violet, and deep in
+the chasms between them shone the plain with its tilled fields and
+villages--a cry from Bhagwan Dass fetched him round sharply, and he
+beheld, a few yards above him on the slope, a man.
+
+The man sat, naked to the waist, at the entrance of a low cave or
+opening in the hillside.  He seemed to be of great age, with a calm
+and almost unwrinkled face and gray locks falling to his shoulders,
+around which hung a rosary of black beads, very highly polished and
+flashing against the sun.  From the waist down he was wrapped in a
+bright yellow shawl, and beside him lay a crutch and a wooden bowl
+heaped with rice and conserves.
+
+Before the two Britons could master their dismay, Bhagwan Dass had
+run towards the cave and was imploring the holy man to give them
+shelter and hiding.  For a while he listened merely, and his first
+response was to lift the bowl and invite them with a gesture to stay
+their hunger.  Famished though they were, they hesitated, and reading
+the reason in their eyes, he spoke for the first time.
+
+"It will not harm you," said he in Hindustani: "and the villagers
+below bring me more than I can eat."
+
+From the moment of setting eyes on him--Prior used to declare--a
+blessed sense of protection fell upon the party; a feeling that in
+the hour of extreme need God had suddenly put out a shield, under the
+shadow of which they might rest in perfect confidence.  And indeed,
+though they knew the mountain to be swarming with their enemies, they
+entered the cave and slept all that day like children.  Whether or no
+meanwhile their enemies drew near they never discovered: but Prior,
+awaking towards nightfall, saw the hermit still seated at the
+entrance as they had found him, and lay for a while listening to the
+click of his rosary as he told bead after bead.
+
+He must, however, have held some communication with the unseen
+village in the valley: for three bowls of milk and rice stood ready
+for them.  They supped, forbearing--upon Bhagwan Dass's advice--to
+question him, though eager to know if he had a mind to help them
+further, and how he might contrive it.  Until moonrise he gave no
+sign at all; then rising gravely, crutch and bowl in hand, stepped a
+pace or two beyond the entrance and whistled twice--as they supposed
+for a guide.  But the only guides that answered were two small
+mountain foxes--a vixen and her half-grown cub--that came bounding
+around an angle of the rock and fawned about his feet while he
+caressed them and spoke to them softly in a tongue which none of the
+party understood.  And so they all set out, turning their faces
+westward and keeping to the upper ridges; the foxes trotting always a
+few paces ahead and showing the way.
+
+All that night they walked as in a dream, and came at daybreak to a
+ledge with a shrine upon it, and in the shrine a stone figure of a
+goddess, and below the ledge--perhaps half a mile below it--a village
+clinging dizzily to the mountain-side.--There was no food in the
+shrine, only a few withered wreaths of marigolds: but the holy man
+must have spoken to his foxes, for at dawn a priest came toiling up
+the slope with a filled bowl so ample that his two arms scarcely
+embraced it.  The priest set down the food, took the hermit's
+blessing and departed in silence: and this was the only human
+creature they saw on their journey.  Not for all their solicitation
+would the hermit join them in eating: and at this they marvelled most
+of all: for he had walked far and moderately fast, yet seemed to feel
+less fatigue than any of them.  That night, as soon as the moon rose,
+he started afresh with the same long easy stride, and the foxes led
+the way as before.
+
+The dawn rose, but this time he gave no signal for halting: and the
+cool of morning was almost ended when he led them out through the
+last broken crests of the ridge and, pointing to a broad plain at
+their feet, told them that henceforward they might fare in safety.
+A broad road traversed the plain, and beside it, some ten to twelve
+miles from the base of the foothills, twinkled the white walls of a
+rest-house.
+
+"There," said he, pointing, "either to-day or to-morrow will pass the
+trader Afzul Khan: and if indeed ye come from Surat--"
+
+His mild eyes, as he pointed, were turned upon Menzies, who broke out
+in amazement: "For certain Afzul Khan is known to us, as debtor
+should be to creditor.  But how knowest _thou_ either that he passes
+this way or that we come from Surat?"
+
+"It is enough that I know."
+
+"Either come with us then," Menzies pressed him, "and at the
+rest-house Afzul Khan shall fill thy bowl with gold-dust; or remain
+here, and I will send him."
+
+"Why should he do aught so witless?"
+
+Menzies laughed awkwardly.  "Though money be useless to thee, holy
+man, I dare say thy villagers might be the gladder for it."
+
+The hermit shook his head.
+
+"Anyhow," broke in Prior, addressing Menzies in English, "we must do
+_something_ for him, if only in justice to some folks who will be
+glad enough to see us back alive."
+
+"My friend here," Menzies interpreted, "has parents living, and is
+their only son.  For me, I have a wife and three children.  For their
+sakes, therefore--"
+
+But the hermit put up a hand.  "Something I did for their sakes,
+giving you back to the chains they will hang upon you.  It was
+weakness in me, and no cause for thanks."  He turned his begging bowl
+so that it shone in the sun: an ant clung to it, crawling on its
+polished side.  "If ye have sons, I may live belike to see them pass
+my way."
+
+"That is not likely."
+
+"Who knows?"  The old man's eyes rested on Bhagwan Dass.
+"Unlikelier things have befallen me while I sat yonder.  See--" he
+turned the bowl in his hand and nodded towards the ant running hither
+and thither upon it.  "What happens to him that would not likewise
+happen if he stood still?"
+
+"There is food at the rest-house,"  Menzies persisted; "but I take it
+you can find food on your way back, even though since starting we
+have seen none pass your lips: and that is two days."
+
+"It will be yet two days before I feast again: for I drink not save
+of the spring by which you found me, and I eat no food the taste of
+which I cannot wash from me in its water."
+
+Menzies and Prior eyed one another.  "Cracked as an old bell!" said
+the younger man in English, and laughed.
+
+"Is it a vow?" Menzies asked.
+
+"It is a vow."
+
+"But tell me," put in Prior, "does the water of your spring differ
+from that of a thousand others on these hills?"
+
+"The younger sahib," answered the hermit, "understands not the
+meaning of a vow; which a man makes to his own hurt, perhaps, or to
+the hurt of another, or it may even be quite foolishly; but thereby
+he stablishes his life, while the days of other men go by in a flux
+of business.  As for the water of my hillside," he went on with a
+sharp change of voice and speaking, to their amazement, in English,
+"have not your countrymen, O sahibs, their particular springs?
+Churchman and Dissenter, Presbyterian and Baptist--count they not
+every Jordan above Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus?"
+
+He turned and walked swiftly from them, mounting the slope with swift
+loose strides.  But while they stared, Bhagwan Dass broke from them
+and ran in pursuit.
+
+"Not without thy blessing!  O Annesley sahib, go not before thou hast
+blessed me!"
+
+Two days later, at sunset, a child watching a little below the
+hermit's spring saw him limp back to it and drink and seat himself
+again at the entrance of the cave; and pelted down to the village
+with the news.  And the hill-people, who had supposed him gone for
+ever, swarmed up and about the cave to assure themselves.
+
+"Alas!" said the holy man, gazing out upon the twilight when at
+length all had departed, leaving him in peace.  "Cannot a man be
+anywhere alone with God?  And yet," he added, "I was something
+wistful for their love."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"_To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have
+rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord
+our God, to walk in his laws which he set before us.  O Lord, correct
+me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to
+nothing_."
+
+The voice travelled down the great nave of Lincoln Cathedral, and, as
+it came, the few morning worshippers--it was a week-day--inclined
+their faces upwards: for it seemed to pause and float overhead and
+again be carried forward by its own impulse, a pure column of sound
+wavering awhile before it broke and spread and dissolved into
+whispers among the multitudinous arches.  To a woman still kneeling
+by a pillar close within the western doorway it was as the voice of a
+seraph speaking with the dawn, fresh from his night-watch over earth.
+She had been kneeling for minutes, and still knelt, but she could not
+pray.  She had no business to be there.  To her the sentences carried
+no message; but the voice smiting, pure and cold, across the hot
+confusion in her brain, steadied her while it terrified.
+
+Yet she knew the voice well enough.  It was but John Romley's.
+The Dean and Chapter wanted a precentor, and among a score of
+candidates had selected Romley and two others for further trial.
+This was his chance and he was using it; making the most of it, too,
+to the mingled admiration and disgust of his rivals listening in the
+choir beside him.
+
+And she had dressed early and climbed to the cathedral, not to pray,
+but to seek Romley because she had instant need of him; because,
+though she respected his character very little, he was the one man in
+the world who could help her.  She had missed him at the door.
+Entering, she learned from a verger that he was already robing.
+Then the great organ sounded, and from habit she dropped on her
+knees.
+
+John Romley, unseen in the choir, was something very different from
+John Romley in private life with his loose face and flabby handshake.
+Old Mr. Wesley had once dismissed him contemptuously as _vox et
+praeterea nihil_: but disembodied thus, almost a thing celestial, yet
+subtly recalling home to her and ties renounced, the voice shook
+Hetty's soul.  For it came on her as the second shock of an ambush.
+She had climbed to the cathedral with but half of her senses awake,
+drowsed by love, by the long ride in the languorous night wind, by
+the exhaustion of a long struggle ended, by her wondering
+helplessness on arriving--the chill sunlight, the deserted street,
+the strange voice behind the lodging-house door, the unfamiliar
+passage and stairs.  She had lived a lifetime in those hours, and for
+the while Wroote Parsonage lay remote as a painful daily round from
+the dream which follows it.  Only the practical instinct, as it were
+a nerve in the centre of her brain, awake and refusing to be drugged,
+had kept sounding its alarm to rise and seek Romley; and though at
+length she obeyed in a panic, she went as one walking in sleep.
+The front of the cathedral, as she came beneath its shadow, overhung
+her as a phantom drawn upon the morning sky, its tall towers
+unsubstantial, trembling against the light, but harmless even should
+they fall upon her.  She entered as one might pass through a paper
+screen.
+
+The first shock came upon her then.  She passed not out of sunlight
+into sunlight, but out of sunlight into a vast far-reaching,
+high-arching gloom, which was another world and another life; the
+solemn twilight which her upbringing had taught her to associate with
+God.  Once before in her life, and once only, she had stood within
+the minster--on her confirmation day, when she had entered with her
+hand in her mother's.  Her eyes sought and found the very place where
+she had sat then among the crowd of girl-candidates, and a ghost in a
+white frock sat there still with bowed head.  She remembered the very
+texture and scent of that white frock: they came back with the awe,
+the fervour, the passionate desire to be good; and these memories
+cried all in her ears, "What have you to do with that child?
+Which of you is Hetty?  You cannot both be real."
+
+They sang in her ears while she questioned the verger about Romley.
+He had to repeat his answers before she thanked him and turned
+towards one of the lowest seats.  She did not repent: she was not
+thinking of repentance.  She loved, she had given all for love, and
+life was fuller of beautifying joy than ever it had been even on that
+day of confirmation: but beneath the joy awoke a small ache, and with
+the ache a certain knowledge that she might never sit beside the
+child in white, never so close as to touch her frock; that their
+places in this building, God's habitation, were eternally separate.
+
+Then the organ ceased, and the voice began to speak.  And the voice
+uttered promise of pardon, but Hetty heard nothing of the words--only
+the notes.
+
+"_And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in
+the cool of the day: and A dam and his wife hid themselves from the
+presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden_."
+
+Less terrible this voice was; a seraph's rather, at the lodge-gate,
+welcoming the morn.  Yet Hetty crouched by her pillar, afraid.
+For the day he welcomed was not _her_ day, the worship he offered was
+not _her_ worship; for _her_ a sword lay across the gate.
+
+Her terror passed, and she straightened herself.  After all, she did
+not repent.  Why should she repent?  She was loved; she loved in
+return, utterly and without guile, with a love which, centred upon
+one, yet embraced all living creatures.  Nay, it embraced Heaven, if
+Heaven would accept it.  And why not?
+
+"_Wherefore let us beseech him_," said the voice, "_to grant us true
+repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him
+which we do at this present; and that the rest of our life hereafter
+may be pure and holy_ . . ."
+
+"Pure and holy"--but she desired no less, and out of her love.
+She wanted to be friends with all at home, to go to them fearlessly
+and make them understand her as she understood them, and to be good
+all the days of her life.  "True repentance"?  Why repent? . . .
+Ah, yes, of course: but God was no haggler over hours.  In an hour or
+two . . . "That those things may please him which we do at this
+present--"  She caught at her heart now as the terror--a practical
+terror this time--returned upon it.  At all costs she must find John
+Romley after service, though indeed there was little danger of
+missing him, for he, no doubt, would be seeking her.
+
+Her mind was clear now.
+
+She lay in wait for him as he stepped out under the great porch, with
+a clean surplice on his arm.  He paused there with a smile on his
+face, glanced up at the blue sky, clapped on his hat, and descended
+the steps gaily, whistling a phrase from the _Venite exultemus_; too
+far preoccupied to recognise Hetty, until she stepped forward and
+almost laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Miss Mehetabel!"
+
+Plainly, then, he was not seeking her.
+
+"You in Lincoln?  This is a surprise--a pleasant surprise, indeed!"
+
+"But I came in search of you.  I have been waiting--"  She nodded her
+head towards the porch.
+
+"Eh?  You heard?  'Twas not altogether a breakdown, I hope?  You must
+allow for some nervousness--did you detect it?  No?  Well, I don't
+mind owning to you I was nervous as a cat: but there, if you didn't
+detect it I shall flatter myself I did passably."  He laughed,
+evidently on the best terms with himself.  His breath smelt of beer.
+"The Rector is with you, of course?"
+
+"My father?  But, Mr. Romley, I don't think you understand--"
+
+"I shall do myself the pleasure of calling on him this morning.
+Nothing could have happened better, and I'm in luck's way to-day, for
+certain.  It seems the Dean and Chapter require a certificate from
+him--a testimonial--just a line or two, to say that I'm a decent
+respectable fellow.  We have not been friends of late--I hope Miss
+Patty keeps pretty well, by the way--but he won't deny me that small
+favour.  You were not seeking me on her account?" he added, by an
+afterthought.  "Patty?"  She uttered her sister's name to gain time,
+for in truth she was bewildered, alarmed.
+
+He nodded.  "We are not allowed to correspond, as you know.  But she
+must keep up her heart: your father will come round when he sees me
+precentor.  'Tis a good opening.  We must allow for the Rector's
+crotchets (you'll excuse me, I feel sure): but give him time, I say--
+give him time, and he'll come round right and tight."
+
+"My father is not with me.  Oh, Mr. Romley, you have heard, surely? I
+was told--but there, you have the licence."
+
+"The licence!  What licence?"  He stared at her.
+
+Her heart sank.  Here was some horrible mistake.  She bethought
+herself of his careless habits, which indeed were notorious enough in
+and about Wroote and Epworth.  "It must be among your letters--have
+you neglected them lately?  Ah, think--think, my friend: for to me
+this means all the world."
+
+"Upon my word of honour, Miss Hetty, I don't understand one word
+you're saying.  Come, let us have it clear.  What brings you to
+Lincoln?  The Rector is not with you.  Who, then?"
+
+"We came here last night--early this morning, rather--"
+
+"'We'?"
+
+"I have left home.  You know what we intended?  But my father locked
+me up.  I had tried to be open with him, and he would listen to
+nothing.  So--as everything was ready--and you here with the
+licence--"
+
+John Romley stepped back a pace.  It is doubtful if he heard the last
+words.  His eyes were round in his head.
+
+"You are here--with--_him_!"  He gasped it in an incredulous whisper.
+For a moment in her earnestness she met his stare.  Then her hands
+went up to her face.  "You?  You?" he repeated slowly.  His eyes
+shrank from her face and wandered helplessly over the smoke, over the
+red roofs of the town below them.
+
+"But we came to get married!"  She plucked her hands away from her
+face and stepped close to him, forcing his reluctant eyes to meet
+hers.  Her cheeks flamed: he groaned at the sight of her beauty.
+"But we came to get married!  John, there is nothing--surely
+nothing?--that with your help cannot be set right?  Ah, I forget--by
+marrying us you will offend father, and you find now that you want
+this favour of him.  John, it cannot be _that_--you cannot be playing
+so cruel a trick for _that_--and after your promise?  Forgive me if I
+am selfish: but think what I am fighting for!"
+
+"It will cost me the precentorship," answered he slowly, "but I
+hadn't given a thought to that."
+
+"It shall cost you nothing of the kind.  After all, father is juster
+to others than to me.  I will write--we will both write: I will tell
+him what you risked to save his daughter.  Or, stay: any clergyman
+will do, will he not?  We need only the licence.  You shall risk
+nothing: give me only the licence and I will run and find one."
+
+"Dear Miss Hetty, I made no promise.  I have no licence.  None has
+reached me, nor word of one."
+
+"Then he must have it!  He told me--that is, I understood--"
+She broke off with a laugh most pitiful in John's ears, though it
+seemed to reassure her.  "But how foolish of me!  Of _course_ he must
+have it.  And you will come with me, at once?  At the least you are
+willing to come?"
+
+"Surely I will come."  John's face was gloomy.  "Where are the
+lodgings?"
+
+"I cannot tell you the name of the street, but I can find them.
+John, you are an angel!  And afterwards I will sit and tell you about
+Patty to your heart's content.  We can be married in the parlour, I
+suppose?  Or must it be in church?  I had rather--far rather--it were
+in church if you could manage that for us: but not to lose time.
+Perhaps we can find a church later in the day and get permission to
+go through the service again.  I daresay, though, he has it all
+arranged--he said I might leave it to him.  You won't tell him, John,
+what a fright I have given myself?"
+
+So her tongue ran on as they descended the hill together.
+John Romley walked beside her stupidly, wondering if she were in
+truth reassured or chattering thus to keep up her hopes.  They might,
+after all, be justified: but his forebodings weighed on his tongue.
+Also the shock had stunned him and all his wits seemed to be buzzing
+loose in his head.
+
+They did not notice, although they passed it close, a certain
+signboard over a low-browed shop half-way down the street.
+Afterwards Hetty remembered passing the shop, and that its one window
+was caked with mud and grimed with dust on top of the mud.  She did
+not see a broad-shouldered man in a dirty baize apron seated at his
+work-bench behind the pane.  Nor after passing the shop did she turn
+her head: but walked on unaware of an ill-shaven face thrust out of
+its doorway and staring after her.
+
+
+William Wright sat at his bench that morning, fitting a leather
+washer in a leaky brass tap.  In the darkest corner at the back of
+the shop his father--a peevish old man, well past seventy--stooped
+over a desk, engaged as usual in calculating his book-debts, an
+occupation which brought him no comfort but merely ingrained his bad
+opinion of mankind.  Having drunk his trade into a decline, and being
+now superannuated, he nagged over his ledgers from morning to night
+and snatched a fearful joy in goading William to the last limit of
+forbearance.  William, who had made himself responsible for the old
+man's debts, endured him on the whole very creditably.  "Here's a bad
+'un," "Here's a bad 'un," piped the voice from time to time.
+
+William trimmed away at his washer.
+
+"Hello! Who's been putting this in the ledger?" The old man held up a
+thin strip of leather.  "Oh, Willum, here's a very bad 'un!"
+
+"What name?" asked William indifferently, without turning his head.
+
+"Wesley, Reverend Samuel--Wroote and Epworth Rectory--
+twelve-seventeen-six.  Two years owing, and not a stiver on account.
+Oh, a poisonous bad 'un!"
+
+"That's all right!"
+
+"Not a stiver on account!"
+
+"All right, I tell you.  There won't be any paying on account with
+that bill: it'll be all or nothing.  All, perhaps; and, if so,
+something more than all"--he laid down his clasp-knife and almost
+involuntarily put a hand up to his cheek--"but nothing, most like.
+I put that slip of leather there to remind me, but I don't need it.
+'Twelve-seventeen-six'--better scratch it off."
+
+"'Scratch it off'?  Scratch off twelve-seventeen-six!"  Old Wright
+spun round on his stool.  But William sat gazing out of the window.
+He had picked up his knife again, but did not at once resume work.
+
+The next thing old Wright heard was the clatter of a knife on the
+bench.  William sprang up as it dropped, crept swiftly to the shop
+door, and stood there craning his head into the street and fumbling
+with his apron.
+
+"What's the matter?  Cut yourself?  It don't want a doctor, do it?"
+
+William did not answer: suddenly he plucked off his apron, flung it
+backwards into the shop, and disappeared into the street.  The old
+man tottered forward, picked it off the floor and stood examining it,
+his mouth opening and shutting like a fish's.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"'Brought him'!  Who told you to bring him?"
+
+Hetty's lover faced her across the round table in the lodging-house
+parlour.  The table was spread for two, and Hetty's knife and plate
+stood ready for her with a covered dish before it.  He had
+breakfasted, and their entrance surprised him with an empty pewter in
+his hand, his chair thrust back sideways from the table, his legs
+extended towards the empty fire-place, and his eyes bent on his
+handsome calves with a somewhat moody frown.
+
+"Who told you to bring him?"
+
+John Romley stood in the doorway behind Hetty's shoulder.  She turned
+to him bravely and quietly, albeit with the scare in her face.
+
+"I ought not to have brought you in like this.  You will not mind
+waiting outside, will you?--a minute only--while I explain--"
+
+Romley bent his head and walked out, closing the door.
+
+"Dear"--Hetty turned--"you must forgive me, but I could not rest
+until I had brought him."
+
+He had risen, and stood now with his face averted, gazing out of the
+window where a row of clouts and linen garments on a clothes-line
+blocked the view of an untidy back-yard.  He had known that this
+moment must come, but not that it would take him so soon and at
+unawares.  He let his anger rise while he considered what to answer;
+for a man in the wrong will miss no excuse for losing his temper.
+
+Hetty waited for a moment, then went on--"And I thought you had given
+him the licence: that is what made me so anxious to find--"
+
+A noise in the passage cut short her excuses: a woman's laugh.
+Hetty knew of two women only in the house--the landlady who
+had opened the door last night and a pert-looking slatternly servant
+she had passed at the foot of the stairs on her way to the cathedral.
+She could not tell to which of these the voice belonged: but the
+laugh and the jest it followed--though she had not caught it--were
+plainly at John Romley's expense, and the laugh was horrible.
+
+It rang on her ears like a street-door bell.  It seemed to tear down
+the mystery of the house and scream out its secret.  The young man at
+the window turned against his will and met Hetty's eyes.  They were
+strained and staring.
+
+She put out her hand.  "Where is the licence?" she asked.  "Give it
+to me."
+
+The change in her voice and manner confused him.  "My dear child,
+don't be silly," he blundered.
+
+"Give me the licence."
+
+"Tut, tut--let us understand one another like sensible folks.
+You must not treat me like a boy, to be bounced in this fashion by
+John Romley."  He began to whip up his temper again.  "Nasty tippling
+parson! I've more than a mind to kick him into the street."
+
+Her eyes widened on his with growing knowledge, growing pain: but
+faith lived in them yet.
+
+"I thought you had given him the licence, to be ready for us.
+Yes, yes--you did say it!" Her hand went up to her bosom for his last
+letter, which she had worn there until last night.  Then she
+remembered: she had left it upstairs.  Having him, she had no more
+need to wear it.
+
+He read the gesture.  "You are right, dear, and I forgot.  I _did_ say
+so, because I believed by the time the words reached you--or
+thereabouts, at any rate--"
+
+"Then _you_ have it.  Give it to me, please," she commanded.
+
+He stepped to the fire-place, unable to meet her eye.  "You hurried
+me," he muttered: "there was not time."
+
+For a moment she spread out both hands as one groping in the dark:
+then the veil fell from her eyes and she saw.  The truth spoke to her
+senses first--in the sordid disarray of breakfast, in the fusty smell
+of the room with its soiled curtains, its fly-blown mirror, its
+outlook on the blank court.  A whiff of air crept in at the open
+window--flat, with a scullery odour which sickened her soul.  In her
+ears rang the laugh of the woman in the passage.
+
+"What have you done?  What have you done to me?"
+
+She crouched, shivering, like some beautiful wild creature entrapped.
+He faced her again.  Her eyes were on his, but fastened there now by
+a shrinking terror.
+
+"Hetty!"
+
+She put up a hand and turned her face to the wall, as if to shut out
+him and the light.  He stepped to her, caught her by the wrist and
+forced her round towards him.  At the first touch he felt her wince.
+So will you see a young she-panther wince and cower from her tamer's
+whip.
+
+Yet, although she shuddered, she could not drag her hand away.
+He was her tamer now: and as he spoke soothingly and she grew
+quieter, a new faith awoke in her, yet a faith as old as woman; the
+false imperishable faith that by giving all she binds a man as he has
+bound her.
+
+With a cry she let her brow sink till it touched his breast.
+Then, straightening herself, she gripped him by both shoulders and
+stared close into his eyes--clinging to him as she had clung that
+evening on the frozen canal, but with a face how different!
+
+"But you mean no harm?  You told me a falsehood"--here he blinked,
+but she went on, her eyes devouring his--"but you told it in
+kindness?  Say you mean no harm to me--you will get this licence
+soon.  How soon?  Do not be angry--ah, see how I humble myself to
+you!  You mean honestly: yes, yes, but say it! how soon?"
+
+"Hetty, I'll be honest with you.  One cannot get a licence in a day."
+
+"And I will be patient--so patient!  Only we must leave this horrible
+house: you must find me a lodging where I can be alone."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with this house?"  He tried a laugh, and the
+result betrayed him.
+
+Her body stiffened again.  "When did you apply for the licence?" she
+demanded.  "How long since?"
+
+He tried to shuffle.  "But answer me!" she insisted, thrusting him
+away.  And then, after a pause and very slowly, "You have not applied
+at all," she said.  "You are lying again. . . . God forgive you."
+She drew herself up and for an instant he thought she was going to
+strike him; but she only shivered.  "I must go home."
+
+"Home!" he echoed.
+
+"And whither but home?"--with a loathing look around her.
+
+"You will not dare."
+
+In all this pitiful scene was nothing so pitiful as the pride in
+which she drew herself up and towered over the man who had abased
+her.  Yet her voice was quiet.  "That you cannot understand is worst
+of all.  I feared sin too little: but I can face the consequences.
+I fear them less than--than--"
+
+A look around her completed the sentence eloquently enough.  As she
+stood with her hand on the door-latch that look travelled around the
+sordid room and rested finally on him as a piece of it.  Then the
+latch clicked, and she was gone.
+
+She stood in the passage by the foot of the staircase.  Half-way up
+the servant girl was stooping over a stair-rod, pretending to clean
+it.  Hetty's wits were clear.  She reflected a moment, and mounted
+steadily to her room, crammed her poor trifles into her satchel, and
+came down again with a face of ice.
+
+The girl drew aside, watching her intently.  But--on a sudden
+impulse--"Miss--" she said.
+
+"I beg your pardon!" Hetty paused.
+
+"I wouldn't be in a hurry, miss.  You can master him, if you try--you
+and the parson: and the worst of 'em's better than none.  And you
+that pretty, too!"
+
+"I don't understand you," answered Hetty coldly, and passed on.
+
+John Romley was patrolling the pavement outside.  She forced up a
+smile to meet him.  "There has been some difficulty with the
+licence," said she, and marvelled at her own calmness.  "I am sorry,
+John, to have brought you here for nothing.  He hid it from me--in
+kindness: but meanwhile I am going back."  With this brave falsehood
+she turned to leave him, knowing that he believed it as little as
+she.
+
+He too marvelled.  "Is it necessary to go back?"
+
+"It is necessary."
+
+"Then let me find you some conveyance."  But he saw that she wished
+only to be rid of him, and so shook hands and watched her down the
+street.
+
+"The infernal hound!" he said to himself; and as she passed out of
+sight he turned to the lodging-house door and entered without
+knocking.
+
+He emerged, twenty minutes later, with his white bands twisted, his
+hat awry, and a smear of blood on the surplice he carried--altogether
+a very unclerical-looking figure.  On the way back to his inn he kept
+looking at his cut knuckles, and, arriving, called for a noggin of
+brandy.  By midday he was drunk, and at one o'clock he was due to
+appear at the Chapter House.  The hour struck: but John Romley sat on
+in the coffee-room staring stupidly at his knuckles.
+
+And all this while in the lodging-house parlour sat or paced the man
+who has no name in this book.  He also was drinking: but the
+brandy-and-water, though he gulped it fiercely, neither unsteadied
+his legs nor confused his brain.  Only it deadened by degrees the
+ruddy colour in his face to a gray shining pallor, showing up one
+angry spot on the cheek-bone.  Though he frowned as he paced and
+muttered now and again to himself, he was not thinking of John
+Romley.
+
+Some men are born to be the curse of women and, through women, of the
+world.  Despicable in themselves they inherit a dreadful secret
+before which, as in a fortress betrayed to a false password, the
+proudest virtue hauls down its flag, and kneeling, proffers its keys.
+Doubtless they move under fate to an end appointed, though to us they
+appear but as sightseers, obscure and irresponsible, who passing
+through a temple defile its holies and go their casual ways.
+We wonder that this should be.  But so it is, and such was this man.
+Let his name perish.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Late that evening and a little after moonrise, Johnny Whitelamb,
+going out to the woodstack for a faggot, stood still for a moment at
+sight of a figure half-blotted in the shadow.
+
+"Miss Hetty--oh, Miss Hetty!" he called softly.
+
+Hetty did not run; but as he stepped to her, let him take her hands
+and lifted her face to the moonlight.
+
+"What are they doing?" she whispered.
+
+Johnny was never eloquent.  "They are sitting by the fire, just as
+usual," he answered her, but his voice shook over the words.
+
+"Just as usual?" she echoed dully.  "Mother and the girls, you mean?"
+
+"Yes: the Rector is in his study.  I have not seen him to-day: only
+the mistress has seen him."  He paused: Hetty shivered.  She was weak
+and woefully tired: for, excepting a lift at Marton and a second in a
+wagon from Gainsborough to Haxey, she had walked from Lincoln and had
+been walking all day.
+
+"I cannot tell what mistress thinks," Johnny went on: "the others
+talk to each other--a word now and then--but she sits looking at the
+fire and says nothing.  I think she means to sit up late to-night.
+Else why did she send me out for another faggot?" he asked, in his
+simple, puzzled way.  "But oh, Miss Hetty, she will be glad you've
+come back, and now we can all be happy again!"
+
+She waved a hand feebly.  "Fetch Molly to me."
+
+By the pallor of her brow in the moonlight he made sure she was near
+to fainting: and, indeed she was not far from it.  He ran and burst
+in at the kitchen-door impetuously; but meeting the eyes of the
+family, surprised--as well they might be--by the violence of his
+entry and his scared face, he became suddenly and absurdly
+diplomatic, crossed to Molly and whispered, as Mrs. Wesley turned her
+eyes from the fire.
+
+"But where is the faggot?" she demanded.
+
+"I--I forgot it," stammered Johnny and was for returning to fetch it.
+Molly rose.
+
+"Hetty is outside," she announced.
+
+For a second or two there was silence.  Mrs. Wesley turned to her
+crippled daughter.  "You had best bring her in.  The rest of you, go
+to bed."
+
+They obeyed at once and in silence.  Johnny, too, stole off to his
+mattress in the glass-doored cupboard under the stairs.
+
+When Molly returned, leading in her sister, Mrs. Wesley was seated by
+the fire alone.  Mother and daughter looked into each other's eyes.
+In silence Hetty stepped forward and dropped into the chair a minute
+ago vacated by Kezzy.  But for the ticking of the tall clock there
+was no sound in the kitchen.
+
+Mrs. Wesley read Hetty's eyes; read the truth in them, and something
+else which tied her tongue.  She made no offer to rise and kiss her.
+
+"You are hungry?" she asked after a while, and Molly pushed forward a
+plate of biscuits.  Hetty ate ravenously for a minute (for
+twenty-four hours not a morsel of food had passed her lips and she
+had walked close on thirty miles) and then pushed away the plate in
+disgust.  Her eyes still sought her mother's; they neither pleaded
+nor reproached.
+
+Yet Mrs. Wesley spoke, when next she spoke, as if choosing to answer
+a plea.  "Your father does not know of your return.  You may sleep
+with Molly to-night."  She bent over the hearth and raked its embers
+together.  Molly laid a hand lightly on Hetty's shoulder, then
+slipped it under the crook of her arm, and lifted and led her from
+the kitchen.
+
+Hetty went unresisting.  When they reached the bedroom she halted and
+stared around as one who had lost her bearings.  She winced once and
+shook as Molly's gentle fingers began to unfasten her bodice, but
+afterwards stood quite passive and suffered herself to be undressed
+as a little child.  Molly unlaced her shoes.  Molly brought cool
+water in a basin, bathed her face and hands, braided her hair--the
+masses of red-brown hair she had been used to admire and caress,
+passing a hand over them as tenderly as of old; then knelt and washed
+the tired feet, and wiped them, feeling the arch of the instep with
+her bare hand and chafing them to make sure they were dry--so cold
+they were.
+
+"Won't you say your prayers, dear?"
+
+Hetty shook her head.
+
+"Then at least you shall kneel by me, and I will pray for both."
+
+Molly's arm was about her.  She obeyed and with her waist so
+encircled knelt by the bed.  And twice Molly, not interrupting her
+prayer, pressed the waist close to her side, and once lifted her lips
+and kissed the side of the brow.
+
+They arose at length, the one confirmed now and made almost fearless
+by saintliness and love.  But the other, creeping first into the
+narrow bed, shrank away towards the wall and lay with her eyes fixed
+on it and staring.
+
+"No, darling," whispered Molly, "when you were strong and I was weak
+you used to comfort me.  I am the strong one now, and you shall not
+escape me so!"
+
+And so it was.  Her feeble arms had suddenly become strong.
+They slid, the one beneath Hetty's shoulder, the other across and
+below her bosom, and straining, not to be denied, they forced her
+round.  Wide-eyed still, Hetty gazed up into eyes dark in the
+moonlight, but conquering her, piercing through all secrets.  Her own
+brimmed suddenly with tears and she lay quiet, her soul naked beneath
+Molly's soul.
+
+"Ay, let them come--let them come while I hold you!"
+
+While Hetty lay, neither winking nor moving, the big drops
+overbrimmed at the corners of each eye and trickled on the pillow.
+As one fell, another gathered.  Silent, unchecked, they flowed, and
+Molly bent and watched them flowing.
+
+"A little while--a little while!" moaned Hetty.
+
+"I will hold you so for ever."
+
+"No--yet a little while, though you know not what you are holding."
+
+"Were it a thousand times worse than I think, I am holding my
+sister."
+
+"To-morrow--"
+
+"We will bear it together." Molly smiled, but very faintly.
+"You forget that I shall never marry--that I shall always need you to
+care for.  All my life till now you have protected me: now I shall
+pay back what I owe."
+
+"Ah, you think I fear father?  Molly, I do not fear father at all.
+I fear myself--what I am."  And still staring up Hetty whispered a
+horrible word.
+
+"Oh hush, hush!"  Molly laid a swift hand over her lips, and for a
+while there was silence in the room.
+
+"So make the most of me now," Hetty murmured, "while you have me to
+hold, dear; for what I am is not mine to give."
+
+"Hetty!" Molly drew back.  "You will not go--to _him_--again?"
+
+"If he will marry me.  I do not think he will, dear: I do not think
+he has the courage.  But if he calls me, I will go humbly,
+thankfully."
+
+"And if not--"
+
+Hetty turned her face aside: but after a moment she looked up,
+staring, as before.  There were no tears in her eyes now.
+
+"I do not know."  She was silent awhile, then went on slowly.
+"But if any honest man will have me, I vow before God to marry him.
+Yes, and I would take his hand and bless it for so much honour, were
+he the lowest hind in the fields."
+
+Molly choked down a cry and held her breath.  Her arms slipped from
+around the dear body she could have saved from fire, from drowning,
+from anything but this.  This pair had loved and honoured each other
+from babyhood: the heart of each had been a shrine for the other,
+daily decked with pretty thoughts as a shrine with flowers in season.
+All that was best they had brought each other: how much at need they
+were ready to give God alone knew.  And now, by the law which in Eden
+divided woman from man, the basest stranger among the millions of men
+held the power denied to Molly, the only salvation for Hetty's need.
+"What I am is not mine to give"--for a minute Molly bowed over her
+sister, helpless.
+
+"But no," she cried suddenly, "that is wicked! It would be a thousand
+times worse than the other, however bad.  You shall take no such
+oath!  You did not know what it meant.  Hetty, Hetty, take it back!"
+
+She flung herself forward sobbing.
+
+"I have said it," Hetty answered quietly.  The two lay shuddering,
+breast to breast.
+
+
+Downstairs a sad-eyed woman sat over the dead fire.  She heard a
+chair pushed back in the next room, and trembled.  By and by she
+heard her husband trying the bolts of the doors and window-shutters.
+He looked into the kitchen and, finding her there seated with the
+lamp beside her, withdrew without a word.  She had not raised her
+head.  His footsteps went up the stair slowly.
+
+For another hour, almost, she sat on, staring at the gray ashes: then
+took the lamp and went shivering to her room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+The worst (or perhaps the best) of a temper so choleric as Mr.
+Wesley's is that by constant daily expenditure on trifles it fatigues
+itself, and is apt to betray its possessor by an unexpected lassitude
+when a really serious occasion calls.  A temper thoroughly cruel
+(which his was not) steadily increases its appetite: but a temper
+less than cruel, or cruel only by accident, will run itself to a
+standstill and either cry for a strong whip or yield to the
+temptation to defer the crisis.
+
+On this Mrs. Wesley was building when she broke to her husband the
+news of Hetty's return.  He lifted himself in his chair, clutching
+its arms.  His face was gray with spent passion.
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"She has gone for a walk, alone," she answered.  She had, in truth,
+packed Hetty off and watched her across the yard before venturing to
+her husband's door.
+
+"So best."  He dropped back in his chair with a sigh that was more
+than half composed of relief.  "So best, perhaps.  I will speak to
+her later."
+
+He looked at his wife with hopeless inquiry.  She bowed her head for
+sign that it was indeed hopeless.
+
+Now Molly had sought her mother early and spoken up.  But Molly (who
+intended nothing so little) had not only made herself felt, for the
+first time in her life, as a person to be reckoned with, but had also
+done the most fatally foolish thing in her life by winding up with:
+"And we--you and father and all of us, but father especially--have
+driven her to it!  God knows to what you will drive her yet: for she
+has taken an oath under heaven to marry the first man who offers, and
+she is capable of it, if you will not be sensible."
+
+--Which was just the last thing Hetty would have forbidden her to
+tell, yet just the last thing Hetty would have told, had she been
+pleading for Molly.  For Hetty had long since gauged her mother and
+knew that, while her instinct for her sons' interests was well-nigh
+impeccable, on any question that concerned her daughters she would
+blunder nine times out of ten.
+
+So now Mrs. Wesley, meaning no harm and foreseeing none, answered her
+husband gravely, "She has told me nothing.  But she swears she will
+marry the first man who offers."
+
+The Rector shut his mouth firmly.  "That decides it," he answered.
+"Has she gone in search of the fool?"
+
+But this was merely a cry of bitterness.  As Mrs. Wesley stole from
+the room, he opened a drawer in his table, pulled out some sheets of
+manuscript, and gazed at them for a while without fixing his
+thoughts.  He seldom considered his daughters.  Women had their place
+in the world: that place was to obey and bear children: to carry on
+the line for men.  It was a father's duty to take care that their
+husbands should be good men, worthy of the admixture of good blood.
+The family which yielded its daughters to this office yielded them as
+its surplus.  They did not carry on its name, which depended on its
+sons. . . . He had three sons: but of all his daughters Hetty had
+come nearest to claim a son's esteem.  Something masculine in her
+mind had encouraged him to teach her Latin and Greek.  It had been an
+experiment, half seriously undertaken; it had come to be seriously
+pursued.  Not even John had brought so flexible a sense of language.
+In accuracy she could not compare with John, nor in that masculine
+apprehension which seizes on logic even in the rudiments of grammar.
+Mr. Wesley--a poet himself, though by no means a great one--had
+sometimes found John too pragmatical in demanding reasons for this
+and that.  "Child," he had once protested, "you think to carry
+everything by dint of argument; but you will find how little is ever
+done in the world by close reasoning": and, turning to his wife in a
+pet, "I profess, sweetheart, I think our Jack would not attend to the
+most pressing necessities of nature unless he could give a reason for
+it."  To Hetty, on the other hand, beauty--beauty in language, in
+music, in all forms of art, no less than the beauty of a spring day--
+was an ultimate thing and lay beyond questions: and Mr. Wesley,
+though as a divine he checked her somewhat pagan impulses and
+recalled them to give account of their ground of choice, as a scholar
+could not help admiring them.  For they seldom led her to choose
+wrongly.  In Hetty dwelt something of the Attic instinct which, in
+days of literary artifice and literary fashions from which she could
+not wholly escape, kept her taste fresh and guided her at once to
+browse on what was natural and health-giving and to reject with
+delicate disgust what was rank and overblown.  Himself a sardonic
+humorist, he could enjoy the bubbling mirth with which she discovered
+comedy in the objects of their common derision.  Himself a hoplite in
+study, laborious, without sense of proportion, he could look on and
+smile while she, a woman, walked more nimbly, picking and choosing as
+she went.
+
+The manuscript he held was a poem of hers, scored with additions and
+alterations of his own, by which (though mistakenly) he believed he
+had improved it: a song of praise put in the mouth of a disciple of
+Plato: its name, "Eupolis, his Hymn to the Creator."  As he turned
+the pages, his eyes paused and fastened themselves on a passage here
+and there:
+
+     "Sole from sole Thou mak'st the sun
+      On his burning axles run:
+      The stars like dust around him fly,
+      And strew the area of the sky:
+      He drives so swift his race above,
+      Mortals can't perceive him move:
+      So smooth his course, oblique or straight,
+      Olympus shakes not with his weight.
+      As the Queen of solemn Night
+      Fills at his vase her orb of light--
+      Imparted lustre--thus we see
+      The solar virtue shines by Thee.
+      EIRESIONE! we'll no more
+      For its fancied aid implore,
+      Since bright _oil_ and _wool_ and _wine_
+      And life-sustaining _bread_ are Thine;
+     _Wine_ that sprightly mirth supplies,
+      Noble wine for sacrifice. . . ."
+
+The verses, though he repeated them, had no meaning for him.
+He remembered her sitting at the table by the window (now surrendered
+to Johnny Whitelamb) and transcribing them into a fair copy, sitting
+with head bent and the sunlight playing on her red-brown hair: he
+remembered her standing by his chair with a flushed face, waiting for
+his verdict.  But though his memory retained these visions, they
+carried no sentiment.  He only thought of the young, almost boyish,
+promise in the lines:
+
+     "Omen, monster, prodigy!
+      Or nothing is, or Jove, from thee.
+      Whether various Nature's play,
+      Or she, renversed, thy will obey,
+      And to rebel man declare
+      Famine, plague or wasteful war . . .
+      No evil can from Thee proceed;
+     'Tis only suffered, not decreed. . . ."
+
+He gazed from the careful handwriting to the horizon beyond his
+window.  Why had he fished out the poem from its drawer?  She, the
+writer--his child--was a wanton.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Hetty had found a patch of ragged turf and mallow where the woodstack
+hid her from the parsonage windows; and sat there in the morning
+sun--unconsciously, as usual, courting its full rays.  Between her
+and the stack the ground was bare, strewn with straw and broken
+twigs.  She supposed that her father would send for her soon: but she
+was preparing no defence, no excuses.  She hoped, indeed, that the
+interview would be short, but simply because the account she must
+render to him seemed trivial beside that which she must render to
+herself.  Her eyes watched the hens as they scratched pits in the
+warm dust, snuggled down and adjusted and readjusted their
+wing-feathers.  But her brain was busied over and over with the same
+thought--"I am now a bad woman.  Is there yet any way for me to be
+good?"
+
+Yet her wits were alert enough.  She heard her father's footstep on
+the path twenty yards away, guessed the moment which would bring him
+into sight of her.  Though she did not look up, she knew that he had
+come to a halt.  She waited.  He turned and walked slowly away.
+She knew why he had faltered.  Her mind ran back to the problem.
+"I am a bad woman.  Is there any way for me to be good?"
+
+Half an hour passed.  Emilia came round the rick, talking to herself,
+holding a wooden bowl from which she had been feeding the chickens.
+She came upon Hetty unawares and stood still, with a face at first
+confused, but gradually hardening.
+
+"Sit down, Emmy."  Hetty pointed to a faggot lying a few paces off.
+
+Emilia hesitated.
+
+"You may sit down: near enough to listen--"
+
+                     'Here I and sorrows sit;
+      Here is my throne, let Emmy bow to it.'
+
+"You were reciting as you came along."  She raised her eyes with a
+grave smile.  "Shall I tell you your secret?"
+
+"What secret?" asked Emilia, reddening in spite of herself.
+
+"Oh, I have known it a long while! But if you want me to whisper it,
+you must come closer.  Nay, my dear, I know very little of the
+stage--perhaps as little as you: but, from what I have read, it will
+bring you close to creatures worse than I."
+
+Emilia was scared now.  "Who told you?  Have you heard from Jacky?--
+no, he couldn't, because--"
+
+"--Because you never told him, although you may have hinted at it.
+And if you told him, he would laugh and call it the ambition of a
+girl who knows nothing of the world."
+
+"I will not starve here.  And now that this--this disgrace--"
+
+"Father would think it no less disgrace to see you an actress.
+Listen: a little while ago he came this way, meaning to curse me, but
+he turned back and did not.  And now you come, and are confused, and
+I read you just as plainly.  While my wits are so clear I want to say
+one or two things to you.  Yesterday--only yesterday--I left home for
+ever, and here I am back again.  I have been wicked, you say, and
+there is nothing sinful in becoming an actress.  Perhaps not: yet I
+am sure father would think it sinful--even more selfishly sinful than
+my fault, because it would hurt the careers of Jacky and Charles; and
+that, as you know, he would never forgive."
+
+"Who are you, to be lecturing me?"
+
+"I am your sister, who has done wrong: I have tasted bitter fruit and
+must go eating it all my life.  But it is fruit of knowledge--ah,
+listen, Emmy!  If you do this and become famous, the greater your
+fame, the greater the injury; or so father would hold it, and perhaps
+our brothers too.  Hetty can be hidden and forgotten in a far country
+parish.  But can Jacky become a bishop, having an actress for
+sister?"
+
+"You are sudden in this thought for your brothers."
+
+"It is not of them I am thinking.  I say that if you succeed you will
+lose father's forgiveness and always carry with you this sorrowful
+knowledge.  Yet I would bid you go and do it; for to be great is
+worth much cost of sorrow, and sorrow might even increase your
+greatness.  But have you that strength?  And if you should not
+succeed?--We know nothing of the world: all our thoughts of it come
+out of books and dreaming.  You imagine yourself treading the boards
+and holding all hearts captive with your voice.  So I used to imagine
+myself slaying dragons.  So, only yesterday, I believed--"
+
+She sat erect with a shiver.  "To wake and find all your dreams
+changed to squalor, and for you no turning back!  Have you the
+strength, Emmy--to go forward and change that squalor back again by
+sheer force into beautiful dreams?  Have you the strength?"
+She gazed at Emilia and added musingly, "No, you have not the
+strength.  You will stay on here in the cage, an obedient woman, your
+talent repressed to feed the future of those grand brothers of ours
+who take all we give, yet cannot help us one whit.  They take it
+innocently; they do not know; and they are dear good fellows.
+But they cannot help.  I only have done what may injure them--though
+I do not think it will: and when father came along the path just now,
+he was thinking of them rather than of me--of me only as I might
+injure them."
+
+She was right indeed.  Mr. Wesley had left the house thinking of her:
+but a few steps had called up the faces of his sons, and by habit,
+since he thought of them always on his walks.  His studies put aside,
+to think of them was his one recreation.  Coming upon Hetty, he had
+felt himself taken at unawares, and retreated.
+
+"--And when he turned away," Hetty went on, "I understood.  And I
+felt sorry for him; because all of a sudden it came to me that he may
+be wiser than any of us, and one day it will be made plain to us,
+what we have helped to do--or to spoil."
+
+"Here is someone you had better be sorry for," said Emilia, glancing
+along the path at the sound of footsteps and catching sight of Nancy.
+"She has made up her mind that John Lambert will have no more to do
+with us now; and the wedding not a month away!"
+
+Sure enough, Nancy's eyes were red, and she gazed at Hetty less with
+reprobation than with lugubrious reproach.
+
+"Then she knows less of John Lambert than I do," said Hetty; "and
+still less how deep he is in love with her.  Nancy dear," she asked,
+"was he to have walked over this morning?"
+
+"He was coming from Haxey way," wailed Nancy.  "He was to have been
+here at ten o'clock and it is past that now.  Of course he has heard,
+and does not mean to come."
+
+Hetty choked down an exceeding bitter sob.
+
+"Anne--sister Anne," she answered in her old light manner, though she
+desired to be alone and to weep: "go, look along the road and say if
+you see anyone coming!"
+
+Nancy turned away, too generous to upbraid her sister, but hotly
+ashamed of her and her lack of contrition, and indignantly sorry for
+herself.  Nevertheless she went towards the gate whence she could see
+along the road.
+
+"It seems to me," said Emilia, "that you are scarcely awake yet to
+your--your situation."
+
+She was trying to recover her superiority, which Hetty had shaken by
+guessing her secret.
+
+"Oh, yes I am," Hetty answered.  "But my time may be short for
+talking: so I use what ways I can to make my sisters listen.  Hark!"
+
+"He is coming!" Nancy announced, running towards them from the gate.
+Honest love shone in her eyes.  "He is coming--and there is someone
+with him!"
+
+"Who?" asked Emilia.  Hetty's eyes put the same question, far more
+eagerly.  She rose up: her face was white.
+
+"I don't know.  He--they--are half a mile away.  Yet I seem to know
+the figure.  It is odd now--"
+
+Hetty put out a hand and leaned it against the wood-stack to steady
+herself.  The sharpened end of a stake pierced her palm, but she did
+not feel it.
+
+"Is it--is it--"  Her lips worked and formed the words, inaudibly.
+
+"Run and look again," commanded Emilia.
+
+But Hetty turned and walked swiftly away.  Could it be _he_?  No--and
+yet why not?  Until this moment she had not known how much she built
+upon that chance.  She loved him still: at the bottom of her heart
+most tenderly.  She had reproached herself, saying that her desire
+for him had nothing to do with love--was no genuine impulse to
+forgive, but a selfish cowardly longing to be saved, as only he could
+save her.  She was wrong.  She desired to be saved: but she desired
+far more wildly that he should play the man, justify her love and
+earn forgiveness.  She had--and was, alas! to prove it--an almost
+infinite capacity to forgive.  She, Hetty, of the reckless wit and
+tongue--she would meet him humbly--as one whose sin had been as deep
+as his . . .
+
+Was it he?  If so, she would beg his pardon for thoughts which had
+accused him of cowardice. . . .
+
+She could not wait for the truth.  So much joy it would bring, or so
+deep anguish.  She walked away blindly towards the fields, not once
+looking back.
+
+
+"So there you're hiding!" cried John Lambert triumphantly, saluting
+Nancy with a smacking kiss on either cheek, and in no way
+disconcerted by Emilia's presence.
+
+Nancy pushed him away, but half-heartedly.
+
+"No, you mustn't!" she protested, and her face grew suddenly tragic.
+
+"Oh, I forgot for the moment!" John Lambert tried to look doleful.
+He was an energetic young land-surveyor, with tow-coloured hair and a
+face incurably jolly.
+
+"You have heard, then?" asked Emilia.
+
+"Why, bless you, your father was around to see me at eight o'clock
+yesterday morning, or some such hour.  He must have saddled at once.
+He's a stickler, is the Rector.  'Young Mr. Lambert,' says he, very
+formal, or some such words, 'I regret to say I must retract my
+permission that you should marry into my family, as doubtless you
+will wish to be released of your troth.'  'Hallo!' says I, a bit
+surprised, but knowing his crotchets: 'Why, what have I been doing?'
+'Nothing,' says he.  'Then what has _she_ been up to?'"--this with a
+wink at Emilia--"'Nothing,' says he again, and pours out the whole
+story, or so much of it as he knew and guessed, and winds up with
+'I release you,' and a bow very formal and stiff.  'How about Miss
+Nancy?' I asked; 'does she release me too?'  'I haven't asked her,'
+he says, and goes on that he is not in the habit of being guided by
+his daughters.  To which I replied: 'Well, I am--by one of 'em,
+anyhow--or hope to be.  And, if you don't mind, I'll step round
+to-morrow at the hour she expects me.  I'd do it this moment if I
+hadn't a job at Bawtry.  And I'm sorry for you, Rector,' I said,
+'but if you think it makes a penn'orth of difference to me apart from
+that, you're mistaken.'  And so we parted."
+
+"Have you thought of the consequences?" Nancy demanded, tearful, but
+obviously worshipping this very ordinary young man.
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"She is back again."
+
+"Oh, is she? Then she found him out quick.  Poor Hetty! She must be
+in a taking too!"  His face expressed commiseration for a moment, but
+with an effort, and sprang back to jollity as a bow is released from
+its cord.  "Curious, how quickly a bit of news like that gets about!
+I picked up with a man on the road--said his name was Wright and he
+comes from Lincoln--a decent fellow--tradesman--plumber, I think.
+At all events he knows a deal about you, and began, after a while,
+pumping me about your sister.  I saw in a moment that he had heard
+something, and gave him precious little change for his money.
+Talked as if he knew more than I did, if only he cared to tell: but
+of course I didn't encourage him."
+
+"Wright?--a plumber from Lincoln?" Emilia faltered, and her eyes met
+Nancy's.
+
+"That's it.  He had business with your father, he said.  In fact I
+left him on his way to knock at the door."
+
+The two sisters remembered the man on the knoll, and his bill.
+They were used to duns.
+
+Emilia's eye signalled that John Lambert was to be kept away from the
+house at all costs; nor did she breathe freely until she saw the
+lovers crossing the fields arm-in-arm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+"And my business is important.  William Wright is the name, and you'd
+better say that I come from Lincoln direct."
+
+The answer came back that Mr. Wesley would see Mr. Wright in his
+study; and thither accordingly Mr. Wright lurched, after pulling out
+a red handkerchief and dusting his boots on the front doorstep.
+At his entrance Johnny Whitelamb rose, gathered up some papers and
+retired.  The Rector looked up from his writing-table, at the same
+moment pushing back and shutting the drawer upon Hetty's manuscript,
+which he had again been studying.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Wright.  You have come about your bill, I suspect:
+the amount of which, if I remember--"
+
+"Twelve-seventeen-six."
+
+The Rector sighed.  "It is extremely awkward for me to pay you just
+now.  Still, no doubt you find it no less awkward to wait: and since
+you have come all the way from Lincoln to collect it--"
+
+"Steady a bit," Mr. Wright interrupted; "I never said that.  I said
+I'd come direct from Lincoln."
+
+Mr. Wesley looked puzzled.  "Pardon me, is not that the same thing?"
+
+"No, it ain't.  I'd be glad enough of my little bit of money to be
+sure: but there's more things than money in this world, Mr. Wesley."
+
+"So I have sometimes endeavoured to teach."
+
+"There's more things than money," repeated Mr. Wright, not to be
+denied: for it struck him as a really fine utterance, with a touch of
+the epigrammatic too, of which he had not believed himself capable.
+In the stir of his feelings he was conscious of an unfamiliar
+loftiness, and conscious also that it did him credit.  He paused and
+added, "There's darters, for instance."
+
+"Daughters?"  Mr. Wesley opened his eyes wide.
+
+"Darters." Mr. Wright nodded his head slowly and took a step nearer
+to the table.  "Has Missy come back?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"If you mean my daughter Mehetabel--yes, she has returned."
+
+"I saw her in Lincoln only yesterday morning.  She didn't see me; but
+having (as you might say) my suspicions, I follered her: and I saw
+enough to make a man feel sore--leastways when he takes an interest
+in a young lady as I do in Miss Hetty.  For, saving your presence,
+sir, you've a good-looking bunch, but she's the pick.  'Tis a bad
+business--a very bad business, Mr. Wesley.  What, may I ask, are you
+going to do about it?"
+
+"You certainly may _not_ ask, Mr. Wright."  The danger-signal
+twinkled for a moment under the Rector's brows; but he repressed it
+and turned towards a cupboard in the wall, where in a drawer lay
+fifteen pounds, ten of which he had designed to send to Oxford.
+"Twelve pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence, I think you said?"
+
+"Never mind the bill, sir, for a moment.  And about Miss Hetty I'll
+ask ye no questions if you forbid it: but something I came to say,
+and it'll have to be said.  First of all I want to be clear with you
+that I had no hand in this affair.  On the contrary, I saw it coming
+and warned her against the fellow."
+
+"I have not the least need of your assurance.  I did not even know
+you were acquainted--"
+
+"No, you don't need it; but I need to give it.  _Very_ well: now
+comes my point.  Here's a young lady beautiful as roses, _and_ that
+accomplished, _and_ that thoroughbred she makes an honest tradesman
+feel like dirt to look upon her.  Oh, you needn't to stare, sir!
+William Wright knows breeding when he sees it, in man or beast; and
+as for feeling like dirt, why there's a sort of pleasure in it, if
+you understand me."
+
+"I do not."
+
+"No: I don't suppose you do.  You're not the sort of man to feel like
+dirt before anyone--not before King George on his throne.  But you
+may take my word for it there's a kind of man that likes it: when he
+looks at a woman, I mean.  'Take care, my lady,' I said; 'you're
+delicate and proud now, and as dainty as a bit of china.  But once
+you fall off the shelf--well, down you go, and 'tis all over but the
+broom and the dust-heap.  There you'll lie, with no man to look at
+you; worse than the coarsest pint-pot a man will drink out of.'
+You understand me now, Mr. Wesley?"
+
+"I do, sir, to my sorrow, but--"
+
+"But that's just where you're wrong--you _don't_!" Mr. Wright cried
+triumphantly, and pursued with an earnestness which held Mr. Wesley
+still in his chair.  "I'll swear to you, sir, that if I could have
+stopped this, I would: ay, though it killed my only chance.  But I
+couldn't.  The thing's done.  And I tell you, sir"--his face was
+flushed now, and his voice shaking--"broken as she is, I do worship
+Miss Hetty beyond any woman in the world.  I do worship her as if she
+had tumbled slap out of heaven.  I--I--there you have it, any way: so
+if you'll leave talking about the little account between us--"
+
+Mr. Wesley stood up, drew out his keys, opened the cupboard and began
+counting the sum out upon the table.
+
+"You misunderstand me, sir: indeed you do!" Mr. Wright protested.
+
+"Maybe," answered the Rector grimly.  "But I happen to be consulting
+my own choice.  Twelve pounds seventeen and sixpence, I think you
+said?  You had best sit down and write out a receipt."
+
+"But why interrupt a man, sir, when he's thinking of higher things,
+and with his hand 'most too shaky to hold a pen?"
+
+The Rector walked to the window and stood waiting while the receipt
+was made out: then took the paper, went to the cupboard and filed it,
+locked the door and resumed his seat.
+
+"Now, sir, let me understand your further business.  You desire, I
+gather, to marry my daughter Mehetabel?"
+
+Mr. Wright gasped and swallowed something in his throat.  Put into
+words, his audacity frightened him.  "That's so, sir," he managed to
+answer.
+
+"Knowing her late conduct?"
+
+"If I didn't," Mr. Wright answered frankly, "I shouldn't ha' been
+fool enough to come."
+
+"You are a convinced Christian?"
+
+"I go to church off and on, if that's what you mean, sir."
+
+"'Tis not in the least what I mean, Mr. Wright."
+
+"There's no reason why I shouldn't go oftener."
+
+"There is every reason why you should.  You are able to maintain my
+daughter?"
+
+"I pay my way, sir; though hard enough it is for an honest tradesman
+in these times."  Insensibly he dropped into the tone of one pressing
+for payment.  The Rector regarded him with brows drawn down and the
+angry light half-veiled, but awake in his eyes now and growing.
+Mr. Wright, looking up, read danger and misread it as threatening
+_him_.  "Indeed, sir," he broke out, courageously enough, "I feel for
+you: I do, indeed.  It seems strange enough to _me_ to be standing
+here and asking you for such a thing.  But when a man feels as I do
+t'ards Miss Hetty he don't know himself: he'll go and do that for
+which he'd call another man a fool.  Kick me to doors if you want to:
+I can't help it.  All I tell you is, I worship her from the top of
+her pretty head to her shoe-strings; and if she were wife of mine she
+should neither wash nor scrub, cook nor mend; but a room I would make
+for her, and chairs and cushions she should have to sit on, and books
+to read, and pens and paper to write down her pretty thoughts; and
+not a word of the past, but me looking up to her and proud all the
+days of my life, and studying to make her comfortable, like the lady
+she is!"
+
+During this remarkable speech Mr. Wesley sat without a smile.  At the
+end of it, he lifted a small handbell from the writing-table and rang
+it twice.
+
+Mr. Wright made sure that this was a signal for his dismissal.
+He mopped his face.  "Well, it can't be helped.  I've been a fool, no
+doubt: but you've had it straight from me, as between man and man."
+
+He picked up his hat and was turning to go, when the door opened and
+Mrs. Wesley appeared.
+
+"My dear," said the Rector, "the name of this honest man is Wright--
+Mr. William Wright, a plumber, of Lincoln.  To my surprise he has
+just done me the honour of offering to marry Mehetabel."
+
+Mrs. Wesley turned from the bowing Mr. Wright and fastened on her
+husband a look incredulous but scared.
+
+"I need scarcely say he is aware of--of the event which makes his
+offer an extremely generous one."
+
+The signal in the Rector's eyes was blazing now.  His wife rested her
+hand on a chair-back to gain strength against she knew not what.
+Mr. Wright smiled, vaguely apologetic; and the smile made him look
+exceedingly foolish; but she saw that the man was in earnest.
+
+"I think," pursued Mr. Wesley, aware of her terror, aware of the pain
+he took from his own words, but now for the moment fiercely enjoying
+both--"I think," he pursued slowly, "there can be no question of our
+answer.  I must, of course, make inquiry into your circumstances, and
+assure myself that I am not bestowing Mehetabel on an evil-liver.
+Worthless as she is, I owe her this precaution, which you must
+pardon.  I will be prompt, sir.  In two days, if you return, you
+shall have my decision; and if my inquiries have satisfied me--as I
+make no doubt they will--my wife and I can only accept your offer and
+express our high sense of your condescension."
+
+Mr. Wright gazed, open-mouthed, from husband to wife.  He saw that
+Mrs. Wesley was trembling, but her eyes held no answer for him.
+He was trembling too.
+
+"You mean that I'm to come along?" he managed to stammer.
+
+"I do, sir.  On the day after to-morrow you may come for my answer.
+Meanwhile--"
+
+Mr. Wright never knew what words the Rector choked down.  They would
+have surprised him considerably.  As it was, reading his dismissal in
+a slight motion of Mrs. Wesley's hand, he made his escape; but had to
+pull himself up on the front doorstep to take his bearings and assure
+himself that he stood on his feet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+     "She graced my humble roof and blest my life,
+      Blest me by a far greater name than wife;
+      Yet still I bore an undisputed sway,
+      Nor was't her task, but pleasure, to obey;
+      Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied.
+      In our low house there was no room for pride:" etc.
+           The Rev. Samuel Wesley's Verses of his Wife.
+
+     "It is an unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your
+      father and I seldom think alike. . . ."
+
+     "I am, I believe, got on the right side of fifty, infirm and
+      weak; yet, old as I am, since I have taken my husband 'for
+      better, for worse,' I'll take my residence with him: where he
+      lives, I will live: and where he dies, will I die: and there
+      will I be buried.  God do so unto me and more also, if aught
+      but death part him and me."
+                             Mrs. Wesley's Letters.
+
+Mrs. Wesley guessed well enough what manner of words her husband had
+choked down.  She stood and watched his face, waiting for him to lift
+his eyes.  But he refused obstinately to lift them, and went on
+rearranging with aimless fingers the pens and papers on his
+writing-table.  At length she plucked up her courage.  "Husband," she
+said, "let us take counsel together.  We are in a plight that wrath
+will not cure: but, be angry as you will, we cannot give Hetty to
+this man."
+
+It needed but this.  He fixed his eyes on hers now, and the light in
+them first quivered, then grew steady as a beam.  "Did you hear me
+give my promise?" he demanded.
+
+"You had no right to promise it."
+
+"I do not break promises.  And I take others at their word.  Has she,
+or has she not, vowed herself ready to marry the first honest man who
+will take her; ay, and to thank him?"
+
+"She was beside herself.  We cannot take advantage of such a vow."
+
+"You are stripping her of the last rag of honour.  I prefer to credit
+her with courage at least: to believe that she hands me the knife and
+says, 'cut out this sore.'  But wittingly or no she has handed it to
+me, and by heaven, ma'am, I will use it!"
+
+"It will kill her."
+
+"There are worse things than death."
+
+"But if--if the _other_ should seek her and offer atonement--"
+
+Mr. Wesley pacing the room with his hands beneath his coat-tails,
+halted suddenly and flung up both arms, as a man lifts a stone to
+dash it down.
+
+"What!  Accept a favour from _him_!  Have you lived with me these
+years and know me so little?  And can you fear God and think to save
+your daughter out of hell by giving her back her sin, to rut in it?"
+
+Mrs. Wesley shook her head helplessly.  "Let her be punished, then,
+in God's natural way!  Vengeance is His, dear: ah, do not take it out
+of His hands in your anger, I beseech you!"
+
+"God for my sins made me her father, and gave me authority to
+punish."  He halted again and cried suddenly, "Do you think this is
+not hurting me!"
+
+"Pause then, for it is His warning.  Who _is_ this man?  What do you
+know of him?  To think of him and Hetty together makes my flesh
+creep!"
+
+"Would you rather, then, see her--"  But at sound of a sobbing cry
+from her, he checked the terrible question.  "You are trying to
+unnerve me.  'Who is he?' you ask.  That is just what I am going to
+find out."  At the door he turned.  "We have other children to think
+of, pray you remember.  I will harbour no wantons in my house."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+At first Hetty walked swiftly across the fields, not daring to look
+back.  "Is it he?" she kept asking herself, and as often cried out
+against the hope.  She had no right to pray as she was praying: it
+was suing God to make Himself an accomplice in sin.  She ought to
+hate the man, yet--God forgive her!--she loved him still.  Was it
+possible to love and despise together?  If he should come. . . .
+She caught herself picturing their meeting.  He would follow across
+the fields in search of her.  She would hear his footstep.  Yet she
+would not turn at once--he should not see how her heart leapt.
+He would overtake her, call her by name. . . . She must not be proud:
+just proud enough to let him see how deep the wrong had been.
+But she would be humble too. . . .
+
+She heard no footsteps.  No voice called her.  Unable to endure it
+longer, she came to a standstill and looked back.  Between her and
+the parsonage buildings the wide fields were empty.  She could see
+the corner of the woodstack.  No one stood there.  Away to the left
+two figures diminished by distance followed a footpath arm-in-arm--
+John Lambert and Nancy.
+
+A great blackness fell on her.  She had no pride now; she turned and
+went slowly back, not to the parsonage, but aslant by the bank of a
+dyke leading to the highroad along which, a few hours ago, she had
+returned so wearily.  She must watch and discover what man it was who
+had come with John Lambert.
+
+Before she reached the low bridge by the road, she heard a tune
+whistled and a man's footfall approaching--not _his_.  She supposed
+it to be one of the labourers, and in a sudden terror hid herself
+behind an ash-bole on the brink.
+
+The man went by, still whistling cheerfully.  She peered around the
+tree and watched him as he retreated--a broad-shouldered man,
+swinging a cudgel.  A hundred yards or less beyond her tree he
+halted, with his back to her, in the middle of the road, and stayed
+his whistling while he made two or three ludicrous cuts with his
+cudgel at the empty air.  This pantomime over, he resumed his way.
+
+She recognised him by so much of his back as showed over the dwarf
+hedge.  It was William Wright.
+
+Was it _he_, then, who had come with John Lambert?  Hetty sat down by
+the tree, and, with her eyes on the slow water in the dyke, began to
+think.
+
+To be sure, this man might have come to Wroote merely for his money.
+Yet (as she firmly believed) it was he who had written the letter
+which in effect had led to her running away.  He might have used the
+debt to-day as a pretext.  His motive, she felt certain, was
+curiosity to learn what his letter had brought about.
+
+She bore him no grudge.  He had fired the train--oh, no doubt!
+But she was clear-sighted now, saw that the true fault after all was
+hers, and would waste no time in accusing others.  Very soon she
+dismissed him from her mind.  In all the blank hopelessness of her
+fall from hope she put aside self-pity, and tasked herself to face
+the worst.  To Emilia and Nancy she had spoken lightly, as if
+scarcely alive to her dreadful position, still less alive to her sin.
+They had misunderstood her: but in truth she had spoken so on the
+instinct of self-defence.  Real defence she had none.
+
+She knew she had none.  And let it be said here that she saw no
+comfortable hope in religion.  She had listened to a plenty of
+doctrine from her early childhood: but somehow the mysteries of God
+had seldom occupied her thoughts, never as bearing directly on the
+questions of daily life.  If asked, for example, "did she believe in
+the Trinity?" or "did she believe in justification by faith?" she
+would have answered "yes," without hesitating for a moment.  But in
+fact these high teachings lay outside her private religion, which
+amounted to this--"God is all-seeing and omnipotent.  To please Him I
+must be good; and being good gives me pleasure in turn, for I feel
+that His eye is upon me and He approves.  He is terribly stern: but
+all-merciful too.  If, having done wrong, I go to Him contritely, and
+repent, He will give me a chance to amend my ways, and if I honestly
+strive to amend them, He will forgive."  In short--and perhaps
+because the word "Father" helped to mislead--she had made for herself
+an image of God by exalting and magnifying all that she saw best in
+her parents.  And this view of Him her parents had confirmed
+insensibly, in a thousand trifles, by laying constant daily stress
+upon good conduct, and by dictating it and judging her lapses with an
+air of calm authority, which took for granted that what pleased them
+was exactly what would please God.
+
+So now, having done that which her mother and father could not
+forgive, at first she hardly dared to hope that God could by any
+means forgive it.  In the warm sunlight of loving she had seen for a
+while that her father and mother were not always wise; nay, long
+beforehand in her discontent she had been groping towards this
+discovery.  But now that the sunshine had proved a cruel cheat, she
+ran back in dismay upon the old guide-posts, and they pointed to a
+hell indeed.
+
+She had been wicked.  She craved to be good.  She remembered Mary
+Magdalene, whom Christ had forgiven, and caught at a hope for
+herself.  But why had Christ forgiven Mary?  Because she had been
+sorry, and turned and walked the rest of her life in goodness?
+Because He had foreseen her long atonement?  So Hetty believed.
+For her, too, then the way back to forgiveness lay through conduct--
+always through conduct; and for her the road stretched long, for not
+until death could she reach assurance.  Of a way to forgiveness
+through faith (though she must have heard of it a hundred times) she
+scarcely thought; still less of a way through faith to instant
+assurance.  To those who have not travelled by that road its end--
+though promised on the honour of God and proclaimed incessantly by
+those who have travelled and found it--seems merely incredible.
+Hardly can man or woman, taught from infancy to suspect false guides,
+trust these reports of a country where to believe and to have are
+one.
+
+Hetty sat by the tree and saw the road beyond her, that it was steep
+and full of suffering.  But for this she did not refuse it: she
+desired it rather.  She saw also, that along it was no well of
+forgiveness to refresh her; the thirst must endure till she reached
+the end and went down in darkness to the river.  This, too, she must
+endure, God in mercy helping her.  What daunted her was conscience
+whispering that she had as yet no right to that mercy, no right even
+to tread the road.  For though her sin was abhorrent, in her heart
+she loved her fellow-sinner yet.  A sound of hoofs aroused her.
+Still screened by her tree, she saw her father trot by on the filly.
+In spite of the warm settled weather he carried his cloak before him
+strapped across the holsters.  His ride, therefore, would be a long
+one; to Gainsborough at least--or to Lincoln?
+
+She lifted her head and sat erect in a sharp terror.  Was her father
+going to seek _him_?  She had not thought of this as possible.
+And if so--
+
+Leaping up she ran into the open and gazed after him, as though the
+sight of his bobbing figure could resolve her crowding surmises.
+For a minute and more she stood, gazing so; and then, turning, was
+aware of her mother coming slowly towards her across the wide field.
+
+A number of shallow ditches, dry at this season, crossed the fields
+in parallels; and at each of these Mrs. Wesley picked up her skirts.
+"How young she is!" was Hetty's thought as she came nearer, and it
+rose--purely from habit--above her own misery.  Hetty was one of
+those women who admire other women ungrudgingly.  She knew herself to
+be beautiful, yet in her eyes her mother had always the mien of a
+goddess.
+
+For her mother's character, too, she had the deepest, tenderest
+respect.  But it was the respect of a critic rather than of a child,
+and touched with humorous wonder.  She knew her firmness of judgment,
+her self-control, her courage in poverty, the secret ardent piety
+illuminating her commonest daily actions; she knew how perfectly
+designed that character was for masculine needs, how strong for
+guidance the will even in yielding--but alas! how feeble to help a
+daughter!
+
+"Your father is riding to Lincoln," said Mrs. Wesley as she drew
+near.  Hetty scanned her closely, but read no encouragement in her
+face.  She fell back on the tone she had used with Emilia and Nancy;
+knowing, however, that this time it would not be misunderstood.
+"I saw that he had taken his cloak with him," she answered.
+"Be frank with me, mother.  You would be frank, you know, with Jacky
+or Charles, if they were in trouble; whereas now you are not looking
+me in the face, and your own is white."
+
+Mrs. Wesley did not answer, but walked with Hetty back to the tree
+and, at a sign, seated herself on the bank beside her, with her eyes
+on the road.
+
+"I have been sitting here for quite a long time," began Hetty, after
+a pause, and went on lightly.  "Before father passed a tradesman went
+by--a man called Wright."  She paused again as Mrs. Wesley's hands
+made an involuntary movement in her lap.  "He has a bill against
+father; he called with it on the evening you came back from London.
+Is father riding after him to pay it?"
+
+"What do you know of that man?" Mrs. Wesley muttered, with her head
+turned aside and her hands working.
+
+"Very little; yet enough to suspect more than you guess," said Hetty
+calmly.
+
+But her mother showed her now a face she had not looked to see.
+
+"You know, then?--but no, you cannot!"
+
+It was Hetty's turn to show a face of alarm.  "What is it, dear? I
+thought--indeed I know--he had a notion about me--how I was
+behaving--and wrote a letter to father.  But that cannot matter now.
+Is there anything worse?  I understood he had merely an account
+against father; an ordinary bill.  It _is_ something worse--oh, tell
+me!  Father is riding after him!  I see it in your face.  What is
+this trouble which I have added to?"
+
+"The debt is paid, I believe," answered Mrs. Wesley; but she shook as
+she said it.
+
+"Yet father is riding after him.  What is the matter?  Let me see
+your eyes!"
+
+But her mother would not.  In the long silence, looking at her,
+slowly--very slowly--Hetty understood.  After understanding there
+followed another long silence, until Hetty drew herself up against
+the bole of the tree and shivered.
+
+"Come back to the house, mother.  You had best take my arm."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Mr. Wesley slept that night at Lincoln, and rode back the next
+afternoon, reaching Wroote a little before nightfall.  After stabling
+the filly he went straight to his study.  Thither, a few minutes
+later, Mrs. Wesley carried his supper on a tray.  He kissed her, but
+she saw at once from his manner that he would not talk, that he
+wished to be alone.
+
+Hetty and Molly sat upstairs in the dusk of the garret, speaking
+little.  Molly had exhausted her strength for the while and argued no
+more, but leaned back in her chair with a hand laid on Hetty's
+forehead, who--crouching on the floor against her knee--drew down the
+nerveless fingers, fondled them one by one against her cheek, and
+kissed them, thinking her own thoughts.
+
+Downstairs a gloom, a breathless terror almost, brooded over the
+circle by the kitchen hearth.  They knew of Hetty's probable fate--
+the sentence to be pronounced to-morrow; they had whispered it one to
+another, and while they condemned her it awed them.
+
+Soon after nine Johnny Whitelamb came in from the fields where for
+two hours he had been walking fiercely but quite aimlessly.
+Great drops of sweat stood out on his temples, over which his hair
+fell lank and clammy.  His shoes and stockings were dusted over with
+fine earth.  He did not speak, but lit his candle and went off to his
+bed-cupboard under the stairs.
+
+Before ten o'clock the rest of the family crept away to bed.
+Mr. Wesley sat on in his study.  This was the night of the week on
+which he composed his Sunday morning's sermon.  He wrote at it
+steadily until midnight.
+
+Next morning, about an hour after breakfast, Mrs. Wesley heard the
+hand-bell rung in the study--the sound for which (it seemed to her)
+she had been listening in affright for two long days.  She went at
+once.  In the passage she met Johnny Whitelamb coming out.
+
+"I am to fetch Miss Hetty," he whispered with a world of dreadful
+meaning.
+
+But for once Johnny was not strictly obedient.  Instead of seeking
+Hetty he went first across the farmyard and through a small gate
+whence a path took him to a duck-pond at an angle of the kitchen
+garden, and just outside its hedge.  A pace or two from the brink
+stood a grindstone in a wooden frame; and here, on the grindstone
+handle, sat Molly watching the ducks.
+
+"He has sent for her," announced Johnny, and glanced towards the
+kitchen-garden.  "Is she there?"
+
+Molly rose with a set face.  She did not answer his question.
+
+"You must give me ten minutes," she said.  "Ten minutes; on no
+account must you bring her sooner."
+
+She limped off towards the house.
+
+So it happened that as Mr. and Mrs. Wesley stood and faced each other
+across the writing-table they heard a gentle knock, and, turning with
+a start, saw the door open and Molly walk boldly into the room.
+
+"We are busy," said the Rector sharply, recovering himself.  "I did
+not send for you."
+
+"I know it," Molly answered; "but I am come first to explain."
+
+"If you are here to speak for your sister, I wish to hear no
+explanations."
+
+"I know it," Molly answered again; "but I need to give them; and,
+please you, father, you will listen to me."
+
+Mr. Wesley gasped.  Of all his daughters this deformed one had
+rendered him the most absolute obedience; of her alone he could say
+that, apart from her bodily weakness, she had never given him a
+moment's distress.  In a family where high courage was the rule her
+timidity was a by-word; she would turn pale at the least word of
+anger.  But she was brave now, as a dove to defend her brood.
+
+"You are using a secret"--her voice trembled, but almost at once grew
+steady again--"a secret between me and Hetty which I had no right to
+betray.  If I told it to mother, it was because she seemed to doubt
+of Hetty's despair; because I believed, if only she knew, she would
+come to Hetty and help her--the more eagerly the worse the need.
+Mother will tell you that was my only reason.  I was very foolish.
+Mother would not help: or perhaps she could not.  She went straight
+to you with the tale--this poor pitiful tale of an oath taken in
+passion by the unhappiest girl on earth.  Yes, and the dearest, and
+the noblest! . . . But why do I tell you this?  You are her father
+and her mother, and it is nothing to you; you prefer to be her
+judges.  Only I say that you have no right to my secret.  Give it
+back to me!  You shall not use it to do this wickedness!"
+
+"Molly!"  The last word fairly took Mrs. Wesley's breath away; she
+glanced at the Rector; but the explosion she expected hung fire,
+although he was breathing hard.
+
+Molly, too, was panting, but she went on recklessly.  "Yes; a
+wickedness!  She swore it, but she did not mean it.  Even had she
+meant it, she was not responsible. . . . No, mother, you need not
+look at me so.  I have been thinking, and father shall hear the truth
+for once.  Had he been kind--had he even been just--Hetty had never
+run away.  Oh, sir, you are a good man! but you are seldom kind, and
+you are rarely just.  You plan what seems best to you--best for Sam
+and Jacky and Charles--best for us too, maybe.  But of us, apart from
+your wishes, you never think at all.  Oh, yes again, you are good;
+but your temper makes life a torture--"
+
+"Silence!"  Mr. Wesley thundered out suddenly.
+
+But the thunder did not affect Molly one whit.
+
+"You may do what you will to me, sir; but you have heard the truth.
+You are a tyrant to those you love: and now in your tyranny you are
+going to do what even in your tyranny you have never done before--a
+downright wickedness.  Thwarted abroad, you have drunk of power at
+home till you have come to persuade yourself that our souls are
+yours.  They are not.  You may condemn Hetty to misery as you have
+driven--yes, driven--her to sin: but her soul is not yours and this
+secret of hers is mine not yours!"
+
+But here standing beside the table she began to sway, then to sob and
+laugh unnaturally.  Mrs. Wesley, instantly composed at sight of a
+physical breakdown, stepped to her and caught her by both wrists, but
+not before she had pointed a finger point-blank at her father's gray
+face.
+
+"But--but--he is ridiculous!" she gasped between her short outcries.
+"Look at him!  A ridiculous little man!"
+
+Her mother took her by both shoulders and forced her from the room,
+almost carried her upstairs, dashed cold water over her face and left
+her to sob out her hysterics on her bed.  It had been a weak,
+undignified exit: but those last words, which she never remembered to
+have uttered, her father never forgot.  In all the rest of her short
+life Molly never had a sign from him that he remembered her outbreak.
+Also he never again spoke a harsh word to her.
+
+
+While her mother bent over her, waiting for the attack to subside, a
+knock sounded below stairs.  Molly heard it, raised herself on the
+bed for a moment, staring wildly, then sank back helpless, and her
+moaning began afresh.
+
+Mrs. Wesley turned her face away quickly; and with that her gaze,
+passing out through the garret window, fell on a figure crossing the
+yard towards the house.
+
+It was Hetty, moving to the sacrifice.  And below, on the other side
+of the house, the man was knocking to claim her.
+
+For a moment Mrs. Wesley felt as one in a closing trap.  It was she,
+not Hetty, upon whom these iron teeth of fate were meeting; and
+Hetty, the true victim, had become part of the machine of punishment.
+The illusion passed almost as quickly as it had come, and with a
+glance at the figure on the bed she hurried downstairs, in time to
+meet Hetty at the back door.
+
+As she opened it she heard William Wright's footstep in the passage
+behind, and his shuffling halt outside the study door, while Jane,
+the servant, rapped for admittance.
+
+Hetty, too, heard it, and bent her head.
+
+"We had best go in at once," Mrs. Wesley suggested, desperately
+anxious now to come to the worst and get it over.
+
+Hetty bent her head again and followed without a word.  The two men
+were standing--the Rector by his writing-table, Mr. Wright a little
+inside the door.  He drew aside to let the two ladies pass and
+waited, fumbling with his hat and stick and eyeing the pattern of the
+carpet.  There was no boldness about him.  It seemed he dared not
+look at Hetty.
+
+"Ah!" Mr. Wesley cleared his throat.  "There is no reason, Mr.
+Wright, why we should protract a business which (as you may guess)
+must needs be extremely painful to some of us here.  I have made
+inquiries about you and find that, though not well-to-do, you bear
+the reputation of an honest man, even a kind one.  It appears that at
+great cost to yourself you have made provision for an aged father,
+going (I am told) well beyond the strict limits of a son's duty.
+Filial obedience--"  The Rector's eyes here fell upon Hetty and he
+checked himself.  "But I will not enlarge upon that.  You ask to
+marry my daughter.  She is in no position to decline your offer, but
+must rather accept it and with thanks, in humility.  As her father I
+commend her to your love and forbearance."
+
+There was silence for a while.  Mr. Wright lifted his head: and now
+his culprit's look had vanished and in its place was one of genuine
+earnestness.
+
+"I thank ye, sir," he said; "but, if 'tis no liberty, I'd like to
+hear what Miss Hetty says."  Hetty, too, lifted her eyes and for the
+first time since entering rested them on the man who was to be her
+husband.  Mrs. Wesley saw how they blenched and how she compelled
+them to steadiness; and turned her own away.
+
+"Sir," said Hetty, "you have heard my father.  Although he has not
+chosen to tell you, I am bound; and must answer under my bond unless
+he release me."
+
+"For your salvation, as I most firmly believe, I refuse to release
+you," said the Rector.
+
+"Then, sir," she continued, still with her eyes on William Wright,
+"under my bond I will answer you.  If, as I think, those who marry
+without love sin against God and themselves, my father is driving out
+sin by sin.  I cannot love you: but what I do under force I will do
+with an honest wish to please.  I thank you for stooping to one whom
+her parents cast out.  I shall remember my unworthiness all the more
+because you have overlooked it.  You are all strange to me.  Just now
+I shrink from you.  But you at least see something left in me to
+value.  Noble or base your feeling may be: it is something which
+these two, my parents who begat me, have not.  I will try to think it
+noble--to thank you for it all my days--to be a good wife."
+
+She held out her hand.  As Mr. Wright extended his, coarse and not
+too clean, she touched it with her finger-tips and faced her father,
+waiting his word of dismissal.
+
+But the Rector was looking at his wife.  For a moment he hesitated;
+then, stepping forward, drew her arm within his, and the pair left
+the room together.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+William Wright stared at the door as it closed upon them.  Hetty did
+not stir.  To reach it she must pass him.  She stood by the
+writing-table, her profile turned to him, her body bent with a great
+shame; suffering anguish, yet with an indignant pride holding it down
+and driving it inward as she repressed her bosom's rise and fall.
+Even a callous man must have pitied her; and William Wright, though a
+vulgar man, was by no means a callous one.
+
+"Miss Hetty--" he managed to say, and was not ashamed that his voice
+shook.
+
+She did not seem to hear.
+
+"Miss Hetty--"  His voice was louder and he saw that she heard.
+"There's a deal I'd like to say, but the things that come uppermost
+are all foolish.  F'r instance, what I most want to say is that I'm
+desperate sorry for you.  And--and here's another thing, though 'tis
+even foolisher.  When I came to speak to your father, day before
+yestiddy, the first thing he did was to pay me down every penny he
+owed me--not that I was thinking of it for one moment--"
+
+She had turned her head away at first, yet not as if refusing to
+listen: but now from a sudden stiffening of her shoulders, he saw
+that he was offending.
+
+"Nay, now," he persisted, "but you must hear me finish.  I want you
+to know what I did with it.  I went home with it jingling in my
+pocket, and called out my father and spread it on the counter before
+him.  'Look at it,' I said, and his eyes fairly glistened.
+'And now,' I said, 'hear me tell you that neither you nor I touches a
+penny of it.'  I took him up the hill to the cathedral and crammed it
+into a box there.  For the touch of it burned my fingers till I got
+rid of it, same as it burned your father's.  The old man fairly
+capered to see me and cried out that I must be mad.  'Think so?' said
+I, 'then there's worse to come.'  I led him home again, went to my
+drawerful of savings, and counted out the like sum to a penny.
+'That's towards a chair for her,' said I; 'and that's towards a sofy;
+and there's for this, and there's for that.  If she will condescend
+to the likes of me, like a queen she shall be treated while I have
+fingers to work.'  That's what I said, Miss Hetty: and that's what I
+want to tell you, foolish as you'll think it, and rough belike."
+
+She turned suddenly upon him with swimming eyes.
+
+"'Condescend'?"  she echoed.
+
+He nodded.  "That's so: and like dirt you may treat me.  You did
+once, you know.  I'd like it to go on."
+
+She spread her hands vaguely.  "Why _will_ you be kind to me?  When--
+when--"
+
+"When you'd far liefer have every excuse to hate the sight of me.
+Oh, I understand!  Well, I'd even give you that, if it pleased you,
+and I could."
+
+She looked at him now, long and earnestly.  Her next question was a
+strange one and had little connection with her thoughts.
+
+"Did you sign that letter?"
+
+"What letter?"
+
+"The one you sent to father."
+
+He fingered his jaw in a puzzled way.  "I never sent any letter to
+your father.  Writing's none so easy to me, though sorry I am to say
+it."
+
+"Then it must have been--"  Light broke on her, but she paused and
+suppressed Patty's name.
+
+"I like you," she went on, "because you speak honestly with me."
+
+"Come, that's better."
+
+"No: I want you to understand.  It's because your honesty makes me
+able to be honest with you."  She drew herself up to the height of
+her superb beauty and touched her breast.  "You see me?" she asked in
+a low, hurried voice.  "I am yours.  My father has said it, and I
+repeat it, adding this: I make no bargain, except that you will be
+honest.  I am to be your wife: use me as you will.  All that life
+with you calls to be undergone, I will undergo: as his drudge to the
+hind in the fields I offer myself.  Nothing less than that shall
+satisfy me, since through it--can you not see?--I must save myself.
+But oh, sir! since something in me makes you prize me above other
+women, even as I am, let that compel you to be open with me always!
+When, as it will, a thought makes you turn from me--though but for a
+moment--do not hide it.  I would drink all the cup.  I must atone--
+let me atone!"
+
+She walked straight up to him in her urgency, but suddenly dropped
+her arms.  He stared at her, bewildered.
+
+"I shall have no such thoughts, Miss Hetty."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+Beyond the kitchen-garden a raised causeway led into the Bawtry road,
+between an old drain of the Tome River and a narrower ditch running
+down to the parsonage duck-pond.  The ditch as a rule was dry, or
+almost dry, being fed through a sluice in the embankment from time to
+time when the waters of the duck-pond needed replenishing.
+
+Half an hour later, as William Wright--who had business at Bawtry--
+left the yard by the small gate and came stepping briskly by the
+pond, Johnny Whitelamb pushed through the hedge at the end of the
+kitchen-garden, attempted a flying leap across the ditch and
+scrambled--with one leg plastered in mud to the knee--up to the
+causeway, where he stood waving his arms like a windmill and uttering
+sounds as rapid as they were incoherent.
+
+The plumber, catching sight of this agitated figure on the path
+ahead, stood still for a moment.  He understood neither the noises
+nor the uncouth gestures, but made sure that some accident had
+happened.
+
+"Here, what's wrong?" he demanded, moving on and coming to a halt
+again in front of Johnny.
+
+But still Johnny gurgled and choked.  "You--you mustn't come here!"
+
+"Eh, why not? What's doing?"
+
+"You mustn't come here.  You _sha'n't_--it's worse than murder!
+P-promise me you won't come here again!"
+
+Mr. Wright began to understand, and his eye twinkled.  "Who's to
+prevent it, now?"
+
+"_I_ will, if you w-won't listen to reason.  You are killing her,
+between you: you don't know w-what wickedness you're doing.
+She's--she's an angel."
+
+"Bravo, my lad!  So she is, every inch of her."  The plumber held out
+his hand.
+
+Johnny drew his away indignantly and began to choke again.
+"She's not for you.  It'll all come right if you stay away.
+P-promise me you'll stay away!
+
+"There I don't agree with you."
+
+"C-can you fight?"
+
+"A bit.  Here, keep on your coat, boy, and don't be a fool.
+Hands off, you young dolt!"
+
+There was barely room on the causeway for two to pass.  As Mr. Wright
+thrust by, Johnny snatched furiously at his arm and with just enough
+force to slew him round.  Letting go, he struck for his face.
+
+The plumber had no wish to hurt the lad.  Being a quick man with his
+fists, he parried the blow easily enough.
+
+"No more of this!" he shouted, and as Johnny leapt again, hurled him
+off with a backward sweep of his wrist.
+
+He must have put more weight into it than he intended.  Johnny, flung
+to the very edge of the causeway, floundered twice to recover his
+balance; his feet slipped on the mud, and with hands clutching the
+air he soused into the water at Mr. Wright's feet.
+
+"Hallo!" called out a cheerful voice.  "Whar you two up to?"
+
+Dick Ellison was coming down the causeway towards the house, somewhat
+advanced in liquor, though it wanted an hour of noon.  Wright, who
+knew him only by sight, did not observe this at once.  "Come and
+help," he answered, dropping on his knees by the brink and offering
+Johnny a hand.
+
+Johnny declined it.  He was a strong swimmer, and in a couple of
+strokes regained the bank and scrambled to firm ground again,
+dripping from head to heel and looking excessively foolish.
+
+"Wha's matter?" demanded Mr. Ellison again.
+
+"Nothing he need be ashamed of," answered Mr. Wright.  "Here, shake
+hands, my boy!"
+
+But Johnny dropped his head and walked away, hiding tears of rage and
+shame.
+
+"Sulky young pig," commented Mr. Ellison, staring blearily after him.
+A thought appeared to strike him.--"Blesh me, you're the new
+son-'law!"
+
+"Yes, sir: Miss Hetty has just honoured me with her consent."
+
+"Consent?  I'll lay she had to!  Sukey--tha's my wife--told me you
+were in the wind.  _I_ said the old man's wrong--all right, patching
+it up--Shtill--"  He paused and corrected himself painfully.
+"_Still_, duty to c'nsult family; 'stead of which, he takes law in's
+own hands.  Now list'n this, Mr.--"
+
+"Wright."
+
+"Qui-so."  He pulled himself together again.  "_Quite_ so.  Now _I_
+say, it's hard on the jade.  _You_ say, 'Nothing of the sort: she's
+made her bed and must lie on it.'"
+
+"No, I don't."
+
+"I--er--beg your pardon?  You must allow me finish my argument.
+_I_ say, 'Look here, I'm a gentleman: feelings of a gentleman'--
+_You're_ not a gentleman, eh?"
+
+"Not a bit like one," the plumber agreed cheerfully.
+
+"Tha's what I thought.  Allow me to say so, I respect you for it--for
+speaking out, I mean.  Now what I say is, wench kicks over the
+traces--serve her right wharrever happens: but there's _family_ to
+consider--"
+
+Here Mr. Wright interrupted firmly.  "Bless your heart, Mr. Ellison,
+I quite see.  I've made a mistake this morning."
+
+"No offence, you understand."
+
+"No offence at all.  It turns out I've given the wrong man a
+ducking."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"It can easily be set right.  Some day when you're sober.  Good
+morning!"
+
+William Wright went his way whistling.  Dick Ellison stared along the
+causeway after him.
+
+"Low brute!" he said musingly.  "If she's to marry a fellow like
+that, Sukey shan't visit her.  I'm sorry for the girl too."
+
+
+Beyond the hedge, in a corner of the kitchen-garden, Johnny Whitelamb
+lay in his wet clothes with his face buried in a heap of mown grass.
+He had failed, and shamefully, after preparing himself for the
+interview by pacing (it seemed to him, for hours) the box-bordered
+walks which Molly had planted with lilies and hollyhocks, pinks and
+sweet-williams and mignonette.  It was high June now, and the garden
+breaking into glory.  He had tasted all its mingled odours this
+morning while he followed the paths in search of Hetty; and when at
+length he had found her under the great filbert-tree, they seemed to
+float about her and hedge her as with the aura of a goddess.  He had
+delivered his message, trembling: had watched her go with firm step
+to the sacrifice.  And then--poor boy--wild adoration had filled him
+with all the courage of all the knights in Christendom.  He alone
+would champion her against the dragon. . . . And the dragon had flung
+him into the ditch like a rat!  He hid his face in the sweet-smelling
+hillock.
+
+For years after, the scent of a garden in June, or of new-mown hay,
+caused him misery, recalling this the most abject hour of his life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Six weeks later Mr. Wesley married William Wright and Hetty in the
+bare little church of Wroote.  Her sisters (among them Patty, newly
+returned from Kelstein) sat at home: their father had forbidden them
+to attend.  A fortnight before they had stood as bridesmaids at
+Nancy's wedding with John Lambert, and all but Molly had contrived to
+be mirthful and forget for a day the shadow on the household and the
+miserable woman upstairs.  Hetty had no bridesmaids, no ringing of
+bells.  The church would have been empty, but for a steady downpour
+which soaked the new-mown hay, and turned the fields into swamps,
+driving the labourers and their wives, who else had been too busy, to
+take recreation in a ceremony of scandal.  For of course the whole
+story had been whispered abroad.  It was to keep them away that the
+Rector had chosen a date in the very middle of the hay-harvest, and
+they knew it and enjoyed his discomfiture.  He, on his part, when the
+morning broke with black and low-lying clouds, had been tempted to
+read the service in the parlour at home; but his old obstinacy had
+asserted itself.  Hetty's feelings he did not consider.
+
+The congregation pitied Hetty.  She, with Molly to help, had been the
+parish alms-giver, here and at Epworth; and though the alms had been
+small, kind words had gone with the giving.  Of gratitude--active
+gratitude--they were by race incapable: also they were shrewd enough
+to detect the Wesley habit of condescending to be kind.  She belonged
+to another world than theirs: she was a lady, blood and bone.
+But they were proud of her beauty, and talked of it, and forgave her
+for the sake of it.
+
+They hated the Rector; yet with so much of fear as kept them huddled
+to-day at the west end under the dark gallery.  A space of empty pews
+divided them from Mrs. Wesley, standing solitary behind her daughter
+at the chancel step.
+
+"O God, who hast consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an
+excellent mystery that in it is signified and represented the
+spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church: look
+mercifully upon these thy servants. . . ."
+
+A squall of rain burst upon the south windows, darkening the nave.
+Mrs. Wesley started, and involuntarily her hands went up towards her
+ears.  Then she remembered, dropped them and stood listening with her
+arms rigid.
+
+
+Under a penthouse in the parsonage yard, Molly and Johnny Whitelamb
+watched the downpour, and the cocks and hens dismally ruffling under
+shelter of the eaves.
+
+"She was the best of us all, the bravest and the cleverest."
+
+"She was like no one in the world," said Johnny.
+
+"And the most loyal.  She loved me best, and I have done nothing for
+her."
+
+"You did what you could, Miss Molly."
+
+"If I were a man--Oh, Johnny, of what use are my brothers to me?"
+
+Johnny was silent.
+
+"The others were jealous of her.  She could no more help excelling
+them in wit and spirits than she could in looks.  None of them
+understood her, but I only--and you, I think, a little."
+
+"It was an honour to know her and serve her.  I shall never forget
+her, Miss Molly."
+
+"_We_ will never forget her--we two.  When the others are not
+listening we will talk about her together and say, She did this or
+that; or, Just so she looked; or, At such a time she was happy.
+We will recollect her sayings and remind each other.  Oh, Hetty!
+dear, dear Hetty!"
+
+Johnny was fairly blubbering.  "But she will visit us sometimes.
+Lincoln is no great distance."
+
+Molly shook her head disconsolately.  "I do not think she will come.
+Father will refuse to see her.  For my part, after the wickedness he
+has committed this day--"
+
+"Hush, Miss Molly!"
+
+"Is it not wrong he is doing?  Is it not a wicked wrong?  Answer me,
+John Whitelamb, if we two are ever to speak of her again."
+She glanced at his face and read how terribly old fidelity and new
+distrust were tearing him between them.  "Ah, I understand!" she
+said, and laid a hand on his coat-sleeve.
+
+
+The service over and the names signed in the vestry, Mr. Wesley
+marched out to the porch for a view of the weather.  Half a score of
+gossips were gathered there among the sodden graves awaiting the
+bridal party.  They gave back a little, nudging and plucking one
+another by the arm.  For all the notice he took of them they might
+have been tombstones.
+
+The rain had ceased to fall, and though leaden clouds rolled up from
+the south-west, threatening more, a pale gleam, almost of sunshine,
+rested on the dreary landscape.  The Rector nodded his head and
+strode briskly down the muddy path.  The newly married pair followed
+at a respectful distance, Mrs. Wesley close behind.  Hetty showed no
+sign of emotion.  She had given her responses clearly and audibly
+before the altar, and she bore herself as bravely now.
+
+As they entered the house the Rector turned and held out his hand to
+the bridegroom.  "You will not find us hospitable, I fear.  But there
+are some refreshments laid in the parlour: and my wife will see that
+you are served while I order the gig.  Your wife will have time to
+say farewell to her sisters if she chooses.  As I may not see her
+again, I commit her to your kindness and God's forgiveness."
+
+"At least you will bless her, husband!" entreated Mrs. Wesley.
+But he turned away.
+
+Twenty minutes later bridegroom and bride drove southward towards
+Lincoln, under a lashing shower and with the wind in their faces.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+A few words will tie together the following letters or extracts from
+letters.  John was ordained on September 19th.  A few weeks later he
+preached his first sermon at South Leigh, a village near Witney and
+but a few miles out of Oxford.  He and Charles visited Wroote that
+Christmas, and on January 11th he preached a funeral sermon at
+Epworth for John Griffith, a hopeful young man, the son of one of his
+father's parishioners, taking for his theme 2 Samuel xii. 23,
+"But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast?  Can I bring him back
+again?  I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me "--a text
+obvious enough.  He returned for the beginning of the Oxford Lent
+Term, having had no sight of Hetty.  His chances of a fellowship at
+Lincoln College had long been debated, and on March 17th he was
+elected.  Meanwhile Charles had passed out of Westminster with a
+studentship to support him at Christ Church, the college his brother
+was leaving.
+
+The first letter--from Patty--bears no date, but was written from
+Wroote about the time of John's ordination.
+
+     From Martha (Patty) Wesley to her brother John
+
+     Dear Brother,--I believe it is above half a year since I wrote
+     to you, and yet, though it is so long since, you never were so
+     good as to write to me again; and you have written several times
+     since to my sisters, but have perfectly neglected your loving
+     sister Martha, as if you had not known there was such a person
+     in the world; at which I pretended to be so angry that I
+     resolved I would never write to you more.  Yet my anger soon
+     gave way to my love, as it always does whenever I chance to be
+     angry with you.  But you only confirm me in the truth of an
+     observation I have since made; which is, that if ever I love any
+     person very well, and desire to be loved by them in return--as,
+     to be sure, whoever loves desires to be loved--I always meet
+     with unkind returns.  I shall be exceedingly glad if you get the
+     Fellowship you stand for; which if you do, I shall hope that one
+     of the family besides my brother Sam will be provided for.
+     I believe you very well deserve to be happy, and I sincerely
+     wish you may be so both in this life and the next.
+
+     For my own particular I have long looked upon myself to be what
+     the world calls ruined--that is, I believe there will never be
+     any provision made for me, but when my father dies I shall have
+     my choice of three things--starving, going to a common service,
+     or marrying meanly as my sisters have done: none of which I
+     like, nor do I think it possible for a woman to be happy _with a
+     man that is not a gentleman_, for he whose mind is virtuous is
+     alone of noble kind.  Yet what can a woman expect but misery?
+     My brother Ellison wants all but riches; my brother Lambert, I
+     hope, has a little religion; poor brother Wright has abundance
+     of good-nature, and, I hope, is religious; and yet sister Hetty
+     is, I fear, entirely ruined, though it is not her husband's
+     fault.
+
+     If you would be so good as to let me hear from you, you would
+     add much to my satisfaction.  But nothing can make me more than
+     I am already, dear brother, your sincere friend and loving
+     sister
+                                       Martha Wesley.
+
+     P.S.--I hope you will be so kind as to pardon the many faults in
+     my letter.  You must not expect I can write like sister Emily or
+     sister Hetty.  I hope, too, that when I have the pleasure of
+     seeing you at Wroote you will set me some more copies, that I
+     may not write so miserably.
+
+
+From Samuel Wesley to his son John
+
+                                       Wroote, March 21, 1726.
+
+     Dear Mr. Fellow-Elect of Lincoln,--I have done more than I could
+     for you.  On your waiting on Dr. Morley with this he will pay
+     you 12 pounds.  You are inexpressibly obliged to that generous
+     man.  We are all as well as can be expected.  Your loving
+     father,
+                                       Samuel Wesley.
+
+From the same to the same
+
+                                       Wroote, April I, 1726.
+
+     Dear son John,--I had both yours since the election.  The last
+     12 pounds pinched me so hard that I am forced to beg time of
+     your brother Sam till after harvest to pay him the 10 pounds
+     that you say he lent you.  Nor shall I have so much as that
+     (perhaps not 5 pounds) to keep my family till after harvest; and
+     I do not expect that I shall be able to do anything for Charles
+     when he goes to the University.  What will be my own fate before
+     the summer is over God only knows.  _Sed passi graviora_.
+     Wherever I am, my Jack is Fellow of Lincoln.  All at present
+     from your loving father,
+                                       Samuel Wesley.
+
+From John Wesley to his brother Samuel
+
+                                       Lincoln College, Oxon.,
+                                       April 4, 1726.
+
+     Dear Brother,--My father very unexpectedly, a week ago, sent me
+     a bill on Dr. Morley for 12 pounds, which he had paid to the
+     Rector's use at Gainsborough; so that now all my debts are paid,
+     and I have still above 10 pounds remaining.  If I could have
+     leave to stay in the country till my college allowance
+     commences, this money would abundantly suffice me till then.
+
+     I never knew a college besides ours whereof the members were so
+     perfectly well satisfied with one another, and so inoffensive to
+     the other part of the University.  All the Fellows I have yet
+     seen are both well-natured and well-bred; men admirably disposed
+     as well to preserve peace and good neighbourhood among
+     themselves as to preserve it wherever else they have any
+     acquaintance.  I am, etc.
+                                         John Wesley.
+
+The next, addressed also to Sam, shows him making provision for
+Charles's entrance at Christ Church:
+
+     My mother's reason for my cutting off my hair is because she
+     fancies it prejudices my health.  As to my looks, it would
+     doubtless mend my complexion to have it off, by letting me get a
+     little more colour, and perhaps it might contribute to my making
+     a more genteel appearance.  But these, till ill health is added
+     to them, I cannot persuade myself to be sufficient grounds for
+     losing two or three pounds a year.  I am ill enough able to
+     spare them.
+
+     Mr. Sherman says there are garrets, somewhere in Peckwater, to
+     be let for fifty shillings a year; that there are some honest
+     fellows in college who would be willing to chum in one of them;
+     and that, could my brother but find one of these garrets, and
+     get acquainted with one of these honest fellows, he might
+     possibly prevail on him to join in taking it; and then if he
+     could but prevail upon some one else to give him 7 pounds a year
+     for his own room, he would gain almost 6 pounds a year clear, if
+     his rent were well paid.  He appealed to me whether the proposal
+     was not exceedingly reasonable?  But as I could not give him
+     such an answer as he desired, I did not choose to give him any
+     at all.
+
+     Leisure and I have taken leave of one another.  I propose to be
+     busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged me.
+     In health and sickness I hope I shall ever continue with the
+     same sincerity, your loving brother,
+                                       John Wesley.
+
+
+From Samuel Wesley to his son John
+
+                                       April 17, 1726.
+     Dear Son,--I hope Sander will be with you on Wednesday morn,
+     with the horses, books, bags, and this.  I got your mother to
+     write the inclosed (for you see I can hardly scrawl), because it
+     was possible it might come to hand on Tuesday; but my head was
+     so full of cares that I forgot on Saturday last to put it into
+     the post-house.  I shall be very glad to see you, though but for
+     a day, but much more for a quarter of a year.  I think you will
+     make what haste you can.  I design to be at the "Crown," in
+     Bawtry, on Saturday night.  God bless and send you a prosperous
+     journey to your affectionate father,
+                                       Samuel Wesley.
+
+The day after receiving this John and Charles set out and rode down
+to Lincolnshire together.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
+also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither
+will your Father forgive your trespasses."
+
+John Wesley laid his Bible down beside him on the rustic seat under
+the filbert-tree, and leaned back against the trunk with half-closed
+eyes.  By and by he frowned, and the frown, instead of passing, grew
+deeper.  His sermons, as a rule, arranged themselves neatly and
+rapidly, when once the text was chosen: but to-day his thoughts ran
+by fits and starts, and confusedly--a thing he abhorred.
+
+In truth they kept harking back to the text, "For if ye forgive men
+their trespasses. . . ."  He had chosen it with many searchings of
+heart, for he knew that if he preached this sermon it would
+exasperate his father.  Had he any right, knowing this, to preach it
+from his father's pulpit?  After balancing the _pro's_ and
+_contra's_, he decided that this was a scruple which his Christian
+duty outweighed.  He was not used to look back upon a decision once
+taken: he had no thought now of changing his mind, but the prospect
+of a breach with his father unsettled him.
+
+While he pondered, stabbing the turf with his heel, Molly came
+limping along the garden-path.  Her face was white and drawn.
+She had been writing for two hours at her father's dictation, and
+came now for rest to the seat which she and Hetty had in former days
+made their favourite resort.
+
+Seeing it occupied, she paused in the outer shade of the great
+branches.
+
+"You are thinking out your sermon?" she asked, smiling.
+
+He nodded.  "You seem tired," he remarked, eyeing her; but he did not
+rise or pick up his Bible to make room for her.
+
+"A little," she confessed; "and my ears are hot.  But Charles very
+good-naturedly left his _De Oratore_--on which I heard him say he was
+engaged--to relieve me.  Johnny Whitelamb had to finish colouring a
+map."
+
+"I don't think Charles needs much persuasion just now to leave his
+studies."
+
+"He will not require them if he is to be an Irish squire."
+
+"You count upon his choosing that?"  John's frown grew deeper.
+
+"Not if you dissuade him, Jack."
+
+"I have not even discussed it with him.  Once or twice on our way
+down he seemed to be feeling his way to a confidence and at the last
+moment to fight shy.  No doubt he knows my opinion well enough.
+'What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his
+own soul?'  But why should my opinion have so much weight with him?"
+
+For a moment Molly considered her brother's cold and handsome young
+face.  She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough,
+and peeling the gummy rind, quoted softly:
+
+     "'Why do you cross me in this exigent?'
+      'I do not cross you; but I will do so.'"
+
+"If I remember," mused John, "that is what Shakespeare makes Octavius
+say to Mark Antony before Pharsalia."
+
+She nodded.  "Do you know that you always put me in mind of Octavius.
+You are so good-looking, and have the same bloodless way of following
+your own path as if you carried all our fates.  Sometimes I think you
+_do_ carry them."
+
+"I thank you."  He made her a mock bow.
+
+"And I still think it was kind of Charles to come to my rescue; for I
+was tired."  She glanced at the seat and he picked up his book.
+"No; you are composing a sermon and I will not interrupt you.
+But you must know that father expected you to help him this morning,
+and was put out at hearing that you had walked off."
+
+"He and I have not agreed of late, and are likely to agree still less
+if I preach this sermon--as I shall."
+
+"What is the subject?"
+
+"I have not thought of a title yet; but you may call it 'Universal
+Charity,' or (better perhaps) 'The Charity due to wicked persons.'"
+
+"You mean Hetty?"  She limped close to him.  "Hetty may have done
+wickedly, but she is _not_ a wicked person, as you might have
+discovered had you let Universal Charity alone and practised it in
+particular, for once, by going to visit her.  It is now close on four
+months that you and Charles have been home, and from here to Lincoln
+is no such great distance."
+
+"You are a sturdy champion," he answered, eyeing her up and down.
+"As a matter of fact you are right, though you assert it rashly.
+How are you sure that I have not visited Hetty, seeing that three
+times I have been absent from home and for some days together?"
+
+Molly winced.  "The worse reproach to all of us, that her only
+champion was the weakling whom you all scorn!  You do not understand
+weakness, Jack.  As for my knowing that you had not visited her,
+Johnny Whitelamb took his holiday a fortnight ago and trudged to
+Lincoln to see her.  She is living behind a dingy little shop with
+her husband, and his horrible old father, who drinks whatever he can
+filch from the till.  They wink at it so long as he does not go too
+far; but William is trying to find him lodgings at Louth, which was
+his old home, and hopes to sell up the business and move to London
+with Hetty, to try his fortune.  Uncle Matthew has written to her,
+and will help them to move, I believe.  And there was a baby coming,
+but mercifully something went wrong, poor mite!  All this news she
+sent by Johnny, who reports that she is brave and cheerful and as
+beautiful as ever--more beautiful than ever, he said--but she talked
+long of you and Charles, and is said to have seen neither of you."
+
+"So Whitelamb is in the conspiracy?  Since you have so much of his
+confidence, you might warn him to be careful.  Doubts of our father's
+wisdom must unsettle him woefully.  I do not ask to join the
+alliance, but it may please you to know that in my belief Hetty has
+been treated too fiercely for her deserts, and in my sermon I intend
+to hint at this pretty plainly."
+
+Molly stared.  "Dear Jack, it--it is good to have you on our side.
+But what good can a sermon do?"
+
+"Not much, I fear.  Still a testimony is a testimony."
+
+"But the folks will know you are speaking of her."
+
+"I mean them to."
+
+"But--but--"  Molly cast about, bewildered.
+
+"I am venturing something," John interrupted coldly, "by testifying
+against my father.  It is not over-pleasant to stand up and admit
+that in our own family we have sinned against Christ's injunction to
+judge not."
+
+"I should think not, indeed!"
+
+"Then you might reasonably show a little more pleasure at finding me
+prepared, to that extent, to take your side."
+
+Molly gasped.  His misunderstanding seemed to her too colossal to be
+coped with.  "It will be a public reproach to father," she managed to
+say.
+
+"I fear he may consider it so; and that is just my difficulty."
+
+"But what good can it do to Hetty?"
+
+"I was not, in the first instance, thinking of Hetty, but rather
+using her case as an example which would be fresh in the minds of all
+in the building.  Nevertheless, since you put the question, I will
+answer, that my argument should induce our mother and sisters, as
+well as the parish, to judge her more leniently."
+
+"The parish!" murmured Molly.  "I was not thinking of _its_
+judgment,  And I doubt if Hetty does."
+
+"You are right.  The particular case--though unhappily we cannot help
+dwelling on it--is merely an illustration.  We, who have duties under
+Christ to all souls in our care, must neglect no means of showing
+them the light, though it involve mortifying our own private
+feelings."
+
+Molly, who had been plucking and twisting all this while the twig
+between her fingers, suddenly cast it on the ground and hobbled away.
+
+John gazed after her, picked up the book and set it down again.
+The sermon came easily now.
+
+Having thought it out and arranged the headings in his mind, he
+returned to the house and wrote rapidly for two hours in his bedroom.
+He then collected his manuscript, folded it neatly, scribbled a note,
+and called down the passage to the servant, Jane, whom he heard
+bustling about the parlour and laying dinner.  To her he gave the
+note and the sermon, to be carried to his father; picked up a crust
+of bread from the table; and a minute later left the house for a long
+walk.
+
+
+Returning a little before supper-time, he found the manuscript on the
+table by his bedside.  No note accompanied it; there were none of the
+usual pencil-marks and comments in the margin.  The Rector had
+restored it without a word.
+
+For a moment he was minded to go and seek an interview; but decided
+that, his resolution being fixed, an interview would but increase
+pain to no purpose.  He washed and went down to the parlour, walking
+past the door of the study, in which his father supped alone.
+
+Next morning being Saturday, Mr. Wesley walked over to Epworth, to a
+room above a chandler's shop, where he and John lodged in turn as
+they took Epworth duty on alternate Sundays.  The Rectory there was
+closed for the time and untenanted, the Ellisons having returned some
+months before to their own enlarged and newly furnished house.
+There, to be sure, a lodging might have been had at no cost, and
+Sukey offered it as in duty bound.  She knew very well, however, that
+neither her father nor John could stomach being a guest of Dick's.
+The invitation was declined, and she did not press it.
+
+So on Sunday, August 28th, Mr. Wesley took the services at Epworth
+while John stayed at home and preached his sermon in Wroote church.
+
+From the pulpit he looked straight down into the tall Rectory pew,
+and once or twice his eyes involuntarily sought its occupants.
+Once, indeed, he paused in his discourse.  It was after the words--
+"We are totally mistaken if we persuade ourselves that Christ was
+lenient towards sin.  He made no hesitation in driving the
+money-changers from His Father's temple even with a whip.  But He
+discriminated between the sin and the sinner.  The fig-tree He
+blasted was one which, bearing no fruit, yet made a false show of
+health: the Pharisees He denounced were men who covered rottenness
+with a pretence of religion; the sinners He consorted with had a
+saving knowledge of their vileness.  Sin He knew to be human and
+bound up in our nature: all was pardonable save the refusal to
+acknowledge it and repent, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost
+testifying within us.  If we confess our sins not only is He faithful
+and just to forgive them, but He promises more joy in Heaven over our
+repentance than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no
+repentance.  And why?  Because, as David foretold, a broken spirit is
+God's peculiar sacrifice: 'a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou
+wilt not despise.'  Yet we in this parish have despised it.
+With sorrow I admit before you that in the household to which you
+should reasonably look for example and guidance, it has been
+despised.  What then?  Are we wiser than Christ, or more absolute?"
+
+He paused.  His mother sat stiff and upright with her eyes bent on
+the ground.  Only Charles and Molly looked up--she with a spot of red
+on either cheek, he with his bright pugnacious look, his nostrils
+slightly distended scenting battle with delight.  Emilia and Patty
+were frowning; Kezzy, who hated all family jars, fidgeted with her
+prayer-book.
+
+The sermon ended and the benediction pronounced, he fetched from the
+vestry the white surplice in which he had read the prayers, and came
+back to the pew in which the family waited as usual for the rest of
+the congregation to leave the church.  Mrs. Wesley took the surplice,
+as she invariably took her husband's, to carry it home and hang it in
+the wardrobe.  They walked out.  A fortnight before, his sisters had
+begun to discuss his sermon and rally him upon it as soon as they
+found themselves in the porch.  To-day they were silent: and again at
+dinner, though John and his mother made an effort to talk of trivial
+matters, the girls scarcely spoke.  Charles only seemed in good
+spirits and chattered away at ease, glancing at his brother from time
+to time with a droll twinkle in his eye.
+
+Early next morning John set out for Epworth, having promised to
+relieve his father and visit the sick and poor there during the week.
+At Scawsit Bridge he met the Rector returning.  The two shook hands
+and stood for a minute discussing some details of parish work: then
+each continued on his way.  Not a word was said of the sermon.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+John remained at Epworth until Thursday evening.  Dark was falling
+when he set out to tramp back to Wroote, but the guns of a few late
+partridge-shooters yet echoed across the common.  A little beyond
+Scawsit Bridge a figure came over the fields towards him, walking
+swiftly in the twilight--a woman.  He drew aside to let her pass; but
+in that instant she stretched out both hands to him and he recognised
+her.
+
+"Hetty!"
+
+She dropped her arms.  "Are you not going to kiss me, Jack?  Do you,
+too, cast me off?"
+
+"God forbid!" he said, and lifted his face; for she was the taller by
+two inches.  With a sob of joy she put out both hands again and drew
+his lips to hers, a palm pressed on either cheek.
+
+"But what are you doing here?" he asked.
+
+"My husband has business at Haxey.  We came from Lincoln this
+morning, and just before sunset I crept over for a look at the house,
+hoping for a glimpse of you and Charles.  They will not have me
+inside, Jack: father will not see me, and has forbidden the others.
+But I saw Johnny Whitelamb.  He told me that Charles was indoors, at
+work transcribing for father, and not easily fetched out; but that
+you were expected home from Epworth to-night.  So I came to meet you.
+Was I running?  I dare say.  I was thirsty to see your face, dear,
+and hear your voice."
+
+"We have all dealt hardly with you, Hetty."
+
+"Ah, let that be! I must not pity myself, you understand? Indeed,
+dear, I was not thinking of myself.  If only I could be invisible,
+and steal into the house at times and sit me down in a corner and
+watch their faces and listen!   That would be enough, brother: I
+don't ask to join in that life again--only to stand apart and feed my
+eyes on it."
+
+"You are not happy, then?"
+
+"Happy?" She mused for a while.  "My man is kind to me: kinder than I
+deserve.  If God gives us a child--"  She broke off, lowered her eyes
+and stammered, "You heard that I had--that one was born!  Dead.
+He never breathed, the doctor told me.  I ought to be glad, for _his_
+sake--and for William's--but I cannot be."
+
+"It was God's goodness.  Look at Sukey, now; how much of her time her
+children take up."
+
+She drew back sharply and peered at him through the dusk.
+
+"Now that time is restored to you," he went on, "you have nothing to
+do but to serve God without distraction, till you are sanctified in
+body, soul and spirit."
+
+"Jacky, dear," she asked hoarsely, "have they taught you at Oxford to
+speak like that?"
+
+He was offended, and showed it.  "I have been speaking up for you;
+too warmly for my comfort.  Father and mother, and indeed all but
+Molly, will have it that you talked lightly to them; that your
+penitence was feigned.  I would not believe this, but that, as by
+marriage you redeemed your conduct, so now you must be striving to
+redeem your soul.  If you deny this, I have been in error and must
+tell them so."
+
+For a while she stood considering.  "Brother," she said, "I will be
+plain with you.  Since this marriage was forced upon me, I have
+tried--and, please God, I will go on trying--to redeem my conduct.
+But of my soul I scarcely think at all."
+
+"Hetty, this is monstrous."
+
+"I pray," she went on, "for help to be good.  With tears I pray for
+it, and all day long I am trying to be good and do my duty.  As for
+my soul, sometimes I wake and see the need to be anxious for it, and
+resolve to think of it anxiously: but when the morning comes, I have
+no time--the day is too full.  And sometimes I grow rebellious and
+vow that it is no affair of mine: let them answer for it who took it
+in charge and drove me to tread this path.  And sometimes I tell
+myself that once I had a soul, and it was sinful; but that God was
+merciful and destroyed it, with its record, when He destroyed my
+baby.  The doctor swore to me that it never drew a separate breath;
+no, not one.  Tell me, Jack!  A child that has never breathed can
+know neither heaven nor hell--questions of baptism do not touch it--
+it goes out of darkness into darkness and is annihilated.  Is that
+not so?  So I assure myself, and sometimes I think that by the same
+stroke God wiped out the immortal part of me with its sins, that my
+body and brain go on living, but that the soul of your Hetty will
+never come up for judgment, for it has ceased to be."
+
+"Monstrous!"
+
+"You understand," she went on wearily, "that this is but one of my
+thoughts.  My heart denies it whenever I long to creep back to Wroote
+and listen to the old voices and be a child once more.  But I am
+showing you what is the truth--that upon one plea or another I put my
+soul aside and excuse myself from troubling about it."
+
+"Sadder hearing there could not be.  You have an imperishable soul,
+and owe it a care which should come before your duty even to your
+husband."
+
+"Ah, Jack, you may be a very great man: but you do not understand
+women!  I wonder if you ever will?  For now you do not even begin to
+understand."
+
+He would have answered in hot anger, but a noise on the path
+prevented him.  Four sportsmen came wending homeward in the dusk,
+shouldering their guns and laughing boisterously.  In the loudest of
+the guffaws he recognised the voice of Dick Ellison.
+
+"Hallo!"  The leader pulled himself up with a chuckle.
+"Here's pretty goings-on--the little parson colloguing with a wench!
+Dick, Dick, aren't you ashamed of your relatives?"
+
+"Ashamed of them long ago," stuttered Dick, lurching forward.  He had
+been making free with the flask all day.  "Who is it?" he demanded.
+
+"Come, my lass--no need to be shy with me!  Let's have a look at your
+pretty face."  The fellow plucked at Hetty's hood.  John gripped his
+arm, was flung off with an indecent oath, and gripped him again.
+
+"This lady, sir, is my sister."
+
+"Eh?"  Dick Ellison peered into Hetty's face.  "So it is, by Jove!
+How d'ye do, Hetty?"  He turned to his companion.  "Well, you've made
+a nice mistake," he chuckled.
+
+The man guffawed and slouched on.  In two strides John was after him
+and had gripped him once more, this time by the collar.
+
+"Not so fast, my friend!"
+
+"Here, hands off!  This gun's loaded.  What the devil d'you want?"
+
+"I want an apology," said John calmly.  "Or rather, a couple of
+apologies."  He faced the quartette: they could scarcely see his
+face, but his voice had a ring in it no less cheerful than firm.
+"So far as I can make out in this light, gentlemen, you are all
+drunk.  You have made one of those foolish and disgusting mistakes to
+which men in liquor are liable: but I should suppose you can muster
+up sense enough between you to see that this man owes an apology."
+
+"What if I refuse?"
+
+"Why then, sir, I shall give myself the trouble to walk beside you
+until your sense of decency is happily restored.  If that should not
+happen between this and your own door, I must leave you for the night
+and call upon you to-morrow."
+
+"This is no tone to take among gentlemen."
+
+"It is the tone you oblige me to take."
+
+"Come away, Jack!"  Hetty besought him in a whisper: but she knew
+that he would not.
+
+"Surely," he said, "after so gross an offence you will lose no more
+time in begging my sister's pardon?"
+
+"Look you now, master parson," growled the offender, "you are thin in
+the legs, but I am not too drunk to shoot snipe."  With his gun he
+menaced John, who did not flinch.
+
+But here Dick Ellison interposed.  "Don't be a fool, Congdon!  Put up
+your gun and say you're sorry, like a gentleman.  Damme"--Dick in his
+cups was notoriously quarrelsome and capricious as to the grounds of
+quarrel--"she's my sister, too, for that matter.  And Jack's my
+brother: and begad, he has the right of it.  He's a pragmatical
+fellow, but as plucky as ginger, and I love him for it.  Fight him,
+you'll have to fight me--understand?  So up and say you're sorry,
+like a man."
+
+"Oh, if you're going to take that line, I'm willing enough."
+Mr. Congdon shuffled out an apology.
+
+"_That's_ right," Dick Ellison announced.  "Now shake hands on it,
+like good fellows.  Jack's as good a man as any of us for all his
+long coat."
+
+"Excuse me," John interrupted coldly, "I have no wish to shake hands
+with any of you.  I accept for my sister Mr. Congdon's assurance that
+he is ashamed of himself, and now you are at liberty to go your way."
+
+"At liberty!" grumbled one: but, to Hetty's surprise, they went.
+Jack might not understand women: he could master men.  For her part
+she thought he might have shaken hands and parted in good-fellowship.
+She listened to the sportsmen's unsteady retreat.  At a little
+distance they broke into defiant laughter, but discomfiture was in
+the sound.
+
+"Come," said John.  She took his arm and they walked on together
+towards Wroote.
+
+For a while neither spoke.  Hetty was thinking of a story once told
+her by her mother: how that once the Rector, then a young man, had
+been sitting in Smith's Coffee House in the City and discussing the
+_Athenian Gazette_ with his fellow-contributors, when an officer of
+the Guards, in a box at the far end of the room, kept interrupting
+them with the foulest swearing.  Mr. Wesley called to the waiter to
+bring a glass of water.  It was brought.  "Carry this," he said
+aloud, "to that gentleman in the red coat, and desire him to rinse
+his mouth after his oaths."  The officer rose up in a fury, with hand
+on sword, but the gentlemen in his box pulled him down.  "Nay,
+colonel, you gave the first offence.  You know it is an affront to
+swear before a clergyman."  The officer was restrained.  Mr. Wesley
+resumed his talk.  And her mother went on to tell that, years after,
+when the Rector was in London attending Convocation, a gentleman
+stopped him one day as he crossed St. James's Park.  "Do you know me,
+Mr. Wesley?"  "Sir, I have not that pleasure."  "Will you know me,
+then, if I remind you that once, in Smith's Coffee House, you taught
+me a lesson?  Since that time, sir, I thank God I have feared an oath
+and everything that is offensive to the Divine Majesty.  I rejoiced,
+just now, to catch sight of you, and could not refrain from
+expressing my gratitude."
+
+And John inherited this gift of mastery.  He could not understand
+women, nor could she ever understand him: but she felt that the arm
+she held was one of steel.  To what end she and her sisters and her
+mother had been sacrificed she could not yet divine: but the
+encounter by the bridge had reawakened the Wesley pride in her, and
+she walked acquiescent in a fate beyond her ken.  She knew, too, that
+he had dismissed the squabble from his mind and was thinking of her
+confession and her soul's danger.  But here she would not help him.
+
+"You have heard," she asked, "that we are leaving Lincoln?"
+
+This was news to him.
+
+"Yes; my husband thinks of opening a business in London: but first he
+must sell the shop and effects and pension off his father into
+lodgings at Louth.  That is the old man's native home, and he wishes
+to end his days there.  He is loth to leave the business; but truly
+he has brought it low, and we must move if William is to make his
+fortune."
+
+"Moving to London will be a risk, and a heavy expense."
+
+"Uncle Matthew is helping us, and it is settled that we move in the
+autumn.  We go into lodgings at first, and shall live in the humblest
+way while we look about us for a good workshop and premises."
+
+"Do you and your husband's father agree?"
+
+"I at least try to please him.  You would not call him a pleasant old
+man: and of course he charges this new adventure down to my
+influence, whereas it is entirely William's notion.  I have had
+nothing to do with it beyond enlisting Uncle Matthew's help."
+
+John glanced at her as though to read her face in the darkness.
+"Was that also William's notion?" he asked.
+
+But here again he betrayed his ignorance.  True woman, though she may
+have ceased to love her husband, or may never have loved him, will
+cover his weakness.  "We have our ambitions, Jack, although to you
+they seem petty enough.  You must make William's acquaintance.
+He has a great opinion of you.  I believe, indeed, he thinks more of
+you than of me.  And if he wishes to leave Lincoln for London, it is
+partly for my sake, that I may be happier in a great city where my
+fault is not known."
+
+"If, as it seems, he thinks of your earthly comfort but neglects your
+soul's health, I shall not easily be friends with him."
+
+By this time they were close to the garden gate.
+
+"Is that you, Jack?" Charles's voice hailed over the dark hedge of
+privet.
+
+The pair came to a halt.  Hetty's eyes were fastened imploringly on
+her brother.  He did not see them.  If he had, it would have made no
+difference.  He pitied her, but in his belief her repentance was not
+thorough: he had no right to invite her past the gate.
+
+"Good-bye," he whispered.
+
+She understood.  With a sob she bent her face and kissed him and was
+gone like a ghost back into the darkness.
+
+Charles met him at the gate.  "Hallo," said he, "surely I heard
+voices?  With whom were you talking?"
+
+"With Hetty."
+
+"Hetty?" Charles let out a whistle.  "But it is about her I wanted to
+speak, here, before you go indoors.  I say--where is she?  Cannot we
+call her back?"
+
+"No: we have no right.  To some extent I have changed my mind about
+her: or rather, she has forced me to change it.  Her soul is
+hardened."
+
+"By whose fault?"
+
+"No matter by whose fault: she must learn her responsibility to God.
+Father has been talking with you, I suppose."
+
+"Yes: he is bitterly wroth--the more bitterly, I believe, because he
+loves you better than any of us.  He says you have him at open
+defiance.  'Every day,' he cried out on me, 'you hear how he
+contradicts me, and takes your sister's part before my face.  And now
+comes this sermon!  He rebukes me in the face of my parish.'
+Mind you, I am not taking his part: if you stand firm, so will I.
+But I wanted to tell you this, that you may know how to meet him."
+
+For a while the brothers paced the dark walls in silence.  Under the
+falling dew the scent of honeysuckle lay heavy in the garden.
+Years later, in his country rides, a whiff from the hedgerow would
+arrest Charles as he pondered a hymn to the beat of his horse's
+hoofs, and would carry him back to this hour.  John's senses were
+less acute, and all his thoughts for the moment turned inward.
+
+"I have done wrong," he announced at length and walked hastily
+towards the house.
+
+In the hall he met his father coming out.  "Sir," he said, "I have
+behaved undutifully.  I have neglected you and set myself to
+contradict you.  I was seeking you to beg your forgiveness."
+
+To his amazement the Rector put a hand on either shoulder, stooped
+and kissed him.
+
+"It was a heavy sorrow to me, Jack.  Now I see that you are good at
+bottom; and to-morrow, if you wish, you shall write for me.
+Nay, come into the study now, and see the work that is ready for
+you."
+
+In the light of the study lamp John saw that his father's eyes were
+wet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Late in September, having been chosen to preach on St. Michael's Day
+in St. Michael's Church the sermon annually delivered by a Fellow of
+Lincoln, John travelled up to Oxford, whither Charles followed him a
+week or two later, to take up his residence in Christ Church, and be
+matriculated on the first day of the October term.
+
+John had deferred his journey to the last moment, in order to stand
+godfather to Nancy's healthy firstborn.  John Lambert--honest man and
+proud father--had honoured the event with a dinner, and very nearly
+wrecked his own domestic peace by sending out the invitations in his
+own hand and including Mr. and Mrs. Wright.  For weeks after, Nancy
+shuddered to think what might have happened if Hetty and her father
+had come face to face at the ceremony or the feast.  By good luck--or
+rather by using her common sense and divining the mistake--Hetty
+refused.  Her husband, however, insisted on attending, and she let
+him go.  With _his_ presence the Rector could not decently quarrel.
+
+"But look here," said he, "I am getting tired of the line the old man
+takes.  It wasn't in our bond: he waited to spring it on me after the
+wedding.  If I can overlook things, he should be able to, and I've a
+mind to tell him so."  He urged her to come.  But Hetty pleaded that
+she could not; it was now past the middle of September, and her baby
+would be born early in the new year.  "Well, well," he grumbled, "but
+'tis hard to have married a lady, and a beauty to boot, and never a
+chance to show her."  The speech was gracious after his fashion, as
+well as honest: but she shivered inwardly.  For as time wore on, she
+perceived this desire growing in him, to take her abroad and display
+her with pride.  Failing this, he had once or twice brought his own
+cronies home, to sit and smoke with him while he watched their uneasy
+admiration and enjoyed the tribute.  She blamed herself that she had
+not been more genial on those occasions; but in truth she dreaded
+them horribly.  By sheer force of will she had managed hitherto, and
+with fair success, to view her husband as a good honest man, and
+overlook his defects of breeding.  In her happiest moods she almost
+believed in the colours with which (poor soul, how eagerly!) she
+decked him. But she could not extend the illusion to his friends.
+"You shall show _him_ off," she pleaded, meaning the unborn babe.
+"We will show him off together."  But her face was white.
+
+So William Wright had gone alone to the christening feast, and there
+John Wesley had met him for the first time, and talked with him, and
+afterwards walked home full of thought.  For, in truth, Hetty's
+husband had drunk more of John Lambert's wine than agreed with him,
+and had asserted himself huskily, if not aggressively, under the cold
+eye of Mr. Wesley senior.  John, as godfather, had been called upon
+for a speech, and his brother-in-law's "Hear, hear" had been so
+vociferous that while his kinsfolk stole glances at one another as
+who should say, "But what can one expect?" the Rector put out a hand
+with grim mock apprehension and felt the leaded window casements.
+"I'll mend all I break, and for nothing," shouted Mr. Wright
+heartily: and amid a scandalised silence Charles exploded in merry
+laughter, and saved the situation.
+
+For a fortnight after his return to Oxford, college work absorbed all
+John's leisure: but he found time as a matter of course to meet
+Charles on his arrival at the Angel Inn, and took him straight off to
+Christ Church to present him to the Senior Censor.  Next day he
+called to find his brother installed in Peckwater, on the topmost
+floor, but in rooms very much more cheerful than the garret suggested
+by Mr. Sherman.  Charles, at any rate, was delighted with them and
+his sticks of furniture, and elated--as thousands of undergraduates
+have been before his day and since--at exchanging school for college
+and qualified liberty and the dignity of housekeeping on one's own
+account.
+
+"_Est aliquid quocunque loco, quocunque recessu_," he quoted, and
+showed John with triumph the window seat which, lifted, disclosed a
+cupboard to contain his wine, if ever he should possess any.
+
+"Are you proposing to become a wine-bibber in your enthusiasm?" asked
+John.
+
+Charles closed the lid, seated himself upon it, drew up his legs, and
+gazed out across the quadrangle.  He had made a friend or two already
+among the freshmen, and this life seemed to him very good.
+
+"My dear Jack, you would not have me be a saint all at once!"
+
+John frowned.  "You do not forget, I hope, in what hope you have been
+helped to Christ Church?"
+
+Charles sat nursing his knees.  A small frown puckered his forehead,
+but scarcely interfered with the good-tempered smile about his mouth.
+
+"Others beside my father have helped or are willing to help.
+See that letter?"--he nodded towards one lying open on the table--
+"It is from Ireland.  It has been lying in the porter's lodge for a
+week, and my scout brought it up this morning."
+
+John picked it up, smiling at his boyish air of importance.  "Am I to
+read it?"
+
+Charles nodded, and while his brother read, gazed out of window.
+The smile still played about his mouth, but queerly.
+
+"It is a handsome offer," said John slowly, and laid the letter down.
+"Have you taken any decision?"
+
+"Father leaves it to me, as you know," Charles answered and paused,
+musing.  "I suppose, now, ninety-nine out of a hundred would jump at
+it."
+
+"Assuredly."
+
+"Somehow our family seems to be made up of odd hundredths.  You, for
+example, do not wish me to accept."
+
+"I have said nothing to influence your choice."
+
+"No, my dear Jack, you have not.  Yet I know what you think, fast
+enough."
+
+John picked up the letter again and folded it carefully.
+
+"An estate in Ireland; a safe seat in the Irish Parliament; and
+money.  Jack, that money might help to make many happy.  Think of our
+mother, often without enough to eat; think of father's debts.
+He knows I would pay them," said Charles.
+
+"And yet he has not tried to influence your choice."
+
+"He's a Trojan, Jack; an old warhorse.  You have cause to love him,
+for he loves you so much above all of us--and you know it--that, had
+the choice been offered you, he'd have moved heaven and earth to
+prevent your accepting a fortune."
+
+He swung round, dropping his feet to the floor, and eyed his brother
+quizzically.
+
+"Upon my word," he went on, "this thing annoys me.  I've a mind to--"
+Here he dived a hand into his breeches pocket and fished out a
+shilling.  "We'll settle it here and now, and you shall be witness.
+Heads for Dangan Castle and Parliament House; tails for poverty!"
+
+He spun the coin and slapped it down on his knee.  His hand still
+covered it.
+
+--"Come Jack, stand up and be properly excited."
+
+"Nay," said John; "would you jest with God's purpose for you?"
+
+"I have seen you open the Bible at random and take your omen from the
+first words your eyes light on.  Yet I never accused you of jesting
+with Holy Writ.  Cannot God as easily determine the fall of a coin?"
+
+He withdrew his hand, and drew a deep breath.  "Tails!" he announced,
+and faced his brother, smiling.  "I am in earnest," he said.
+"But if you prefer the other way--"
+
+He stepped to the shelf, took down his Bible and opened it, not
+looking himself, but holding the page under his brother's eyes.
+
+"Well, what does it say?" he asked.
+
+"It says," John answered, "'Let the high praises of God be in their
+mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand.'"
+
+Charles closed the Bible and restored it to its shelf; then faced his
+brother again, still with his inscrutable smile.
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"I never knew you were such a needlewoman, Hetty.  It has been
+nothing but stitch-stitch for these two hours--and the same
+yesterday, and the day before.  See, the kettle's boiling.  Lay down
+your sewing, that's a dear creature; make me a dish of tea; and while
+you're doing it, let me see your eyes and hear your voice."
+
+Hetty dropped her hands on her lap and let them rest there for a
+moment, while she looked across at Charles with a smile.
+
+"As for talking," she answered, "it seems to me you have been doing
+pretty well without my help."
+
+Charles laughed.  "Now you speak of it, I _have_ been rattling on.
+But there has been so much to say and so little time to say it in.
+Has it occurred to you that we have seen more of each other in these
+seven days than in all our lives before?"
+
+Seven days ago, while staying with his brother Sam at Westminster, he
+had heard of her arrival in London and had tramped through the slushy
+streets at once to seek her out at her address in Crown Court, Dean
+Street, Soho.  She had welcomed him in this dark little second-floor
+room--dwelling-room and bedroom combined--in which she was sitting
+alone; for her husband spent most of the day abroad on the business
+which had brought them to London, either superintending the
+alterations in the unfurnished premises he had hired in Frith Street
+for his shop and the lead-works by which he proposed to make his
+fortune, or in long discussions at Johnson's Court with Uncle
+Matthew, who was helping with money and advice.  The lodgings in
+Crown Court were narrow enough and shut in by high walls.  But Hetty
+had not inhabited them two hours before they looked clean and
+comfortable and even dainty.  Her own presence lent an air of
+distinction to the meanest room.
+
+Her face, her voice, her regal manners, her exquisitely tender smile,
+came upon Charles with the shock of discovery.  These two had not
+seen one another for years.  The date of this first call was December
+22nd: then and there--with a shade of regret that in a few days he
+must leave London to pay Wroote a visit before his vacation closed--
+Charles resolved that she should not spend her Christmas uncheered.
+On Christmas Day he had carried her off with her husband to dine at
+Westminster with Mr. and Mrs. Sam Wesley.  Mr. Wright had been on his
+best behaviour, Mrs. Sam unexpectedly gracious, and the meeting
+altogether a great success.  Charles had walked home with the guests,
+and had called again the next afternoon.  He could see that his
+visits gave Hetty the purest delight, and now that they must end, he,
+too, realised how pleasant they had been, and that he was going to
+miss them sorely.
+
+"Only seven days?" he went on, musing.  "I can hardly believe it; you
+have let me talk at such length--and I have been so happy."
+
+Hetty clapped her hands together--an old girlish trick of hers.
+"It's I that have been happy!  And not least in knowing that you will
+do us all credit."  She knit her brows.  "You are different from all
+the rest of us, Charles; I cannot explain how.  But, sure, there's a
+Providence in it, that you, who are meant for different fortunes--"
+
+"How different?"
+
+"Why, you will take our kinsman's offer, of course.  You will move in
+a society far above us--go into Parliament--become a great
+statesman--"
+
+"My dear Hetty, what puts that into your head?  I have refused."
+
+"Refused!"  She set down the kettle and gazed at him.  "Is this
+John's doing?" she asked slowly.
+
+"Why should it be John's doing?"  He was nettled, and showed it.
+"I am old enough to make a choice for myself."
+
+She paid no heed to this disclaimer.  "They are perfectly ruthless,"
+she went on.
+
+"Who are ruthless?"
+
+"Father and John.  They would compass heaven and earth to make one
+proselyte; and the strange thing to me is that John at least does it
+in a cold mechanical way, almost as if his own mind stood outside of
+the process.  Father is set on his inheriting Wroote and Epworth
+cures, John on saving his own soul; let them come to terms or fight
+it out between them.  But how can it profit Epworth or John's soul
+that they should condemn _you_, as they have condemned mother and all
+of us, to hopeless poverty?  What end have they in view?  Or have
+they any?  For what service, pray, are you held in reserve?"
+She paused.  "Somehow I think they will not wholly succeed, even
+though they have done this thing between them.  You will fall on your
+feet; your face is one the world will make friends with.  You may
+serve their purpose, but something of you--your worldly happiness,
+belike--will slip and escape from the millstones which have ground
+the rest of us to powder."
+
+She picked up the kettle again and turned her back upon him while she
+filled the tea-pot at the small table.  For the first time in their
+talks she had spoken bitterly.
+
+"Nevertheless, I assure you, I refused of my own free will."
+
+"Is there such a thing as free will in our family?  I never detected
+it.  As babes we were yoked to the chariot to drag Jack's soul up to
+the doors of salvation.  I only rebelled, and--Charles, I am sorry,
+but not all penitent."
+
+He ignored these last words.  "You are quoting from Molly, I think.
+She and Jack seldom agree."
+
+"Because, dear soul, she reads that Jack despises while he uses her.
+He looks upon her as the weak one in the team; he doubts she may
+break down on the road, and she, too, looks forward to it, though not
+with any fear."
+
+"For some reason, father allows her to talk to him as no one else
+does--not even mother.  Do you know that one day last summer father
+and I were discussing Jack and the chance of his ever settling at
+Epworth; for this is in the old man's thoughts now, almost day and
+night.  We were in the study by the window, and Molly at the table
+making a fair copy of the morning's work on Job; we did not think she
+heard us.  All of a sudden she looked up and quoted 'Doth the hawk
+fly by _thy_ wisdom and stretch her wings toward the south?'
+I supposed she was repeating it aloud from her manuscript, but father
+knew better and swung round upon her.  'Do you presume, then, to know
+whither or how far Jack will fly?' he demanded.  She turned a queer
+look upon him, not flinching as I expected, and 'I shall see him,'
+she answered, using Balaam's words; 'I shall see him, but not now: I
+shall behold him, but not nigh.'  And with that she dropped her head
+and went on quietly with her writing.  As for father, if you'll
+believe me, it simply dumbfounded him; he hadn't a word!"
+
+"And I will tell you why.  Once on a time that weak darling stood up
+for me to his face.  She would not tell me what happened.  But I
+believe that ever since father has been as nearly afraid of her as of
+anyone in the world. . . . And now I want a promise.  You say you
+have been happy in these talks of ours; and heaven knows I have been
+happier than for many a long day.  Well, I want you to tell Molly
+about me--alone, remember--for of them all she only tried to help me,
+and believes in me still."
+
+"Why, of course I shall."
+
+"And," Hetty smiled, "they have no poet among them now.  You might
+send me some of your verses for a keepsake."
+
+Charles grew suddenly red in the face.  "Why--who told you?" he
+stammered.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she laughed merrily, "one divines it! the more easily
+for having known the temptation."
+
+He had set down his tea-cup and was standing up now, in his young
+confusion fingering the sewing she had laid aside.
+
+"What is this you are doing?" he asked, with his eyes on the
+baby-linen; and though he uttered the first question that came into
+his head, and merely to cover his blushes, as he asked it the truth
+came to him, and he blushed more redly than ever.
+
+Hetty blushed too.  She saw that he had guessed at length, but she
+saw him also clothed in a shining innocence.  She felt suddenly that,
+though she might love him better, there were privacies she could not
+discuss with Charles as with John.  And for the moment Charles seemed
+to her the more distant and mysterious of the two.
+
+What she answered was--"We shall be following you back to
+Lincolnshire in a few days.  I am to stay at Louth, in the house
+where William has found lodgings for his father--who was born at
+Louth, you know, and has now determined to end his days there.
+William will not be with me at first; he has to wind up the business
+at Lincoln and looks for some unpleasantness, as he has made himself
+responsible for all the old man's debts.  I may even find my way to
+Wroote before facing Louth."
+
+"To Wroote?"
+
+"As a moth to the old cruel flame, dear.  They will not take me in:
+but I know where to find a bedroom.  Women have curious fancies at
+times; and I feel as if I may die very likely, and I want to see
+their faces first."
+
+She stepped to him and kissed him hurriedly, hearing her husband's
+step on the stairs.  "Remember to speak with Molly!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+EXTRACTED FROM THE WESLEY CORRESPONDENCE.
+
+1.  From Charles Wesley at Oxford to his brother John at Stanton in
+Gloucestershire.
+
+                                       January 20th, 1727.
+     Poor Sister Hetty! 'twas but a week before I left London that I
+     knew she was at it.  Little of that time you may be sure, did I
+     lose, being with her almost continually; I could almost envy
+     myself the doat of pleasure I had crowded within that small
+     space.  In a little neat room she had hired, did the
+     good-natured, ingenuous, contented creature watch, and I talk,
+     over a few short days which we both wished had been longer.
+     As yet she lives pretty well, having but herself and honest
+     W. W. to keep, though I fancy there's another a-coming.
+     Brother Sam and sister are very kind to her, and I hope will
+     continue so, for I have cautioned her never to contradict my
+     sister, whom she knows.  I'd like to have forgot she begs you'd
+     write to her, at Mrs. Wakeden's in Crown Court, Dean Street,
+     near Soho Square.
+
+2.  From Mary Wesley (Molly) to her brother Charles at Oxford (same
+date).
+
+     You were very much mistaken in thinking I took ill your desiring
+     my sister Emily to knit you another pair of gloves.  What I
+     meant was to my brother Jack, because he gave her charge to look
+     to my well-doing of his: but I desire you no more to mention
+     your obligation to me for the gloves, for by your being pleased
+     with them I am fully paid.
+
+     Dear brother, I beg you not to let the present straits you
+     labour under to narrow your mind, or render you morose or
+     churlish, but rather resign yourself and all your affairs to Him
+     who best knows what is fittest for you, and will never fail to
+     provide for whoever sincerely trusts in Him.  I think I may say
+     I have lived in a state of affliction ever since I was born,
+     being the ridicule of mankind and reproach of my family; and I
+     dare not think God deals hardly with me, and though He has set
+     His mark upon me, I still hope my punishment will not be greater
+     than I am able to bear; nay, since God is no respecter of
+     persons, I must and shall be happier in that life than if I had
+     enjoyed all the advantages of this.
+
+     My unhappy sister was at Wroote the week after you left us,
+     where she stayed two or three days, and returned again to Louth
+     without seeing my father.  Here I must stop, for when I think of
+     her misfortunes, I may say with Edgar, "O fortune! . . ."
+
+3.  From Mary Wesley to her brother John.  Sent at the same date and
+under the same cover.
+
+     Though I have not the good fortune to be one of your favourite
+     sisters, yet I know you won't grudge the postage now and then,
+     which, if it can't be afforded, I desire that you will let me
+     know, that I may trouble you no further.  I am sensible nothing
+     I can say will add either to your pleasure or your profit; and
+     that you are of the same mind is evidently shown by not writing
+     when an opportunity offered.  But why should I wonder at any
+     indifference shown to such a despicable person as myself?
+     I should be glad to find that miracle of nature, a friend which
+     not all the disadvantages I labour under would hinder from
+     taking the pains to cultivate and improve my mind; but since God
+     has cut me off from the pleasurable parts of life, and rendered
+     me incapable of attracting the love of my relations, I must use
+     my utmost endeavour to secure an eternal happiness, and He who
+     is no respecter of persons will require no more than He has
+     given.  You may now think that I am uncharitable in blaming my
+     relations for want of affection, and I should readily agree with
+     you had I not convincing reasons to the contrary; one of which
+     is that I have always been the jest of the family--and it is not
+     I alone who make this observation, for then it might very well
+     be attributed to my suspicion--but here I will leave it and tell
+     you some news.
+
+     Mary Owran was married to-day, and we only wanted your company
+     to make us completely merry; for who can be sad where you are?
+     Please get Miss Betsy to buy me some silk to knit you another
+     pair of gloves, and I don't doubt you will doubly like the
+     colour for the buyer's sake.
+
+     My sister Hetty's child is dead, and your godson grows a lovely
+     boy, and will, I hope, talk to you when he sees you: which I
+     should be glad to do now.
+
+4.  From Martha Wesley (Patty) to her brother John.
+
+                                       Feb. 7th, 1727.
+
+     I must confess you had a better opinion of me than I deserved:
+     for jealousy did indeed suggest that you had very small kindness
+     for me.  When you sent the parcel to my sister Lambert, and
+     wrote to her and sister Emme, and not to me, I was much worse
+     grieved than before.  Though I cannot possibly be so vain as to
+     think that I do for my own personal merits deserve more love
+     than my sisters, yet can you blame me if I sometimes wish I had
+     been so happy as to have the first place in your heart?
+
+     Sister Emme is gone to Lincoln again, of which I'm very glad for
+     her own sake; for she is weak and our misfortunes daily impair
+     her health.  Sister Kezzy, too, will have a fair chance of
+     going.  I believe if sister Molly stays long at home it will be
+     because she can't get away.  It is likely in a few years' time
+     our family may be lessened--perhaps none left but your poor
+     sister Martha, for whose welfare few are concerned.
+
+     My father has been at Louth to see sister Wright, who by good
+     providence was brought to bed two days before he got thither;
+     which perhaps might prevent his saying what he otherwise might
+     have said to her; for none that deserves the name of man would
+     say anything to grieve a woman in a condition where grief is
+     often present death to them.  I fancy you have heard before now
+     that her child is dead.
+
+Of these letters but a faint echo reached Hetty as she lay in her bed
+at Louth--a few words transcribed by Charles from the one (No. 2)
+received by him, and sent with his affectionate inquiries.  He added
+that Molly had also written to Jack, but to what effect he knew not;
+only that Jack, after reading it in his presence, had 'pish'd' and
+pocketed it in a huff.
+
+She lay in a darkened room, with her own hopes at their darkest--or
+rather, their blankest.  She had journeyed to Wroote, and from her
+humble lodging there had written an honest letter to her father,
+begging only to see her mother or Molly, promising to hold no
+communication with them if he refused.  He had refused, in a curt
+note of three lines.  From Wroote she returned to Louth, to face her
+trouble alone; for the preliminaries of selling the Lincoln business
+had brought old Wright's creditors about her husband's ears like a
+swarm of wasps.  Until then they had waited with fair patience: but
+no sooner did he make a perfectly honest move towards paying them off
+in a lump than the whole swarm took panic and he was forced to decamp
+to London to escape the sponging-house.  There Uncle Matthew came to
+the rescue, satisfied immediate claims, and guaranteed the rest.
+But meanwhile Hetty's child--a boy, as she had prayed--was born, and
+died on the third day after birth.
+
+She hardly dared to think of it--of the poor mite and the hopes she
+had built on him.  As she had told Charles, she was sorry, but not
+penitent--at least not wholly penitent.  Once she had been wholly
+penitent: but the tyrannous compulsion of her marriage had eased or
+deadened her sense of responsibility.  Henceforth she had no duty but
+to make the best of it.  So she told herself, and had conscientiously
+striven to make the best of it.  She had even succeeded, up to a
+point; by shutting herself within doors and busily, incessantly,
+spinning a life of illusion.  She was a penitent--a woman in a book--
+redeeming her past by good conduct.  The worst of it was that her
+husband declined to help the cheat.  He was proud of her, honest man!
+and had no fancy at all for the _role_ assigned to him, of "all for
+love, and the world well lost."  That she refused to be shown off he
+set down to sulkiness; and went off of an evening to taverns and
+returned fuddled.  She studied, above all things, to make home bright
+for him, and ever met him with a smile: and this was good enough, yet
+not (as it slowly grew clear to her) precisely what he wanted.
+So she had been driven to build fresh hopes on the unborn babe.
+_He_ would make all the difference: would win his father back, or at
+worst give her own life a new foundation for hope.  Her son should be
+a gentleman: she would deny herself and toil and live for him.
+
+And now God had resumed His gift, and her life was blank indeed.
+She might have another--and another might die.  She had never
+supposed that this one could die, and its death gave her a dreadful
+feeling of insecurity--as if no child of hers could ever be reared.
+What then?  The prospect of pardon by continued good conduct seemed
+to her shadowy indeed.  Something more was needed.  Yes, penitence
+was needed; _real_ penitence: urgently, she felt the need of it and
+yet for the life of her could not desire it as she knew it ought to
+be desired.
+
+She turned from the thought and let her mind dwell on the sentence or
+two quoted by Charles from Molly's letter.  They were peevish
+sentences, and she did not doubt that the letter to John had been yet
+more peevish.  Life had taught her what some never learn, that folks
+are not to be divided summarily into good and bad, right and wrong,
+pleasant and unpleasant.  Men and women are not always refined or
+ennobled by unmerited suffering.  They are soured often, sometimes
+coarsened.  Hetty loved Molly far better than she loved John: but in
+a flash she saw that, not Molly only, but all her sisters who had
+suffered for John's advancement, would exact the price of their
+sacrifices in a consuming jealousy to be first in his favour.
+She saw it so clearly that she pitied him for what would worry him
+incessantly and be met by him with a patient conscientiousness.
+He would never understand--could never understand--on what these
+jealous sisters of his based their claims.
+
+She saw it the more closely because she had no care of her own to
+stand first with him.  She smiled and stretched out an arm along the
+pillow where the babe was not.  Then suddenly she buried her face in
+it and wept, and being weak, passed from tears into sleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Molly's protest against the tyranny of home had long since passed
+into a mere withholding of assent.  She went about her daily task
+more dutifully than ever.  She had always been the household drudge:
+but now she not only took over all the clerical work upon the
+_Dissertationes in Librum Jobi_ (for the Rector's right hand was
+shaken by palsy and the drawings occupied more and more of Johnny
+Whitelamb's time); she devised new schemes for eking out the family
+income.  She bred poultry.  With Johnny's help--he was famous with
+the spade--she added half an acre to the kitchen garden and planted
+it.  The summer of 1727 proved one of the rainiest within men's
+memory, and floods covered the face of the country almost to the
+Parsonage door.  "I hope," wrote the Rector to John on June 6th,
+"I may be able to serve both my cures this summer, or if not, die
+pleasantly in my last dike."  On June 21st he could "make shift to
+get from Wroote to Epworth by boat."  Five days later he was twisted
+with rheumatism as a result of his Sunday journey to Epworth and
+back, "being lamed with having my breeches too full of water, partly
+with a downpour from a thunder-shower, and partly from the wash over
+the boat.  Yet I thank God I was able to preach here in the
+afternoon.  I wish the rain had not reached us on this side Lincoln,
+but we have it so continual that we have scarce one bank left, and I
+can't possibly have one quarter of oats in all the levels; but thanks
+be to God the field-barley and rye are good.  We can neither go afoot
+nor horseback to Epworth, but only by boat as far as Scawsit Bridge
+and then walk over the common, though I hope it will soon be better."
+
+That week the floods subsided, and on July 4th he wrote again:
+"My hide is tough, and I think no carrion can kill me.  I walked
+sixteen miles yesterday; and this morning, I thank God, I was not a
+penny worse.  The occasion of this booted walk was to hire a room for
+myself at Epworth, which I think I have done.  You will find your
+mother much altered.  I believe what would kill a cat has almost
+killed her.  I have observed of late little convulsions in her very
+frequently, which I don't like."
+
+This report frightened John, who wrote back urgently for further
+particulars.  Mrs. Wesley had indeed fallen into a low state of
+health, occasioned partly (as Kezzy declared in a letter) by "want of
+clothes or convenient meat," partly by the miasma from the floods.
+Ague was the commonest of maladies in the Isle of Axholme, and even
+the labourers fortified themselves against it with opium.
+
+"Dear son John," replied the Rector sardonically, "we received last
+post your compliments of condolence and congratulation to your mother
+on the supposition of her near approaching demise, to which your
+sister Patty will by no means subscribe; for she says she is not so
+good a philosopher as you are, and that she can't spare her mother
+yet, if it please God, without great inconveniency.  And indeed,
+though she has now and then some very sick fits, yet I hope the sight
+of you would revive her.  However, when you come you will see a new
+face of things, my family being now pretty well colonised, and all
+perfect harmony--much happier, in no small straits, than perhaps we
+ever were in our greatest affluence."
+
+Molly, while she helped to cook the miserable meals which could not
+tempt her mother's appetite, or looked abroad upon the desolate
+floods, saw with absolute clearness that this apparent peace was but
+the peace of exhaustion.  Yet it was true that--thanks to her--the
+pinch of poverty had relaxed.  The larger debts were paid: for some
+months she had not opened the door to a dunning tradesman.
+The floods, as by a miracle, had spared her crops and she had a
+scheme for getting her surplus vegetables conveyed to Epworth market.
+Already she had opened up a trade in fowls with a travelling dealer.
+"Molly," wrote her father, "miraculously gets money even in Wroote,
+and has given the first fruit of her earning to her mother, lending
+her money, and presenting her with a new cloak of her own buying and
+making, for which God will bless her."
+
+Her secret dissent did not escape the Rector's eye, so alert for
+every sign of defiance: but in his expanding sense of success he let
+it pass.  There was another, however, who divined it and watched it
+anxiously day after dreary day, for it answered a trouble in his own
+breast.
+
+Johnny Whitelamb was now almost a man grown: but what really
+separated him from the Johnny Whitelamb of two years ago was no
+increase in stature or in knowledge.  That which grew within him, and
+still grew, defying all efforts to kill it, was--a doubt.  It had
+been born in him--no bigger then than a grain of mustard-seed--on the
+day when he sought Hetty to send her to the house where William
+Wright waited for her answer.  Until then the Rector had been to him
+a divine man, in wisdom and goodness very little lower than the
+angels.  And now--
+
+He fought it hard, at first in terror, at length in cold desperation.
+But still the doubt grew.  And the worst was that Molly guessed his
+secret.  He feared to meet her eye.  It seemed to him that he and she
+were bound in some monstrous conspiracy.  He spent hours in wrestling
+with it.  At times he would rise from table on some stammered excuse,
+rush off to the fields and there, in a hidden corner, fall on his
+knees and pray, or even lie at full length, his face hidden in the
+grasses, his body writhing, his ungainly legs twisting and
+untwisting.  And still the doubt grew.
+
+Everything confirmed it.  He saw the suffering by which mother and
+daughters were yoked.  He noted the insufficient food, the thin
+clothing, the wan cheeks, the languid tread.  He no longer took these
+for granted, but looked into their causes.  And the Rector's
+blindness to them, or indifference, became a terror to him--a thing
+inhuman.
+
+He began to think him mad.  Worse, he began to hate him: he, Johnny
+Whitelamb, who had taken everything at his hands--food, clothing,
+knowledge, even his faith in God!  He accused himself for a monster
+of ingratitude, whose sins invited the sky to fall and blot him out.
+And still he could not meet Molly's eyes; still, in spite of checks
+and set-backs, the doubt grew.
+
+It was almost at its worst one morning in late August, when the
+Rector invited him to lay by his drawings and walk beside him as far
+as Froddingham, where he had business to transact.  (It was to pay
+over 5 pounds, and meet a note given by him in the spring to keep
+Charles in pocket-money.)  Had Johnny been in a more charitable mood,
+the accent in which the old man proffered the invitation would have
+struck him as pathetic.  For the Rector it was indeed a rare
+confession of weakness.  But three weeks before his purblind nag
+Mettle had stumbled, flung him, trailed him a few yards on the ground
+with one foot in the stirrup, and come to a standstill with one hoof
+planted blunderingly on his other foot.  It had been a narrow escape,
+had caused him excruciating pain, and he limped still.  To walk, even
+with a stick, was impossible.  But the money must be paid at
+Froddingham and he would trust no messenger.  So he mounted the mare,
+Bounce, and set forth at a foot-pace, with Johnny striding alongside
+and noting how the white palsied hand shook on the rein.
+Johnny noted it without pity: for the doubt was awake and clamorous.
+If ever he hated his benefactor, he hated him that morning.
+
+The morning was gray, with a blusterous south-west wind of more than
+summer strength; and the floods had subsided, but the Trent, barely
+contained within its banks, was running down on a fierce ebb-tide.
+They reached Althorpe, and while waiting for the horse-boat to cross
+to Burringham, Johnny found time to wonder at the force of two or
+three gusts which broke on the lapping water and drove it like white
+smoke against the bows of a black keel, wind-bound and anchored in
+mid-channel about fifty yards down-stream.
+
+It turned out that the ferryman, who worked the horse-boat with his
+eldest son, had himself walked over to Bottesford earlier in the
+morning: and Johnny felt some uneasiness at finding his place
+supplied by a boy scarcely fourteen.  Mr. Wesley, however, seemed in
+no apprehension, but coaxed Bounce to embark and stood with her
+amidships, holding her bridle, as the boat was pushed off.
+Johnny took his seat, fronting the elder lad, who pulled the stern
+oar.
+
+They started in a lull of the wind.  Johnny's first thought of danger
+had never been definite, and he had forgotten it--was busy in fact
+with the doubt--when, half-way across, one of the white squalls
+swooped down on them and the youngster in the bows, instead of
+pulling for dear life, dropped his oar with a face of panic.
+
+Johnny felt the jerk, heard the Rector's cry of warning, and in two
+seconds (he never knew how) had leapt over the stern oar, across the
+thwarts, past the kicking and terrified Bounce--with whom the Rector
+was struggling as she threatened to leap overboard--and reached the
+bows in time to snatch the oar as it slipped over the side.  But it
+had snapped both the thole-pins short off in their sockets and was
+useless.  The boat's nose fell off and they were swept down towards
+the anchored hulk below.  Johnny could only wait for the crash, and
+he waited: and in those few instants--the doubt being still upon
+him--bethought him that likely enough the Rector could not swim, or
+would be disabled by his lameness.  And . . . was he sorry?  He had
+not answered this question when the crash came--the ferry-boat
+striking the very stem of the keel, her gunwale giving way to it with
+a slow grinding noise, then with a bursting crack as the splinters
+broke inwards.  As it seemed to him, there were two distinct bumps,
+and between them the boat filled slowly and the mare slid away into
+the water.  He heard voices shouting on board the keel.  The water
+rose to his knees and he sank in it, almost on top of Mr. Wesley.
+At once he felt the whirl of the current, but not before he had
+gripped the Rector's collar.  The other hand he flung up blindly.
+By Providence the keel was freighted with sea-coal and low in the
+water, and as the pair slid past, Johnny's fingers found and gripped
+the bulwark-coaming.  So for a half-minute he hung--his body and the
+Rector's trailing out almost on the surface with the force of the
+water, his arm almost dislocated by the strain--until a couple of
+colliers came running to help and hauled them on board, the Rector
+first.  They had gripped the small boy as the boat sank, and he stood
+in the bows scared and dripping, but otherwise nothing the worse.
+His brother, it appeared, could swim like a fish and was already a
+good hundred yards downstream, not fighting the current, but edging
+little by little for the home shore.  And astern of him battled the
+mare.
+
+The colliers had a light boat on deck, but with it even in calm water
+they could have done little to help the poor creature, and on such a
+stream it was quite useless.  They stood watching and discussing her
+as she turned from time to time, either as the tide carried her or in
+vain, wild efforts to stem it: the latter, probably, for after some
+ten minutes (by which time her head had diminished to a black speck
+in the distance) she seemed to learn wisdom from the example of the
+swimmer ahead, resisted no longer, and was finally cast ashore and
+caught by him more than half a mile below.
+
+Johnny, seated on the grimy deck, heard the colliers discussing her
+struggles, but took no concern in them.  His eyes were all for the
+Rector, who, after the first fit of coughing, lay and panted against
+his knees, with gaze fastened on the steel-gray sky above.
+
+He had saved his life.  But had he really desired to?  The action had
+been instinctive merely: and a moment before he had been speculating
+on the Rector's death, assenting, almost hoping!  Had he translated
+that assent into deed--had he been given time to obey the wicked
+whisper in his heart--he would now be the blackest criminal under
+heaven.  God had interposed to save him from this: but was he any the
+less a sinner in intent?
+
+How had he come to harbour the thought?  For now again it was to him
+unthinkable as of old--yet in his madness he had thought it.
+There abode the memory, never to be escaped.  He looked down on the
+venerable face, the water-drops yet trickling from the brow, usually
+tinted with exposure to sun and wind but now pale as old ivory.
+The old adoration, the old devotion surged back into Johnny's heart,
+the tide rose to his eyes and overflowed.  "My master!" he groaned,
+"my master!" and a tear fell upon Mr. Wesley's hand.
+
+Whether or not this aroused him, the old man sat up at once and
+looked about him.  He showed no emotion at all.
+
+"Where is the mare?" he asked.
+
+One of the keelmen pointed down-stream, and the little party stared
+after her in silence until she staggered up the bank.
+
+"All saved?" asked Mr. Wesley again.  "My friends, before you put me
+ashore, I will ask you to kneel with me and give thanks for God's
+mercy to me a sinner."  The men stared at him and at one another, not
+a little embarrassed.  But seeing the Rector and Johnny already on
+their knees in the grime, they pulled off their caps sheepishly and
+knelt: and after a moment the frightened youngster in the bows
+followed suit.
+
+"Almighty God, who aforetime didst uphold Thy great apostle in
+shipwreck and bring him safe to land, and hast now again interposed
+an arm to succour two of this company and me, the unworthiest of
+Paul's successors; though our merits be as nothing in comparison with
+his, and as nothing the usefulness whereto Thou hast preserved us, we
+bless Thee that Thy mercy is high and absolute, respecting not
+persons; we thank Thee for giving back the imperfect lives Thou
+mightest in justice have brought to an end; and we entreat Thee for
+grace so to improve the gift as through it to receive more fitly the
+greater one of everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our soul's
+Saviour.  Amen.".
+
+He knelt for a minute, praying silently; then arose, dusted his knees
+and professed himself ready to be rowed ashore.  The keelmen slid
+their deck-boat overside, and presently all embarked and were tided
+back to shore, the boat taking ground about fifty yards above the
+bend where Bounce stood shivering, caked in mud to her withers.
+
+The Rector thanked the keelmen in few words while Johnny ran to fetch
+the mare.  They were pulling back when he returned with her.
+The elder lad invited Mr. Wesley to the ferryman's cottage, to sit
+and dry his clothes: but he declined.
+
+Johnny helped him to remount.  Scarcely a word passed on their
+homeward way beyond a comment or two on poor Bounce, who had strained
+her near shoulder in her plunging battle for life and was all but
+exhausted.  At the Parsonage door they parted, still in silence, and
+Johnny led the mare off to stable.  He did not know if Mr. Wesley had
+observed his emotion, and his own heart was too full of love and
+remorse for any words.
+
+But an hour later word came to him by Kezzy that her father wished to
+speak with him in the study.  He went at once, wondering, and found
+the Rector seated as usual before his manuscripts, but alone.
+
+"My lad," he began kindly, "you saved my life to-day."
+
+Johnny attempted to speak, but could not.
+
+"I know what you would say.  We owe one another something, eh?
+But this is a debt which I choose to acknowledge at once.  None the
+less I wish you to understand that although your conduct to-day
+hastens my proposal, it has been in my head for some time.
+Whitelamb, would you like to go to Oxford?"
+
+Johnny gasped.  "Sir--sir!" he stammered.
+
+Mr. Wesley smiled.  "I will speak to Jack.  I think it can be managed
+if he will take you for his pupil, as no doubt he will.  You cannot
+well be poorer than I was on the day when I entered my name at Exeter
+College.  There, go away and think it over!  There's no hurry, you
+understand: if you are to go, I must first of all hammer some Greek
+into you--eh?  What is it?"
+
+For Johnny had cast himself on his knees, and was sobbing aloud.
+
+At supper Molly, to whom her mother had whispered the news, announced
+it to her sisters, who knew only of the accident and Johnny's hand in
+the rescue.
+
+"Yes," said she, "we are all proud of him, and shall be prouder
+before long, when he goes to Oxford!"
+
+"Why to Oxford?" asked Patty, not comprehending, and sought her
+mother's eyes for the interpretation.  Mrs. Wesley smiled.
+
+"Why, to be a great man," Molly went on; "perhaps in time as
+great as Jack or Charles."  Johnny, in his usual seat by the
+chimney-corner, detected the challenge in her tone, but did not look
+up.
+
+"Is it true?" persisted Patty.  He stared into the fire, blushing
+furiously.
+
+"It is true." Mrs. Wesley rose, and stepping to him laid a hand on
+his straggling dark hair.  "What is more, he has deserved it, not
+to-day only but by his goodness over many years.  The Lord shall be
+his illumination," she said gravely, quoting the motto of the
+University which (amazing thought!) was to be _his_ University.
+"May the light of His countenance rest upon you, dear son."
+
+She had never called him by that title before.  He caught her hand
+and for the moment, in the boldness of a great love, clasped it
+between his own.  Now he could look across at Molly: and she nodded
+back at him, her eyes brimful--but behind her tears they gave him
+absolution and released him from the doubt.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+This was at the close of August, 1728, and the Rector's letter
+entreating his good offices for Johnny Whitelamb reached John Wesley
+on the eve of his taking Priest's Orders, for which he was then
+preparing at Oxford.  He was ordained priest on September 22nd, and a
+week later had news from William Wright in London that Hetty's third
+child was born--and was dead.
+
+This is how the father announced his loss:
+
+     "To the Revd.  Mr. John Wesley, Fellow in Christ Church College,
+      Oxon"
+
+John smiled at the superscription, inaccurate in more ways than one.
+
+     "Dear Bro: This comes to Let you know that my wife is brought to
+      bed and is in a hopefull way of Doing well but the Dear child
+      Died--the Third day after it was born--which has been of great
+      concerne to me and my wife She Joyns With me In Love to your
+      selfe and Bro: Charles.  From Your Loveing Bro: to Comnd--
+                                       Wm. Wright.
+
+     "P.S.  I've sen you Sum Verses that my wife maid of Dear Lamb
+      Let me hear from one or both of you as Soon as you think
+      Convenient."
+
+And these are Hetty's verses inclosed.
+
+     A Mother's Address to Her Dying Infant
+
+     "Tender softness, infant mild,
+      Perfect, purest, brightest Child!
+      Transient lustre, beauteous clay,
+      Smiling wonder of a day!
+      Ere the last convulsive start
+      Rend thy unresisting heart,
+      Ere the long-enduring swoon
+      Weigh thy precious eyelids down,
+      Ah, regard a mother's moan!
+      --Anguish deeper than thy own.
+
+     "Fairest eyes, whose dawning light
+      Late with rapture blest my sight,
+      Ere your orbs extinguish'd be,
+      Bend their trembling beams on me!
+
+     "Drooping sweetness, verdant flower
+      Blooming, withering in an hour,
+      Ere thy gentle breast sustain
+      Latest, fiercest, mortal pain,
+      Hear a suppliant!  Let me be
+      Partner in thy destiny:
+      That whene'er the fatal cloud
+      Must thy radiant temples shroud;
+      When deadly damps, impending now,
+      Shall hover round thy destin'd brow,
+      Diffusive may their influence be,
+      And with the blossom blast the tree!"
+
+Mr. Wright inclosed these verses complacently enough.  Poetry in his
+eyes was an elegant accomplishment vaguely connected with scholarship
+and gentility: and he took pride in possessing a wife who, as he more
+than once assured his cronies in the parlour of the "Turk's Head" at
+the end of the street, could sit down and write it by the yard.
+
+To please Hetty he read them through, pronounced them very pretty,
+and folded up the paper, remarking, "I'll send it off to your brother
+John.  He likes this sort of thing, and when he learns 'twas written
+in your weak state he'll think it wonderful."
+
+Of the anguish in the closing lines his eye detected, his ear heard,
+nothing.
+
+Yet it was an anguish which daily touched despair in Hetty's heart.
+God had laid a curse on her, and would not be placated by the good
+behaviour on which she had built her hopes.  She had borne three
+children, and not one had He suffered to live for a week.  No matter
+how many she might bear, the same fate stood ready for them.  Nor was
+this all.  She saw Him smiting, through these innocent babes, at her
+husband's love.  Little by little she felt it relaxing and sinking
+through carelessness into neglect: and the whole scheme of her
+atonement rested on his continuing fondness.  She had never loved
+him, but his love was, if not infinitely precious, of infinite moment
+to her.  She needed it to sustain her and keep her in the right way.
+She omitted no small attentions which might make home pleasant to
+him.  She kept the house bright (they had moved into Frith Street and
+lived over the shop), and unweariedly coaxed his appetite with her
+cookery, in which--and especially in pastry-making--she had a born
+gift.  The fumes of the lead-works at the back often took her own
+appetite away and depressed her spirits, but she never failed to
+rouse herself and welcome him with a smile.  Also (but this was to
+please herself) sometimes by a word of advice in the matter of toilet
+or of clothes, oftener by small secret attentions with the needle,
+she had gradually reformed his habits of dress until now he might
+pass for a London tradesman of the superior class, decently attired,
+well shaven and clean in his person.  He resigned himself to these
+improvements with much good-nature and so passed through his
+metamorphosis almost without knowing it.  She practised small
+economies too; and he owned (though he set it down to his own
+industry) that his worldly affairs were more prosperous than ever
+they had been before his marriage.  But the fumes of the lead-works
+affected _his_ appetite, too, and his spirits: and when these flag a
+man has an easy and specious remedy in brandy-and-water.  By and by
+it became a habit with him, when his men ceased work, to stroll down
+to the "Turk's Head" for a "stiffener" before his meal.  The men he
+met there respected him for a flourishing tradesman and flattered
+him.  He adored his wife still.  In his eyes no woman would compare
+with her.  But there was no denying he felt more at home in company
+which allowed him to tell or listen to a coarse story and stretch his
+legs and boast at his ease.
+
+He was not aware of any slackening in affection.  But Hetty noted it
+and fought against it, though with a sinking heart.  She had counted
+on this babe to draw him back--if not to her, then at least to home.
+When told that it was dead, on an impulse she had turned her face at
+once to him and with a heart-rending look appealed for his
+forgiveness.  He did not understand.  Yet he behaved well, stroking
+her head and saying what he could to comfort her.
+
+She was convinced now that she lay under God's curse, and by and by
+her weak thoughts connected this curse with her father's displeasure.
+If she could move her father to relent, it might be lifted from her.
+And so after many weeks of brooding she found courage to write this
+letter:
+
+From Hetty to her Father
+
+     Honoured Sir,--Although you have cast me off and I know that a
+     determination once taken by you is not easily moved, I must tell
+     you that some word of your forgiving is not only necessary to
+     me, but would make happier the marriage in which, as you
+     compelled it, you must still (I think) feel no small concern.
+     My child, on whose frail help I had counted to make our life
+     more supportable to my husband and myself, is dead.  Should God
+     give and take away another, I can never escape the thought that
+     my father's intercession might have prevailed against His wrath,
+     which I shall then, alas! take to be manifest.
+
+     Forgive me, sir, that I make you a party in such happiness (or
+     unhappiness) as the world generally allows to be, under God, a
+     portion for two.  But as you planted my matrimonial bliss, so
+     you cannot run away from my prayer when I beseech you to water
+     it with a little kindness.  My brothers will report to you what
+     they have seen of my way of life and my daily struggle to redeem
+     the past.  But I have come to a point where I feel your
+     forgiveness to be necessary to me.  I beseech you, then, not to
+     withhold it, and to believe me your obedient daughter,
+                                       Mehet. Wright.
+
+The Answer
+
+     Daughter,--If you would persuade me that your penitence is more
+     than feigned, you are going the wrong way to work.  I decline to
+     be made a party to your matrimonial fortunes, as you claim in
+     what appears to be intended for the flower of your letter; and
+     in your next, if you would please me, I advise you to display
+     less wit and more evidence of honest self-examination.
+     To that--which is the beginning of repentance--you do not appear
+     to have attained.  Yet it would teach you that your troubles, if
+     you have any, flow from your own sin, and that for any
+     inconveniences you may find in marriage you are probably as much
+     to blame (at the very least) as your honest husband.
+     Your brothers speak well of him, and I shall always think myself
+     obliged to him for his civilities to you.
+
+     But what are your troubles?  You do not name them.  What hurt
+     has matrimony done you?  I know only that it has given you a
+     good name.  I do not remember that you were used to have so
+     frightful an idea of it as you have now.  Pray be more explicit.
+     Restrain your wit if you wish to write again, and I will answer
+     your next if I like it.  Your father,
+                                       S. Wesley.
+
+On receiving this Hetty could not at once bethink her of having given
+any cause of offence.  But she had kept a rough copy of her letter,
+and on studying it was fairly shocked by its tone, which now seemed
+to her almost flippant.
+
+She marvelled at her maladroitness, which was the more singular
+because she had really written under strong emotion.  She did not
+even now guess the secret of her failure; which was, that she had
+written entreating forgiveness of one whom she had not wholly
+forgiven.  Nevertheless she tried again.
+
+Hetty to her Father
+
+     Honoured Sir,--Though I was glad, on any terms, of the favour of
+     a line from you, yet I was concerned at your displeasure on
+     account of the unfortunate paragraph which you are pleased to
+     say was meant for the flower of my letter.  I wish it had not
+     gone, since I perceive it gave you some uneasiness.
+
+     But since what I said occasioned some queries, which I should be
+     glad to speak freely about, I earnestly beg that the little I
+     shall say may not be offensive to you, since I promise to be as
+     little witty as possible, though I can't help saying you accuse
+     me of being too much so; especially these late years past I have
+     been pretty free from that scandal.
+
+     You ask me what hurt matrimony has done me, and whether I had
+     always so frightful an idea of it as I have now?
+     Home questions, indeed! and I once more beg of you not to be
+     offended at the least I can say to them, if I say anything.
+
+     I had not always such notions of wedlock as now, but thought
+     that where there was a mutual affection and desire of pleasing,
+     something near an equality of mind and person, either earthly or
+     heavenly wisdom, and anything to keep love warm between a young
+     couple, there was a possibility of happiness in a married state;
+     but when all, or most of these, were wanting, I ever thought
+     people could not marry without sinning against God and
+     themselves.
+
+     You are so good to my spouse and me as to say you shall always
+     think yourself obliged to him for his civilities to me.  I hope
+     he will always continue to use me better than I deserve in one
+     respect.
+
+     _I think exactly the same of my marriage as I did before it
+     happened_; but though I would have given at least one of my eyes
+     for the liberty of throwing myself at your feet before I was
+     married at all, yet, since it is past and matrimonial grievances
+     are usually irreparable, I hope you will condescend to be so far
+     of my opinion as to own that, since upon some accounts I am
+     happier than I deserve, it is best to say little of things quite
+     past remedy, and endeavour, as I really do, to make myself more
+     and more contented, though things may not be to my wish.
+
+     Though I cannot justify my late indiscreet letter, yet I am not
+     more than human, and if the calamities of life sometimes wring a
+     complaint from me, I need tell no one that though I bear I must
+     feel them.  And if you cannot forgive what I have said, I
+     sincerely promise never more to offend by saying too much; which
+     (with begging your blessing) is all from your most obedient
+     daughter,
+                                       Mehetabel Wright.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+You who can read between the lines of these letters will have
+remarked a new accent in Hetty--a hard and bitter accent.  She will
+suffer her punishment now; but, even though it be sent of God, she
+will appeal against it as too heavy for her sin.
+
+Learn now the cause of it and condemn her if you can.
+
+At first when her husband, at the close of his day's work, sidled off
+to the "Turk's Head," she pretended not to remark it.  Indeed her
+fears were long in awaking.  In all her life she had never tasted
+brandy, and knew nothing of its effects.  That Dick Ellison fuddled
+himself upon it was notorious, and on her last visit to Wroote she
+had heard scandalous tales of John Romley, who had come to haunt the
+taverns in and about Epworth, singing songs and soaking with the
+riff-raff of the neighbourhood until turned out at midnight to roll
+homeward to his lonely lodgings.  She connected drunkenness with
+uproarious mirth, boon companionship, set orgies.  Of secret unsocial
+tippling she had as yet no apprehension.
+
+Even before the birth of his second child the tavern had become
+necessary to Mr. Wright, not only at the close of work, but in the
+morning, between jobs.  His workmen began to talk.  He suspected them
+and slid into foolish, cunning tricks to outwit them, leaving the
+shop on false excuses, setting out ostentatiously in the wrong
+direction and doubling back on the "Turk's Head" by a side street.
+They knew where to find him, however, when a customer dropped in.
+
+"Who sent you here?" he demanded furiously, one day, of the youngest
+apprentice, who had come for the second time that week to fetch him
+out of the "King's Oak."  (He had enlarged his circle of taverns by
+this time, and it included one half of Soho.)
+
+"Please you, I wasn't sent here at all," the boy stammered.  "I tried
+the 'Turk's Head' first and then the 'Three Tuns.'"
+
+"And what should make you suppose I was at either?  Look here, young
+man, the workshop from Robinson down"--Robinson was the foreman--"is
+poking its nose too far into my business.  If this goes on, one of
+these days Robinson will get his dismissal and you the strap."
+
+"It wasn't Robinson sent me, sir.  It was the mistress."
+
+"Eh!"  William Wright came to a halt on the pavement and his jaw
+dropped.
+
+"Her uncle, Mr. Matthew, has called and wants to see you on
+particular business."
+
+The business, as it turned out, was merely to give him quittance of a
+loan.  The sum first advanced to them by Matthew Wesley had proved
+barely sufficient.  To furnish the dwelling-rooms in Frith Street he
+had lent another 10 pounds and taken a separate bond for it, and
+this debt Hetty had discharged out of her household economies,
+secretly planning a happy little surprise for her husband; and now in
+the hurry of innocent delight she betrayed her sadder secret.
+
+She had as yet no fear of him, though he was afraid of her.  But at
+sight of him as he entered, all the joy went out of her announcement.
+
+He listened sulkily, took the receipt, and muttered some ungracious
+thanks.  Old Matthew eyed him queerly, and, catching a whiff of
+brandy, pulled out his gold watch.  The action may have been
+involuntary.  The hour was half-past ten in the morning.
+
+"Well, well--I must be going.  Excuse me, nephew Wright; with my
+experience I ought to have known better than to withdraw a busy man
+from his work."
+
+He glanced at Hetty, with a look which as good as asked leave for a
+few words with her in private.  But Mr. Wright, now thoroughly
+suspicious, did not choose to be dismissed in this fashion.  So after
+a minute or two of uneasy talk the old man pulled out his watch
+again, excused himself, and took his departure.
+
+"Look here," began Mr. Wright when he and Hetty were left alone:
+"You are taking too much on yourself."
+
+He had never spoken to her quite so harshly.
+
+"I am sorry, William," she answered, keeping her tears well under
+control.  For months she had been planning her little surprise, and
+its failure hurt her cruelly.  "I had no thought of displeasing you."
+
+"Oh, I daresay you meant it for the best.  But I choose to be master
+in my own house, that's all.  Another time, if you have more money
+than you know what to do with, just come and consult me.  I've no
+notion of being made to look small before your uncle, and I don't
+stomach it."
+
+He turned away growling.  He had spoken only of the repaid loan, but
+they both knew that this had nothing to do with his ill temper.
+
+At the door he faced round again.  "What were you talking about when
+I came in?" he asked suspiciously.
+
+"Uncle was congratulating us.  He is delighted to know that the
+business is doing so well and complains that he seldom gets sight of
+you nowadays, your hands are so full."
+
+"And pray what the devil has it to do with him, how I spend my time?"
+He pulled himself up on the oath, and seeing her cheek flush, he too
+reddened, but went on, if anything, more violently.  "You've a trick
+in your family of putting your fingers into other folks' pies: you're
+known for it.  There's that Holy Club I hear about.  Your clever
+brothers can't be content, any more than your father, to let honest
+folks alone, but are for setting right the whole University of
+Oxford.  I warn you, that won't do with me.  'Live and let live' is
+my motto: let me alone and I'll let you alone.  You Wesleys think
+mightily of yourselves; but you're neither king nor Parlyment, and
+that I'll have you learn."
+
+It was not a dignified exit and he knew it: by brooding over it
+through the afternoon his temper grew more savage.  That evening he
+spent at the "Turk's Head" and slouched home at midnight divided
+between contrition and bravado.
+
+Hetty was in bed, pretending sleep.  Had she known it, a word from
+her might have mended matters.  Even had he found her in tears there
+was enough good nature in the man to have made him relent.
+
+At sight of her beautiful face he felt half-inclined to awake her and
+have the quarrel cleared up.  But, to begin with, he was not wholly
+certain of his sobriety.  And she, too, distrusted it.  He had
+wounded her family pride, to be sure: but what really kept her silent
+was the dread of discovering him to be drunk and letting him see that
+she had discovered it.
+
+Yet she had great need of tears: for on more than one account she
+respected her husband, even liked him, and did most desperately long
+to be loved by him.  After all, she had borne him children: and since
+they had died he was her only stay in the world, her only hope of
+redemption.  Years after there was found among her papers a
+tear-blotted sheet of verses dating from this sorrowful time: and
+though the sorrow opens and shows ahead, as in a flash, the contempt
+towards which the current is sweeping her, you see her travel down to
+it with hands bravely battling, clutching at the weak roots of love
+and hope along the shore:
+
+     "O thou whom sacred rites design'd
+      My guide and husband ever kind,
+      My sovereign master, best of friends,
+      On whom my earthly bliss depends:
+      If e'er thou didst in Hetty see
+      Aught fair or good or dear to thee,
+      If gentle speech can ever move
+      The cold remains of former love,
+      Turn thou at last-my bosom ease,
+      Or tell me _why_ I fail to please.
+
+     "Is it because revolving years,
+      Heart-breaking sighs, and fruitless tears
+      Have quite deprived this form of mine
+      Of all that once thou fancied'st fine?
+      Ah no! what once allured thy sight
+      Is still in its meridian height.
+      Old age and wrinkles in this face
+      As yet could never find a place;
+      A youthful grace informs these lines
+      Where still the purple current shines,
+      Unless by thy ungentle art
+      It flies to aid my wretched heart:
+      Nor does this slighted bosom show
+      The many hours it spends in woe.
+
+     "Or is it that, oppress'd with care,
+      I stun with loud complaints thine ear,
+      And make thy home, for quiet meant,
+      The seat of noise and discontent?
+      Ah no!  Thine absence I lament
+      When half the weary night is spent,
+      Yet when the watch, or early morn,
+      Has brought me hopes of thy return,
+      I oft have wiped these watchful eyes,
+      Conceal'd my cares and curb'd my sighs
+      In spite of grief, to let thee see
+      I wore an endless smile for thee.
+
+     "Had I not practised every art,
+      To oblige, divert and cheer thy heart,
+      To make me pleasing in thine eyes,
+      And turn thy house to paradise,
+      I had not ask'd 'Why dost thou shun
+      These faithful arms, and eager run
+      To some obscure, unclean retreat,
+      With vile companions glad to meet,
+      Who, when inspired by beer,
+      can grin At witless oaths and jests obscene,
+      Till the most learned of the throng
+      Begins a tale of ten hours long
+      To stretch with yawning other jaws,
+      But thine in rapture of applause?'
+
+     "Deprived of freedom, health and ease,
+      And rivall'd by such _things_ as these,
+      Soft as I am, I'll make thee see
+      I will not brook contempt from thee!
+      I'll give all thoughts of patience o'er
+      (A gift I never lost before);
+      Indulge at once my rage and grief
+      Mourn obstinate, disdain relief,
+      Till life, on terms severe as these,
+      Shall ebbing leave my heart at ease;
+      To thee thy liberty restore
+      To laugh, when Hetty is no more."
+
+One morning William Wright awoke out of stertorous sleep with a heavy
+sense of something amiss, and opened his eyes to find Hetty standing
+beside the bed in nightgown and light wrapper, with a tray and pot of
+tea which she had stolen downstairs to prepare for him.  After a
+second or two he remembered, and turned his face to the wall.
+
+"No," said she, "you had better sit up and drink this, and we can
+talk honestly.  See, I have brought a cup for myself, too."
+
+She drew a small table close to the bed, and a chair, poured out the
+tea and seated herself--all with the least possible fuss.
+
+"I suppose you know," she began, "that you struck me last night?"
+
+His hand trembled as he took the cup, and again he turned away his
+eyes.
+
+"You were drunk," she went on.  "You called me by an evil name, too--
+a name I once called myself: but a name you would not have called me
+in your sober senses.  At least, I think not.  Tell me--and remember
+that you promised always to answer honestly: you would not have
+called me so in your sober senses?  You do not think of me so?"
+
+He set down the cup and stretched out a hand.
+
+"My lass"--the words seemed to choke him.
+
+"For I am not _that_.  You married me knowing the worst; and ever
+since I have been a true wife to you.  Well, I see that you are
+sorry.  And you struck me, on the breast.  I have a bruise there;
+but," she went on in a level lifeless tone, "there is no child to see
+his father's mark.  You are sorry for that, too.  But I understand,
+of course, that you were drunk.  Many times now you have come home
+drunk, and next morning I pretended not to know it.  I must not
+pretend now, since now to be clear about it is my only chance of
+comfort and your only chance of self-respect."
+
+He groaned.
+
+"Lass, I could cut my hand off for it!  When a man gets overtaken--"
+
+"No, no," her voice suddenly grew animated; "for God's sake, William,
+don't cry over it!  You are not a David."  She shivered, as a trick
+of memory brought back to her the night in the harvest field when she
+had broken out in wrath against her least admired of Biblical
+heroes--the same night on which she had first set eyes on this man,
+whose ring and whose bruise she wore.
+
+"Do not use cheating words, either," she went on.  "You were not
+overtaken by liquor; you went out to meet it, as you have gone night
+after night.  Call it by the straight name.  Listen: I like you well
+enough, William, to help you, if I can--indeed, I have tried.
+But there seems to be something in drink which puts aside help: the
+only fighting of any worth must come from the man himself--is it not
+so?"
+
+"I have fought, lass."
+
+"Drink up your tea, my man, and fight it again!  Come home to me
+earlier, and with a firmer step, and each night will be a victory,
+better worth than all the cries and sobbings in the world."
+
+He gazed at her stupidly as she put out a hand and laid it gently on
+his wrist.  He covered his eyes.
+
+"I--struck--you!" he muttered.
+
+She winced.  Startled by the sudden withdrawal of her touch, he
+lowered his hand and looked at her.  Her eyes, though brimming, met
+his steadily.
+
+"Tears are for women," she said.  "I must cry a little: but see, I am
+not afraid."
+
+For some months after this he fought the drink; fought it steadily.
+With Christmas came a relapse, through which she nursed him.  To her
+dismay she found the fit, during the few days that it lasted, more
+violent than before, and thought of the house swept and garnished and
+the devil returning with others worse than himself.  Her consolation
+was that at his worst now he seemed to turn to her, and depend on
+her--almost to supplicate--for help.  The struggle left them both
+exhausted: but he had not attempted to beat her this time.  She tried
+to persuade herself that this meant amendment, and that the outbreaks
+would grow rarer and at length cease altogether.
+
+Throughout the spring and summer of 1731 his health improved, and
+with it his kindness to her.  Indeed, she had not been so near
+happiness (or so she told herself) since her wedding day.
+Another child was coming.  Hope, so often cut down, grew again in her
+heart.  And then--
+
+One forenoon in the second week of June--a torrid, airless day--he
+came home reeling.  For the moment a black fear fell on her that she
+would be too weak to wrestle with this attack; but she braced herself
+to meet it.
+
+The next day her uncle called.  He was about to start on a
+long-planned journey to Epworth, taking his man with him; and having
+lately parted with his housekeeper, he had a proposal to make; that
+Hetty should sleep at Johnson's Court and look after the house in his
+absence.
+
+She shook her head.  Luckily her husband was out, drinking fiercely
+at some tavern, as she very well knew; but anything was better than
+his encountering Uncle Matthew just now.
+
+"Why not?" the old man urged.  "It would save my hiring a carekeeper,
+and tide me over until I bring back Patty with me, as I hope to do.
+Besides, after travelling in those wilds I shall want to return and
+find the house cheerful: and I know I can depend on you for that."
+
+"And I promise that you shall have it.  Send me but word of your
+coming, and all shall be ready for you that you require."
+
+"But you will not take up your abode there?"
+
+She shook her head again, still smiling: but the smile had lost
+connection with her thoughts.  She was listening for her husband's
+unsteady step and praying God to detain it.
+
+"But why not?" Uncle Matthew persisted.  "It is not for lack of good
+will, I know.  Your husband can spare you for a few days: or for that
+matter he might come with you and leave the house at night to young
+Ritson."  This was Mr. Wright's apprentice, the same that had fetched
+him out of the "King's Oak "; an exemplary youth, who slept as a rule
+in a garret at the top of the house.
+
+"Tom Ritson is not lodging with us just now: we have found a room for
+him two doors away."  She had, indeed, packed off the youth at the
+first sign of his master's returning madness: but, lest Uncle Matthew
+should guess the true reason, she added, "Women in my state take
+queer fancies--likes and dislikes."
+
+The old man eyed her for a while, then asked abruptly, "Is your
+husband drinking again?"
+
+"How--what makes you--I don't understand," she stammered.  Do what
+she might she could not prevent the come-and-go of colour in her
+face.
+
+"Oh, yes you do.  Tut, tut, my dear! I've known it every whit as long
+as you.  Look here; would you like me to put off my journey for a few
+days?"
+
+"On no account.  There's not the least reason, I assure you, uncle."
+
+He seemed content with this and talked for a little while of the
+journey and his plans.  He had warned nobody at Epworth.  "I intend
+it for a surprise," he explained; "to learn with my own eyes how they
+are faring."  Emilia and Kezzy were at home now upon a holiday: for
+some months they had been earning their livelihood at Lincoln as
+teachers in a boarding-school kept by a Mrs. Taylor.  He might even
+make a trip to Scarborough, to drink the waters there.  He was
+gravely kind, and promised to deliver all Hetty's messages to her
+sisters.
+
+"Well, well," he said as he rose to go, "so you won't come to me?"
+
+"I cannot."
+
+"Nevertheless I shall leave word that the house is to be open to
+you--in case of need."  He looked at her meaningly, kissed her on the
+forehead, and so took his leave.
+
+At the street door he paused.  "And that poor soul is childless," he
+muttered.  "She that should have been a noble mother of soldiers!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+From Mrs. Wesley to her son John.
+
+                                       Epworth, July 12th, 1731.
+
+     My brother Wesley had designed to have surprised us, and had
+     travelled under a feigned name from London to Gainsborough; but
+     there, sending his man for guide out to the Isle the next day,
+     the man told one that keeps our market his master's name, and
+     that he was going to see his brother, which was the minister at
+     Epworth.  The man he informed met with Molly in the market about
+     an hour before my brother got thither.  She, full of news,
+     hastened home and told us her uncle Wesley was coming to see us;
+     but we could hardly believe her.  'Twas odd to observe how all
+     the town took the alarm and were upon the gaze, as if some great
+     prince had been about to make his entry.  He rode directly to
+     John Dawson's [this refers to a local inn]: but we had soon
+     notice of his arrival, and sent John Brown with an invitation to
+     our house.  He expressed some displeasure at his servant for
+     letting us know of his coming: for he intended to have sent for
+     Mr. Wesley to dine with him at Dawson's and then come to visit
+     us in the afternoon.  However, he soon followed John home, where
+     we were all ready to receive him with great satisfaction.
+
+     His behaviour among us was perfectly civil and obliging.
+     He spake little to the children the first day, being employed
+     (as he afterwards told them) in observing their carriage and
+     seeing how he liked them: afterwards he was very free, and
+     expressed great kindness to them all.
+
+     He was strangely scandalised at the poverty of our furniture,
+     and much more at the meanness of the children's habit.
+     He always talked more freely with your sisters of our
+     circumstances than with me; and told them he wondered what his
+     brother had done with his income, for 'twas visible he had not
+     spent it in furnishing his house, or clothing his family.
+
+     We had a little talk together sometimes, but it was not often we
+     could hold a private conference, and he was very shy of speaking
+     anything relating to the children before your father, or indeed
+     of any other matter.  I informed him, as far as I handsomely
+     could, of our losses, etc., for I was afraid that he should
+     think I was about to beg of him; but the girls, I believe, told
+     him everything they could think on.
+
+     He was particularly pleased with Patty; and one morning, before
+     Mr. Wesley came down, he asked me if I was willing to let Patty
+     go and stay a year or two with him at London?  "Sister," says
+     he, "I have endeavoured already to make one of your children
+     easy while she lives, and if you please to trust Patty with me,
+     I will endeavour to make her so too."  Whatever others may
+     think, I thought this a generous offer, and the more so, because
+     he had done so much for Sukey and Hetty.  I expressed my
+     gratitude as well as I could, and would have had him speak with
+     your father, but he would not himself--he left that to me; nor
+     did he ever mention it to Mr. Wesley till the evening before he
+     left us.
+
+     He always behaved himself very decently at family prayers, and
+     in your father's absence said grace for us before and after
+     meat.  Nor did he ever interrupt our privacy, but went into his
+     own chamber when we went into ours.
+
+     He staid from Thursday to the Wednesday after, then he left us
+     to go to Scarborough, from whence he returned the Saturday
+     se'nnight, intending to stay with us a few days; but finding
+     your sisters gone the day before to Lincoln, he would leave us
+     on Sunday morning, for he said he might see the girls before
+     they--he and Patty--set forward for London.  He overtook them at
+     Lincoln, and had Mrs. Taylor, Emily, Kezzy, with the rest, to
+     supper with him at the Angel.  On Monday they breakfasted with
+     him; then they parted, expecting to see him no more till they
+     came to London, but on Wednesday he sent his man to invite them
+     to supper at night.  On Thursday he invited them to dinner, at
+     night to supper, and on Friday morning to breakfast, when he
+     took his leave of them and rode for London.  They got into town
+     on Saturday about noon, and that evening Patty writ me an
+     account of her journey.
+
+     Dear Jackey, I can't stay now to talk about Hetty, but this-I
+     hope better of her than some others do.  I pray God to bless
+     you.  Adieu.
+                                       S. W.
+
+Hetty had been warned that her uncle and Patty would arrive on the
+Saturday.  She did not expect them before evening; nevertheless, in
+the forenoon she sallied out, and stopping in the market on her way
+to buy a large bunch of roses, walked to Johnson's Court, where the
+door was opened to her by her own cook-maid--a fearless, middle-aged
+Scotswoman who did not mind inhabiting an empty house, and whom she
+had sent to Uncle Matthew on the eve of his departure, as well to get
+her out of the way as to relieve him of his search for a carekeeper.
+
+Janet noted that her mistress's face was pale and her eyes
+unnaturally bright with want of sleep, but held her tongue, being
+ever a woman of few words.  Together the two dressed the table and
+set out the cold viands in case the travellers should arrive in time
+for dinner.  The rest of the meal would be sent in at a few minutes'
+notice from the tavern at the entrance of the court.
+
+Having seen to these preparations and paid a visit of inspection to
+the bedrooms, she set out on her way back to Frith Street just as St.
+Dunstan's clock was striking eleven.  She left, promising Janet to
+return before nightfall.
+
+Night was dusking down upon the narrow court as she entered it again
+out of the rattle of Fleet Street.  She had lost her springy gait,
+and dragged her legs heavily under the burden of the unborn child and
+a strain which during the past four or five days had become a
+physical torture.  She came out of her own thoughts with an effort,
+to wonder if the travellers had arrived.
+
+Her eyes went up to the windows of Uncle Matthew's parlour: and,
+while they rested there, the room within of a sudden grew bright.
+Janet had entered it with a lamp, and, having set it down, came
+forward to draw the curtains and close the shutters.  At the same
+moment in the other window an arm went up to the curtain and the slim
+figure of Patty stood dark against the lamplight.  She stood for a
+moment gazing out upon the court; gazing, as it seemed to Hetty,
+straight down upon her.  Hetty came to a halt, crouching in the dusk
+against the wall.  Now that she knew of their arrival she had no wish
+to greet either her sister or her uncle: nay, as her own dark shadow
+overtook her--the thought of the drunkard at home in the lonely
+house--she knew that she could not climb to that lighted room and
+kiss and welcome them.
+
+As her sister's hand drew the curtain, she turned and sped back down
+the court.  She broke into a run.  The pedestrians in the dim streets
+were as ghosts to her.  She ought not to have left him.  Heaven alone
+knew how long this fit would last; but while it lasted her place was
+beside him.  Twice, thrice she came to a dead stop, and panted with
+one hand at her breast, the other laid flat against a house-wall or
+the closed shutters of a shop, and so supporting her.  Men peered
+into her face, passed on, but turned their heads to stare back at
+her, not doubting her a loose woman the worse for drink, but pierced
+with wonder, if not with pity, at her extraordinary beauty.
+She heeded them not, but always, as soon as she caught her breath
+again, ran on.
+
+She turned the corner of Frith Street.  Heaven knows what she
+expected to see--the house in a blaze, perhaps: but the dingy
+thoroughfare lay quiet before her, with a shop here and there casting
+a feeble light across the paving-stones.  The murmur of the streets,
+and with it all sense of human help within call, fell away and were
+lost.  She must face the horror alone.
+
+The house was dark--all but one window, behind the yellow blind of
+which a light shone.  She drew out her latchkey and at first fumbled
+at the opening with a shaking hand.  Then she recalled her courage,
+found the latch at once, slipped in the key and pushed the door open.
+
+No sound: the stairs stretched up before her into pitchy darkness.
+She held her breath; tried to listen.  Still no sound but one in her
+ears--the thump-thump of her own overstrained heart.  She closed the
+door as softly as she could, and mounted the first flight.
+
+Hark! the sound of a step above, followed by a faint glimmer of
+light.  At the turn of the stairs she looked up and faced him.
+He stood on the landing outside their bedroom door, with a candle
+held aloft.  His eyes were blazing.
+
+He must be met quietly, and quietly she went up.  "See how quick I
+have been!" she said gaily, and her voice did not shake.  She passed
+in by the open door.  He followed her stupidly and set the candle
+down.
+
+"They have arrived," she said, drawing off her mittens.  Her eyes
+travelled round the room to assure her that no weapon lay handy,
+though for her own sake she had no wish to live.
+
+"Come here," he commanded thickly.
+
+"Yes, dear: what is it?"
+
+"Where have you been?"
+
+"Why, to Johnson's Court, as you know."
+
+"Conspiring against me, eh?"  He pushed his face close to hers: his
+reeking breath sickened her: but she smiled on, expecting him to
+strike.
+
+"Come here!"--though she was close already.  "Stand up.  I'll teach
+you to gossip about me.  You and your gentry, my fine madam.
+I'll teach you--I'll teach you!"
+
+He struck now, blow after blow.  She turned her quivering shoulders
+to it, shielding the unborn child.
+
+He beat her to her knees.  Still she curved her back, holding her
+arms stiffly before her, leaving her head and neck exposed.
+Would the next blow kill her? She waited.
+
+The table went over with a crash, the light with it.  He must have
+fallen across it: for, an instant later, she heard the thud of his
+head against the floor.
+
+It seemed to her that she crouched there for an endless while,
+waiting for him to stir.  He lay close beside her foot.
+
+Her heel touched him as she rose.  She groped for the tinder-box,
+found the candle, lit it, held it over him.
+
+A trickle of blood ran from his right temple, where it had struck
+against the bed-post.  His eyes were closed.  She loosened his
+collar, put forth all her strength--her old maiden strength for a
+moment restored to her--and lifted him on to the bed.
+
+By and by his lips parted in a sigh.  He began to breathe heavily--to
+sleep, as she thought.  Still the blood trickled slowly from his
+temple and on to the pillow.  She stepped to the water-jug, dipped
+her handkerchief in it, and drawing a chair to the bedside, seated
+herself and began to bathe the wound.
+
+When the bleeding stopped, as the touch of cold water appeared to
+soothe him, she fetched a towel and pressed it gently about his neck
+and behind his ears.  He was sleeping now: for he smiled and muttered
+something.  Almost she thought it was her own name.
+
+Still she sat beside him, her body aching, her heart cold; and
+watched him, hour after hour.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+"And my brothers visit her?"
+
+Twilight with invisible veils closed around Epworth, its parsonage,
+and the high-walled garden where Molly, staff in hand, limped to and
+fro beside Johnny Whitelamb--promoted now to be the Reverend John
+Whitelamb, B.A.  He had arrived that afternoon, having walked all the
+way from Oxford.
+
+--"Whenever they visit London," he answered.
+
+"Charles, you know, upheld her from the first; and John has come to
+admit that her sufferings have lifted her above man's judgment.
+They talk with her as with their equal in wit--"
+
+"Why, and so she is!"
+
+"No doubt: but it does not follow that John would acknowledge it.
+They report their Oxford doings to her, and their plans: and she
+listens eagerly and advises.  To me the strange thing is, as she
+manages it, that her interest does not tie her down to sharing their
+opinions.  She speaks always as a looker-on, and they recognise this.
+She keeps her own mind, just as she has always held to her own view
+of her marriage.  I have never heard her complain, and to her husband
+she is an angel: yet I am sure (without being able to tell you why)
+that her heart condemns your father and will always condemn him."
+
+"She knows what her punishment has been: we can only guess.  Does the
+man drink still?"
+
+"Yes; he drinks: but she is no longer anxious about him.  Your Uncle
+Matthew told me that in his first attacks he used to be no better
+than a madman.  Something happened: nobody seems to know precisely
+what it was, except that he fell and injured his head.  Now the
+craving for drink remains, but he soaks harmlessly.  No doubt he will
+kill himself in time; meanwhile even at his worst he is tractable,
+and obeys Hetty like a child.  To do the man justice, he was always
+fond of her."
+
+"Poor Hetty!"
+
+"John has spoken to her once or twice about her soul, I believe: but
+he does not persist."
+
+"H'm," said Molly, "you had better say that he is biding his time.
+John always persists."
+
+"That's true," he owned with a laugh: "but I have never known him so
+baffled to all appearance.  The fact is, she cannot be roused to any
+interest in herself.  Of others she never ceases to think.  It was
+she, for instance--when I could not afford to buy myself a gown for
+ordination--who started the notion of a subscription in the family."
+He was wearing the gown now, and drew it about him with another
+laugh.  "Hence the majestic figure I cut before you at this moment."
+
+"But we all subscribed, sir.  You shall not slight my poor offering--
+all made up as it was of dairy-pence."
+
+"Miss Molly, all my life is a patchwork made up of kind deeds and
+kind thoughts from one or other of you.  You do not believe--"
+
+"Nay, you love us all, John.  I know that well enough."
+
+For some reason a silence fell between them.  Molly broke it with a
+laugh, which nevertheless trembled a little.  "Then your gown should
+be a patchwork, too?"
+
+"Why to be sure it is," he answered gravely; "and I wish the world
+could see it so, quartered out upon me like a herald's coat, and each
+quartering assigned--that is Mr. Wesley's, and that your mother's,
+and that, again, your brother John's--"
+
+"And the sleeve Miss Molly's: I will be content with a sleeve.
+Only it must have the armorial bearings proper to a fourth daughter,
+with my simple motto--'Butter and New-laid Eggs.'"
+
+The sound of their merriment reached Mrs. Wesley through an open
+window, and in the dim kitchen Mrs. Wesley smiled to herself.
+
+"But," objected he, "the sleeve will not do.  I do not wear my heart
+upon my sleeve, Molly."  She turned her head abruptly.  For the first
+time in his life he had dared to call her Molly, and was trembling at
+his boldness.  At first he took the movement for a prompt rebuke:
+then, deciding that she had not heard, he was at once relieved and
+disappointed.
+
+But be sure she had heard.  And she was not angry: only--this was not
+the old Johnny Whitelamb, but another man in speech and accent, and
+she felt more than a little afraid of him.
+
+"Tell me more of Hetty," she commanded, and resting one hand on her
+staff pointed to the south-west, where, over the coping of the wall,
+out of a pure green chasm infinitely deep between reddened clouds of
+sunset, the evening star looked down.
+
+He knew the meaning of the sudden gesture.  Had not Hetty ever been
+her Star?
+
+"She is beautiful as ever.  You never saw so sad a face: the sadder
+because it is never morose."
+
+"I believe, John, you loved her best of us all."
+
+"I worshipped her.  To be her servant, or her dog, would have been
+enough for me.  I never dared to think of her as--as--"
+
+--"As you thought, for example, of her crippled sister, whom you
+protected."
+
+"Molly!" He drew back.  "Ah, if I dared--if I dared!" she heard him
+stammer, and faced him swiftly, with a movement he might have misread
+for anger, but for the soul shining in her eyes.
+
+"Dare, then!"
+
+"But I am penniless," said he, a few moments later.  For him the
+heavens still spun and the earth reeled: but out of their turmoil
+this hard truth emerged as a rock from the withdrawing flood.
+
+"God will provide for us.  He knows that I cannot wait--and you--you
+must forget that I was unmaidenly and wooed you: for I _did_, and
+it's useless to deny it.  But I have known--known--oh, for ever so
+long!  And I have a short while to be happy!"
+
+Either he did not hear or he let slip her meaning.  His eyes were on
+the star, now almost level with the wall's coping.
+
+"And this has come to me: to me--that was once Johnny Whitelamb of
+the Charity School!"
+
+"And to me," she murmured; "to me--poor Grizzle, whom even her
+parents despised.  The stars shine upon all."
+
+"I remember," he said, musing, "at Oxford, one night, walking back to
+college with your brother John.  We had been visiting the prisoners
+in Bocardo.  As we turned into the Turl between Exeter and Jesus
+colleges there, at the end of the street--it is little more than a
+lane--beyond the spire of All Saints' this planet was shining.
+John told me its name, and with a sudden accord we stood still for a
+moment, watching it.  'Do you believe it inhabited?' I asked.
+'Why not?' he said.  'Then why not, as this world, by sinners: and if
+by sinners, by souls crying for redemption in Christ?'  'Ay,' said
+he,' for aught we know the son of God may pass along the heavens
+adding martyrdom to martyrdom, may even at this moment be bound on a
+cross in some unseen planet swinging around one in this multitude of
+stars.  But,' he broke off, 'what have we to do with this folly of
+speculation?  This world is surely parish enough for a man, and in it
+he may be puzzled all his days to save his own soul out of the many
+millions.'"
+
+"And father," murmured Molly, "designs him to take Epworth cure!
+But why are you telling me this?"
+
+"Because I see now that if God's love reaches up to every star and
+down to every poor soul on earth, it must be something vastly simple,
+so simple that all dwellers on earth may be assured of it, as all who
+have eyes may be assured of the planet yonder; and so vast that all
+bargaining is below it, and they may inherit it without considering
+their deserts.  Is not God's love greater than human?  Yet, see, this
+earthly love has come to me--Johnny Whitelamb--as to a king.  It has
+taken no account of my worth, my weakness: in its bounty I am
+swallowed up and do not weigh.  To dream of it as holding tally with
+me is to belittle and drag it down in thought to something scarcely
+larger than myself.  I share it with kings, as I share this star.
+Can I think God's love less magnificent?"
+
+But Molly shrank close to him.  "Dear, do not talk of these great
+things: they frighten me.  I am so small--and we have so short a
+while to be happy!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Samuel Wesley to the Lord Chancellor.
+
+                                   Westminster, January 14th, 1733-4.
+
+     My Lord,--The small rectory of Wroote, in the diocese and county
+     of Lincoln, adjoining to the Isle of Axholme, is in the gift of
+     the Lord Chancellor, and more then seven years since it was
+     conferred on Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth.  It lies in our
+     low levels, and is often overflowed--four or five years since I
+     have had it; and the people have lost most or all the fruits of
+     the earth to that degree that it has hardly brought me in fifty
+     pounds per annum, _omnibus annis_, and some years not enough to
+     pay my curate there his salary of 30 pounds a year.
+
+     This living, by your lordship's permission and favour, I would
+     gladly resign to one Mr. John Whitelamb, born in the
+     neighbourhood of Wroote, as his father and grandfather lived in
+     it, when I took him from among the scholars of a charity school,
+     founded by one Mr. Travers, an attorney, brought him to my
+     house, and educated him there, where he was my amanuensis for
+     four years in transcribing my _Dissertations on the Book of
+     Job_, now well advanced in the press; and drawing my maps and
+     figures for it, as well as we could by the light of nature.
+     After this I sent him to Oxford, to my son John Wesley, Fellow
+     of Lincoln College, under whom he made such proficiency that he
+     was the last summer admitted by the Bishop of Oxford into
+     Deacon's Orders, and placed my curate in Epworth, while I came
+     up to town to expedite the printing my book.
+
+     Since I was here I gave consent to his marrying one of my seven
+     daughters, and they are married accordingly; and though I can
+     spare little more with her, yet I would gladly give them a
+     little glebe land at Wroote, where I am sure they will not want
+     _springs of water_.  But _they_ love the place, though I can get
+     nobody else to reside on it.  If I do not flatter myself, he is
+     indeed a valuable person, of uncommon brightness, learning,
+     piety and indefatigable industry; always loyal to the King,
+     zealous for the Church, and friendly to our Dissenting Brethren;
+     and for the truth of this character I will be answerable to God
+     and man.  If therefore your lordship will grant me the favour to
+     let me resign the living unto him, and please to confer it on
+     him, I shall always remain your lordship's most bounden, most
+     grateful, and most obedient servant,
+
+                                       Samuel Wesley, Sen.
+
+The Lord Chancellor complied: and so, in February, with an income of
+but fifty pounds a year, increased to seventy by Mr. Wesley's
+kindness, but in good heart and hope and such love as can only be
+between two simple hearts that have proved each other, John
+Whitelamb and Molly took possession of the small parsonage.
+
+They were happy: and of their happiness there is no more to be said,
+save that it was brief.  In the last days of October Molly's child
+was born, and died: and a few hours later while the poor man held her
+close, refusing to believe, with a sigh Molly's spirit slipped
+between his arms and went to God.
+
+To God?  It tore the man up by the roots, and the root-soil
+of his faith crumbled and fell with the moulds upon her coffin.
+He went from her graveside back to the house and closed the door.
+Mrs. Wesley had urged him to return with the family to Epworth, and
+John, who had ridden from Oxford to preach the funeral sermon, shook
+him by the hand and added his persuasions.  But the broken husband
+thanked him shortly, and strode away.  He had sat through the sermon
+without listening to a word: and now he went back to a house lonely
+even of God.
+
+He and Molly had been too poor to keep a servant: but on the eve of
+her illness a labourer's wife had been hired to do the housework and
+cook the meals.  And seeing his lethargy, this sensible woman,
+without asking questions, continued to arrive at seven in the morning
+and depart at seven in the evening.  He ate the food she set before
+him.  On Sunday he heard the bell ringing from his church hard by.
+But he had prepared no sermon: and after the bell had ceased he sat
+in his study before an open book, oblivious.
+
+Yet prayer was read, and a sermon preached, in Wroote Church that
+day.  John Wesley had walked over from Epworth; and when the bell
+ceased ringing, and the minutes passed, and still no rector appeared,
+had stepped quietly to the reading-desk.
+
+After service he walked across to the parsonage, knocked gently at
+the study door and entered.
+
+"Brother Whitelamb," he said, "you have need of us, I think, and I
+know that my father has need of you.  To-morrow I return to Oxford,
+and I leave a letter with him that he will wish to answer.  Death has
+shaken him by the hand and it cannot guide a pen: he will be glad to
+employ his old amanuensis.  What is more, his answer to my letter
+will contain much worth your pondering, as well as mine, for it will
+be concerned with even such a spiritual charge as you have this day
+been neglecting."
+
+"Brother Wesley," answered the widower, looking up, "you have done a
+kind deed this morning.  But what was your text?"
+
+"My text was, 'Son of man, behold I take from thee the desire of
+thine eyes with a stroke: yet shalt thou not mourn or weep, neither
+shall thy tears run down.'"
+
+"I love you, brother: you have ever been kind indeed to me.  Yet you
+put it in my mind at times, that the poor servant with one talent had
+some excuse, if a poor defence, who said 'I know thee, that thou art
+a hard man.'"
+
+"Do I reap then where I have not sown, and gather where I have not
+strewn?"
+
+"I will not say that.  But I see that others prepare the way for you
+and will do so, as Charles prepared it at Oxford: and finding it
+prepared, you take command and march onward.  You were born to take
+command: the hand of God is evident upon you.  But some grow faint by
+the way and drop behind, and you have no bowels for these."
+
+Silence fell between them.  John Whitelamb broke it.  "I can guess
+what your father's letter will be--a last appeal to you to succeed
+him in Epworth parish.  Do you mean to consent?"
+
+"I think not.  My reasons--"
+
+"Nay, it is certain you will not.  And as for your reasons, they do
+not matter: they may be good, but God has better, who decides for
+you.  Yet deal gently with the old man, for you are denying the
+dearest wish of his heart."
+
+"May I tell him that you will come?"
+
+"I will come when he sends for me."
+
+Mr. Wesley's message did not arrive until a good fortnight later,
+during which time John Whitelamb had fallen back upon his own sorrow.
+He resumed his duties, but with no heart.  From the hour of his
+wife's death he sank gradually into the rut of a listless parish
+priest--a solitary man, careless of his dress as of his duties, loved
+by his parishioners for the kindness of his heart.  They said that
+sorrow had broken him; but the case was worse than this.  He had lost
+assurance of God's goodness.
+
+He could not, with such a doubt in his heart, go to his wife's family
+for comfort.  He loved them as ever; but he could not trust their
+love to deal tenderly with his infidelity.  No Wesley would ever have
+let a human sorrow interfere with faith: no Wesley (it seemed to him)
+would understand such a disaster.  It was upon this thought that he
+had called John a hard man.  He recognised the truth and that he was
+but brittle earthenware beside these hammered vessels of service.
+
+Nevertheless, when in obedience to Mr. Wesley's message he presented
+himself at Epworth, he was surprised by the calm everyday air with
+which the old man received him.  He had expected at least some word
+of his grief, some fatherly pressure of the hand.  There was none.
+He knew, to be sure, that old age deadened sensibility.  But, after
+all, his dear Molly had been this man's child, if not the
+best-beloved.
+
+"Son Whitelamb, my hand is weary, and there is much to write.
+Help me to my dearest wish on earth--the only wish now left to me:
+help me that Jack may inherit Epworth cure when I am gone.  Hear what
+he objects: 'The question is not whether I could do more good there
+or here in Oxford, _but whether I could do more good to myself_;
+seeing wherever I can be most holy myself, there I can most promote
+holiness in others.  But I can improve myself more at Oxford than at
+any other place.'  The lad must think I forget my logic.  See you, he
+juggles me with identical propositions!  First it is no question of
+doing good to others, but to himself; and anon when he does most good
+to himself he will do most good to others.  Am I a dead dog, to be
+pelted with such sophisms?  Son Whitelamb, is your pen ready?"
+
+"Of what avail is it?" John Whitelamb asked himself.  "These men,
+father and son, decide first, and, having decided, find no lack of
+arguments.  It is but pride of the mind in which they clothe their
+will.  Moreover, if there be a God, what a vain conflict am I aiding!
+seeing that time with Him is not, and all has been decided from the
+beginning."
+
+Yet he took down the answer with his habitual care, glancing up in
+the pauses at the old face, gray and intense beneath the dark
+skull-cap.  The letter ended:
+
+"If you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father for
+above forty years in God's vineyard be lost, and the fences of it
+trodden down and destroyed; if you have any care for our family,
+which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropped; if you
+reflect on the dear love and longing which this dear people has for
+you, whereby you will be enabled to do God the more service; and the
+plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls,
+whereas you have not many more scholars in the University; you may
+perhaps alter your mind, and bend your will to His, who has promised,
+if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths."
+
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Unto him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the
+ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness."
+
+All the world has heard how John Wesley rode, eight years later, into
+Epworth; and how, his father's pulpit having been denied to him, he
+stood outside upon his father's tomb and preached evening after
+evening in the warm June weather the gospel of Justification by Faith
+to the listening crowd.  Visitors are shown the grit slab, now recut
+and resting on a handsome structure of stone, but then upon plainest
+brickwork; and are bidden to notice, in the blank space below the
+words "Their works do follow them," two rough pieces of ironstone
+which mark where the preacher's feet rested.
+
+Eight evenings he preached from it, and on the third evening chose
+for his text these words: "Unto him that worketh not, but believeth
+on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for
+righteousness."
+
+Under a sycamore by the churchyard wall at a little distance from the
+crowd a man stood and listened--a clergyman in a worn black gown, a
+man not old in years but with a face prematurely old, and shoulders
+that already stooped under the burden of life--John Whitelamb.
+He watched between fear and hope to be recognised.  When the preacher
+mounted the slab, stroked back his hair and, turning his face towards
+the sycamore, fixed his eyes (as it seemed) upon the figure beneath
+it, he felt sure he had been recognised: a moment later he doubted
+whether that gaze had passed over him in forgetfulness or contempt.
+
+He felt himself worthy of contempt.  They had been too hard for him,
+these Wesleys.  They had all departed from Epworth, years before, and
+left him, who had been their brother, alone with his miserable
+doubts.  No letters, no message of remembered affection or present
+good will, ever came from them.  He had been unfaithful to his
+religion: they had cast him off.  For seven years he had walked and
+laboured among the men and women here gathered in the midsummer dusk:
+but the faces to which he had turned for comfort were faces of the
+past--some dead, others far away.
+
+So the preacher's voice came to him as one rending the sepulchre.
+"Son of man, can these bones live?"  Yes, the bones of Christ's
+warrior beneath the slab--laid there to rest in utter weariness--were
+stirring, putting forth strength and a voice that pierced his living
+marrow.  Ah, how it penetrated, unlocking old wells of tears!
+
+He listened, letting his tears run.  Only once did he withdraw his
+eyes, and then for a moment they fell on John Romley, loitering too,
+on the outskirts of the crowd by the churchyard gate and plainly in
+two minds about interfering.  Romley was curate of Epworth now,
+delegate of an absentee sporting rector: and had in truth set this
+ball rolling by denying John Wesley his pulpit.  He had miscalculated
+his flock; this stubborn English breed, so loyal in enmity, loving
+the memory of a foe who had proved himself a man.  He watched with a
+loose-lipped sneer; too weak to conquer his own curiosity, far too
+weak to assert his authority and attempt to clear the churchyard of
+that "enthusiasm" which he had denounced in his most florid style
+last Sunday, within the church.
+
+John Whitelamb's gaze travelled back to the preacher.  Up to this he
+had heard the voice only, and the dead man in his grave below
+speaking through that voice.  Now he listened to the words.  If the
+dead man spoke through them, what a change had death wrought--what
+wisdom had he found in the dust that equals all!  What had become of
+the old confident righteousness, the old pride of intellect?
+They were stripped and flung aside as filthy rags.  "Apart from faith
+we do not count.  We _are_ redeemed: we _are_ saved.  Christ has made
+with us no bargain at all except to believe that the bargain is
+concluded.  What are we at the best that He should make distinctions
+between us?  We are all sinners and our infinitesimal grades of sin
+sunk in His magnificent mercy.  Only acknowledge your sin: only admit
+the mercy; and you are healed, pardoned, made joint heirs with
+Christ--not in a fair way to be healed, not going to be pardoned in
+some future state; but healed, pardoned, your sins washed away in
+Christ's blood, actually, here and now."
+
+He heard men and women--notorious evil-livers, some of them--crying
+aloud.  Ah, the great simplicity of it was beyond him!--and yet not
+perhaps beyond him, could he believe the truth, in the bygone years
+never questioned by him, that Jesus Christ was very God.
+
+He waited for the last word and strode back to his lonely home with a
+mind unconvinced yet wondering at the power he had witnessed, a heart
+bursting with love.  He sat down to write at once: but tore up many
+letters.  With Christ, to believe was to be forgiven.  If Christ
+could not be tender to doubt, how much less would John Wesley be
+tender?  It was not until Friday that he found courage to dispatch
+the following:
+
+     Dear Brother,--I saw you at Epworth on Tuesday evening.
+     Fain would I have spoken to you, but that I am quite at a loss
+     to know how to address or behave to you.
+
+     Your way of thinking is so extraordinary that your presence
+     creates an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world.
+     God grant you and your followers may always have entire liberty
+     of conscience.  Will you not allow others the same?
+
+     Indeed I cannot think as you do, any more than I can help
+     honouring and loving you.  Dear sir, will you credit me?
+     I retain the highest veneration and affection for you.
+     The sight of you moves me strangely.  My heart overflows with
+     gratitude; I feel in a higher degree all that tenderness and
+     yearning of bowels with which I am affected towards every branch
+     of Mr. Wesley's family.  I cannot refrain from tears when I
+     reflect, This is the man who at Oxford was more than a father to
+     me; this is he whom I have heard expound, or dispute publicly,
+     or preach at St. Mary's, with such applause; and--oh, that I
+     should ever add--whom I have lately heard preach at Epworth, on
+     his father's tombstone!
+
+     I am quite forgot.  None of the family ever honour me with a
+     line.  Have I been ungrateful? I have been passionate, fickle, a
+     fool; but I hope I never shall be ungrateful.
+
+     Dear sir, is it in my power to serve or oblige you in any way?
+     Glad I should be that you would make use of me.  God open all
+     our eyes and lead us into truth wherever it be!
+                                       John Whitelamb.
+
+The answer was delivered to him that same evening.  It ran:
+
+     Dear Brother,--I take you at your word, if indeed it covers
+     permission to preach in your church at Wroote on Sunday morning
+     next.  I design to take for text--and God grant it may be
+     profitable to you and to others!--"Ask, and it shall be given
+     you."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+From Epworth John Wesley rode on to Sheffield, and then southward
+through Coventry, Evesham and Painswick to Bristol, preaching as he
+went, sometimes thrice a day: from Bristol to Cardiff and back; and
+so, on Sunday evening, July 18th, towards London.  On Tuesday morning
+he dismounted by the door of the Foundry, having left it just two
+months before.
+
+To his surprise it was opened by Hetty: but at once he guessed the
+reason.
+
+"Mother?"
+
+"Hist!  The end is very near--a few hours perhaps."  She kissed him.
+"I have been with her these five days, taking turns with the others.
+They are all here--Emmy and Sukey and Nancy and Pat.  Charles cannot
+be fetched in time, I fear."
+
+"He was in North Wales when he last wrote."
+
+"Listen!"--a sound of soft singing came down the stairway.
+"They are singing his hymn to her: she begs us constantly to sing to
+her."
+
+     "Jesu, Lover of my soul,
+        Let me to thy bosom fly
+      While the nearer waters roll--"
+
+Sang the voices overhead as John followed his sister into the small
+sitting-room.
+
+"What do the doctors say?"
+
+"There is nothing to be said.  She feels no pain; has no disease.
+It is old age, brother, loosening the cords."
+
+"She is happy?"
+
+"Ah, so happy!"  Hetty's eyes brimmed with tears and she turned away.
+
+"Sister, that happiness is for you too.  Why have you, alone of us,
+so far rejected it?"
+
+"No--not now!" she protested.  "Speak to me some other time and I
+will listen: not now, when my body and heart are aching!"
+
+Her sisters sang:
+
+     "Other refuge have I none;
+        Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
+      Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
+        Still support and comfort me!
+      All my trust on Thee is stay'd,
+        All my help from Thee I bring:
+      Cover my defenceless head
+        With the shadow of Thy wing!"
+
+She stepped to the door with a feeble gesture of the hands.  She knew
+that, worn as he was with his journey, if she gave him the chance he
+would grasp it and pause, even while his mother panted her last, to
+wrestle for and win a soul--not because she, Hetty, was his sister;
+simply because hers was a soul to be saved.  Yes, and she foresaw
+that sooner or later he would win: that she would be swept into the
+flame of his conquest: yet her poor bruised spirit shrank back from
+the flame.  She craved only to be let alone, she feared all new
+experience, she distrusted even the joy of salvation.  Life had been
+too hard for Hetty.
+
+He followed her up the stairs to his mother's room, and entering
+commanded his sisters with a gesture to sing the hymn to an end.
+They did so.  Mrs. Wesley lay propped on the pillows, her wasted face
+turned to the light, a faint smile on her lips.  For a little while
+after the hymn ended she lay silent with no change on her face.
+They doubted if she saw John or, seeing, had recognised him.
+But by and by her lips moved and she murmured his name.
+
+"Jacky!"
+
+He stepped to the bedside, and with his hand covered the transparent
+hand with its attenuated marriage ring.
+
+"I like them--to sing to me," she whispered.  "When--when I am
+released--sing--a psalm of praise to God.  Promise me."
+
+He pressed her hand for reply, and her eyes closed peacefully.  She
+seemed to sleep.
+
+It was not until Friday that the end came.  Shortly before eleven
+that morning she waked suddenly out of slumber with lips muttering
+rapidly.  They, bending close, caught the words  "Saviour--dear
+Saviour--help--at the last."  By the time they had summoned John,
+though the muttering continued, the words were unintelligible: yet
+they knew she was praising God.
+
+In a little while the voice ceased and she lay staring calmly
+upwards.  From three to four o'clock the last cords were loosening.
+Suddenly John arose, and lifting his hand in benediction, spoke the
+words of the Commendatory Prayer: "O Almighty God, in whom do live
+the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from
+their earthly prison; we humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant,
+our dear Mother, into Thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful
+Creator and most merciful Saviour, most humbly beseeching Thee that
+it may be precious in Thy sight. . . ."
+
+It was Hetty who bent low, took the inert hand, and after listening
+for a while laid it softly down on the coverlet.  All was over: yet
+she listened until the voices of the watchers, released by her
+signal, rose together--
+
+     "Hark! a voice divides the sky--
+      Happy are the faithful dead
+      In the Lord who sweetly die--"
+
+She raised her face as if to entreat for yet a moment's respite.
+But their faces were radiant, transfigured with the joy of their
+faith.  And then suddenly, certainly, in their rapture she saw the
+purpose and end of all their common sufferings; want, hunger, years
+of pinching and striving, a thousand petty daily vexations, all the
+hardships that had worn her mother down to this poor corpse upon the
+bed, her own sorrowful fate and her sisters' only less sorrowful--all
+caught up in the hand of God and blazing as a two-edged sword of
+flame.  Across the blaze, though he was far away, she saw the
+confident eyes of Charles smiling as at a prophecy fulfilled.
+But the hand outstretched for the sword was John's, claiming it by
+right indefeasible.  She, too, had a right indefeasible: and before
+the sword descended to cleave the walls of this humble death chamber
+and stretch over England, her heart cried and claimed to be pierced
+with it.  "Let it pierce me and cut deep, for my tears, too, have
+tempered it!"
+
+From the Journal of Charles Wesley for the year 1750:
+
+     "March 5th.  I prayed by my sister Wright, a gracious, tender,
+      trembling soul; a bruised reed which the Lord will not break.
+
+     "March 14th.  I found my sister Wright very near the haven"; and
+      again on Sunday, the 18th: "Yet still in darkness, doubts and
+      fears, against hope believing in hope.
+
+     "March 21St.  At four I called on my brother Wright, a few
+      minutes after her spirit was set at liberty.  I had sweet
+      fellowship with her in explaining at the chapel those solemn
+      words, 'Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon
+      withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thy everlasting light,
+      and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.'
+
+     "March 26th.  I followed her to her quiet grave, and wept with
+      them that weep."
+
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+
+Early in December, 1803, in the cool decline of a torrid day, a small
+British force--mixed regulars and sepoys--threaded its way among the
+mountains of Berar.  It moved slowly and with frequent halts, its
+pace regulated by the middle of the column, where teams of men panted
+and dragged at the six guns which were to batter down the hill
+fortress of Gawul Ghur: for roads in this country there were none,
+and all the long day ahead of the guns gangs laboured with pick and
+shovel to widen the foot-tracks leading up to the passes.
+
+Still farther ahead trudged and halted the 74th regiment, following a
+squadron of the 19th Light Dragoons, and now and again the toilers on
+the middle slope, taking breath for a new effort and blinking the
+sweat from their eyes, would catch sight of a horseman on a ridge far
+overhead, silhouetted against the pale blue sky for a moment while he
+scanned a plateau or gully unseen by them.  Now and again, too, in
+such pauses, the clear air pulsed with the tramp of the rearguard in
+the lower folds of the hills--sepoys and comrades of the 78th and
+94th.
+
+Though with arms, legs and loins strained almost to cracking, the men
+worked cheerfully.  Their General had ridden forward with his staff:
+they knew that close by the head of the pass their camp was already
+being marked out for them, and before sleeping they would be fed as
+they deserved.
+
+They growled, indeed, but good-humouredly, when, for the tenth time
+that day, they came to the edge of a gully into which the track
+plunged steeply to mount almost as steeply on the farther side: and
+their good humour did them the more credit since the General had
+forbidden them to lock the wheels, on the ground that locking shook
+and weakened the gun-carriages.
+
+With a couple of drag-ropes then, and a dozen men upon each, digging
+heels in the slope, slipping, cursing, back-hauling with all their
+weight, the first gun was trailed down and run across the gully.
+As the second began its descent a couple of horsemen came riding
+slowly back from the advance-guard and drew rein above the farther
+slope to watch the operation.
+
+About a third of the way down, the track, which trended at first to
+the left, bent abruptly away to the right, from the edge of a low
+cliff of rock; and at this corner the men on the drag-ropes must
+also fling themselves sharply to the right to check the wheels on
+the verge of the fall.  They did so, cleverly enough: but almost on
+the instant were jerked out of their footholds like puppets.
+Amid outcries of terror and warning, the outer wheel of the gun broke
+through the crumbling soil on the verge, the ropes flew through their
+hands, tearing away the flesh before the flesh could cast off its
+grip; and with a clatter of stones the gun somersaulted over the
+slope.  With it, caught by the left-hand rope before he could spring
+clear, went hurling a man.  They saw his bent shoulders strike a slab
+of rock ripped bare an instant before, and heard the thud as he
+disappeared.
+
+As they ran to view the damage, the two riders came cantering across
+the gully and joined them.  By good fortune, at the base of the rock
+there welled a tiny spring and spread itself in a miniature bog
+before making up its mind to leap down the mountain-side and feed the
+infant waters of the Taptee.  Into this plashy soil the gun had
+plunged and the carriage lay some yards away up-ended on a broken
+wheel, but otherwise uninjured.  Beside the carriage, when the
+General reached it, an artillery sergeant and three of the team of
+No. 2 gun were lifting the injured man.
+
+"Badly hurt?"
+
+The sergeant saluted.  "We doubt it's over with him, sir.  His back's
+broken, seemingly."
+
+The General turned away to examine the face of the cliff, and almost
+at once gave vent to a low whistle.
+
+"See here, Ellerton, the rock is caverned and the gun must have
+broken through the roof.  It doesn't look to me like a natural
+cavern, either.  Hi! half a dozen of you, clear away this rubbish and
+let me have a nearer look."
+
+The men turned to and heaved away the fallen stones under which the
+water oozed muddily.
+
+"Just as I thought!  Nature never made a hole like this."
+
+An exclamation interrupted him.  It came from one of the relief party
+who had clambered into the cavern and was spading there in the loose
+soil.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"A skeleton, sir!--stretched here as natural as life."
+
+The General dismounted and clambered to the entrance, followed by his
+staff officer.  As they reached it, the man stooped again and rose
+with something in his hand.
+
+"Eh?  A begging-bowl?"
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said the staff officer, as his chief passed it
+to him.  He examined it, turning it slowly over in his hands.
+"It's clear enough, though curious.  We have struck the den of some
+old hermit of the hills, some holy man--"
+
+"Who pitched his camp here for the sake of the water-spring, no
+doubt."
+
+"Queer taste," said the staff officer sagely.  "I wonder how the
+deuce he picked up his food."
+
+"Oh, the hill-men hereabouts will travel leagues to visit and feed
+such a man."
+
+"That doesn't explain why his bones lie unburied."
+
+"No." The General mused for a moment.  "Found anything else?" he
+demanded sharply.
+
+The searchers reported "Nothing," and wished to know if they should
+bring the skeleton out into the light.
+
+"No: cover him up decently, and fall in to limber up the gun!"
+He took his horse's bridle and walked back to the group about the
+injured man.
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+He was told, a corporal of the 94th who had volunteered for the gun
+team two days before.  The sergeant who reported this added
+diffidently, "He had half a dozen of his religious mates in the team.
+He's a Wesleyan Methodist, sir, begging your pardon."
+
+"Are you one?"
+
+The sergeant saluted.
+
+"He was the best man in his company and--and," he added with a touch
+of awe, "he was converted by Charles Wesley himself--at Bristol in
+'eighty, so he's told us--and him aged but sixteen."
+
+The General bent with sudden interest as the dying man opened his
+eyes.  After scanning his face for a moment or two he said gently:
+
+"My man, they tell me you knew Charles Wesley."
+
+The corporal painfully bent his brows, on which the last sweat was
+gathering.  "Is that--the General?" he gasped with a feeble effort to
+salute.  Then his brain seemed to clear suddenly and he answered, not
+as soldier to commanding officer, but as man to man.  "He converted
+me.  Praise be to God!"
+
+"You are going to him.  You know?"
+
+The corporal nodded.
+
+"And you may take him a message from me: for he once did me a
+handsome turn, too--though not in that way.  You may tell him--for I
+watched you with the guns to-day--that I pass you for a good soldier.
+You may tell him and his brother John that I wish to command no
+better followers than theirs.  Now, is there anything I can do for
+you?"
+
+The man looked up into the eyes of the sergeant bending over him,
+muttered a word or two, slowly drew his palm up to his forehead; and
+so, with the self-same salute, parted from his earthly captain and
+met his eternal Captain in Heaven.
+
+"What did he say?" asked the General.
+
+"He was wishful not to be put away without a hymn, sir," answered the
+sergeant, drawing himself erect to "Attention" and answering
+respectfully through his captain who had drawn near, having limbered
+up his gun.
+
+The General nodded and turned away to watch the lowering of the
+remaining guns.  A new track had been cut and down it they were
+trailed without accident.  One by one they crossed the gully.
+Then the rear regiments hove in sight with the ambulance.  The dead
+man was lifted in and his carrying-party, Wesleyans all, fell into
+rank behind the light wagon as that, too, moved on.
+
+"Ellerton," said the General suddenly as he gazed after them,
+"did you hear what I said to that poor fellow just now?"
+
+"Yes, General, and wondered."
+
+"It was true, though.  If it hadn't been for Charles Wesley, I should
+never be here commanding these troops.  Wesley or Wellesley, sir--
+spell the name as you will: the man who adopted my great-grandfather
+spelt it Wesley: and he moved heaven and earth to make Charles Wesley
+his heir before he condescended to us.  The offer stood open for
+years, but Charles Wesley refused it.  I never heard why."
+
+What--the hymn-man?"
+
+"Even so.  Odd story, is it not?"
+
+The man who was to be the great Duke of Wellington stared for a
+moment, lost in thought, at his rear-guard mounting the farther slope
+of the gully.  And as the British guns rolled onward into the dusk,
+back from the glimmering pass were borne the words of Wesley,
+Handel's music wafting them on its majestic wings:
+
+     "Rejoice, the Lord is King!
+        Your Lord and King adore:
+      Mortals, give thanks and sing
+        And triumph evermore.
+      Lift up your heart, lift up your voice--
+        Rejoice! again I say, Rejoice!"
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY WESLEY***
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