Читать книгу The Post-Girl - Edward Charles Booth - Страница 5

"Miss WEMYSS,Luzernerhof,Luzern,

Switzerland."

With this in his hand, and the big bath towel and red bathing drawers slung over his arm from their drying place on the hot sill, he made off down the baked pathway, whistling pleasantly like a new pied piper—a whole throng of feathered followers at his heels. By the wooden gate, where the red-tiled pump-walk makes junction with the front path at the kitchen end, Miss Bates waylaid him, holding out damp semi-wiped fingers, and saying an expectant "Thank ye."

"What for?" asked the Spawer, trying to dodge on either side of her ample bosom with an active eye for the kitchen door.

"For t' letter," said Miss Bates, unperturbed, "if ye 've written it. Ah 'll gie it to 'er as she gans back."

"Back where from?" inquired the Spawer, with a sudden thirst for information.

"Fro' Far Wrangham," Miss Bates told him, "... wi' letters for Barclay. But she 'll call again on 'er way 'ome, an' ah 'll see she teks it an' all, then."

"Thanks..." the Spawer decided on consideration, "but I think I 'll see her myself. I want to ask about posts...."

"There 's nobbut one," Miss Bates interposed hurriedly, "an' it gans out at 'alf-past four."

"That 's not the one I mean," the Spawer explained, and tacked on very quickly: "Which way does she come back?"

"It 's none so easy ti say," Miss Bates parried. "She mud come back bi Barclay's road ... or bi—bi"—the task of devising a second route being somewhat beyond her powers at the moment, she fell back upon a generality—"bi some other road," adding for justification: "She 'd come thruff [through] 'edge an' all if it suited 'er."

"It 's on my way, anyhow," the Spawer determined lightheartedly. "I 'll sit on Barclay's gate and take my chance."

He had been sitting on Barclay's gate some time, and would have sold all share of interest in the chance for a wax vesta, when suddenly he heard the stir of someone swiftly coming, and turning a leisurely head—with a hand laid ready to drop to his feet when they should reach the gate—became in a moment keenly alert to an object that showed now and again through the green hedge: a moving object that was neither a bird, nor a blossom, nor a butterfly, ... but a blue Tam-o'-Shanter.

CHAPTER V

And the face beneath it was the face he had been trying to remodel this morning, out of the obstinate stiff clays of remembrance. There were the dear, kissable, candid freckles, powdered in pure gold-dust about the bridge of the nose and the brows—each one a minstrel to truth; there were the great round eyes, shining smoothly, with the black-brown velvety softness of bulrushes; there were the rapt red lips, no longer baffling his gaze, but steadfast and discernible; there was the big beneficence of hair; the oaten-tinted cheeks, showing their soft surface-glint of golden down where the sunlight caught them; the little pink lobes; the tanned russet neck, so sleek and slim and supple, and the blue Tam-o'-Shanter topping all, as though it were a part of her, and had never moved since last the Spawer had looked upon it.

In every other respect she was the same girl that had sat in Dixon's place on the sofa last night. She wore still the simple skirt of blue serge, cut short above her ankles for freedom in walking (showing too, at close quarters, a cleverly-suppressed seam running down to the hem on the left side, like a zig-zag of lightning), and the plain print blouse, pale blue, with no pattern on it, ending at the throat in a neat white collar borrowed from the masculine mode, and tied with a little flame of red silk. Only the light rain-proof cape was wanting, but over her shoulders, in place of it, was slung the broad canvas belt of a post-bag that flapped bulkily against her right hip as she strode, with her right hand dipped out of sight into its capacious pocket. She came swinging along the hedge at a fine, healthy pace, as though the sun were but a harmless bright new penny, making rhythmic advance in a pair of stubborn little square-toed shoes, stoutly cobbled, with a pleasing redolence of Puritanism about their austere extremities; and so into the Spawer's presence, all unconscious and unprepared.

The sight of him, waiting over the gate, with his elbows ruling the top bar, his chin upon linked fingers, and a leisurely foot hoisted on to the second rail, broke the rhythm of her step for an instant on a sudden tide of color, and brought the hand out of the bag to readjust the shoulder-strap in a quick display of purpose. But she showed no frailties of embarrassment. She came along with simple self-possession to the greeting point, giving him her eyes there in a queer little indescribable sidelong look that a mere man might ponder over for a lifetime and never know the meaning of—a queer little indescribable, smileless, sidelong look, sent out under her lashes, that had nothing of fear or favor, or friendship or salutation, or embarrassment about it, but was pure, unmingled, ingenuous, feminine, stock-taking curiosity, as though she were studying him dispassionately from behind a loophole and calculating on his conduct with the most sublime, delicious indifference. The Spawer could have thrown up his head and laughed aloud at the look. Not in any spirit of ridicule—angels and ministers of grace defend us!—but with fine appreciative enjoyment, as one laughs for sheer pleasure at a beautiful piece of musical phrasing or an unexpected point of technique. If he had opened the gate with a grave mouth and let her through, not a doubt but she would have passed on without so much as the presumption of an eyelash upon their last night's relations, and never even looked back over a shoulder. But he stood and barred the way with his unyielding smile, and when she came up to him: "Are n't you going to speak to me?" he asked meekly.

At that the quick light of recognition and acknowledgment poured through the loophole. Not all the gathered sunbeams, had the girl been of stained glass, could have flooded her to a more surpassing friendly radiance than did her own inward smile. No word accompanied it, as if, indeed, with such a perfect medium for expression, any were needed. She drew up to the gate, and casting herself into a sympathetic reproduction of his attitude at a discreet distance down the rail, shaded a glance of gentle curiosity at him under her velvety thickness of lashes.

"To think," said the Spawer, looking at her with incredulous enjoyment, "here I 've been waiting innocently for the post, and wondering what it would be like when it came, and making up my mind it never was coming—and it 's you all the time."

"Did n't you know?"

"Sorra a word."

"I wanted to tell you all the time ... last night, who I was."

"I wanted badly to ask."

"But I dared n't."

"And I dared n't either. What a couple of cowards we 've been. Let 's be brave now, shall we, to make up for it? I'll ask and you shall tell me. Who are you?"

She dipped an almost affectionate hand into the post-bag, and extended it partly by way of presentation.

"I 'm the post-girl," she said.

He looked at the bag, and then along the extended arm to her.

"Really?" he asked, visibly uncertain that the post-bag was not merely part of a pleasing masquerade, or that the girl might not have put herself voluntarily under its brown yoke for some purpose as inexplicable as the trudging to Cliff Wrangham by starlight.

"Really and truly," she said. "I know I ought to have told you ... at first. But I thought, perhaps..." She plucked at a blade of grass, and biting it with her small, milk-white teeth, studied the bruised green rib with lowered eyes. "... Thought perhaps you 'd taken me for somebody different. And I was frightened you might be offended when you knew who it was."

In the clear frankness of her confession, and the soft, inquiring fearlessness of eye with which she encountered his glance at its conclusion, there was no tincture of abasement. As she stood there by the gate, with the broad badge of servitude across her girl's breast, she seemed glorified for the moment into a living text, attesting eloquently that it is not toil that dishonors, and that the social differences in labor come but from the laborer. In such wise the Spawer interpreted her, and embraced the occasion for belief with an inward glad response.

"But why should I be offended at the truth?" said he at length, his eyes waltzing all round hers (that were vainly trying to bring them to a standstill) in lenient laughter. "And how on earth could I take you for somebody different," he asked, drawing the subject away from the awkward brink of their disparity, "when you 're so unmistakably like yourself? Sakes alive! Nobody could mistake you."

She lowered eyes and voice together, and made with her fingers on the rail as though she were deciphering her words from some half-obliterated inscription in the wood.

"I want to tell you," she began, and the dear little golden freckles on her nose seemed to close in upon each other for strength and comfort, "how very sorry I am ... for what happened last night."

"You can't be sorrier than I am," the Spawer said. "It 's been on my conscience ever since. I was a beast to jump out as I did, and I admit it."

"I don't mean you," the girl cut in, with quick correction.

"Who then?" asked the Spawer.

"Me..." said the girl. "You were as kind as could be. Nobody could have been kinder ... under the circumstances ... or helped me to be less ashamed of myself."

"Please not to make fun of the poor blind man," the Spawer begged her, "... for he can't see it, and it 's wicked."

"Oh, but I mean it," said the girl. "I never got to sleep all last night for thinking of the music, and how badly I 'd acted."

"To be sure," said the Spawer, "your acting was n't altogether good. If, for instance, you had n't mistaken your cue when I came out through the window, I should never have known you were there at all."

"Should n't you?" asked the girl, with the momentary blank face for an opportunity gorgeously lost.

"Indeed, I should n't."

"All the same ... I 'm glad you did," she said, with sudden reversion of humility.

"Ah. That 's better," the Spawer assented. "So am I. It shows a proper appreciation of Providence."

"Because," the girl proceeded to explain, "when you 're found out you feel somehow as though you 'd paid for your wrong-doing, don't you? And, at least, it saves you from being a hypocrite, does n't it?"

"Oh, yes," said the Spawer, with infectious piety. "Capital thing for that. Splendid thing for that."

"Father Mostyn..." she began. "You know Father Mostyn, don't you?"

The name brought an uncomfortable sense of visitorial obligations unfulfilled to the Spawer's mind.

"Slightly," he said, the diminutive seeming to offer indemnity for his neglect.

"Yes, I thought so. He said you did," the girl continued. "You 're going to call and see him sometime, are n't you?"

"Sometime," the Spawer acquiesced. "Yes, certainly. I 'm hoping to do so when I can get a moment to spare. But I 'm very busy." He shifted the centre of conversation from his own shoulders. "Father Mostyn ... you were saying?"

"Oh, yes! Father Mostyn 's always warning us against being Ullbrig hypocrites. But it seems so hard to avoid." She sighed in spirit of hopelessness. "I seem to grow into an Ullbrig hypocrite in spite of everything."

"Never mind," said the Spawer consolatorily, casting a glance of admiration along the smooth, sleek cheek and neck. "It looks an excellent thing for the complexion."

"That?" The girl ran a careless hand where his eye had been without making any attempt to parry the compliment. "Oh, that 's being out in the rain. Rain 's a wonderful thing for the complexion. Father Mostyn says so. But it can't wash these away," she said, touching the little cluster of freckles with a wistful finger. "These are being out in the sun."

"I was looking at those too," said the Spawer frankly. "I rather like them."

"Do you?" asked the girl, plucking up at his appreciation. "Yes, some people do—but not those that have them. Father Mostyn says they 're not actually a disfigurement, but they 're given me to chasten my pride. He says whenever I 'm tempted to look in the glass I shall always see these and remind myself, 'Yes, but my nose is freckled,' and that will save me from being vain. And it's funny, but it 's quite true."

"You know Father Mostyn well, of course?" said the Spawer, his question not altogether void of a desire to learn how far this estimable ecclesiast might be discussed with safety.

"Oh!" The girl made the quick round mouth for admiration, and held up visible homage in her eyes. "Father Mostyn's the best friend I have in the world. He 's taught me everything I know—it's my fault, not his, that I know so little—and done things for me, and given me things that all my gratitude can never, never repay. It was he allowed me to go round with the letters."

"That was very good of him," said the Spawer, with a tight mouth.

"Was n't it?" the girl said, showing a little glow of recognisant enthusiasm. "At first uncle was rather frightened—frightened that I ought not to do it, but we all thought six shillings a lot of money to lose (that 's what I get); and Father Mostyn said most certainly I was to have it."

"And so he gave it," said the Spawer. "Jolly kind of him."

"Oh, no! he did n't give it," the girl corrected, after a momentary reference to the Spawer's face. "Government gives it ... but he said I was to have it—and I have."

"And what did uncle say?" asked the Spawer amicably.

"Uncle? Oh, he said it was the will of Providence, and he hoped it would soon be ten; but it's not ten yet, and I don't think it will be for a long time. There were others who wanted the six shillings too, as badly as I did—and deserved it better, some of them, I mink. At one time I felt so ashamed to be going about and taking the money that seemed to belong to such a number of people who said they had a right to it, that I asked to give the bag up; but uncle seemed so sad about it, and said it was flying in the face of Providence to give anything up that you 'd once got hold of, and Father Mostyn said it was a special blessing of Heaven bestowed upon me (though I 'm sure I don't know) ... and so I kept it. It was a struggle at times, though—even though Father Mostyn used to walk with me all the way round by Shippus to keep up my courage.... And that reminds me," she said, showing sudden perception of responsibility, "I have to go that way this morning."

"What! have n't you got rid of all your letters yet, then?"

"All except two," she said, and thrusting open the flabby canvas maw with one hand, peered down into its profounds as though her look should satisfy him of their presence by proxy. "They 're for Shippus."

"And you have to walk round by Shippus ... now?"

She nodded her head, and said a smiling "Yes" to his surprise, letting fall the canvas and patting the bag's cheek with the consolatory dismissal for a dog just freed from dental inspection. Then, more reluctantly, as though the saying were as hard to come at as a marked apple at the bottom of the barrel, she said ... she must really ... be going. They would be expecting her. She 'd been kept rather long at Barclay's as it was, writing something out for him. And made to come through the gate.

"And, by Jove ... that reminds me," said the Spawer. "So must I."

She drew a covetous conclusion from his bathing equipment, and the blue sky, showing so deep and still beyond the cliff line, and was already half turned on a leave-taking heel (a little saddened, perhaps, at his readiness to assist the separation), when she found him by her side.

"But which way are you going?" she asked, for the sea lay now at their backs, and the Spawer, as was evident (and as we all know), had been going a-bathing.

"The same way as you are," he answered, "if you 'll have me."

And when Miss Bates (who had been watching them all the time from the end attic window, with Jeff's six-penny telescope stuck to one eye and a hand clapped over the other) saw this result of the girl's abominable scheming, she became very wroth indeed; filled to the brim and overflowing with righteous indignation that her sex could sink thus low. She snapped the telescope together so viciously that she thought she had cracked it, and when she found she had n't she was wrother than ever as compensation for this false alarm, and almost wished she had.

"Ay, ye may set ye-sen up at 'im, ye gret, cat-eyed, frowsy-'eaded 'ussy!" she said, hurling the javelins of her anger at the blue Tam-o'-Shanter (every one of which, so far as could be discernible at that distance, seemed to miss), "bud if ye think 'e 'll be ta'en wi' yer daft, fond ways ye think wrong an' all. Ay, you, ah mean. Ah 'd be sorry to set mysen i' onny man's road like yon, mah wod. Think shame o' ye-sen, ye graceless mynx. Ah know very well 'e 's wantin' to be shut o' ye."

And after much further vehement exhortation to this effect, flung herself gustily down the staircase, slamming all the steps in descent, like March doors, and carried the full force of her indignation into the kitchen, where she swept it from end to end, as though she were a tidal wave.

"Out o' my road!" she cried at Lewis, innocently engaged in fishing the big dresser with a toasting-fork for what it might yield; and before he could stop spinning sufficiently to get a sight of his assailant (though he had no doubts who it was), was on him again: "Away wi' ye an' all."

And had him (still revolving) round the table.

"Let 's be rid o' ye!"

And licked him up like a tongue of avenging flame by the big range.

"Div ye want to throw a body over?"

And was ready for him by the door.

"Noo, kick me if ye dare."

And whipped him out through the scullery like a top, with a parting:

"Tek that an' all."

Which he took, like physic, as directed; and ten minutes later, seeing his mother emerge from the calf-house, and being in possession of ample breath for the purpose, put Miss Bates' injustice on record in a historic howl.

CHAPTER VI

The sun had slipped away through Dixon's stackgarth and twilight was subsiding slowly in soft rose amber, like the sands of an hour-glass, as the Spawer wheeled round Hesketh's corner. Against a tremulant pink sky the lich-gate stood out in black profile, edged with luminous copper; the church tower was dipped in dull red gold as far as the luffer of the belfry; and the six Vicarage windows gleamed bloodshot from behind their iron bars when he came upon them for the first time. A group of happy children, playing at calling names and slapping each other down the roadway, stopped their pastime on a sudden and ran up to take awed stock of this presumptuous stranger, who dismounted before his reverence the Vicar's as though he actually meant to open the gate.

At the first contact of bicycle with the railings, the gathered gloom about the Vicarage door seemed suddenly to be sucked inwards, and the eddying dusk reshaped itself over the priestly dimensions of Father Mostyn.

"Ha!" The word rang out in greeting like a genial note of prelude blown on Gabriel's trumpet. "There you are. Capital! capital! I made sure we should find you not so far away." He waltzed down the narrow path to open the gate, balancing both hands as though they held an invisible baby for baptism, and its name was "Welcome." One of these—a plump, soft, balmy, persuasive, clerical right hand,—he gave to the Spawer by the gate; threw it, rather, as Noah might have thrown his dove across the face of the waters, with such a beautiful gesture of benediction that in settling down upon the Spawer's fingers it seemed to confer the silent virtue of a blessing.

"The bicycle too," he said, wagging humorous temporal greeting towards it with his left. "Capital! capital! I thought we should n't be walking to-night. There 's no evening post, you see, in Ullbrig." He flung the gate backward on its hinges as far as it would go. "Come in; come in. Bring your bicycle along with you. Not that anybody would dare to violate its sanctuary by the Vicarage palings, but the saddle would absorb the dew and—let me help you."

All the time, from the gate to the doorway, his hands were hovering busily about the bicycle without once touching it; yet with such a consummate suggestion of assistance that the Spawer with very little prompting could have sworn before Justices that his Reverence had carried the machine into the hall unaided.

It was a big, bare hall—square, flagged in stone, and ringing to their footsteps with the sonority of a crypt. From the ceiling depended a swing-lamp of brass at the end of a triple chain. On the left-hand side stood a hard ecclesiastical bench of black oak, primarily provided, no doubt, for the accommodation of those visitors to whom the privilege of a front room audience would be denied. On the right side filed a long line of austere wooden pegs in monastic procession. A canonical beaver obliterated the first of them; two more held up the dread square mortar-board against the wall between them, diamond-wise, each supporting a corner. For the rest, some sticks and umbrellas—with the ebony divining rod of far-reaching reputation conspicuous among them—completed the movables of the hall. The bicycle followed the mesmeric indication of Father Mostyn's hands into place along the wall under the hat rack, and the priest saw that it was good.

By a magnificent act of courtesy he relieved the Spawer of his cap, and swept his own black mortar-board down the rack to make place of honor for it—though there were half a dozen unoccupied places to either side. Then, taking up a matchbox from the oak bench, which he shook cautiously against his ear for assurance of its store, he invited the Spawer to follow him, and threw open the inner door.

"The Vicar, you see," he explained, as his shoulders dipped into the dusk over the threshold, "is his own servant in addition to being everybody else's. He acts as a chastening object-lesson to our Ullbrig pride. We don't go out to service in Ullbrig. We scrub floors, we scour front-door steps, we wash clothes, we clean sinks, we empty slops, we peel potatoes—but, thank God, we are not servants. Only his reverence is a servant. When anything goes wrong with our nonconformist inwards—run, Mary, and pull his reverence's bell. That 's what his reverence is for. Don't trouble the doctor first of all. Let 's see what his reverence says. The doctor will go back and enter the visit in a book, and charge you for it. If anything goes worse—run, Mary, again. Never mind your apron—he won't notice. Pull the bell harder this time, and let 's have a prayer out of his reverence to make sure—with a little Latin in it. The pain 's spreading. For we 're all of us reverences in chapel, each more reverend than his neighbor; but in sick-beds we 're very humble sinners indeed, who only want to get better so that we may be ready and willing to go when the Lord sees fit to take us. Or if it 's a little legal advice you 're in need of—why pay six and eightpence to an articled solicitor? Go and knock up his reverence. He 's the man for you—and send him a turnip for his next harvest festival."

Genially discoursing on the Ullbrig habit as they proceeded, with an occasionally guiding line thrown over his shoulder in bolder type for the Spawer's assistance: "... A little crockery to your left here. Ha! ... mind the table-corner. You see the chair?" he led the way into the right-hand room—a room larger than you would have dared to imagine from the roadway—lighted dimly by one tall, smouldering amber window of many panes; heavy with the smell of tobacco, and heaped up in shapeless shadow-masses of disorder. Two great bales of carpet stood together in one corner like the stern roots of trees that had been cut down. On the grained side-cupboard to the left hand of the fireplace were glasses—regiments of glasses—of all sorts and shapes and sizes and qualities. A cumbersome early-century round table, rising like a giant toad-stool from a massive octagonal stalk, apparently constituted the larder, to the very verge of whose circumference were cocoa-tins, marmalade jars, tea-cups, tea-pots, saucers; sugar-bags red and blue; some cross-marked eggs in a pie-dish; a brown bread loaf, about three parts through, and some cold ham.

And yet, despite the room's disorder, entering in the wake of those benignant shoulders; treading in the constricted pathways delineated by those sacerdotal shoes (virtually and spiritually sandals); wrapped about with the atmosphere of genial indulgence thrown forth this side and that from those priestly fingers, as though they swung an invisible censer—one lacked all power to question. A swing to the left, the fault of the chair was forgiven; a swing to the right, what fear of treading on crockery; a swing to the front, were he swinging a lanthorn now the way could hardly be better lighted.

Such was the power of Father Mostyn.

So, swinging and censing, and asperging and exhorting, and absolving and exorcising till all the ninety-nine devils of disorder were cast out, the priest passed through to the window.

"Ha!" said he, with the keen voice for a conviction realised, when he came there. "I knew we should catch sight of Mrs. Gatheredge somewhere about. By Fussitter's steps for choice. She suffers dreadfully, poor woman, from a chronic enlargement"—he paused to slip his fingers into the rings of the shutters—"of the curiosity. I believe the disease is incurable. It will kill her in the end, I 'm afraid, as it did Lot's wife. Nothing can be done for her, except to protect her as much as possible from harmful excitement. If you don't mind the dark for a moment"—the first shutter creaked upward—"we 'll fasten ourselves in before making use of the matches. The strain of looking into his reverence's room when he lights the lamp and has a guest inside might prove too much for her—bring about a fatal congestion of the glans curiosus. His reverence, you see, has got to think for others as well as himself. Ha! that's better." The second shutter closed upon the first like the great jaw of a megalosaurus, swallowing up the dwindling remains of daylight at a gulp. "Now we can light up in all good Christian faith and charity."

He struck a match, and so far as the Spawer could observe—since the Vicar's back was turned—appeared to be setting fire to the stack of papers on his writing-table. After a moment, however, when the flame had steadied, he drew it forth transferred to the wick of a composite candle, which he held genially horizontal while he beckoned the Spawer forward by virtue of the signet finger.

"That 's it," he said, wagging appreciative grease-drops from the candle. "Come along! come along! Let's see if we can't manage to find some sort of a seat for you. We ought to do—I was sitting down in one myself not so long ago." Still wagging the candle and performing an amiable bear-dance on both feet in a revolving twelve-inch circle as he considered the question on all sides of him, presently he made a pounce into the central obscurity and dragged out a big leather-backed chair by the arm, like a reluctant school-boy. "Here we are," says he, rejoicing in the capture. "The very thing I had in my mind. Try that. You 'll want to beg it of me when you 've known its beauties a time or two. That 's the chair of chairs, cathedra cathedrarum. There 's comfort for you!"

Negligently wiping the leather-work with a corner of his cassock, he declared the chair open for the Spawer's accommodation.

From the fender, bristling with the handles of saucepans, all thrust outward like the quills of a porcupine, he commanded a block tin kettle—and a small spirit-lamp. Other journeyings to and fro provided him with water in a glorious old John Bull mug, with a lemon, with a basin of lump sugar, with two spoons, with whiskey, with a nutmeg and grater, with cigars, contained in a massive case of embossed silver, with cigarettes, of which the Spawer was constrained to acceptance, having previously disappointed Father Mostyn by a refusal of his choice Havanas; with tobacco in a fat, eighteenth-century jar, lavishly pictured and proverbed; and with a colored, clay churchwarden as long as a fiddlestick, that looked as if it would snap brittly in two of its own weight at the first attempt to lift it. Lastly, all these things being accumulated one by one, and laid out temptingly on the little round table, with the blue flame established at the bottom of the kettle, and tapering downwards to its junction with the wick like a sea-anemone, Father Mostyn permitted himself to sink back hugely upon the chair, lifting both feet from the ground as he did so, in supreme testimony to the full ripe fruits of ease.

"Well," said he, setting his fingers to work in the depths of the tobacco jar, "and what about the music?" His tongue appeared reflectively in his cheek for a moment, and his keen eye fixed the far wall on a nice point of remembrance. "Let 's see.... A symphonium?"

The Spawer adjusted the balance gently: "A concerto."

"Ha! a concerto." Enlightenment swept over the Vicar's face like a tide of sunlight, and his shoulders shook as with the laughter of gladsome things. "Beautiful! beautiful! To think of our stubborn Ullbrig soil's being made to yield a concerto. Had it been a turnip now. But a concerto! Ullbrig knows nothing of concertos. It would know still less if you were to explain. Explanations only confuse us—besides being an unwarrantable violation of our precious rights of ignorance. Tell friend Jevons you 're at work upon a concerto, and see what he says. He 'll tell you, yes, his son 's got one." Father Mostyn cast the forefinger of conviction at him. "Depend upon it, that 's what he 'll tell you. His son 's got one. A beauty with bells that he gave eighteenpence for. Meaning one of those nickel-silver mouth-organs such as we can't go to Hunmouth Fair without bringing back with us—unless we plunge for a concertina. It 's got to be one or the other, or people might n't think we 'd been to Hunmouth Fair at all, and that 's a light too glorious to be hid under a bushel. But it 's all one in name to us whatever we get. We call it a 'music.' Whether it 's a piano, or a fiddle, or a song, or a symphonium, or a sonata, or a Jew's harp, or a concertina, or a sackbut—the definition does n't alter. We call it a 'music.' 'So-and-So 's gotten a grand music.' 'It 's a grand music, yon.' That 's our way."

The little black cat of a kettle, after purring complacently for a while over the blue flame, suddenly arched its lidded back and spat out across the table.

"Ha!" Father Mostyn turned gladsomely at the sound. "There 's music for you. Come; you 're a whiskey man? Say when and fear not."

"If you don't mind, I 'll say it now," said the Spawer, with laughing apology.

"No?" His Reverence held out the uncorked bottle by the neck, persuasively tilted. "Think twice, my son, before committing yourself to hasty judgments." Then seeing the Spawer was not to be moved: "A glass of sherry, then? Benedictine? Capital! You won't beat Benedictine for a standard liqueur. Apart from its pleasant effect upon the palate, it has a valuable corroborant action on the gastric juices, and tends to the promotion of chyme."

All in speaking he produced the familiar flagon from the sideboard, poured out a cut-glass thumbful of amber. This act of hospitality fulfilled, he turned, with no diminished zeal, to the serving of his own requirements. He sipped warily from an edge of his smoking glass to verify his expectations of the flavor, nipped his lips for a moment in judicial degree, and subsided slowly upon the chair in a long breath of rapture, extending the tumbler towards the Spawer for wassail—"here 's success to our concerto, and may your days be long in the land with us. We 're a stiff-necked and obstinate generation, who worship gods of our own making, and have more than a shrewd idea that the devil 's in music (we know for certain he 's in the Church); but we bake good pies for all that, and our nonconformist poultry can't be beaten."

The Spawer laughed. "And our postman?" he asked.

CHAPTER VII

"Ha!" Father Mostyn played upon the note momentously, as though he were throwing open the grand double gates of discussion. "Pamela, you mean! I knew we should come to that before long. No help for it." He subpoenaed the Spawer for witness to the wisdom of his conclusions with a wagged forefinger. "But Pamela 's not Ullbrig. Pamela was n't fashioned out of our Ullbrig clay. She 's not like the rest of us; comes of a different class altogether. You can't mistake it. Take note of her when she laughs—you 're a musical man and you 'll soon see—she covers the whole diapason. Ullbrig does n't laugh like that. Ullbrig laughs on one note as though it were a plough furrow. There 's nothing of cadence about our Ullbrig laughter—that 's a thing only comes with breed. Notice her eyebrows, too, when she 's speaking, and see how beautifully flexible they are." The Vicar warmed to the subject with the enthusiasm of a connoisseur.

"No—there 's nothing of our clay in Pamela's construction. Pam is like charity; suffereth long and is kind. Envieth not; vaunteth not herself; is not puffed up. Doth not behave herself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil. Ullbrig does n't understand Pam any more than it understands the transit of Venus or the rings of Saturn. Pam 's above our heads and comprehension. Because she goes to church on Sunday, and does n't walk with our Ullbrig young men down Lovers' Lane at nightfall, we say she 's proud. Because she 's too generous to refuse them a word in broad daylight, when they ask for it, we say she 's forward. Because she never says unkind things of us all in turn behind our backs, and won't listen to any, we say she 's disagreeable. Because she does n't read the post-cards on her way round, and tell us whether Miss So-and-So ever hears from that Hunmouth young gentleman or not, we say she keeps a still tongue in her head—which is our Ullbrig idiom for a guilty conscience. That we had only a few more Pams—with due gratitude to Blessed Mary for the one we 've got."

"As a postman," said the Spawer, entering into the Vicar's appreciation, "she 's the most astonishing value I ever saw. The girl seems to have a soul. Who is she? And where does she come from?"

Father Mostyn's brows converged upon the pipe-bowl in the hollow of his knee, and his cassock swelled to a long breath of mystery. "Who is she? and where does she come from? ... Those are the questions. À priori, I 'm afraid there 's nothing to answer them. So far, it seems to have been Heaven's wise purpose to reveal her as a beautiful mystery; an incarnate testimony to the teaching of Holy Church—if only Ullbrig knew the meaning of the word testimony. She came to Ullbrig, in the first place, with her mother, as quite a little girl, and lodged with friend Morland at the Post Office. I believe there was some intention on her mother's part of founding a small preparatory school in combination with poultry farming at the time. Yes, poor woman, I rather fear that was her intention. She seemed to think it would yield them both a livelihood, and give Pamela the benefit of new-laid eggs; but she died suddenly, the very day after Tankard had agreed to let her the cottage down Whivvle Lane at four and sixpence a week—being three shillings the rent of the cottage, and eighteenpence because she was a lady. Ha! that 's the way with us. To try and do you one; do your father one; do your mother one; do your sister one; do your brother one; but particularly do one to them that speak softly with you, and his reverence the Vicar. Him do half a dozen if you can, being an ecclesiast, and so difficult to do." He wiped the smile off his mouth with one ruminative stroke of his sleek fingers—you might almost suppose he had palmed it, and slipped it up his sleeve, so quickly did it come away. "She died suddenly, poor woman, before I could get to her. Cardiac hæmorrhage, commonly, and not always incorrectly, called a broken heart. No doubt about it. They sent for me three times, but it happened most grievously that I had tricycled off to Whivvle that day to inquire into a little matter concerning the nefarious sale of glebe straw—(I 'm afraid I shall have to be going there again before so long; the practice shows signs of revival)—and she was dead when I got back. We buried her round by the east window, where the grass turns over the slope towards the north wall. You can just see the top of the stone from the roadway." He indicated its approximate position with a benedictory cast of the signet hand. "After paying all funeral expenses, it was found that there remained a small balance of some thirty pounds odd—evidently the tail-end of their resources—in virtue whereof, friend Morland's heart was moved to take Pam to his bosom, and give her a granddaughter's place in the family circle. Thirty pounds, you see, goes a long way in Ullbrig, where we grow almost everything for ourselves except beer and tobacco. One mouth more or less to feed makes hardly any appreciable difference."

"But were there no relatives?" the Spawer suggested.

Father Mostyn shook his head significantly.

"And you were n't able to trace the mother's movements before she came to Ullbrig?"

"No further than Hunmouth." His Reverence tried the edge of the Spawer's interest with a keen eye through drawn lashes, as though it were a razor he was stropping. "Following up a theory of mine, we traced her as far as Hunmouth. But for that, if we 'd taken friend Morland's advice, we should have lost her altogether. As I predicted, we found she 'd been living for some time in small lodgings there.... There was some question of music teaching, I believe."

"Music teaching?" The Spawer leaned on the interrogative with all the weight of commiserative despair.

"I rather gathered so. She gave lessons to the landlady's daughter, I fancy, in return for the use of the piano, and she had a blind boy studying with her for a while. His family thought of making him a church organist, but unfortunately for all parties concerned, the boy's father failed. Yes, failed rather suddenly, poor man, and cast quite a gloom over the musical outlook. Then Pamela seems to have acquired diphtheria from a sewer opening directly under the bedroom window, and had a narrow squeak for it; and after that her terrified mother fled the town with her, and brought her into the country. There 's no danger of sewers in the country, you see. We have n't such things; we know better."

"And that's what brought them to Ullbrig?" asked the Spawer.

"That's what brought them to Ullbrig. What brought them to Hunmouth is still a matter for conjecture. I called upon the doctor subsequently who attended Pam there, but he could give me no information about them, beyond the fact that his bill had been paid before they left."

"I should have thought, though," said the Spawer, tipping his lips with golden Benedictine, and sending the bouquet reflectively through his nostrils, "that she would have left letters—or something of the sort—behind her, which might have been followed up."

"One would have thought so, naturally. But no; not a single piece of manuscript among all her possessions."

"That," said the Spawer, "looks awfully much as though they 'd been purposely destroyed."

Father Mostyn's lips tightened significantly, and he nodded his head with sagacious indulgence for the tolerable work of a novice.

"Moreover, in such books as belonged to her the flyleaf was invariably missing. Torn bodily out. Not a doubt about it."

"To remove traces of her identity?"

The Vicar slipped his forefinger into the pipe-bowl and gave the tobacco a quick, conclusive squeeze. "Unquestionably."

"But for what reason, do you think?"

His Reverence sat back luxuriously in the arm-chair, with fingers outspread tip to tip over the convex outline of his cassock, and legs crossed reposefully for the better enjoyment of his own discourse. "In the first place, she was a lady. Not a doubt about it. No mere professional man's daughter, brought up amid the varying circumstances incidental to professional society, and trained to consider her father's interests in all her actions—(the little professional discipline of conduct always shows)—but a woman of birth and position. Belonging to a good old military family, I should say, judging by her bearing, with a fine, sleek living or two in its gift for the benefit of the younger branch. Depend upon it. She would come of the elder branch, though, and I should take her to be an only daughter. There would be no sons. Unfortunately, a painful indisposition of a lumbaginous nature prevented my extending her more than the ordinary parochial courtesy at the first, and she died within a fortnight of her arrival. Otherwise, doubtless she would have sought to tell me her circumstances in giving the customary intimation of a desire to benefit by the blessed Sacraments of the Church—but there 's no mistaking the evidence." He recapitulated it over his fingers. "She was the daughter of a wealthy military man, a widower, who had possibly distinguished himself in the Indian service (most likely a major-general and K.C.B.), living on a beautiful estate somewhere down south—say Surrey or the Hampshire Downs."

"Could n't you have advertised in some of the southern papers?" suggested the Spawer.

"Precisely. We advertised for some time, and to some considerable extent, in such of them as would be likely to come under the General's notice—but without success. Indeed, none was to be expected. Men of the General's station in life don't trouble to read advertisements, much less answer them—and if, in this case, he 's read it, it would n't have changed his attitude towards a discarded daughter or induced a reply. Therefore, to continue advertising would have been merely to throw good money after bad.... Ha! Consequently the next step in our investigations is to decide what could be responsible for her detachment from these attractive surroundings, and her subsequent lapse into penurious neglect. It could n't have been the failure of her father's fortune. A catastrophe of this sort would n't have cut her off completely from the family and a few, at least, of her necessarily large circle of friends. Some of her clerical half-cousins, too, would have come forward to her assistance, depend upon it. But even supposing the probabilities to be otherwise, then there would be still less reason for her voluntary self-excision. Though under these circumstances, one might understand her never referring to her family connection, it 's inconceivable to suppose that she should have gone to any particular trouble to conceal traces of the fact. To have done so would have been a work of supererogation, besides running counter to all our priestly experience of the human heart and its workings. No. In the resolute attempt to cut herself off from her family the priestly eye perceives the acting hand of pride. Not a doubt about it. Pride did her. The pride of love. No mistaking it. The headstrong pride of love. Faith removes mountains, but love climbs over 'em, at all costs. Depend upon it, she 'd given her heart to some man against the General's will, and run away and married him. Marriage was the first step in her descent."

"Or do you think..." hazarded the Spawer, with all humility for intruding his little key into so magnificent a lock of hypothesis, "that marriage was a missing step altogether, and she tripped for want of it?"

Father Mostyn received the suggestion with magnanimous courtesy—almost as though it had been a duly expected guest. "I think not. Under certain conditions of life that would be an admirable hypothesis for working purposes. But it won't fit the present case. In the first instance, we must remember that those little idiosyncrasies of morality occur less frequently in the class of society with which we 're dealing, and that when they actually occur, the most elaborate precautions are taken against any leakage of the fact. Moreover, let's look at the actual evidence. All the woman's linen—the handkerchiefs, the underclothing, the petticoats, the chemises, and so forth—were embroidered with the monogram 'M.P.S.,' standing, not a doubt about it, for Mary Pamela Searle. Some of the child's things, bearing the identical monogram, showed that they 'd been cut down for her; while one or two more recent articles—of a much cheaper material—were initialled simply 'P.S.' in black marking-ink. It 's necessary to remember this. Now, if we turn from the linen to the books I spoke about and contrast their different methods of treatment, we shall find strong testimony to the support of my contention. On the one hand, linen, underclothing, chemises, petticoats, pocket-handkerchiefs, and so forth, marked plainly 'M.P.S.' and 'P.S.' On the other hand, a Bible, a book of Common Prayer in padded morocco, evidently the property of a lady; a Shakespeare; a volume of Torquato Tasso's 'Gerusalemme Liberato,' in levant; an old-fashioned copy of 'Mother Goose'; and one or two other volumes, all with the fly-leaf torn out. No mistaking the evidence. Searle was her rightful married name, and there was no need to suppress it. For all intents and purposes, it suited her as well as another. Besides, pride would n't allow her to cast aside the name of her own choosing. Pride had got too fast hold of her by the elbow, you see, for that. Keep a sharp look-out for the hand of pride in the case as we go along, and you won't be likely to lose your way. It will be a sign-post to you. Searle was the name she 'd given everything up for—her father, her home, her friends, her family, her position—and it had been bought too dear to throw aside. It was the other name pride wanted her to get rid of. That 's why the fly-leaves came out. Depend upon it. They were gift-books belonging to her unmarried days. The Shakespeare was a present from her father; Torquato Tasso came most likely from an Italian governess; some girl-friend gave her the Prayer-book—perhaps as a souvenir of their first Communion. The Bible would hardly be in the nature of a gift-book. People of social distinction, brought up in conformity with the best teachings of Holy Church, and abhorring all forms of unorthodoxy as they would uncleanliness, don't make presents to themselves of Bibles. That 's a plebeian practice, savoring objectionably of free-thinking and dissent. The Bible is not mentioned or made use of by well-bred people in that odious popular manner. No, the book would figure in her school-room equipment as part of a necessary instruction, but no more.

"... Ha!" His hand, on its way to the round table, arrested itself suddenly in mid-air as though to impose a listening silence. "... There goes friend Davidson—keeping his promise. I thought it was about his time. He gave me his sacred word he would n't touch a drop of liquor in Ullbrig for three months, so now he has to trot off to Shippus instead." The Spawer listened, but could get not the faintest hint of the delinquent's passage. "So now," Father Mostyn took up, starting his hand on again with a descriptive relaxation of its muscles, as though the culprit had just rounded the corner, and there were nothing further of him worth listening for, "... we 've got the whole case in the hollow of our hands. We see that the breach with the family was brought about by her own act, and that that act was marriage. But it was n't merely marriage against the General's consent or sanction. Marriages of disobedience and self-will are nearly always, in our priestly experience, forgiven at the birth of the first child; more especially, of course, if it happens to be a son.... Therefore we must find a stronger divisional factor than a marriage of disobedience. Ha! undoubtedly. A marriage of derogation. No mistaking it. A marriage of derogation. She married beneath her. That 's an unpardonable offence in families of birth and position. We can forgive a daughter for marrying above her, but we can't forgive a daughter for marrying beneath her—even when she 's the only daughter we 've got. Moreover, this case was badly aggravated by the fact that there was no money in it. She fell in love with some penniless scamp of a fellow, with an irresistible black moustache and dark eyes—there are plenty of 'em knocking about in London society, who could n't produce a receipted bill or a banker's reference to save their lives—got her trousseau together by stealth; had it all proudly embroidered with the name she was about to take; kissed her father more affectionately than usual one night ... and the next morning was up with the lark and miles away." He kept casting the ingredients one after another into the hypothetical pancheon with a throw of alternate hands—the right hand for the sin she had committed; the left hand for the penniless scamp of a fellow; the right hand again for her trousseau; the left hand for the elopement, and so on, with all the unction of a chef engaged upon the preparation of some great dish, and stuck the spoon into it with a fine, conclusive "Ha!"

"After that," said he, interrupting the sentence for a moment to give two or three reclamatory puffs at his pipe, "the rest 's as plain as print. She 'd made a bad bargain with her family, and she 'd made a worse with her husband. Depend upon it. Searle was a gambler—an improvident, prodigal, reckless rascal—who tapped what money she had like a cask of wine. As soon as Pamela was born, the wretched woman began to see where things were drifting. She dared n't suggest retrenchment to her husband, but she began to practise a few feeble economies in the house and upon her own person. No more silks and satins after that. No more embroidered chemises. No more fine linen. Nothing new for Pamela, where anything could be cut down. Nothing new for herself, where anything old would do. Cheapen the living here, cheapen the living there—until at last, thank God! in the fourth year of his reign, this monstrum nulla virtute redemptum a vitiis takes to his wife's bed—not having one of his own—and does her the involuntary kindness of dying in it. So our Blessed Lady leads Pamela and her mother to Ullbrig by gradual stages, and there, the mother's share in the work being done, she is permitted to fall asleep. Ha! Friend Morland"—he approached the tumbler to his lips under cover of the apostrophe, and sought the ceiling in drinking with a rapturous eye, "... you never drove a better bargain in your life than when you acquired a resident daughter of Mary with a premium of thirty pounds. Look at all the blessings that have been specially bestowed upon you for her sake. Look at the boots that get worn out in tramping backwards and forwards to the Post Office since Heaven put into our heads the notion of buying penny stamps in two ha'penny journeys, and calling round to let you know we shall be wanting a post-card in the morning. Did our young men do this before Pam's time? And where do we carry all our boots and shoes to when they have n't another ha'penny journey in their soles? Not to Cobbler Roden. Cobbler Roden does n't shelter a daughter of Mary. Cobbler Roden does n't shelter a daughter of anybody—not even his own—if he can help it. Not to Cobbler Dingwall. Cobbler Dingwall does n't shelter a daughter of Mary. Heaven sends down no blessing on Cobbler Dingwall's work. We find it 's clumsy and does n't last. No, we don't take 'em to any of these. We take 'em to Shoemaker Morland. That 's where we take 'em. Shoemaker Morland. He 's the man. All the rest are only cobblers, being under no patronage of Blessed Mary, but friend Morland 's a shoemaker. Moreover, the Post Office has n't lacked for lodgers since Pam came to it—there 's the schoolmaster there now. A strange, un-get-at-able sort of a fellow, to be sure, whom I strongly suspect of nursing secret aggression against the Church; still a payer of bills, and in that respect a welcome addition to the Morland household."

"Friend Morland, then," said the Spawer, "combines the offices of shoemaker and postmaster-general for Ullbrig?"

Father Mostyn forefingered the statement correctively.

"Those are his offices. But he does n't combine them. He keeps them scrupulously distinct. One half of him is postmaster-general and the other is shoemaker. I forget just at the moment which half of him you 've got to go to if you want stamps, but you might just as well try to get cream from a milk biscuit as buy stamps at the shoemaking side. Apart from these little peculiarities, however, he 's as inoffensive a specimen of dissent as any Christian might hope to find. Without a trained theological eye one might take him any day for a hard-working, respectable member of the True Body. His humility in spiritual matters is almost Catholic. You 'd be astonished to find such humility in the possession of a Non-conformist—until you knew what exalted influence had brought it about. He repudiates the Nonconformist doctrine that the Divine copyright of teaching souls goes along with the possession of a fourpenny Bible. His view on the question is that the Book 'takes overmuch understanding to try and explain to anybody else.' On this point, with respect to Pamela, I 'd never had any trouble with him. She 's been born and brought up in the Church; she 'd true Church blood in her veins. Her mother was a Churchwoman. Her grandfather, like the gallant old soldier that he was, was a Churchman; a strong officer of the Church Militant, occupying the family pew every Sunday morning, who would have died of apoplectic mortification at the thought that any descendant of his should ever sink so low as to sit on the varnished schismatical benches of an Ullbrig meeting-house. All which, when I put it before him, Friend Morland saw in a clear and catholic spirit. It 's true for a short time he wished to make a compromise—at the instigation of his wife, undoubtedly—whereby Pamela was to attend church in the mornings and meeting-house in the evening—a most odious and unscriptural arrangement, quite incompatible with canonical teaching. However, special light of grace was poured into his heart from above, and he perceived the aged General in such a vivid revelation trembling with martial anger at this act of indignity to one of his flesh and blood, that he woke up in a great sweat two nights successively, and came running before breakfast to tell me that the spiritual responsibility of a general's granddaughter was proving too much for him, and he 'd be humbly grateful if his Reverence the Vicar would take the matter on his own shoulders, and bear witness (should any be required) that he (John William Morland) had in all things done his utmost to act in conformity with what he thought to be the General's wishes. So I made him stand up in the hall and recite a proper declaratio abjurationis before me then and there, gave him his coveted ego te absolvo Joannes, and received Pamela forthwith as spiritual ward in our most Catholic Church."

"But is she going to consecrate all her days to the carrying of letters?" asked the Spawer, in a voice of some concern. "A dieu ne plaise."

Father Mostyn knocked the ashes cautiously out of his pipe into a cupped palm and threw them over the hearth. "There 's the rub. That 's what I 've been wanting to have a little talk with you about. Her bringing up has been in the nature of a problem—a sort of human equation. We 've had to try and develop all her latent qualities of birth and breed, and maintain them in a state of exact equilibrium against the downward forces of environment. Just the slightest preponderance on one side or other might have done us. Two things we had to bear constantly in mind and reconcile, so far as we were able, from day to day." He ticked them off on his fingers like the heads of a discourse: "First. That she was a lady; the daughter of a lady; the granddaughter of a lady. Second. That she was become by adoption a daughter of the soil, dependent on her own exertions for her subsistence and happiness. At one time, so difficult did the two things seem to keep in adjustment, I had serious thoughts of taking her bodily under my own charge and packing her off to school. But after a while, I came to reflect that it would be an act of great unwisdom—apart from the fear that it might be making most impious interference with the designs of Providence. Providence plainly had brought her, and to send her off again for the purpose of having her trained exclusively in the accomplishments of a lady would simply have been contempt of the Divine laws and a deferment of the original difficulty to some more pressing and inopportune moment. My work, you see, was here in Ullbrig. His Reverence is tied to the soil like the rest of us—ploughing, sowing, harrowing, scruffling, hoeing, and reaping all his days—though, for the matter of that, there 's precious little ear he gets in return for his spiritual threshing. Moreover, there 's always the glorious uncertainty of sudden death in the harvest field; and then what would be likely to happen to a girl thrown on her own resources at the demise of her only friend and protector? Would she be better circumstanced to face the world bravely as a child with his Reverence helping her unostentatiously by her elbow and accustoming her to it, or as a young lady in fresh bewilderment from boarding-school, with his Reverence fast asleep in the green place he 's chosen for himself under the east window? Ha! no mistake about it. His Reverence has seen too many nursery governesses and mothers' helps and ladies' companions recruited straight from the school-room, with red eyes and black serge, to risk Pamela's being among the number. Out in the world there 's no knowing what might happen or have happened to her. Here in Ullbrig, you see, she stands on a pedestal to herself, above all our local temptations. Temptations, in the mundane sense of the word, don't exist for her. One might as well suppose the possibility of your being tempted from the true canons of musical art by hearing Friend Barclay sing through the tap-room window of the Blue Bell, or of his Reverence the Vicar's being proselytised to Methodism by hearing Deacon Dingwall Jackson pray the long prayer with his eyes shut. No; our local sins fall away from Pamela as naturally and unregarded as water off a duck's back. Such sins as she has are entirely spiritual—little sins of indiscrimination, we may term them. The sin of generosity—giving too much of her favor to the schismatical; the sin of toleration—inclining too leniently towards the tenets of dissent; the sin of forbearance—making too much allowance for the sins and wickednesses of others; the sin of equanimity—being too little angered by the assaults and designs of the unfaithful against Holy Church—all beautiful qualities of themselves when confined to the temporal side of conduct, but sinful when thoughtlessly prolongated into the domain of spirituals, where conduct should subordinate itself to the exact scale of scientific theology. Spiritual conduct without strict theological control is music without bars; poetry without metre; a ship without a rudder; free-will; nonconformity; dissent; infidelity; agnosticism; atheistic darkness. Ha! but our concern for her future is n't on these counts. The question that 's bothering us now, as you rightly put it, is: Is she going to consecrate all her days to the carrying of letters?"

"As a career," commented the Spawer, "I 'm afraid there 's not much to recommend it. The office of post-girl seems, from what I know about the subject, peculiar to Ullbrig. There 's precious little chance of promotion, I should think. She might slip into the telegraph department, perhaps, but from a place like Ullbrig even that 's something of a step."

"I was n't so much thinking of the telegraphic department," Father Mostyn explained, "... though, of course, it had suggested itself to me. But I 'd been thinking ... it came upon me rather forcibly ... partly since your arrival ... after our first little talk together ... and I wondered. Of course, the telegraph department could be held in view as a reserve. But I 'd rather got the idea..." a certain veil of obscurity seemed to settle down upon his Reverence at this point, as though a sea-mist were drifting in among his words. "You see," he said, suddenly abandoning the attempt at frontal clearance and making a detour to come round the thickness of his difficulty, "Pamela 's altogether a remarkable girl. She 's not the least bit like the rest of us. She can do everything under the sun, except kill chickens. She can't kill chickens; but she can cook 'em. And she can make Ullbrig pies till you could swear Mrs. Dixon had done 'em. And she can bake bread—white bread, as white as snow for Friend Morland's delicate stomach; and brown bread as brown as shoe-leather and mellow as honey for his Reverence the Vicar. Three loaves a week without fail, because there 's nobody else in Ullbrig can make 'em to his satisfaction—and she wanted to have the paying for 'em herself into the bargain. And she can paper-hang and paint. She and his Reverence are going to undertake a few matters of church decoration shortly. And she can milliner and dressmake. If it was n't for Pamela, Emma Morland would soon lose her reputation as our leading society modiste. Not even the brass plate would save her—if she polished it three times a day. Ullbrig does n't want brass plates; Ullbrig wants style. So when Ullbrig goes to Emma Morland for a new dress and Pamela 's not there, Ullbrig says, 'Oh, it does n't matter just then, it 'll call again.' Ha! says it 'll call again. But what I wanted to illustrate ... with regard to telegraphic departments, of course ... you see ... her remarkable versatility. Not only that..." the old fog showed signs of settling over him once more, but he shook it off with a decisive spurt. "She 's inherited music from her mother in a marked degree. It seems to come naturally to her. I think you 'd be surprised. What little bit I 've been able to do for her I 've done—taught her the proper value of notation, the correct observance of harmonies, clefs, solfeggio, scales, legato, contra punctum, and so forth. The amazing thing is the way she 's picked it up. Not a bit of trouble to her, apparently. What I should have done without her at the organ—she 's our ecclesiastical organist, you know—I dare n't think. And it occurred to me ... I felt it would be such a pity to let the chance go by ... if we could only induce you.... You see, she 's not exactly an ordinary girl. Different from the rest of us altogether.... And I thought if we could only induce you to give her the benefit of a little musical advice..." He paused inferentially.

"With a view," asked the Spawer, "to what is diabolically called the profession?"

Father Mostyn caught the note of dissuasive alarm.

"Ha! not exactly the profession..." he said. "I was n't so much meaning that. But I thought, you see, she 'd appreciate it so much ... and there 'd be no fear of her abusing your favor in the slightest degree. Unfortunately ... I 'm afraid you 'd find our piano rather below par ... the Ullbrig air has a peculiar corrodent action upon the strings. Tuning 's no good; indeed, it only seems to unsettle 'em. But if ... sometime when you 're here you would n't mind my asking her in ... just for a short while?"

"Not the least bit in the world," said the Spawer. "And for as long as you like."

"Ha!" The fog lifted off Father Mostyn's utterance in sudden illumination of sunlight, and he rubbed his knees jocosely. "I thought we should manage it. Capital! capital! We must fix up a sort of a soirée some night. That 's what we must do. Fix up a sort of soiree some night and feed you. We won't speak of dining; that 's a word we leave behind us when we come to Ullbrig. But we 'll feed you, and give Pamela a chance to display her culinary skill. Of course, we know all about our little business of last night, so we need n't speak darkly...."

"The deuce we do!" exclaimed the Spawer, laughing. "And I 've been thinking all the time we did n't."

Father Mostyn spread his fingers with priestly unction.

"That," said he, "is one of our fatal Ullbrig errors; always to think that his Reverence does n't know things. No matter how many times we prove to our cost that he does, we go on acting upon the supposition that he does n't. It 's a source of endless trouble to us. Of course, in the present instance, we absolve you. Your tongue was honorably tied. Pamela told me all about it this morning—she was full of the music and your goodness, and the desire to tell me what she 'd done before silence made a hypocrite of her. Indeed, she was horribly afraid, poor girl, that she was becoming an Ullbrig hypocrite already. As though there were a grain of hypocrisy in the whole of her nature. But that 's what we must do. We must rig up a sort of soirée some night and feed you."

How the soirée and the feeding were going to affect the vital question of the girl's future did not altogether transpire—though this one subject carried them henceforth into the small hours, and the Spawer used no inconsiderable skill to elicit some clear understanding on the point, and when finally the Spawer slid away from the Vicarage gate under a deep July skyful of stars, the words floated in mystic meaning about his ears like the ringing of sanctus bells.

And as far away as the very last gate of all, when the Spawer turned his head back towards the scene of his evening, he seemed to hear the bells wafting to him over the corn, as though languid with pursuit:

"... Feed you. Feed you. Feed ... you."