CHAP. XXVIII.

"DE PROFUNDIS."

Life, meanwhile, was pursuing the usual regular round at Oaklands and Luffington. The cheery English spring and the primroses had departed, and the heat and fervour of the glorious English summer were blazing themselves out; and still the round of life was unvarying. The characters in the little drama that was being enacted there-an old English Squire and his wife; Loftus Smyly, a clerk in holy orders, in love with Kate Stewart; and Kate Stewart, in love with Loftus Smyly; a village Doctor; and a crowd of minor characters, who appear in the chorus-parts, and murmur assent or disapprobation, as the case may be. The Squire lorded it over delinquents in all the terrors of magisterial law; his good wife busied herself in all the details of household work; the clergyman used all his endeavours to heal the soul, and keep sin away from Luffington, which was, as has been hinted aforetime, no very model village, pursued his way steadfastly and rigorously, turning neither to the left nor the right to listen to the blandishments of beauty or the voice of the siren Sloth; and ofttimes when the entreating invitation came for him to join some croquet party, the great attraction of which was that she was to be there, he had closed his eyes to the alluring prospect, and gone and spent the hot weary hours of the July day in preaching the good gospel or pouring the oil of divine sympathy into the ears of a wounded sinner. His might seem to some a hard fate, and people not seldom remarked that the Curate was working himself too hard, and that he ought to take more amusement, greater leisure. He would answer them that the day allotted to man for work was not so very long, and that the night crept on with the silent steadiness of the tide-night, in which no work might be done.

It was hardest of all, though, to have to resist Kate's entreaties. He used to laughingly assure her that the emissary of the Evil One never came in more witching guise than that of a woman, and used to instance the case

of good St. Anthony, who very nearly fell a victim to the wiles of the temptress, though all the other temptations were laughed to scorn. And really the girl's entreaties and persuasions were hard to be borne firmly. She had reason for what she said. Sharpest of all is the eye of love, and she could not help seeing that her darling's cheek was growing thinner and paler, and that a haggard look of careworn anxiety, such as must come to the man whose life-work is a constant battle with a deadly adversary, to thwart his wiles, to beat down his strong defences of ignorance and vice-that anxiety was agonizing his face.

"Why didn't you come to the Gardener's croquet party, the other afternoon, Lofty? I am sure there were no end of regrets at your absence; and recollect you owe something to me. There was I, left a prey to some harmless College youths, who pestered me with stories of their boat and their eleven, till I was ready to box their ears. Besides, you are looking positively old and careworn and quite consumptive. You work too hard, and that is as selfish as if you worked too little."

"Retro Sathana," returned the curate, with a look of fond admiration at the upturned face, and eyes of heavenly blue that appealed to him so temptingly. "Men must work and women may play croquet (which is a sufficiently dull, if fashionable, amusement) if they like. Do you know that when you were knocking the balls about and broiling in the sun I was sitting by the bed-side of a poor little child-Mary Wilson, I think you know her-enjoying the cool air, which came through a paneless window? I was sufficiently well paid by the look of quiet gratitude with which the little cripple thanked me; and I had that feeling of satisfaction, which is more precious than rubies, stealing over me, telling me that I had done my duty. All the same, my precious Kate, I feel the force of the temptation coming from you, and I don't mean to say that when I see the green light from the meadows underneath, and in the meadows tremulous aspen-treee and poplars, making a noise of falling showers,' I feel a slight distaste to groping my way among the dark alleys of Luffington, amid all the crime and misery and

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want there; but the people will never come to me; I must go to them. Mahomet found that much out, you know, with regard to the mountain. I know they feel grateful when I do get to them, and I know, too, that they make an effort towards cleanliness, if not to godliness. You wouldn't have me otherwise, would you, my precious one?" said he, stroking with a fond movement the braids of her golden hair. "And, besides," interrupted the Curate, seeing that she was trying some new point of attack, out of the exceeding love she bare him; seeing this, with rapid perception of love, which makes ordinary men and women adepts in the art of clairvoyance, as far as regards themselves," and I'll warrant you that should the heart of Jack be distracted with care, the heart of Jill is also torn with sympathetic grief, although they use not the ordinary medium of words to express the malady-" and besides, if I don't do all this work nobody else will, you may depend, It would be different if I had a resident rector, who was able and willing to co-operate with me. But my man is not the slightest use: leaves England for three parts of the year, and the sole charge to me all the year round; and while le roi s'amuse on the Continent, I must perforce do my duty. Oh!" went on the young man, with an earnest flush mantling in his cheek and kindling in his eyes, "if they would only get rid of the drones in our church, and pay those who do work their best a fair day's wage for a fair day's work! I haven't much sympathy with the foes of my church, I must say, and it may be that I'm prejudiced more than I should be by that particular form of vanity called High Church; but still I must confess that our enemies have much to taunt the Establishment with, that can ill be answered with a clear conscience. Why do you continue to give gentlemen and the sons of gentlemen-men with all the polish, and expensive polish too, of an university education, men of taste, intellect, and refinemement-a miserable pittance of £80 or £100 a year-a sum which, if a man is poor and foolish enough to marry, is just enough to starve him and his wife; or, if single and a man of expensive tastes and no private ineans, just enough to make him figure, under the head of Clerks in Holy Orders,' in the Gazette, as undergoing the process of whitewash, all the while that many clergymen by luck, or the usual course of things, have, like the man in the 'Pickwick Papers,' plenty to get and little to do. It is a state of things to which no man of sense can close his eyes, and I do wish that, instead of setting up howls of criticism over the introduction of red and green garments, as if it mattered one single sixpence whether man worships his Maker in white or any other colour, as long as the service is heartfelt and solemn-I do wish people would turn their attention to the shamefully meagre way in which curates are paid for the often arduous work they have to perform. Ours is the noblest, highest work on God's earth, and for this we are paid stipends that cooks would sneer at, And there's a sermon for you,

my dainty Kate-wearied you beyond all conscience, I make no doubt; though I suppose you would listen to me patiently if I discoursed on the Fathers by the hour."

"You are always good and wise," said the girl in reply. "I only wish that I was half so good, or did my duty half so well. All I can do is to love you, and that with all my heart"and so on.

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I don't think we will penetrate any farther into the mysteries of Eros, except to say t the good Curate felt himself amply repaid for all toil as he stood there, drinking deep draughts of "Love's wine" and basking in the sunshine of the dreamy blue eyes, that looked into his with such unutterable affection. "And as they talked they walked" through the lovely lane which led to Pullen's Croft, a wondrous fair prelude to a most discordant piece. It was a lane such as one comes suddenly on in the canvas of Creswick, after weary and restless roaming through many yards of unsatisfactory colouring; a little delicious bit on which the tired eye may rest and drink in the sweet refreshing green of the delicate fern, and catch frequent glimpses of the timid violet, as coyly it peeps, like rustic beauty from out its lattice of velvety moss, and see the stately fox-glove swayed gracefully by the summer breeze; and, higher still, twining round the gnarled trunks of trees, the faery wild rose, with the tenderest of all blushes upon its cheek; hedge-rows where, later in the year, the embrowned hazel shall bend down to the earth its treasures, and children shall revel amidst the branches; a | lane in which

"A foamless stream, in blossoms cradled deep,

Flowed thro' the midst, in a mysterious tone, Like love-lisped voices heard in summer-sleep, That whisper and are gone;"

and where birds made joyous carol all through the warm and chequered sunlight, and sang low serenades what time the pale young lady-moon ascended her throne, 'mid the gathering shadows of eve; a "lover's lane" the country-people called it, and certainly the rustic suitor must have been dull of heart and slow of tongue, if the influence of this divine spot did not move him to the eloquence of love-speech in which to plead his suit. At any rate the present happy lovers who wandered at their own sweet will through this beautiful lane found plenty to talk about, and their talk was not of that sweetly silly kind that characterizes the usual talk of lovers. High aspirations filled their hearts, and their earnest wish was for the amelioration of the poor people who groaned in the bondage of uncleanness and poverty round them, who made quite a blot on the fair face of nature. To Kate's faithful bosom the Curate could confide the weary longing for success that he had, and how often he had been disappointed and nearly despairing in the arduous contest,

"I don't believe that these people dislike being visited by a clergyman as long as he

their play. And their faces-which they lifted with a bold sullenness to the stranger's, nor thought of "louting low" so prematurely aged, as though the vices of their unhappy parents had reproduced themselves on a smaller scale of depravity. And when the village itself appeared, with its hideous dark-brick houses, smoke-grimed and cheerless-looking, there seemed to hang over the whole place a species of miasma which poisoned the pure atmosphere, and cried to heaven itself with misery. Before each house reeked an impure, festering heap of garbage-the refuse of meat, bits of cabbagestalk, such old rags as were not employed in the place of glass for the window-panes, and a plentiful collection of bones, a miscellaneous array, which produced a peculiar perfume far from agreeable, and which might be bottled by some enterprising Piesse and Lubin, and labelled "The Essence of Ignorance and Neglect!" and might turn up useful for some tribune of the people to present to the noses of the fashionable few. A few slipshod men lounged about the doors, with perhaps a mongrel of suspicious appearance between their legs, and a black pipe between their teeth--their only solace, so they thought and said, in their trouble. The women were employed in drawing water, and were, as usual, at high words, garnishing their allusions to each other with much playful imagery; but the sight of the parson, and with him a woman who was not of the same kind as they, rather subdued them, and they rested from their quarrel for the moment, and some had even the grace to curtsey. I think religion holds longer on women than men. But everywhere, everywhere there was misery, filth, ignorance unalloyed; and the face of the young Hercules, who was bent on cleansing this Augean stable in what is funnily styled "happy England!" acquired a firmer look as he bade good afternoon to Katie, and with her hand-clasp still tingling on his own, and her dear presence still shielding him, led his forces, with a silent prayer, to engage this very forlorn hope.

CHAP. XXIX.

66 WHILE THE BALL IS ROLLING."

"Make your game, make your game. Faites votre jeu Messieurs. Le jeu est fait." To such music as this "all day long the tide of battle rolled," at Baden Baden. From the cool of the early morning all through such times as the hot summer day, like a crimson yule-log, had smouldered itself out into the grey, cool ashes of the eventide; all through the live-long day the motley crowd surged round the tables, and the impassive pale croupiers raked in the moeny of all nations whose children dropped their wealth there amid the unwearied "clic clic" of the rolling ball, and all day long the game was being made at Baden Baden. The

season is at its height, for the grand and serene Highness who lords it over that territory has vouchsafed his august and shining presence there, and every night the theatre is patronized by his brilliant court, and his Serenity with his fat goodnatured-looking little wife doze peacefully through high tragedy, low comedy, and burletta, till such time as the national anthem peals through the building, the time for his Serenity to go home to supper, which I will warrant you he will enjoy right heartily, for your true German spends his life in eating, drinking, and smoking, and when be is not doing one thing he is pretty sure to be doing the other-a happy, peaceful life, and the sooner it is over the sooner to sleep. A true epicurean is the man of Allemaire. "Dies truditur die." Quickly for him the river of his life glides calmly on, with nothing very eventful to cause rough water.

The departure or Hegira of the Grantleys from England did not cause much surprise amongst those who knew nought of the downfal of the Captain; for it was becoming, and the bounden duty of every Englishman to fly from his own country and seek foreign climes"fresh fields and pastures new," on the Rhine or at Paris, or goodness knows where elseanywhere, anywhere out of London. People must show their neighbours that they were well to do in the world, and could afford to go and be annoyed and fleeced at foreign hostelriesnay, sometimes taken into captivity by brigands, and not to be released therefrom till the utter most farthing had been paid, and even then with the probable loss of an ear. So it fell that on board the Ostend boat, which paddled majestically out of the harbour, very few of the passengers who were outward bound knew or cared anything of Grantley's misfortunes, and probably imagined that he was bent on the same pleasing round as themselves. There was quite a motley crowd on board the "magnificent paddle steamer Cycnus" this morning, and the piles of luggage were most prodigious; of course there was the regular type of English paterfamilias-clean-shaven, rosy-gilled, and pompous-reading his Times with decorum; and there, too, was materfamilias, fussy and amiable, but not looking exactly pleased, because Matilda Jane-her eldest-born and the hope of the home-was "carrying on," rather evidently, with a much-whiskered be jewelled individual, who might have been a count, a courier, or an officer. There were Oxford men in great variety, with that jaunty air of calm self-importance which seems to say "All the world is Oxford, and my col lege is the only one worth mentioning"-talking the genial, college slang, which seems so incomprehensible to outsiders, to the full as mysterious as were the oracles of the Delphi to the uninitiated; wonderfully attired were they in the matchless straw hat and pea-coat of their tribe, and very large pipes they smoked, and that incessantly, as they anticipated, in cheery language, the capital run over to Ostend, and