408
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
the plate-glass window upon the sunny fields and hedge-
rows that glided by him, and felt the blessed assurance,
"look whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper," mingling in
the hum of surrounding nature. In this happy state, and
volunteering all manner of courtesies, opening and shut-
ting windows, lending his railway guide and his newspapers
whenever he had an opportunity, he at length reached the
great London terminus, and was rattling over the me-
tropolitan pavement, with his hand on his despatch-box, to
his cheap hotel near the Strand.
CHAPTER LXIV.
I REVISIT BRANDON HALL.
Rachel Lake was courageous and energetic; and,
when once she had taken a clear view of her duty, won-
derfully persistent and impracticable. Her dreadful inter-
view with Jos Larkin was always in her mind. The
bleached face, so meek, so cruel, of that shabby spectre,
in the small, low parlor of Redman's Farm, was always
before her. There he had spoken the sentences which
made the earth tremble, and showed her distinctly the
cracking line beneath her feet, which would gape at his
word into the fathomless chasm that was to swallow her.
But, come what might, she would not abandon the Vicar
and his little boy, and good Dolly, to the arts of that
abominable magician.
The more she thought, the clearer was her conviction.
She had no one to consult with; she knew the risk of ex-
asperating that tall man of God. who lived at the Lodge.