THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 MASSTON: 
 
 A STORY OF THESE MODERN DAYS.
 
 S3airanti;)nc $rc?S 
 
 BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBLKGH AND LONDON
 
 M A S S T O N 
 
 A STORY OF THESE MODERN DAYS, 
 
 BY 
 
 jr DU FFIELD 
 
 AND 
 
 W. H. POLLOCK. 
 
 Some there be that shadows kiss ; 
 Such have but a shadow's bliss : 
 There be fools alive, I wis, 
 Silver'd o'er; and so was this." 
 
 — Merchant of Venice, ii. 9, 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELr3ER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1877. 
 
 \_All rights reserved. ]
 
 
 MASSTON: 
 
 A STOR Y OF THESE MODERN DA YS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "Let me not live . 
 After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuflf 
 Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses 
 All but new things disdain ; whose judgments are 
 Mere fathers of their garments ; whose constancies 
 Expire before their fashions." 
 
 —Airs Well that Ends Well. 
 
 In the ancient town of Masston, in the county 
 of Folkshire, there lived not long ago a race of 
 workmen who were not ashamed of their work. 
 On the contrary, they derived an active pleasure 
 from it. When they were not whistling or 
 singing over it they were thinking about it, 
 for it was a kind of work which demanded 
 sympathy as well as skill. Surgical instruments, 
 half a century ago, were all made by hand, and 
 
 VOL. I. A 
 
 I 003565
 
 2 MASSTON. 
 
 called for care as well as cunning in the 
 making of them. The demand was then not 
 so great as it has since become, and the crafts- 
 men who produced these expensive implements 
 of useful torture had also to work at other and 
 more homely things in order to be sure of 
 winninof a gfood week's waofe. 
 
 Stephen Jeavons was one of this old stock of 
 workmen, who handled iron and steel with as 
 keen an interest as that of the sculptor who 
 mixes his clay and scans the marble wherein 
 his thought lies hid. Jeavons, like all his 
 fellows, was fond of his shop — a long, low- 
 roofed building, fitted with lathes and forges, 
 vices and anvils, and the best provided benches 
 of any master workman in all Masston. Nor 
 was this building sacred only to labour. It 
 was the dwelling of sundry feathered fowls of 
 gaudy plumage ; it was a council chamber for 
 the discussion of home politics ; an exchange 
 where men as well as goods were appraised, 
 and where only men transacted business. The
 
 MASSTON. 3 
 
 shop looked on to a garden, which In summer- 
 time put on a glory that has indeed long since 
 departed, but which in its day gave gladness 
 and strength to all who gazed upon it, and 
 much more to the people to whom belonged of 
 right the support and continuance of that glory. 
 
 In the time of that garden, the workmen of 
 Masston were tall, robust, hearty fellows, who 
 married well, and speedily got themselves sur- 
 rounded with sons and daughters; and although 
 it cannot be said with truth that they lived in 
 Paradise, it can be affirmed with certainty that 
 they did not dwell in a wilderness. 
 
 If Jeavons and his fellow-craftsmen were 
 fond of their work, they cordially hated the 
 new fashion in which they were paid for it. 
 Jeavons was by no means indifferent to the 
 four or six sovereigns which were chucked at 
 him through a little window on to a much 
 battered wooden counter, as if he were dealing 
 with an invisible pawnbroker, who, from deli- 
 cacy of feeling, kept out of sight. What
 
 4 MASSTON. 
 
 Jeavons and his fellows did resent was the cold 
 and ghostly chucking at them of those gold 
 pieces. 
 
 Nor had it always been so. In bygone time 
 they had received their money from the hands 
 of men who were magistrates or churchwardens, 
 in a day when something was held within the 
 names of these offices, men who acted for 
 London and other merchants who traded with 
 foreign lands. These masters not only paid 
 well for the work which they ordered, but 
 further personally thanked the workmen for 
 their work ; and they certainly never thought 
 of untying the stout brown paper parcels in 
 which the work was wrapped to see if it was 
 according to order, and worthy of its price. 
 
 But things had changed. Time, which 
 ripens and rots, was at work in Masston, and, 
 as happens with fruit, some of the things which 
 looked ripest were most rotten. Of this we 
 may see more hereafter. Enough for the 
 present to say that the old gentlemen factors
 
 MASSTON. 5 
 
 — the Briscoes and Hammertons, the Tarrats 
 and Tennants, Buckles and Waltons, and many 
 others who were either dead or had now no 
 life for business — had left their places to be 
 filled by their sons, who wore diamond rings 
 and studs, and kept horses and clerks. 
 
 One Saturday night Stephen Jeavons carried 
 his pincers and plyers, his nippers and other 
 steel toys to one of the old-fashioned ware- 
 houses for which he had worked thirty years 
 and more. A young whipper-snapper, as 
 Jeavons called him, opened his parcels, looked 
 at their contents as a parlour parrot might look 
 at a ball of red worsted, and demanded of 
 Stephen if he called that a pair of tongs — if he 
 thought those plyers worth six shillings a pair, 
 and if he supposed " that he was going to get 
 £^, 1 8s. for such a lot of rubbish as that." 
 
 " Come," continued the whipper-snapper, in 
 tones of masterful insolence, ''take off the odd 
 eighteen shillings, and I will pass your 
 ofoods."
 
 6 MASSTON. 
 
 " Pay me my money, bantam, and don't keep 
 me waiting here," replied the workman. 
 
 ''My orders are,'^ said the other with the 
 same cold insolence, " not to pay for any work 
 that has not been examined." 
 
 " Well,'' was the quick answer, in somewhat 
 alarming tones, "examine away and pay me 
 my money." 
 
 But the whipper-snapper was already en- 
 gaged in a similar encounter with another 
 master workman who had brought with him, 
 in obedience to orders, numerous packets of 
 pearl buttons, and other buttons of many 
 shapes, sizes, and colours. The button-maker 
 was made of different stuff to the maker of 
 steel toys. His face was sallow — his eyes 
 seemed to swim in seas of anxiety and fear, 
 as if he had a wife to please whose love for 
 her husband had long been lost In care for 
 a number of Inconsiderate and ever-hungry 
 children ; so the wretched button-maker took 
 off 15s. from a sum of ^3, 15s., the value of
 
 MASSTON. 7 
 
 a considerable number of small buttons, which 
 had occupied several little children many 
 days to wrap up in two different kinds of 
 paper. 
 
 As the clerk was about to attend to some 
 other workman, Jeavons called out in tones 
 of menace : 
 
 "If you don't take these things now and 
 pay me at once, I'll take them all back, and 
 never again shall you see any more of my 
 makino^." 
 
 The young man gave a short dry laugh. 
 He was good-looking, and very well dressed, 
 with a dark eye, as capable of evil as it might 
 be of good, but which defied all common 
 beholders of its remarkably quiet glances to 
 say towards which of the two opposing 
 powers they most inclined. 
 
 As Jeavons hurriedly gathered his wares 
 together, and was about to leave the ware- 
 house, the young master arrived, dressed as 
 if for an evening party.
 
 8 MASSTON. 
 
 "What Is the matter, Mr. Jeavons?" in- 
 quired he ; and Stephen briefly explained, not 
 omitting the words of menace he had shot 
 at the clerk. 
 
 '' Robert," said the young master, " you can 
 always pay Mr. Jeavons without examining 
 his goods." 
 
 " Oh, very well, sir," was the deferential 
 reply. But it was the last time that Stephen 
 Jeavons ever darkened the door of that ware- 
 house. He was one of those soldier workmen 
 who was ready to starve for honour as he had 
 lived and worked for honour, and who pre- 
 ferred to die rather than live by fraud. 
 Stephen, however, had buried his wife, and 
 that might — as indeed was affirmed by some, 
 so deadly was the change which had crept 
 over them — have been the cause of his in- 
 dependence, and the strength of his moral 
 courage. Stephen had one son of the same age 
 and complexion as the young man with whom 
 he had been in altercation. It passed through
 
 MASSTON. 9 
 
 Jeavonss mind at the time that rather than 
 see his boy grow into the image of that 
 whipper-snapper of a clerk, he would have 
 laid him flat at his feet. 
 
 Another peculiarity of this old heathen may 
 well be told, because it introduces us to this 
 son about whom we shall hear not a little in 
 the course of this never-before-told story. 
 Stephen Jeavons, instead of going to church 
 on a Sunday morning, would dress himself in 
 his buff-coloured breeches and blue broadcloth 
 coat, and betake himself to the turn-stile, which 
 led throuo^h the meadows to the villao^e of 
 Russet. There would he smoke a long clay 
 pipe and talk with the serving-maids who 
 might pass that way. He knew them all, and 
 knew, or thought he knew, what was coming 
 on many of them. 
 
 " That's a very pretty bonnet you've got 
 on — where did you get it ? " he smoothly in- 
 quired of one of his fair friends then passing 
 by, and who was placed in a hobble, as he
 
 lO MASSTON. 
 
 intended she should be, by the question. 
 When Stephen saw her blush, and become 
 restless and hesitating, he pushed his questions 
 further, as follows : — 
 
 " Where do you live now, Bridget Jakes ; 
 is your mother quite well ? " 
 
 " I don't live anywhere now, I go to work," 
 said the girl, meaning that she had given up 
 domestic service and was employed in some 
 warehouse ; '' my mother," she added, '' is quite 
 well, thank you, Mr. Jeavons." 
 
 *' And do they pay you well at the ware- 
 house ? " 
 
 " I only got four pounds a year in service," 
 said Bridget, defending herself from the gaze 
 of Stephen, whose words were mild enough, 
 but whose aspect was as stern as that of 
 a judge; "and," she continued, ''they give 
 me fifteen shillings a week at the ware- 
 house." 
 
 '' Gold labels and silver paper, paste and 
 pack thread," ruminated Stephen, when
 
 MASSTON. I I 
 
 Bridget remarked with a little more confi- 
 dence — 
 
 '' I am In the pattern-room." 
 
 But her words had no connection with the 
 thoughts which occupied Stephen's mind, and 
 he dismissed her with *' Well, good-bye to thee, 
 and take care of thy mother. She has been a 
 good mother to thee." 
 
 Bridget took her leave with a very slight 
 curtsey, and Stephen did not give her, as had 
 been his wont, a sixpence, because '* she had 
 left service and gone — into a warehouse," he 
 said to himself, with a sneer running all over 
 his face till It flattened his nose. 
 
 Stephen Jeavons was, moreover, a famous 
 cocker, and fought the best cocks in all 
 Folkshire. Parson Haydon, the Rector of 
 Masston, said nothing against It, for Jeavons 
 had the finest poultry, the most delicious 
 eggs, and no chicken ever tasted with such 
 perfect flavour as one of Stephen's breeding. 
 Which chickens and eggs were not, we may
 
 1 2 MASSTON. 
 
 note in passing, things of trade and gain, but 
 of hospitality and worship. The Rector of 
 Masston had drunk many a jug of home- 
 brewed ale in Stephen's house, and the 
 chickens and new-laid eo-o-s were received 
 at the Rectory as returned visits. 
 
 And if the Sunday morning was not pro- 
 pitious to the long white clay, Stephen still 
 did not go to church, but smoked his pipe 
 at home in Summer Lane, mountinof steel 
 spurs, of his own make, on leathern guards, 
 or what was equally likely, having a private 
 contest in the back yard for his own enjoy- 
 ment and the improvement of the temper 
 of his feathered warriors. 
 
 Stephen's Sunday doings would have es- 
 caped all notice in Masston had it not 
 been for his son Benjamin, a lad of great 
 promise, whose habits of mind and life were 
 singular, and not unlike those of a young 
 monk of the early times, when to be a monk 
 was as heroic as it was once heroic to be a
 
 MASSTON. 1 3 
 
 soldier. A few traits of his early life may 
 be recited to show this, and they are, besides, 
 worth reading for other purposes. Benjamin 
 was fond of minute work and study, was 
 ofiven to devotion, and loved his father as 
 if he had been a tender-hearted girl. 
 
 Now, surely if Stephen Jeavons had any 
 right to lecture serving-maids on the perilf 
 of warehouses and the pleasure and beauty 
 of livino^ in domestic service, he had no riofht 
 to complain if a duly authorised practitioner 
 in a cure of souls lectured him on the deep 
 damnation of fiorhtinof cocks on the Lord's 
 Day. 
 
 '' Benjamin," said the curate to him one 
 sunny Sunday after the morning service, 
 " I am sure you must be grieved for your 
 father." 
 
 " Grieved for my father ? " inquired the son, 
 to the amazement of the clergyman ; "why ?'' 
 
 ''Why?" echoed the ecclesiastic, "because 
 for one thing he never comes to church, and
 
 14 MASSTON. 
 
 for another, cock-fighting is a debasing sin — 
 it is a sin against society, but to fight cocks 
 on the Sabbath-day is a crime against God — 
 and you know it." 
 
 Benjamin looked the well-dressed, clear 
 spoken man in the face, and could not say 
 a word. Like all ill-used young creatures 
 smarting under a sudden injustice which he 
 could not expose with his tongue, he kept 
 silence, and his face assumed a look of blank 
 astonishment mingled with shame. The 
 reverend gentleman, perceiving this, and 
 altogether mistaking its meaning, he took 
 Benjamin by the hand, called him by his 
 Christian name, said farewell in a set tone, 
 besought him to go home and pray for his 
 father, and so left him. 
 
 On his way down Snowhill, Benjamin met 
 a young man of his own age, and who be- 
 longed to his own class. The only difference 
 in their circumstances was that Benjamin 
 pursued the life of a workman, and the other,
 
 MASSTON. 1 5 
 
 like some of the serving-maids of Masston, 
 had given up his craft and gone into a ware- 
 house. 
 
 " Benjamin," said this youthful saint as he 
 drew near, " you must warn your father to 
 flee from the wrath to come." 
 
 But Benjamin, who had a quick eye and 
 was as much moved by the expression on his 
 mentor s face as he was by the allusion to his 
 father, lifted up his fist, struck him a round 
 blow on the ear, and knocked him flat on the 
 o^round. 
 
 " At him ao^ain ! " cried two or three of the 
 baser sort, who saw the affair from a distance, 
 and ran up in hope of an amusement at other 
 people's expense. 
 
 Neither of the youths wanted to fight, but 
 Benjamin could now do no less than stand his 
 ground, while the other, unable to resist the 
 egging on of the little crowd which had 
 gathered round the combatants, squared up to 
 Benjamin, and the fight began.
 
 1 6 MASSTON. 
 
 It was soon over, and the warner of wrath to 
 come got home with a violent inflammation of 
 one of his eyes, and a nose seven times as big 
 as It was wont to be; and Benjamin reached 
 his home with his clothes much rumpled, and 
 his best trousers split at the knee. 
 
 How black and miserable had the world 
 suddenly become to these youths. They had 
 both been to church — were both choristers. 
 Each had that day been praised by the parson. 
 Each had on that serene Sunday morning 
 o^lven out of his own head some well-thoueht- 
 out and tolerably well-expressed interpretation 
 of the Collect for the day, beginning with the 
 sublime Invocation, " Stir up, O Lord, we 
 beseech Thee, the wills of Thy faithful people." 
 Each had received for that exhibition of his 
 spiritual knowledge some little prize, as valuable, 
 let us say, as a branch of wild olive, but not 
 quite so pretty, being nothing more than a piece 
 of card-board with a text of Scripture printed 
 on it. A prize in its day not without merit,
 
 MASSTON. 
 
 17 
 
 but which speedily became worthless from the 
 shape and colour of the hands that bestowed it. 
 The young men, let us add, were both good- 
 looking, and great favourites with their friends. 
 To one of them, the vanquished, the idea 
 of wrath to come assumed a definite meaning- 
 
 is? 
 
 but a different meaninof to that he had oriven 
 to it in the morning. Some sort of wrath had 
 certainly come upon himself, from which there 
 was no flying ; nor could he fly from it any 
 more than he could fly from the pain in his 
 nose and eyes, nor indeed would he have 
 flown from it even though he had been sud- 
 denly presented with a pair of celestial wings. 
 
 . The celestials, we are told on ample autho- 
 rity, but seldom waste their favours by offer- 
 ing them to angry men ; yet in this case they 
 would seem to have departed from their usual 
 course ; for as the bruised, sullen, fallen one 
 sat in his wrath, dreaming of things to come 
 which had much more to do with the prince 
 of darkness than with angels of light, there 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 1 8 MASSTON. 
 
 entered to him the new curate. The luck of 
 some men is as wonderful as the possession 
 of beauty, which it much resembles in the uses 
 some do make of it. The interview of the ardent 
 young clergyman with the youth who had been 
 beaten in the fight resulted in the youth s dis- 
 covery that he was a lucky man — a discovery 
 never without danger to him who makes it. 
 
 Urged by the curate to tell the story of his 
 encounter with Benjamin Jeavons, the young 
 man, with singular modesty and manly self- 
 denial, told such a tale of misdirected zeal and 
 wasted valour that won him from the curate an 
 encomium which burnt itself into his brain, fired 
 his heart with a new ambition, and, what is 
 more, endowed him with a new method of life. 
 
 Having already seen this rising youngster 
 of Masston on two different occasions, once in 
 altercation with Stephen Jeavons, and lately in 
 combat with his son, our readers may now be 
 told that he is none other than the famous 
 Robert Welsher Warner of Masston — a name
 
 MASSTON. 19 
 
 renowned in every market-place in the world, 
 a pillar of the Church in Masston, and honoured, 
 envied, and imitated in his native town for his 
 piety, his personal appearance, and his riches — 
 much of whose inner and outer life will be found 
 in this novel history. 
 
 On the Sunday of the fight between Jeavons 
 and Warner, the evening service in Masston 
 had not been set up : the curate, therefore, 
 had time and opportunity to listen to the story 
 which Warner told with so much eloquence 
 and truth. When Benjamin Jeavons, on the 
 Sunday morning following, presented himself 
 as usual before the o^reat oaken chest which 
 stood behind the baptismal font in a corner 
 of the old church where the choristers kept 
 their surplices, the dog-whipper came with a 
 message from Parson Haydon to say that he, 
 B. J., was "never again no more to go into 
 the choir." 
 
 These words fell on the hearer's heart pretty 
 much like the gravel which he had often heard
 
 20 MASSTON. 
 
 fall from the grave-digger's hands on to a 
 coffin-lid when the priest cried, " Ashes to 
 ashes." His first impulse was to fly from the 
 church and run away from Masston. This 
 resolve was checked by the other eleven 
 choristers coming up to the oaken box, 
 Robert Warner among them, with an evident 
 smile of superior intelligence on his handsome 
 face. Jeavons thereupon determined to march, 
 unsmocked as he was, behind the surpliced 
 procession, take a place in the middle aisle 
 in front of the reading-desk, wait till service 
 was over to " have it out " with Parson Hay- 
 don, and at least get a clear understanding of 
 what had happened to cause his exclusion 
 from the choir while his enemy had been 
 allowed to remain one of its members. 
 
 To the consternation of Benjamin, good old 
 Parson Hay don did meet him after service, 
 and, in strong language, told him that both 
 he and his father were a disgrace to the town, 
 and he wished they would both leave it !
 
 MASSTON. 2 1 
 
 The monstrous Injustice of this magisterial 
 proceeding was obscured to Benjamin's vision 
 by the surprise which came over him as he 
 saw the hitherto benlo^n and most lovable 
 vicar change into an angry and unreasoning 
 beast. He had seen poor, weak-minded, 
 Ignorant men of the forge, or the hedge and 
 ditch, suddenly change colour, curse and swear, 
 and on very small provocation proceed to take 
 off their shirts preparatory to a fight ; but 
 to see an English gentleman, not only angry, 
 but mastered by his anger, his god-father too, 
 who had loved him, and whose love he had 
 returned In worship and profound regard, — to 
 see him, with the suddenness with which the 
 spark will fly out of the smitten flint, changed 
 into a cruel, unjust, and fuming old man, was 
 a slo^ht which chano^ed his mind even In the 
 twinkling of an eye, and caused him much 
 new wonder. 
 
 Jeayons turned his back on the parson and 
 slowly walked down the aisle to leave the
 
 2 2 MASSTON. 
 
 church. As he wheeled to the left for the 
 north door, he stopped, and then turned his 
 face to take his last farewell of both church 
 and parson, with a low obeisance. It was a 
 simple, unpremeditated act, and might have 
 been the result of instinct. Jeavons himself 
 was of the same opinion as he recalled the 
 circumstance in after-life. 
 
 The new curate, who had been instrumental 
 in converting a yellow widow lady in black 
 velvet and plain front of hair, into a bride in 
 puce satin, and a front of curls, had evidently 
 converted good old Parson Haydon into a 
 creature as cruelly zealous as himself. 
 
 Among the dreadful changes which came 
 over Masston, the change that fell on its 
 warm-hearted, humane, and reasonable vicar, 
 was the most strange and bitter to many, — it 
 was certainly the most heeded, as it was 
 the most easy, perhaps, to note. To some, it 
 was a change that could be compared to 
 nothing else than the comfortable old shep-
 
 MASSTON. 23 
 
 herd's doe which had taken to fold with the 
 sheep, suddenly recovering its untrained youth 
 and indulging its passion for worrying. The 
 reader is requested to elect for himself which 
 conversion of the two is the strongest evidence 
 of the curate's power : a rich lady yellow with 
 unwholesome food, long past middle-age, be- 
 coming the curate's wife, or a ripe, generous- 
 hearted humane man becoming a servile imi- 
 tation of one absolutely below him in every- 
 thing except what is familiarly known as *' the 
 orift of the orab." 
 
 o o 
 
 Masston, in those days, although near to 
 several villages more ancient than Itself, was 
 separated from them by long roads and lanes, 
 where great trees grew in lofty avenues, and 
 which seemed to have been planted and 
 trained to stateliness and grandeur by a people 
 who appreciated those qualities too highly to 
 allow them to become the property of mortals 
 whose staying powers were of the feeblest 
 kind. Hawthorns and hollies stood between
 
 24 MASSTON. 
 
 Masston and the villages of Russet, Averll, 
 and Leasows, like the sentinels of an army 
 bent on defending the sleepy fields from a 
 surprise which would turn them into clay 
 pits, gravel pits, or water holes. 
 
 The sweetest of those moss-covered villages, 
 whose cottage roofs were gardens, was Russet, 
 and certainly the sweetest girl in Russet was 
 Sarah Armstrong, the only daughter of Job 
 and Mary Armstrong, who supplied Masston 
 with fresh eggs, cheese, and butter every 
 market Thursday. 
 
 Masston not infrequently went to Russet, at 
 least so did many of its young men and maids, 
 especially on summer Sundays, when the 
 Armstrongs dispensed curds and whey to 
 their visitors, who would carry back with 
 them to Masston little bundles of mushrooms 
 to some of Sarah Armstrong's regular cus- 
 tomers ; for no one in those days, be it 
 remarked, sold mushrooms, any more than 
 they did groundsel for canaries or water-
 
 MASSTON. 25 
 
 cresses for gentlemen who studied law and 
 occasionally followed the Folkshire hounds. 
 At least Sarah Armstrong: never dreamed 
 of makinof a sale of what the fields brouQ^ht 
 forth of their own accord. 
 
 Stephen Jeavons and Job Armstrong, be- 
 sides being distantly related by blood, were 
 united by a common passion ; they were the 
 orreatest connoisseurs in crame-cocks and 
 cocking in Folkshire, and Stephen often 
 walked over to Job's farmstead to eat home- 
 made bread and cheese, drink home-brewed 
 ale, and discourse on the connection of good 
 fighting in cocks with the flavour of the 
 flesh of pullets ; any cock who refused to 
 fight under any circumstances, however ad- 
 verse, was never allowed by those judges 
 of good taste to have the honour of attending 
 on a single being who had anything to do 
 with producing eggs and game chickens. 
 
 Stephen Jeavons had not quite approved 
 of the temper of his son, now a well-grown
 
 26 MASSTON. 
 
 manly fellow, who, he thought, cottoned to 
 men whose hackles contained too many short 
 feathers to please him. When, therefore, he 
 heard of the scene in the church, and the 
 stripping off of his surplice, the father resolved 
 on orivinof his son a treat such as he had 
 never seen — that should inspire him with a 
 man's courage ; the true courage which never 
 fails to tell a man when the time comes 
 that it is better to die fiorhtinof than to run 
 away from noble strife. 
 
 This was nothing less than a main, to come 
 off at Russet on a given Monday devoted to a 
 saint whose shrines increase as pasture-lands 
 disappear, and whose devotees become more 
 numerous the poorer and more desperate 
 they become. Benjamin had never wit- 
 nessed a conflict of this nature, and Ben- 
 jamin's father, who thought he knew a cure 
 for the heart ache, and that a controversy of 
 blood between a chosen warrior of his own 
 breed, and another of the school and training
 
 MASSTON. 27 
 
 of Job, would have the effect on Benjamin 
 of filling up a void, that if not attended to in 
 time might get occupied with dangerous and 
 explosive stuff, that would one day go off 
 of its own accord. 
 
 Father and son, therefore, trudged off on the 
 appointed day to Russet, each carrying a long 
 white bag that contained a feathered gladiator, 
 more ready for bloody deeds and daring 
 attitudes than any Roman of the good old 
 heathen times. 
 
 "Why, Sary, where beest thee agoin, lass, 
 and me and Ben has come a purpose to see 
 thee ? turn back, wench, and doont disapint 
 Ben as well as me too." 
 
 '' No, no, Mr. Jeavous, there Is enough with- 
 out me. I am going to gather you some mush- 
 rooms." 
 
 '' Dang the mushrooms; come thee ways and 
 see what's good for sore eyes and sulky souls." 
 
 '' No, no, no," and Sarah Armstrong — for it 
 was none other than she — ran across the
 
 28 MASSTON. 
 
 meadow by the little ancient church of Russet, 
 where she was joined by no one else than 
 Robert Warner, who, it seems, was also a 
 visitor at the Armstrong's farm. 
 
 This unexpected meeting took away all taste 
 for sport of any kind from Benjamin Jeavons ; 
 he dropped the bag which he carried on to the 
 grass at his father's feet, and turned and walked 
 back to Masston, his heart filled with loathing, 
 and all the corrodlns: cares and abominable 
 imaginings which the jealous fiend could pack 
 into It. His jealousy would not have been so 
 keen, or his wrath so sullen, if he had not on 
 that very morning resolved to see Sarah, and 
 talk to her with the object of making her weekly 
 visits to Masston of greater mutual Interest than 
 — through his own fault — they had hitherto 
 been. Theology and carol singing had till now 
 occupied his soul and his time ; when he was 
 not fitting some instrument, or hardening It by 
 a secret process, the knowledge of which was 
 confined to his own family, he was reading or
 
 MASSTON. 29 
 
 singing — processes which did not apparently 
 favour the discovery of even such excellencies 
 as those which adorned the lovely girl who 
 never varied the hour of her visit to his father's 
 house or the present of eggs, cheese, or mush- 
 rooms, according to the season, which her own 
 hands had made or gathered, and carried from 
 Russet to Masston. Now that the carol 
 singing was stopped, and the study of the 
 heroic days of the Church no longer helped 
 him to be heroic in a time when it seemed 
 that all heroism was dead and gone, he found 
 a charm not altogether incongruous with these 
 in turning himself to Sarah Armstrong. As 
 he walked by the side of his father towards 
 Russet he dwelt on the warm and peaceful ex- 
 pression of her brown eyes, the sweet freedom 
 of her smile, and the still sweeter strength of 
 her constant beauty. Her walk was beautiful, 
 so also Avas the shape of her head, which, when 
 she took her bonnet off, produced the same 
 magical effect on her whole person as the
 
 30 MASSTON. 
 
 removal of the damping cloth from the head of 
 Love in clay has on the entire statue when the 
 sculptor himself removes it for you to look at. 
 Benjamin Jeavons found in his contemplation 
 of Sarah Armstronor all the delio^ht and anima- 
 tion, the love, and pure happiness which had 
 been conferred upon him by the acquired 
 luxury of active, disciplined thought, suggested 
 and illustrated by remote but glorious events, 
 but chiefly by persons whom he knew less by 
 personal experience than by name, and the 
 report of the quality of their renowned and 
 immortal acts. 
 
 We have seen what happened. The very 
 fellow who had robbed him of his reputation, 
 stripped him not only of his chorister's surplice, 
 but of his good name, in the estimation at 
 least of his god-father, had laid his hands on 
 the only human being that had kindled in his 
 heart the passion of love. 
 
 If Benjamin Jeavons loved Sarah Armstrong 
 why could he not tell her so ? Alas for youth-
 
 MASSTON. 
 
 31 
 
 ful lovers and all young human creatures ; they 
 are like files which have only received one 
 cutting, there is no bite in them ; the cutting 
 must be crossed before the file s^oes straight 
 and does good work, and much crossing, it 
 would seem, is needed in the making of men as 
 well as files. 
 
 Robert Warner, who had no love for the girl 
 at all, told her that he loved her, and she 
 believed him. And that, like many another 
 false word of similar sort, was not only the 
 cause of great trouble, but the occasion, like- 
 wise, of this book being written, which is not, 
 however, the first book of history and travels 
 that has had its spring in what, for precise 
 description, might be called a measureless lie. 
 
 The cock-fighter's son could as easily have 
 knocked Robert Warner down as walk back to 
 Masston, had he been in the very least tempted 
 to do so. Other thoughts occupied him ; some 
 quite new and altogether unconsidered ideas 
 took possession of him ; one of which glanced
 
 32 MASSTON. 
 
 slightingly at Sarah. She fell in his estimation 
 for that it had been possible that this handsome 
 hypocrite should be noticed by her, and allowed 
 to make love to her. Benjamin did not know 
 her. For that matter he did not know himself 
 — he could not even steady himself sufficiently 
 to take any aim whatsoever, moral aim or 
 other. This is proved by the evil thought 
 which seized his mind for a moment, and 
 which finally concluded his controversy with 
 himself about Sarah that he would leave her to 
 find out for herself what a false-hearted cur 
 was he on whom she had evidently bestowed 
 her heart. So he went straight to his shop. 
 His care and solace was work, and in beating 
 iron and polishing steel he found his repose 
 and resignation ; over his lathe he forgot the 
 pangs of jealousy — forgot that he had loved a 
 pretty girl — forgot Robert Warner, the priestly 
 io^norance and Intolerance of the new curate, 
 and the turbulent injustice of good old Parson 
 Hay don. Work is a great renovator. But
 
 MASSTON. . 33 
 
 one may renovate himself thread-bare if there 
 be not some show of restraint. 
 
 An insatiable fondness for work at this early 
 time pervaded Masston. Every man's house 
 was a workshop. A man's patterns were more 
 his stock-in-trade than his tools. The greatest 
 capital a workman could possess was ingenuity 
 and skill at the lathe, with the chisel, the graver, 
 and the hammer, and, above all, with the head 
 that could design and the hand that could 
 mould. On the day that Benjamin Jeavons saw 
 Robert Warner follow after Sarah Armstrong 
 round by the village church of Russet, the tallest 
 chimney in all Masston was the chimney of 
 Dr. Cumberladge's dwelling-house in St. James's 
 Square, and Dr. Cumberladge himself it was 
 who, at the moment that our pilgrim of work 
 found himself in a brown study on the possible 
 value of blue steel, entered Jeavons's shop. 
 
 ''Well, Benjamin, where's your father.'^ you 
 
 must find him at once for me, for no one but 
 
 he can do the job I want doing." 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 34 MASSTON. 
 
 " My father's gone to Russet." 
 
 '' What ! cock-fighting ? " 
 
 *' I helped him to carry two cocks to Arm- 
 
 strong's." 
 
 " Well, of course, that means a fight, and of 
 course he'll not be back till late, — a plague on 
 his cock-fighting." 
 
 '' Could I do the job, sir ? " inquired Ben- 
 jamin with much modesty. 
 
 The doctor, eyeing the young man, replied 
 by asking him if he thought he could mend his 
 great grandmother ? Nevertheless, the scep- 
 tical but kindly-natured doctor took from his 
 pocket a complicated surgical instrument which 
 had given way at the joint in an operation, 
 and handed it to the young workman to 
 examine. 
 
 " This cannot be mended," said Benjamin, 
 ''but I can make a new one as quickly as my 
 father could, and better than this ever was, for 
 the man who made it did not know where to 
 put into it the principal strength."
 
 MASSTON. 35 
 
 '' Well, Benjamin, son of Stephen, set to 
 work." 
 
 The surofeons of Masston were not behind 
 its artizans in mechanical ingenuity, for the 
 wounds and fractures, as well as the complaints 
 and disorders new to the town, required new 
 treatment, as they likewise called forth not 
 only dexterity and demanded also great 
 readiness, but great precision in the applica- 
 tion of skill ; and who shall tell whether or not 
 the search after appropriate remedies required 
 for new but desperate cases does not help your 
 surgeon to retain his human feelings in all 
 their tenderness and freshness, although con- 
 stantly compelled to do things and witness 
 sights of agony and suffering that might other- 
 wise blunt or harden his heart ! 
 
 At any rate, Benjamin Jeavons was con- 
 soled ; he forgot his troubles, had his jealousies 
 cast out of him, and his good-nature restored 
 by the contemplation of a surgical instrument.
 
 ( 36) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. 
 An evil soul, producing holy vi^itness, 
 Is like a villain with a smiling cheek ; 
 A goodly apple rotten at the heart." 
 
 — Merchant of Venice, i. 3. 
 
 When Robert Warner first knew Sarah Arm- 
 strong, she was a rosy, dark-eyed country girl, 
 with much love for simple things. One of 
 her deliohts w^as the reading- of romantic 
 stories ; and, when not absorbed in the for- 
 tunes of Edwin and Emma, or carried out of 
 herself by the recital of the deeds of Amadis 
 and Orlando, she was poring over stories of 
 a more sacred order, and giving apparently 
 an indiscriminating credence to all. As, how- 
 ever, she kept the Biblical romances for her 
 leisure time on Sundays, and only read the 
 others on week-days, it may fairly be inferred 
 that she knew the difference between sacred
 
 MASSTON. 3 7 
 
 and profane things, and rightly divided them 
 to the satisfaction of her parents and the rector 
 of the parish. 
 
 Sarah was no less given to singing. With- 
 out anv knowledge of music she made music 
 wherever she went. Her laughter was the 
 ripple of sweet sounds. There was music in 
 every tone of her voice — music seemed to 
 attend her steps when she walked or ran, or 
 skipped down the fields, mainly to let the 
 fresh air play through the raddle of her 
 abundant brown hair. When she stood still, 
 as in church, you could see that the sweet 
 pose of her figure, in noway clothed to entice 
 the eye, was induced by listening to what to 
 her was divine music. 
 
 How did it happen that Robert Warner 
 met Sarah Armstrong ? and, still more pro- 
 foundly awful, how came Sarah Armstrong 
 to fall in love with Robert Warner ? 
 
 Reader ! take a cigarette ; or, if you are a 
 lady, let us take together a turn round the
 
 38 MASSTON. 
 
 daffodils, or round anything else that is pretty 
 and will let us look at it without offence, and 
 thus, without malice, yet also without fear, let 
 us tell all we know of Robert Warner's love 
 for Sarah Armstrong. Some may have a 
 liking for him, others will excuse — perhaps, 
 praise him, a few condemn him, but to be equal 
 to either of these we must know a little more 
 of him. 
 
 Robert Warner had been sucked in by 
 the torrent of religious emotion which then 
 swept through the town of Masston. He 
 acquired a profound sense of the wicked- 
 ness of the times, and in a solemn but 
 perfectly free manner with an air of mastery 
 that in one so young was admirable, he 
 regarded the sins and the follies of his 
 frail and less positive fellow-creatures as 
 insults to the Majesty of heaven, and as if 
 they offended his own moral sense of smell. 
 This solemnity of mind did not interfere with 
 his daily duties nor in any way weaken his
 
 MASSTON. 39 
 
 devotion to commercial pursuits. On the 
 contrary^ it has been affirmed by many of 
 his friends that the fervency of spirit with 
 which he pursued reHgious things was the 
 mainspring of that success in business which 
 aftervvards distinguished his remarkable career. 
 
 Warner's o^eneral conviction about the com- 
 mon wickedness of men had a particular 
 application. He became concerned more for 
 Sarah Armstrong's soul than for her love. 
 He was unhappy for her, and told her so ; 
 he insisted that she was carnally minded, 
 that she was callous to religious influences ; 
 and when he further spoke of something 
 more which to him was Invested with dread- 
 ful sacredness, and she only answered with 
 merry laughter, to his earnest and business- 
 like nature the sound seemed like a shriek 
 of horrid blasphemy. 
 
 They had been strolling in the fields, he 
 now led her to a seat, he laboured to Instruct 
 her — In the religious jargon of the day — in
 
 40 MASSTON. 
 
 the peculiar doctrines of the free-thlnking 
 happy mortals who are justified by faith, have 
 the assurance of the Spirit, and the daring 
 which comes from the certain knowledge 
 that they will finally persevere. 
 
 Sarah, during the time of her lover's dis- 
 course, was occupied solely with the fire of 
 his eye, the mantling bloom on his fine face, 
 the music of his eloquent and uncommon 
 words ; and Warner was vexed to find that 
 this was all. He rose from his seat and 
 walked sulkily away. Sarah followed after 
 him, begged that he would not leave her 
 merely because she was ignorant and could 
 not understand. She never had thought it 
 necessary to understand anything. She had 
 enjoyed all he had said ; she had with glad- 
 ness listened to the sound of his voice as he 
 revealed to her the wonderful things she 
 heard for the first time in all her life. 
 
 *' But, Robert," she added, with invincible 
 candour, as if the love within her was defend-
 
 MASSTON. 41 
 
 ine itself against an unfair advantaore, '' I feel 
 just the same when I read the old stories. If I 
 were to stop to understand them I should have 
 no pleasure." 
 
 '' Yes, you would," ejaculated mollified sulki- 
 ness. 
 
 " No, I shouldn't," responded reassured love. 
 '''The Pilgrim's Progress' is, after all, the 
 o^randest book I ever did read. It makes me 
 laugh, and cry, and sing, and dance all at once. 
 One morning, I remember, after I had finished 
 the victory of Mr. Greatheart over the giant, 
 and the ladies were delivered out of his power, 
 and they all went on their way rejoicing, I was 
 so excited and carried away that when I went 
 to milk our big roan cow I could get no milk 
 from her because I squeezed her so hard," and 
 the delightfully happy, careless girl, laughed at 
 her own story till the tears sprang from out her 
 eyes as freely as morning dew is shaken from 
 a rose. 
 
 Warner looked more and more offended, and
 
 42 MASSTON. 
 
 walked away from her, not straight on, but at 
 right angles to the path they were taking, to 
 manifest his aversion and disgust. 
 
 Sarah followed him, took his right arm in 
 both her hands, hung her whole body's weight 
 on to his, looked up in his face, and won her 
 lover back from the ardent speculations of the 
 mystics to the warmer realities of a delightful 
 human love. 
 
 He kissed her. He took his arm from the 
 embrace which held it, and with it embraced 
 the body of the happy maid, whose whole life 
 till now had been one continued act of giving 
 love to others. Now she was receiving the 
 glorious return of a man's love. Already was 
 she, out of the delicious joy which possessed 
 her, realising the fuller joy which should be 
 ever after hers in bestowing not only all her 
 love, but also her life and self on him. 
 
 They walked through the fields besprent 
 with humble flowers, whose myriad gleaming 
 petals compelled heaven itself to partake of an
 
 MASSTON. 43 
 
 earthly joy. The earth was sweetened by the 
 breath of roses and of kine, and not sweetened 
 merely, but made quick with new life. 
 
 The lovers were the only human occupants 
 of the scene. Flowers and kine, trees and air, 
 the heavens themselves, belonged to them only, 
 and they two belonged to each other, — with 
 this difference, that Sarah Armstrong loved 
 Robert Warner for his own sake, and as only 
 a woman can who gives her body, soul, and 
 spirit when she gives her love, and Robert 
 Warner loved Sarah Armstrong for his own 
 sake and purpose merely, chastened by a sort 
 of desire to make her as good as he was himself. 
 
 How she loved him, — she had very nearly 
 succeeded in teaching him what love was, and 
 how to love ; and perhaps if Warner had never 
 troubled himself about matters that were, 
 possibly, too high for him, and possessed him- 
 self wholly of the real love this woman gave 
 him, it might have fared better with his love 
 for that majestic, divine, but really tremendous
 
 44 MASSTON. 
 
 and awful Being, whose face he had never 
 seen, and about whom after all he knew 
 nothing but what he got from hearsay. 
 
 '' Then, do you mean to say that what 
 appears to be Robert Warner's real passion for 
 Divine things, his religious fervour, his devo- 
 tion, are objects of ridicule ? " 
 
 " No, madam, not of ridicule, but of scorn, 
 and that because he refused to see any divine 
 beauty in Sarah Armstrong ; and had no 
 religious fervour and devotion for the being 
 who loved him as did she, and because he 
 persisted In lavishing all these forces of his 
 nature on a being of whom he knew absolutely 
 nothinof." 
 
 It was a strange and startling experience 
 even for Warner, that the next day following 
 this delicious nlofht In the Armstrono^ fields at 
 Russett should find him in an enforced con- 
 troversy with himself, which ended In his 
 pondering the momentous question of the 
 nineteenth century :
 
 MASSTON. 45 
 
 "Is it possible to make the best of both 
 worlds ? " 
 
 If to Sarah Armstrong there had, up to the 
 time of her becoming acquainted with Mr. R. 
 W. Warner, been more than one or two worlds, 
 they had now become merged into one. 
 
 The change which in that time of changes, 
 already noted, when rottenness was mistaken 
 for ripeness, overtook even her. For a while 
 it chano^ed her whole beino^. It stole all music 
 from out her heart and limbs. It hunor the trees 
 
 o 
 
 with tears, and the heavens with black.
 
 (46 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " O opportunity ! thy guilt is great." 
 
 — Lucretius. 
 
 The changes in Masston continued from day 
 to day. They were as rapid as infection, and 
 as real as those of an April sky when the rain- 
 bows come and go, and the very drops of rain 
 are changed into precious jewels to look at. 
 
 A man wanted a cool head to keep himself 
 steady, events were so bewildering in the 
 rapidity of their occurrence. Through simply 
 becoming giddy men lost their footing and 
 their places, and fell to lower degrees. Others, 
 far from falling, made stepping-stones of their 
 prone neighbours, and rose to higher things, 
 which was not so much a moral as a temporal 
 rising of some of Masston's men. If any made 
 the mistake that because a man rose rapidly in 
 that famous town he rose in any other sense, it
 
 MASSTON. 47 
 
 might not Inaptly be attributed to the nature 
 of the craft he pursued, and which was first 
 founded, practised, and brought to perfection 
 in Masston. 
 
 This was the subHme art and mystery of 
 making things that were not appear as though 
 they were — when iron was made to look like 
 brass or copper ; brass like gold ; and lead and 
 other dull and measure metals look like silver. 
 
 Masston, as it now is, may be said to have 
 been built upon brass ; just as when Benjamin 
 Jeavons and Robert Warner were boys, it 
 might be said to have been sustained by steel. 
 Steel gave way to brass, because in the race 
 between them brass became the favourite ; 
 Masston became as famous for its brass as 
 Tyre for its dyes, or Toledo for Its blades. 
 
 Robert Warner grew up into a man of brass. 
 He caught the spirit of the time, and changed 
 his pursuit for one In which all the world con- 
 tended. At the time of his love-maklne with 
 Sarah Armstrong he had, by his prudence,
 
 43 MASSTON. 
 
 force of character, and genius, done a new 
 thing in many-handed Masston. He turned 
 several hundred men into so many human 
 bricks, with which he proceeded to build a 
 fortune and a name. 
 
 His name already was on everybody's lip — 
 no village prattle or town talk but included the 
 name of Robert Warner. No name stood 
 higher in the local firmament, and the villages 
 and small towns round the daily-increasing 
 Masston were by it stirred to their depths as 
 vermin are stirred by the sun. 
 
 These several hundred human bricks, it 
 should be explained, were so many Masston 
 workmen, who up to the advent of Mr. War- 
 ner were their own masters, who did their own 
 work in their own way and time and place, 
 receiving the reward thereof not as wages, 
 but in direct payment from a public who stood 
 in need of their wares. This payment was 
 liable to a fluctuation that but ill accorded 
 with the wants of human mouths, whose de-
 
 MASSTON. 49 
 
 mands refused to fluctuate. Mr. Warner made 
 himself a rock for the occasion ; if work be- 
 came uncertain he found work for those who 
 were wilHnof to labour. It is true that he did 
 not pay quite so much for it as did the London 
 and Bristol merchants, as it was understood 
 that he ran a certain risk in what was techni- 
 cally known as working for stock. 
 
 In process of time, which appeared very 
 short to some observers, these independent 
 workmen became journeymen of Mr. Robert 
 Warner, and were by that process changed 
 into so many separate members of a great 
 body, the trunk and head of which was 
 Warner. He divided and conquered. These 
 Masstonites now no lonofer made whole things, 
 but one workman made one part, another 
 another part, and so each became dependent 
 upon each other, and all upon Mr. Warner. 
 It can easily be understood, therefore, that if 
 a hundred workshops were all thrown into 
 one, a great workshop would follow. Such 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 MASSTON. 
 
 was the case; the Oxford Works, the pride 
 of Masston, and one of the wonders of the 
 commercial world, sprang into existence, or 
 appeared to do so, as Minerva sprang from 
 the head of Jove. 
 
 These celebrated premises were laid out on 
 a vast scale, and testified to the daring and 
 skill of the man who planned them. The 
 great front, some seven storeys in height, was 
 surmounted by a Greek pediment, in stone or 
 stucco, wherein one single muse figured to an 
 admiring populace. " Robert Welsher War- 
 ner, Patentee, a.d. i8 — ." From the central 
 front there were to run, in two parallel lines, 
 enclosed at the end, vast rows of workshops, 
 as time, opportunity, and money might serve, 
 for two thousand hands. Meanwhile, the great 
 front was devoted to magnificent show-rooms, 
 wherein things innumerable In brass, which 
 beggar description, were displayed to merchants 
 and others who held commerce with every 
 town and country under the revolving sun.
 
 MASSTON. 5 1 
 
 These show-rooms were the talk of the 
 kingdom, the astonishment of the country 
 round about, the pride and glory of the time. 
 In these salons of Masston art merchant princes 
 discovered the growing need of their subjects 
 and how to satisfy them. Cabinet ministers 
 discovered new meanino^s in the events of the 
 
 o 
 
 day, and the universal activity, by visiting these 
 splendid repositories. The benevolent great 
 Duchess, not in title only, but in nature 
 and fame, who had a place not so many 
 miles away, came to see the Oxford Works, 
 and ordered several things for her own 
 use. That beautiful and most charmincf 
 woman, then in the fulness of her grace 
 and sweetness, never knew for herself the 
 glory she had shed on that manufactory. 
 Yet did she change it into a palace. It 
 was the pride of every workman who had 
 seen that apparition of commanding beauty 
 and supreme sweetness to belong to the 
 Oxford Works. They bought her portrait
 
 5 2 MASSTON. 
 
 and put it up In front of the benches at 
 which they worked. They went mad with 
 joy. They began to invent new things for 
 the Duchess. The man who had not seen 
 the Duchess and knew not how to speak 
 of her was an inferior creature, unblessed 
 with a taste of the sweetest thinor in life. 
 When this most love-inspiring lady, whom 
 it is a boast of Englishmen to have seen, 
 spoken to, or in any way served, again shortly 
 afterwards came to the Oxford Works, Robert 
 Warner gave all his men a holiday, and 
 the noble lady there and then proposed 
 that when it would suit them all to bring 
 their wives and little ones to Trythem 
 Lodge, she would be there to give them 
 welcome on any summer day that they might 
 choose. 
 
 Fresh orders for new and costly things were 
 given by the great lady — some of her own 
 design. Workmen were sent for to receive 
 her own instructions, or were Invited to make
 
 MASSTON. 53 
 
 suggestions and offer improving ideas. The 
 sun could not have added more splendour to 
 the sky on the first day it was hung in the 
 firmament than did this lofty and heroic 
 woman add of true joy and elevating love 
 to the mind and nature of many a working- 
 man in the town of Masston. 
 
 Other ladies visited the Oxford Works. 
 The place became a fashionable resort. 
 
 Meanwhile, the loves of Sarah Armstrong 
 and Robert Warner, if that can be called love 
 between two mortals which is altogether on 
 one side, had grown cold. Robert no longer 
 cared for the conversion of Sarah, — he left 
 her to work out her own salvation ; he was 
 convinced that he could not help her. He 
 now visited her only occasionally, but at each 
 visit he found an increased love and trust in 
 the trusty girl. What cause had he not given 
 for upbraiding, and yet how dumb she was, 
 nor did she open her mouth except to make 
 him feel the sweetness of her heart. He was
 
 54 MASSTON. 
 
 well-nleh subdued : almost had she won him 
 wholly to her. But the cares of a world 
 grown great and renowned, together with the 
 glory of riches, filled his soul to choking, till 
 at last Robert had no time for his usual even- 
 ing walk to Russet. It was a long week to 
 some one which passed without her lover's 
 voice sounding In her ears ; but when the 
 Sunday came and brought him, all pain was 
 forgotten In the present fulness of pure joy. 
 Still, even the Sundays no longer came and 
 went without leaving traces of tears which 
 need not have been shed. 
 
 " I do not wish you to come to Masston 
 any more on market days," Robert said to her 
 on one of these chequered Sabbaths ; " there 
 is no reason why you should do so.'' 
 
 *' I like It," was the reply ; '' my mother did 
 it when she was young, and why should not 
 I?" 
 
 '' The times have changed now. Your 
 mother was then bent on marrying a farmer
 
 MASSTON. 55 
 
 and remaining a farmers wife. You may 
 come to be a lady." 
 
 The tone and stuff of her lover's talk was 
 strangely unnatural to her, but she could refuse 
 him nothing, and therefore had to comply 
 in this as in many other things distasteful to 
 her. 
 
 When she told her father of the request, 
 and that she must obey, he, like a good easy 
 old soul, had nothing to say to her, but that 
 she should please herself. Her mother, on 
 the contrary, was highly offended, and old 
 Stephen Jeavons, when he heard of it, refused 
 ever again to see old Job Armstrong, or to 
 go to his house, and went the length of calling 
 Job a white-livered hen. 
 
 It was during this time that Warner proved 
 in his own experience the truth of the saying 
 that "godliness is profitable for all things." 
 
 Reputed saints and reputed sinners alike 
 helped him to an experimental proof of verities 
 which the majority of men had to take on
 
 56 MASSTON. 
 
 trust. The money required to finish the 
 Oxford Works came to him almost without 
 asking. Shrewd men of business connected 
 themselves with a rising man who knew so 
 well how to unite industry with skill and 
 mastership, and who had acquired a remark- 
 able name among every class of people in 
 the town. The leadino- men and women 
 
 o 
 
 who had associated themselves with^ the 
 religious movement in Masston looked upon 
 Mr. Warner as the noble example and out- 
 come of the cause they espoused. The 
 unanimity in which this was done, although 
 done secretly and under the profoundest vows 
 of silence, shows how, at the bottom of things, 
 one sole but strong uniting bond of principle 
 bound together all the real professors of 
 religion. The broad-brimmed hat and dove- 
 coloured silk bonnet, as well as the gay false 
 hair and shapely skirts of others, the dear 
 delightful waistcoats, and the immaculate 
 bands and gown, and other trappings which
 
 MASSTON. 57 
 
 distinguish one religious man and woman from 
 others, are only the work of milliners or 
 tailors. The fire can easily burn these flimsy 
 distinctions, and when it does it will be found 
 that there was no difference at all among them. 
 They all lent Warner money freely and with- 
 out restraint, and some went the length of 
 believing that it was a duty to do so. How 
 often did that money form the subject of 
 private extempore prayers ? — as often as it 
 did of public praise, and that was every day. 
 For their money he gave these Christians the 
 finest show-room in all England, which he 
 filled with all things that could be made in 
 brass ; a manufactory that could be likened to 
 nothing else than a hive in which a thousand 
 orderly and busy bees made honey, and over 
 them all a ruler, who apparently cared as much 
 for the souls of the busy bodies who made it as 
 he did for the delicious stufi" they made. He 
 gave them more. Voluntary lay agencies for 
 clerical work sprang up as thick as mushrooms,
 
 58 MASSTON. 
 
 and as suddenly, and the first district visitor on 
 a grand scale for the new religion, or the new 
 form it took in Masston, was produced in 
 Warner's show-room. 
 
 If the kind-hearted religious people of Mass- 
 ton lent Mr. Warner their money with open 
 hands, they had the uncommon pleasure of 
 seeing the churches and chapels of the town 
 filled with Mr. Warner's workmen. Mr. War- 
 ner himself became marvellously changed. 
 He was quick to observe the effect of all things 
 that had any promise of profiting him, and to 
 reproduce them in their outward seeming. 
 His nature might be compared to a mirror ; so 
 rapid and brilliant was it to reflect what fell 
 upon its surface, and so little was there behind 
 that surface. It was this quick and shallow 
 observation which made him one morning 
 appear at the works in full evening costume — 
 a well-cut coat, which certainly till then had 
 never been seen by daylight in Masston, and 
 all the other garments required to assist at a
 
 MASSTON. 59 
 
 funeral or a Mansion House dinner. The Im- 
 pression at first on every one's mind was that 
 Mr. Warner was going to a funeral. None 
 had the courage to inquire. When this most 
 unusual dress became his constant wear, after 
 havlnor called to it the attention of all the 
 world, Mr. Robert Warner had become one 
 of the most respected persons in all Mass- 
 ton. The people around him adopted the 
 meaning which he put upon his symbolic 
 costume. Thus wealth became consecrated to 
 heavenly service, and commerce was elevated 
 Into a means of grace. 
 
 Of what avail was it to a loving woman to 
 love this man now crusted with a selfishness 
 as hard as it was impressive, through which 
 her love might as well hope to pierce as for 
 the sun to penetrate the Pyramids ? These 
 must be turned upside down before the god 
 of day can enter them ; and he must go 
 through like process If he should ever come 
 to hold and deserve a woman's love. He
 
 6o MASSTON. 
 
 must sacrifice himself before he can be true 
 to her. But there was that in him which 
 rejected all notion of self-sacrifice ; or rather 
 that demanded the offering of his better nature 
 to the ofods who delighted in the offerinors of 
 molten metals as did their prototypes in burnt 
 flesh. So, when Sarah Armstrong needed 
 Robert Warner most, he most neglected her. 
 
 It is well known in Masston that old Buckle, 
 as Joseph Buckle, Esquire, was called, left a 
 splendid lot of money, and an equally splendid 
 business to his son John, or Master John, as 
 he was always called. But Master John, 
 with all his fine education at the university 
 and his diamond rings and horses, was a fool, 
 and knew no more about business than busi- 
 ness knew of him. He was equally deficient 
 in his knowledge of men and the world. He 
 was o^lad to be in the midst of both ; and he 
 was courted not for that which he had not, 
 but for that which he had. His principal 
 courtier was Lord Francis Elbston, a cousin
 
 MASSTON. 6 1 
 
 of Lord LImethorp, who owned much land 
 in Masston, and all the land on the west side 
 of it. An infamous transaction on the part 
 of Lord Francis compelled that young noble- 
 man to quit England. Master John Buckle 
 was concerned in that infamous transaction 
 which need be no further referred to now 
 except to inform the reader that our Masston 
 hero, I\Ir. Warner, was not only cognisant of 
 the whole affair, but was likewise placed in 
 charge of old Buckle's house of business under 
 his own name, was likewise the propounder 
 of a plan for resuscitating the fortunes of the 
 youthful nobleman and his young master, as 
 well as for providing for his own. 
 
 Master John Buckle and Lord Francis 
 Elbston became secret partners of Robert 
 Welsher Warner, in the Oxford Works, in 
 our town of Masston. 
 
 When, therefore, we have the combined 
 forces of religion, aristocracy, and commerce 
 aiding a young man to get on in the world,
 
 62 MASSTON. 
 
 who IS possessed of a handsome person and 
 a ofenlus for commandinof success, we shall 
 not only have no need for resorting to the 
 invisible part of the universe for help or 
 explanation in the matter of Mr. Warners 
 sudden and great triumph ; no reasonable 
 person will longer be surprised thereat. 
 
 ''Good morning, sir; may I ask you to be 
 kind enouo^h to tell me where I can find Mr. 
 R. W. Warner ? " 
 
 " I am Mr. Warner," was the reply, and the 
 words though few were bland, and the mode 
 of delivering them courteous. 
 
 '' Dear me, sir. I had really no idea that I 
 should find in Mr. Warner a combination of 
 youth as well as talent. I had no such idea — 
 none — none in the least. I — I — really am 
 confused — delighted — astonished." 
 
 " To whom have I the pleasure of speak- 
 ing ? " inquired Mr. Warner not unnaturally. 
 
 " My name is Birtles," replied the other — 
 "of the firm of Bright, Birtles, & Brush — the
 
 MASSTON. 63 
 
 three B.s, you know, of Bristol. Eh, Mr 
 Warner, the three B.s — always bright — always 
 right, sir — right, that is, straight — straight — 
 down on the nail, sir, and no mistake." 
 
 The speaker of these words was a round, 
 jolly-faced, happy-looking fellow, very well 
 dressed in West of England cloth, with a 
 red face — made red not by brandy, but by 
 fresh air, and, perhaps, Devonshire cream and 
 Somersetshire cider added thereto. He had 
 encountered Mr. Warner at the front entrance 
 of the Oxford Works, whither he was bent on 
 very Important and very unusual business. It 
 was the magnitude of the business that made 
 Birtles express his surprise so warmly at find- 
 ing the head of the renowned Oxford Works 
 so young. 
 
 " Let us proceed inside," observed Mr. 
 Warner to Mr. Birdes, and the latter, with 
 the solemnity of entering a church, raised 
 his hat, and did as he was bid. 
 
 When they reached Mr Warner's room
 
 64 MASSTON. 
 
 Birtles felt perfectly awe-struck. Marching 
 down an aisle of well-dressed young men, all 
 engaged in writing, the two ascended not more 
 than eight or ten wide marble steps, guarded 
 on each side with eold-coloured railino^s of 
 exquisite workmanship, the design for which 
 was taken from a Florentine palace. 
 
 As Warner reached the upper step, the 
 door leading to the room opened as if of itself; 
 he then turned round to face the clerks, whom 
 he saluted with " Gentlemen, good morning." 
 For a moment all pens ceased writing, and 
 twenty or thirty well- combed heads bowed 
 down as if in worship. This was the daily 
 ceremony at the Oxford Works, conducted by 
 Mr. Warner. In another moment the pens 
 were at it again, and Mr. Birtles entered Mr. 
 Warner's room in a mightier surprise than 
 ever. When the business which now brought 
 him to Masston was first made known to him, 
 it almost took away his commercial breath. 
 Now that he beheld the great Oxford Works,
 
 MASSTON. 65 
 
 and the room in which its master carried on 
 his business, not only his commercial breath 
 again gave way, but the natural breath of his 
 body failed him. He was, perhaps, incHned to 
 apoplexy. The room was not grand, but it 
 was of a sacred order of architecture ; the 
 carpet might have been taken from within 
 communion railings ; the fire-place seemed to 
 Birtles more like an altar-piece than any fire- 
 place he had ever seen before; and the 
 window, which looked into the great yard; or 
 quadrangle, as some of the clerks called it, 
 was of stained glass, carrying highly-coloured 
 portraits of the Apostles. All the furniture 
 w^as to match. '' That chair. Oh yes, it was 
 designed by her Grace the Duchess of Sunny- 
 land." There was nothing in the room that 
 did not attract a pleased and surprised notice, 
 and everything was a pattern from which you 
 could buy a hundred dozen copies if you liked, 
 from the steel pens on the beautiful metal 
 table, the table itself, down to the brass fire- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 MASSTON. 
 
 irons, up to the gorgeous gold-coloured cornice, 
 and down again to castors, screws, hinges, 
 springs, gold-headed nails, delightful knick- 
 knacks and kickshaws, all being patterns 
 of things made in the Oxford Works, and 
 made to do a silent Inviting duty to all be- 
 holders. 
 
 " My dear sir," ejaculated Birtles, " this is — 
 all this — is the poetry of business. Who says 
 there's no poetry in trade ? Why, where would 
 poetry be but for trade ? and, Mr. Warner, 
 I congratulate you, sir, I congratulate you. 
 You do not, you cannot, know why I con- 
 gratulate you. You are a great man, sir, but 
 you will be greater yet. You do not know 
 how great you are, sir." 
 
 Mr. Warner, w^ho was standing with one 
 arm resting on the mantlepiece and his left 
 hand in the folds of his waistcoat, made no 
 visible or audible reply to all this blustering 
 and excited compliment. He knew the firm 
 of Bright, Birtles, & Brush as well as he knew
 
 MASSTON. 6 7 
 
 anything, and he simply inquired, with great 
 gravity and In his best tones, " Is the West 
 flourishing, Mr. Birtles, as much as ever ? " 
 
 " Flourishing, my dear sir, Is no word for 
 it We are positively dying of too many 
 eood thinors, like tame rabbits in clover. 
 But it is not the West, Mr. Warner, that Is 
 flourishing merely ; we are flourishing all 
 round, sir. Down from there and up to here, 
 we are flourishing like the green bay-tree, 
 my dear sir." 
 
 As Birtles pointed with his finger down 
 to the centre of the earth as he used that 
 excited expression, Mr. Warner only smiled 
 and revolved his face as if he were describing 
 a note of Interrogation. 
 
 "Well, my dear sir, let us be calm," replied 
 Birtles. " Let us, as I say to Mrs. Birtles 
 when she spys the bishop coming up the lawn 
 to tea, let us be calm. The question is this, 
 can you, Mr. Warner, turn out for Bright, 
 Birtles, & Brush, within a reasonable short
 
 68 MASSTON. 
 
 time, say twenty thousand pounds worth of 
 your own admirable goods ? When I look 
 around and see the magnificent appliances you 
 have here, the order, the command, I may say 
 the beauty and strength of the Oxford Works, 
 with you, my dear sir, for their directing mind 
 — their master mind, I might very properly 
 say — I feel sure that you can do the thing 
 for us. I give you no particulars, make some- 
 thing of everything, put your best foot fore- 
 most, sir, try at something new, if you like, 
 for the place and the occasion. The Australias; 
 are stretching out their hands to us, my dear 
 sir, filled with gold, and hungering and thirst- 
 ing for beauty and elegance in exchange. 
 Quick, despatch, Mr. Warner. We can make, 
 you great, while we make ourselves rich, if you 
 will, with the ardour, the intelligence, and 
 the skill which I see displayed here. Comply 
 with our request. Bright, Birtles, & Brush 
 are all there, Mr. Warner, if you are ; now, 
 what do you say ? "
 
 MASSTON. 69 
 
 . " I am quite ready, sir," modestly spoke 
 Warner. 
 
 *' I thought so," said the other. 
 
 Birtles' manner then suddenly changed to a 
 solemn and slow one, as if he were about 
 to proceed through a private religious cere- 
 mony. He placed a chair at the table, he sat 
 down, and with his own pen, which he took 
 from one waistcoat pocket, after dipping it in 
 a peculiar ink-horn which he carried in the 
 corner of the other, he wrote out a cheque 
 for ^10,000. 
 
 " This cheque, Mr. Warner, I shall deposit 
 in the bank of Messrs. Battwood & Bunce, 
 of Masston. On the day after the receipt of 
 invoice of goods to this amount, you will 
 receive our order to draw at sis^ht for that 
 sum. The other ;^ 10,000 will be forwarded 
 from Bristol in the usual way, five per cent, off 
 for bills of three months, — should prefer to 
 make it six months, but the three B.s 
 are not screws, Mr. Warner ; and as we are
 
 70 MASSTON. 
 
 anxious for despatch, we must pay something 
 for it of course. Let me have the pleasure of 
 wishing you all success." 
 
 Here Birtles raised his hat from the table, 
 put it on his head, in order to lift it at Warner, 
 — a ceremony on which he greatly ' prided 
 himself, — shook hands with the master of the 
 Oxford Works, and took his leave amid a 
 profusion of politeness. 
 
 All that Warner said was : " Your orders 
 shall have our best attention." He then 
 opened the door of his room, stood on the 
 step till Birtles reached the far-off door at the 
 other end of the warehouse, and then made 
 a profound bow to the great Bristol mer- 
 chant. 
 
 Warner, as he returned to his room, placed 
 himself in an attitude expressive of devout 
 and exalted gratitude. He felt himself to be 
 a favourite of heaven. He thus continued for 
 a brief space, when he was disturbed by an 
 apparition that positively overcame him, and
 
 MASSTON. 71 
 
 the effect It produced on his face was that of 
 a person In a religious ecstasy. 
 
 The attentive reader will have noticed how, 
 as if of itself, the door of Mr. Warner's room 
 opened when he and BIrtles mounted the 
 last of the marble steps. By a mechanical 
 contrivance, the pressure of a plate in the 
 step was made to serve for opening the door. 
 If the spring were left unchecked inside, any 
 person standing outside on the step would 
 make the door to slowly turn on its hinges. 
 As Robert Welsher Warner was in the act 
 of raising his animated face to heaven, a lady 
 stood on the marble step, — the door opened, 
 and Edith Ascham stood face to face with the 
 master of the renowned Oxford Works. 
 
 He offered her the Duchess' chair.
 
 ( 72 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Alas ! how easily things go wrong — 
 A sigh too much or a kiss too long, 
 And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, 
 And life is never the same again." 
 
 — G. Macdonald. 
 
 This world could be changed In a single night 
 from what it is, if all the men and women who 
 live in it would to-morrow cease to talk on 
 anything they know nothing about. But with 
 so much power in their hands, men will not 
 use it, nor perhaps would lovely woman allow 
 them. For one thing, th^ world would become 
 too dull, and for another, the most talkative 
 part of it, would be deprived of the only means 
 they possess of knowing their own minds. 
 Many of the best talkers are as ignorant of 
 what is in them, and what is about to come 
 out of them, as are those who listen for the 
 coming sentences ; and if any happy phrase or
 
 MASSTON. 73 
 
 form of sound words should cause surprise in 
 a mixed company where are some good talkers, 
 the surprise will surely be mutual. The lady 
 whom we saw disturb Mr. Warner's devout 
 attitude was one of those on whom the gift of 
 speech had been liberally bestowed. Talk 
 was a luxury to her ; it had likewise become a 
 necessity. Miss Ascham could also be silent, 
 as we shall see, but at present she was in the 
 full bloom of her talking period. 
 
 When that new-fangled door opened, as it 
 seemed of itself, and revealed to the lady a 
 person apparently In the act of religious 
 thanksgiving, and that person none other than 
 the one whom she had come on purpose to 
 talk with on serious, and to her momentous, 
 questions, she could not help feeling a sweet 
 kind of happiness that disclosed itself in a 
 blush. 
 
 She did not apologise for the Interruption, 
 which, in a lady of her excellence, could only 
 be accounted for by a strong feeling possess-
 
 74 MASSTON. 
 
 ing her that for the moment made her superior 
 to ordinary good manners. She gave her 
 hand to Mr. Warner, — she accepted with a 
 beauteous smile the chair which he offered 
 her. And unconsciously, but none the less 
 really, Edith Ascham, there and then, gave 
 herself to Robert Warner. All consciously, 
 Robert Warner, there and then, resolved that 
 this pre-eminent beauty should be his wife. 
 
 '' O Mr. Warner," she began, after taking 
 the offered chair, " do you not think that 
 sometimes, in a mysterious way, people are 
 brought together for very special and extra- 
 ordinary purposes ? " 
 
 " I have no doubt of it," replied that highly 
 favoured being. 
 
 '' Yes ; for instance, Mr. Gadso came to us 
 knowing nothing of us, and we flocked to him 
 with all our hearts. It is very wonderful. I 
 came to you this morning by a strange impulse 
 — I mean, that I started to come as if I were 
 carried by a spirit, but, on my way here with
 
 MASSTON. 75 
 
 my sister and Mr. Gadso, I as suddenly be- 
 came tormented with doubts. Then when we 
 came inside your great works, the first impulse 
 returned, I came and stood on your doorstep, 
 and the door opened of its own accord." This 
 was all the explanation she was equal to. At 
 this moment came a knock at the door. 
 
 '^ There/* exclaimed the impetuous lady, 
 '' the door does not open to them as it did to 
 me ; it is very wonderful." 
 
 Mr. Warner rose, and released unobserved, 
 with his foot, the check of the spring, which he 
 had put down after Miss Ascham's appearance; 
 the door opened, and in came the Reverend 
 William Gadso, and Miss Ascham's sister. 
 
 '* Oh, there you are," observed the former in a 
 tone of great familiarity ; but then Mr. Gadso 
 was married. '* Pray, have you submitted 
 your schemes to Mr. Warner ? How do, Mr. 
 Warner," continued the reverend gentleman; 
 "the Lord hath much people in this city."- 
 The smile which accompanied these words
 
 76 MASSTON. 
 
 was simply divine. A divine's smile, in fact ; 
 not only a work of art of the highest kind, but 
 of an inherited art, the power of which makes 
 nature jealous, while it gives a perfect triumph 
 to grace. 
 
 " I have told Mr. Warner nothing as yet. 
 How many things In this life happen to us 
 which seem to be only delightful dreams." said 
 Miss Ascham in meditative tones. 
 
 The Oxford Works had become famous in 
 Masston among Its elect Inhabitants, as a 
 place where prayer was wont to be made. A 
 religious atmosphere pervaded the great shop, 
 religious meetings were frequently held there, 
 and on Saturday afternoons what was known 
 as the clerical meeting, that is, an assemblage 
 of the clergy of Masston, was now frequently 
 held in Mr. Warner's private room. The 
 well-known participation of the master of the 
 Oxford Works in these religious activities 
 brouo^ht him to Miss Ascham's notice. It was 
 Mr. Robert W. Warner who suggested this,
 
 MASS TON. 77 
 
 designed that, and organised the other new 
 form of Christian cultivation. He appeared to 
 her fervid imagination as the very architect 
 which the times required to build the new 
 temple of God. 
 
 Edith Ascham was the daughter of an 
 ancient race whose inherited associations be- 
 longed all to Masston. She and her younger 
 sister were the last of her name. Awakened 
 out of the torpor in which she had been born 
 by new sounds and sights, newer than she had 
 ever seen or dreamed of, she conceived it to 
 be her duty to devote herself and her great 
 wealth to the moral and religious improvement 
 of her now numerous and swarming neigh- 
 bours. Unknown to her, those abounding but 
 neglected labourers had been busy piling up 
 gold for her. While she was a child, skipping 
 on a grassy lawn three centuries old, the little 
 children of Masston were helping to make that 
 lawn, and many another field and paddock of 
 the Aschams, worth a hundred times as much
 
 yS MASSTON. 
 
 In money value as they were when her father, 
 Sir Roger Ascham, died. For many a day 
 and many a year, while she was fast asleep In 
 a delightful bed in a pannelled room, the 
 Green Dragon was growing In fatness, the 
 Red Lion in might, the Tiger In strength, fed 
 on the brains of sinful men, and the wasted 
 bodies of sinless children. 
 
 These public-houses belonged to Edith 
 Ascham. When she came of age, only a 
 few years before her visit this morning to 
 Mr. R. W. Warner, those fierce animals 
 named above represented a vast sum In the 
 current coin of the realm. 
 
 She was a convert of the Reverend William 
 Gadso. But If Edith Ascham had oriven her 
 
 o 
 
 imagination and her acquired knowledge to a 
 low church party, she reserved her ancestral 
 pride and her heroic nature for other uses. 
 Not even Mr. Gadso himself had the least 
 control over her when she had resolved on 
 doing a thing. She once told him, " You
 
 MASSTON. 79 
 
 argue like an angel, and yet you can act like a 
 hen," and ever since that dear clergyman had 
 been at her feet. It was not conceit, nor 
 irreverence, nor yet the restless desire to be 
 uncommon, which has unsexed more women 
 than it has spoilt men, but it was the descent 
 to her from her masculine ancestors of that 
 honour, clock to itself that knew the true 
 minute when to strike. 
 
 And yet we find this lady carried away with 
 religious enthusiasm, even as a fair country 
 maid had been led captive by the strength 
 of human love, about to become just as much 
 the victim of a fraud as was that country 
 maid. " It is very wonderful," to use her 
 own phrase. The secret of this infatuation 
 lies in the imprudence with which certain ele- 
 vated natures accept for facts what are clear 
 deceptions, unable to discern the difference 
 between an artfully-concealed spring, made by 
 human artifice, and what they are pleased to 
 call a special providence. It lies in the
 
 80 MASSTON. 
 
 familiarity with which the most exalted names 
 are taken upon human lips, and the most sacred 
 things are grossly handled by human fingers. 
 Who shall say that there is not yet another 
 meaning, and a deeper, which only the readers 
 of this moving story shall be able to discover ? 
 
 '' I should so like, Mr. Warner, to be 
 present at ^^our next annual feast of the 
 Oxford Works," exclaimed Miss Ascham. 
 
 *' Oh, most certainly," replied Mr. Warner. 
 
 She had kept her seat all this time in the 
 Duchess's chair, reclining in an easy attitude, 
 which expressed confidence, repose, and the 
 absolute absence of all uncertainty and doubt. 
 As she thus sat she was a lady for a warrior to 
 kiss, who had won her love by noble deeds and 
 a life of devotion ; or one for a hero to swear 
 by, or to excite an oath In his breast, that no 
 other woman but this should have his love. 
 
 Mr. Warners ways and speech were ex- 
 cellent. He, too, was thoroughly at ease, and 
 a peculiar smile rested on his face, it was not
 
 MASSTON. 8 1 
 
 confined to his lips, it shone in his blue eyes ; 
 it seemed to play on his white and massive 
 forehead, to mingle with the deep carmine of 
 his cheek, and enter the locks of his black 
 hair. 
 
 '' Would you like to go over the works ? " 
 Mr. Warner inquired in a deep but modest 
 tone of voice, which was meant to be impres- 
 sive, imperative, and yet inviting. 
 
 " I should like it of all things," said Miss 
 Ascham, and so said Mr. Gadso. 
 
 " The Duchess of Sunnyland has been here 
 several times, has she not?" inquired Julia 
 Ascham, a very pretty girl, but not at all given 
 to religion ; " what does she come for ? " 
 
 " What do you come for ? " inquired her 
 sister, not sharply but in a gentle tone of 
 voice. 
 
 " I came because you asked me to come, 
 but am now so tired that I wish you would 
 take me away." 
 
 " Stay with me a little while, sweet Ju, I 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 MASSTON. 
 
 shall have so much to tell you when we drive 
 home." 
 
 ''If you will promise to talk to me all the 
 way home, I will stay." 
 
 " Then I promise. Will you tell my sister, 
 Mr. Warner, why the Duchess of Sunnyland 
 visits the Oxford Works ? " This she said 
 with a deprecating smile. 
 
 " She orders many things from us, — she 
 sends us many commissions and designs, — she 
 takes great interest in art. She is not only 
 the first lady, but the first person who has 
 discovered that a beautiful object In common 
 use among common people may have a great 
 and even an elevatlnof mission." 
 
 Miss Ascham was all attention to this very 
 inaccurate speech of Mr. Warner. She did 
 not question the libel on all the world but the 
 Duchess, — she took It for granted to be true. 
 
 "Surely," she remarked, "that is very un- 
 sound. Mr. Gadso, do you approve ? Do 
 you think, for instance, that if the common
 
 MASSTON. 83 
 
 brown iuof used amono^ the workinor-classes 
 
 Jo o o 
 
 were to be exchanged for an Etruscan vase, 
 It could be said to have ' a great and even 
 an elevatinof mission ' ? " 
 
 '' I do think," answered Mr. Gadso, putting 
 himself Into an attitude, '' that if the utensils 
 of the poor were to be so improved in design 
 that they could be inscribed with texts, good 
 would come of it. By the by, Mr. Warner, 
 that Is an Idea for you. I do think you could, 
 here and there, supply scrolls, — scrolls for 
 ornament to carry appropriate passages of 
 the Divine Word. On your bedsteads especi- 
 ally, on your door-plates, on the handles of 
 keys, on candlesticks ; how blessed, for ex- 
 ample, might It not be, If you could make 
 an inkstand, the border of which would be 
 of filigree, with the words wrought in in 
 metal, ' Thou God seest me ' ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " responded Mr. Warner in a sigh 
 of deep emotion. 
 
 " And you know, Miss Ascham," continued
 
 84 MASSTON. 
 
 the clergyman, " as we had It In our last 
 parlour lecture, this was really a custom of 
 the Jews In their best days. The Greeks 
 always wrote on their walls words of wisdom. 
 The Persians and the Moors dellorhted to 
 
 o 
 
 inscribe the most precious and sacred phrases 
 on the prominent parts of their public build- 
 ings. ' Beware of dogs/ you remember my 
 sermon on that text, which was really a com- 
 mon Inscription on the walls of Athens In the 
 time of St. Paul, and that is a case In point." 
 
 " This Is highly important," Mr. Warner 
 remarked. 
 
 " 'DIth," said Julia, clinging very close to 
 her sister so as not to be overheard, " don't 
 you think it is much more ' important ' what 
 is put into the jug of the poor than the shape 
 of the jug, or the stuff the jug Is made of ? " 
 
 ''That is very good of you, Julia," said 
 her sister, " but remember that goodness only 
 comes after wisdom." 
 
 Julia remembered no such thing, but it
 
 MASSTON. 85 
 
 sounded all right, and Mr. Gadso said that 
 it was so. Some of us know that this is 
 the very reverse of being right, and that it is 
 all wrong ; but this was the sounding brass 
 to which Masston for its sins was condemned 
 to listen, and which by means of very cheap 
 literature and active charitable ladies, too well 
 off to know anything for themselves, it came 
 ultimately to believe. 
 
 Miss Ascham, her sister, and Mr. Gadso, 
 conducted by Mr. Warner, had now reached 
 the chief workshop where the skilled artizans 
 of the Oxford Works carried on their labours. 
 On the door leading into this room was a 
 notice to the effect that there was "No admit- 
 tance on any pretence whatever." 
 
 " Should we come in here ? " inquired the 
 younger sister of the other, who had observed 
 the notice. 
 
 '' I suppose," replied Miss Ascham, "that Mr. 
 Warner knows we shall not steal any secrets, 
 and that we are to be otherwise trusted."
 
 86 MASSTON. 
 
 ''No person," repeated Miss Julia, ''on any 
 pretence/' 
 
 " Observe," remarked the clergyman, " we 
 have no pretence to be here ; the notice there- 
 fore does not concern us, and besides, we are 
 Invited to come by the master who issued the 
 order, and who can when he pleases revoke it." 
 Mr. Gadso was anxious about Miss Julia. 
 
 " Is this for sale ? " Inquired Miss Ascham of 
 an • intelllofent workman who was burnlshinor 
 the rim of a ofreat metal vase. 
 
 " No," replied the man, " this is for the 
 Duchess of Sunnyland." 
 
 Miss Ascham ceased to take any Interest in 
 the object on which the man was employed, 
 and carelessly passed on to another workman 
 whose appearance was more remarkable than 
 that of the other. He was a meek-eyed man, 
 with thoughtful, but small features, and his fine 
 linen sleeves were as well washed and dressed 
 as her own. He, too, was occupied on a piece 
 of workmanship as uncommon as the other.
 
 MASSTON. Sy 
 
 " Is this also for the Duchess of Sunnyland ?" 
 Miss Ascham inquired, with a good-natured 
 smile, and a little playful banter. 
 
 ''Yes, it is, ma'am," the man answered, 
 looking up at the lady, and adding, " Do you 
 know the Duchess ? we would do anything for 
 her." 
 
 '' I only know the Duchess of Sunnyland by 
 name," Miss Ascham said, wishing all the 
 time in her heart that these men mi^ht one 
 day be as easily led by her as at present they 
 appeared to be influenced by the popular 
 Duchess. 
 
 The workman went on with his work as 
 one who evidently thought that a person, 
 however striking at first sight to look at, who 
 did not know the Duchess of Sunnyland 
 except by name, could not be worth much. 
 He knew the Duchess, had shaken hands 
 with her, and, what is more, she was a 
 friend of his. 
 
 The room in which these skilled workmen
 
 88 MASSTON. 
 
 were occupied was as spacious as a chapter- 
 house. Each man had as much space in 
 which to do his work, and as much convenience 
 as a canon when in council : even as much 
 comfort — a table, a chair, a window, and a 
 certain allotted room, all to himself. But 
 the men themselves were more impressive 
 than their workshop. Grave, active, full of 
 life and intelligence, as obedient as soldiers, 
 and as free as heroes, these skilled working- 
 men of Masston impressed Miss Ascham as 
 she had never been impressed before with 
 two things, namely, that she did not know 
 what working-men were made of, and it was 
 not for her to do anything for their improve- 
 ment. She was ashamed of herself — she re- 
 crretted her visit to Mr. Warner — what would 
 he think of her. How happy she was that she 
 had said nothing to him regarding the real 
 purpose of her visit ? Those workmen ap- 
 peared to despise her. She could never be 
 of any use in a world where such men as
 
 MASSTON. 89 
 
 these were content to be workmen. It was 
 the first time in Miss Ascham's life that she 
 had seen a score of first-rate working-men 
 enoraored at their calHnors. She had seen a 
 carpenter or two mending a window-frame, 
 a blacksmith swinofinor a hammer in a villao^e 
 smithy, or a solitary knife-grinder or tinker by 
 the way-side doing very dirty work, and being 
 them.selves filthy and evil-looking. It was 
 from these she formed her judgment of the 
 " masses of our large towns " — these were 
 typical persons to her of the " teeming millions 
 of the working-classes ; " when, therefore, she 
 came in direct contact with the artizans of the 
 Oxford Works, she was properly humiliated, 
 ^nd not in the least orlad. She could do 
 
 o 
 
 nothing for them. Her self-imposed mission 
 went to pieces in her own mind ; the plans, 
 whatever they might be which she had con- 
 ceived for the " amelioration of the working 
 people," as the phrase ran in her time, became 
 as dust. As she stood at the end of the room,
 
 90 MASSTON. 
 
 her face turned from the workmen, as well as 
 from her companions, a world of new thoughts 
 passed before her in a moment of time, among 
 these were envyings of the Duchess of Sunny- 
 land and admiration for Mr. Robert Warner. 
 What a power he possessed. What a genius 
 for control. As she thus mused, biting the 
 inside of her upper lip, a workman entered 
 throuofh a door concealed in the wall towards 
 which her face was turned. 
 
 Through this door — rapidly opened, and as 
 rapidly shut — she caught sight of what seemed 
 to be Innumerable human beings engaged in 
 inflicting bodily tortures on themselves and on 
 others — flying wheels, and swinging of arms, 
 amid the endless confusion of rapidly moving 
 leathern bands half a mile in length, and look- 
 ing like a picture she had seen of heathen 
 fanatics engaged in the worship of Vishnu and 
 Sieva. 
 
 " May we go in here, Mr. Warner ? " she 
 pleaded in a tone and manner of such sweet
 
 MASSTON. 9 1 
 
 earnestness that, although he would, he could 
 not refuse her ; and in they went Into the 
 machine-shop. 
 
 The change was as rapid and as great as 
 passing out of a green and pleasant country 
 Into a railway tunnel at the rate of seventy 
 miles an hour. 
 
 Here were men as wild-looking, as black, 
 and as forbidding as the machines they were 
 tending; women black with oil and soot, which 
 served somewhat to screen their skinny ugli- 
 ness; and young girls, also black, turning 
 handles, now and again with a painful swing 
 of their bodies, which made those who saw 
 them feel as if they were going through a 
 process of mangling, or were being broken on 
 a wheel. The noise was deafening. 
 
 Julia Ascham ran back Into the room they 
 first entered ; the others followed. The door 
 in the wall closed on the scene, and everybody 
 felt as if they had emerged from a dark tunnel 
 into the scenes of natural life.
 
 92 MASSTON. 
 
 ** Julia, were you frightened, dear?" inquired 
 her sister with solicitude. 
 
 " No, I felt as if my skin were being torn 
 off. I could not bear it. Do go back if you 
 like it. I will remain here." 
 
 But the elder, seeing her younger sister's 
 blanched face, tenderly took her by the arm 
 and led her away. The leave-taking was 
 short and abrupt. No words passed between 
 Miss Ascham and Mr. Warner, but they both 
 shook hands warmly. 
 
 Mr Gadso remained behind with the master 
 of the Oxford Works. 
 
 An open carriage was waiting outside for 
 the two sisters, and the coachman was ordered 
 to drive home. 
 
 The elder sister placed her arm round 
 the younger's waist, who, being thus com- 
 forted and supported, remarked, '* Edith, I 
 believe you would venture down a coal pit." 
 To which the other replied with great calm- 
 ness —
 
 MASSTON. 93 
 
 " I have long thought of going to see what it 
 is like." 
 
 '' Why do you have such longings. Suppose 
 I was to long to sweep the kitchen chimney, 
 would you let me do it ? " 
 
 '' Do you know, darling, that I should be 
 proud of you ? " 
 
 Here Julia forcibly released herself from 
 Edith's embrace, as if the dread of beino- 
 turned into a sweep had restored her strength, 
 and she answered with vigour— 
 
 ''You would be proud to see me mount a 
 fire-grate — put my head into the dark hole ! 
 You would stand by and see my feet disappear 
 up the dreadful, smoky, horrible chimney, 
 down which I should be sure to fall in less 
 than five minutes ? " 
 
 " I should be very proud to see you willing 
 to sweep a chimney. I would not let you kill 
 yourself. You should be shown how to do it. 
 Even to sweep a chimney requires much 
 instruction to do it well ; and unless you
 
 94 MASSTON. 
 
 were properly taught when compelled to go 
 up you would certainly fall down, and, no 
 doubt, be killed. Such things have happened 
 even in our own house." 
 
 *' O Edith ! I am sure these things are not 
 intended for us to talk about. How much 
 nicer It was w^hen Lord Francis used to come, 
 and you and he, and I, and a lot of others 
 played, and rode, and laughed in the fields all 
 day ; and at night we sang, and did all sorts of 
 things, and had no long family prayers. Shall 
 we ever have any more fun again, I wonder ? " 
 
 " See, Julia, sweet, this is what I am going 
 to have put on the grave-stone of the poor 
 little sweep who was killed In our house : — 
 ' Here lies the body of Timothy Pirn ; who 
 was murdered at Baston Hall while doing his 
 duty. Born April 2nd, 1793; killed April 
 3rd, 1800. This stone Is erected by Edith 
 Ascham of Baston Hall to his memory.'" 
 
 Then followed the Ascham crest and legend 
 in barefaced English, '' I stand for justice."
 
 MASSTON. 95 
 
 " Why," Inquired Julia, In a somewhat 
 frightened voice, " do you put our crest and 
 motto ? " 
 
 ''Because," replied her sister, "the murder, 
 as I call It, was done in bur house. The 
 Aschams have other deeds ascribed to them 
 inside the church, and this will be a set-off." 
 
 '* What makes you say that Timothy Pim 
 was murdered at the Hall ?" 
 
 " His father beat the little fellow into the 
 flues, where he was suffocated. The south wall 
 of what is now my room had to be taken down 
 before his body could be taken out. I am 
 too blof to CTO into these flues to clean them, — 
 they are very foul, — must be swept soon, and 
 from my soul, Ju, I wish you would do it. 
 But I won't beat you if you don't, nor compel 
 you to do it If you don't like. Am I not 
 merciful ? " 
 
 She could be even light and gay of heart 
 in talklnof of the most serious thincrs with this 
 sister whom she loved with a tenderness and
 
 96 MASSTON. 
 
 sweetness which seemed to be derived from 
 a superior source. * 
 
 The recollection of the Incident of the little 
 chimney-sweeper slain at Baston Hall, revived 
 the eccentric ambition of its present owner ; 
 It restored her frame of mind to Its original 
 ardour In favour of a more Intimate relation- 
 ship with Mr. Warner ; It Increased her bold- 
 ness of soul, and gave more definlteness to her 
 plans for redeeming the masses of the town 
 from desfradatlon and sin. 
 
 Julia, who had changed her place in the 
 carrlaofe, sat with her face to her sister. 
 " Edith," she said, '' now you look like what 
 I suppose the Duchess of Sunnyland to be — 
 very imperious, — very much like a drum- 
 major ; very much like Boadlcea — like Judith, 
 and like a delightful lady all rolled into one." 
 
 "What made you think of the Duchess of 
 Sunnyland ? " 
 
 Truth to tell she was the very object of 
 Miss Ascham's thoughts at that moment.
 
 MASSTON. 97 
 
 " I do not know," replied her sister, " unless 
 it be that you were thinking of her. It is very 
 often the only reason I can give for having 
 thoughts, that you are thinking and I am 
 looking at you." 
 
 '' I was thinkinor of her — am thinkinof of her 
 still, and you can go on looking at me and 
 try if you can catch my thought." 
 
 "Do you think her very beautiful ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " We have never seen her ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Does she know a great deal ? " 
 
 " Yes, and no." 
 
 *' Does she care for these workmen as you 
 care for them ? Would she sweep her owm 
 chimney for their sakes ? " 
 
 " I am sure she would never dream of such 
 a thing — am certain that she would think it 
 beneath her." • 
 
 " So think I," echoed Julia very decidedly. 
 " Do you," she continued, " think that you will 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 98 MASSTON. 
 
 ever get those workmen to think as much of 
 you as they think of the Duchess, and would 
 you be glad if they served you as willingly 
 and devotedly as they seem to serve her ? " 
 
 "You have caught it," replied Miss 
 Ascham ; '' that is precisely what was occupy- 
 ing my thoughts when you last spoke." 
 
 Here the Baston carriage stopped at the 
 great door of Baston Hall, and both ladies 
 went to their own rooms.
 
 (99) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his desert is small, 
 
 Who dares not put it to the touch 
 
 To gain or lose it all." 
 
 — Montrose. 
 
 The Reverend William Gadso, a clergyman of 
 the Church of England, but of Irish family, 
 birth, and education, appeared in Masston at a 
 time which seemed prepared for his advent. 
 He was an orator of singular excellence ; we 
 might more accurately, perhaps, say actor, but 
 as that might to some, unable to appreciate 
 words of praise, appear an unworthy designa- 
 tion, it is better to use the more indefinite 
 name to describe Mr. Gadso's pulpit power. 
 Mr. Gadso having hurried through service in 
 the reading-desk changed his surplice for his 
 college gown, made of black silk, mounted a
 
 lOO MASSTON. 
 
 tall pulpit, and found himself surrounded by a 
 cloud of human faces, two thousand in number, 
 all eager, all willing, all bowed as the heart of 
 one, by the influence of a common want, and 
 a common expectation, and began wath all 
 his power of action, voice, and well-poised 
 argument, to describe the effect of the moral 
 law on the conscience of the newly-awakened 
 sinner, of some of the more awful natural 
 phenomena on the same guilt-stricken person, 
 and to give an account, in tragic tones and 
 gestures, of the agonies of the irretrievably 
 lost ; then his listeners were completely taken 
 captive, and they kissed the chains in which 
 they found themselves captives. For the space 
 of a full hour, hard toiling people, who if they 
 had remained at home, would have been 
 sleeping, were not only wide awake, but tran- 
 sported into a region of strange and dreadful 
 mystery ; their weary bodies were charmed 
 into delightful rest, and their minds hitherto 
 occupied with what they should eat, and what
 
 MASSTON. 10 1 
 
 they should drink, and wherewithal they 
 should clothe their children, were set aflame 
 with heavenly fire, which burnt away their 
 carklno: cares and made them feel superior to 
 all earthly things. The people of Masston 
 ran to his church as shoals of fish v/ill rush to 
 escape the pursuit of some deadly monster of 
 the deep, their natural enemy. This, indeed, is 
 one of Mr. Gadso's own illustrations of what he 
 called his work in Masston. '' I am a fisher of 
 men," he delighted to say of himself, ''and the 
 fish fly to my net even as doves to their win- 
 dows. This was the style of his oratory, florid, 
 scriptural, and earnest. As these remarks 
 concerning himself were made in confidence 
 to his rich friends, they did not hurt his popu- 
 larity. The common people, who, be it said, 
 never came in personal contact with him, 
 worshipped him. He was the subject of their 
 daily talk, at least during the two or three 
 early days of the week, and before its toil 
 had made them forget not only him but all
 
 102 MASSTON. 
 
 things else except the painful necessities 
 which pressed upon them. Three days more 
 of galling burdens, and degrading labour pre- 
 pared them afresh for the plastic art of Mr. 
 Gadso. 
 
 It was not merely a fondness for profound 
 excitement, or the greatness of Mr. Gadso, that 
 attracted the Masston people in numbers to his 
 church. He had converted to himself many 
 rich people, some beautiful women, and more 
 than two or three once scandalous, but wealthy, 
 old men, who, through all weathers, were con- 
 stantly to be found in their places in St. Paul's 
 Church. The working-people were delighted 
 to gaze on these royal captives chained to the 
 triumphal car of him who had slain the tyrants 
 which once held them in bondag^e. For an 
 hour or two the rich and the poor met together, 
 one as good as the other, and both enjoying a 
 sense of equality which caused no inconvenience 
 to one side, while it was a source of proud, 
 but unostentatious, happiness to the other.
 
 MASSTON. 103 
 
 Another more remote, but none the less 
 effective, cause of the high religious tide then 
 rising in the town may also be reported. Not 
 far off there lay a vast district of unmitigated 
 foulness, which wrapped the landscape in 
 heavy blackness, and the people in ignorance 
 and cowardly filth. Fifty thousand men, 
 women, and children were employed day and 
 night in that region of flame and smoke, 
 digging coal and ironstone out of perilous pits 
 deep down in the earth. When not engaged 
 in that stupefying labour, they were drinking 
 ale — and drinking it in bestial excess. Just 
 about the time that Stephen Jeavons was 
 privately fighting his cocks on Sunday morn- 
 ing, there broke out in this infamous black 
 country a dreadful plague, which carried off 
 great numbers of the inhabitants every week 
 for weeks together. Some dropped down dead 
 like flies which had drunk of poison; others 
 died in extreme and prolonged agony; and 
 many, perhaps the greater number, died
 
 104 MASSTON. 
 
 through their fears. The church bells tolled 
 daily in solemn iteration, and many persons 
 were carried to church who would never have 
 gone thither willingly. But then they never 
 returned. This was the Church's harvest. It 
 was on the flood of this terrible pestilence that 
 the Reverend William Gadso was carried into 
 port. As the plague of cholera infected the 
 bodies of the people of the black country, so 
 did the fervour of religion take possession of 
 the souls of the people of Masston. Churches 
 and chapels were built as fast as bricks could 
 be made ; commerce also flourished ; and 
 Masston saw with pride its borders unin- 
 vaded by the destroying pestilence, and knew 
 that the favour of God rested upon its trade 
 and people. 
 
 This might have been a delusion, but 
 delusions — as a delightful authority informs 
 us — if they are harmless, which tend to make 
 us more happy, have always been treated with 
 mildness by an indulgent clergy, possessed of
 
 MASSTON. 105 
 
 incomes sufficient to make them independent 
 of worldly considerations. 
 
 Mr. Gadso was rich by the combined riches 
 of his wife and a large congregation, who paid 
 high prices for their pews, and he lived in one 
 of the best houses within five miles of Masston. 
 People were not wanting who openly attacked 
 Mr. Gadso's practice of driving a heavy chariot 
 twice every Sabbath-day — except on Sacra- 
 ment Sundays — from his place to St. Paul's. 
 These critics, who were evidently envious as 
 well as bitter, would quote, with what they 
 considered convincing force against the great 
 clergyman, the fourth commandment of the 
 decalogue, as they saw his carnage and pair 
 of fine roan horses, learned in the high step, 
 roll up to the church gates, with a man-servant 
 outside, besides the coachman, and two maids, 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Gadso within. But Mr. 
 Gadso silenced these mean-spirited sticklers 
 for the letter of a law, who knew nothing of its 
 spirit, by declaring, in bold and splendid words,
 
 Io6 MASSTON. 
 
 that each man — no matter who — to his own 
 master standeth or falleth. Who Mr. Gadso's 
 master might be was never definitely brought 
 home to the great body of those who believed 
 in and followed him, and who were much less 
 concerned with the quality of his defence than 
 with the glorious tones and gestures in which 
 it was delivered. 
 
 Other pleasing things belonged to this 
 gracious and wonderful man. His manners 
 were as delightful as his person was attractive, 
 and some worldly-minded young men, who had 
 the singular daring to part their hair down the 
 middle, were often heard to declare that more 
 women were converted by Mr. Gadso's smile 
 than men were convinced by his arguments. 
 
 Varied and many as were Mr. Gadso's 
 accomplishments, he knew little or nothing of 
 the ordinary avocations of mankind. Indeed, 
 his style of preaching, and the innocency of his 
 life, ill fitted him for personal contact with a 
 people compelled, through no fault of theirs,
 
 MASSTON. 107 
 
 to earn a living by making unnecessary things, 
 and who died in that kind of service. The 
 only definite idea that the Reverend Wm. 
 Gadso had of the masses of Masston was that 
 it was the will of God that they were what 
 they were. " The poor," he would say, '■ ye 
 shall always have with you." His knowledge 
 of the Scriptures was so intimate that to him 
 there was no occurrence in human life, no 
 situation a man could occupy, nor accident that 
 could befall him, but he met it with a passage 
 from the Bible, so pat that it seemed to men as 
 if the course of things went on for the purpose 
 of introducing Mr. Gadso's quotations. 
 
 As this heaven-born clergyman stood that 
 morning in the great show-room of the Oxford 
 Works, a foreign customer in want of some- 
 thing new, or an American customer in search 
 of something to copy and improve, would 
 have fallen into the error that Mr. Gadso 
 was the chief showman of the place. Mr. 
 Warner they would infallibly have taken for
 
 loS MASSTON. 
 
 the clergyman. On which it is difficult to 
 refrain from remarking, how full of gentle 
 satire are the commonest events of our lives. 
 
 " This is the Lord's doing, Warner," Mr. 
 Gadso said, as he threw an all-embracing 
 oflance over the masfnificent room, accom- 
 panying it with a palm-like wave of his right 
 arm. 
 
 '* He has been most gracious and kind," 
 responded the other. 
 
 This was the first time that Mr. Warner 
 had felt that delightful sense of graceful fami- 
 liarity which comes from being simply called 
 by your surname by a distinguished man. 
 The great clergyman had called him " Warner." 
 He had ascribed the success of the Oxford 
 Works to an interposition of the Divine hand, 
 and he had been enabled to reply with an 
 appropriate response. 
 
 If any there be who suppose that the days 
 are over and gone when saintly priests and 
 austere monks influenced the conduct of men
 
 MASSTON. 109 
 
 by oracular sayings concerning the will of 
 God, we can assure them that such is not the 
 case. What the Rev. William Gadso now 
 said to Warner sank as deep into his soul, and 
 produced as much effect on his will, as did the 
 words of the fiery priests who, in the days of 
 the Church's grandeur and power, could link 
 the sword of a prince to a theological argument, 
 and connect the armed bands of emperors and 
 kings with pious but illogical conclusions. 
 
 Unknown to himself the incumbent of St. 
 Paul's did in that morning's interview perform 
 the marriage ceremony between Edith Ascham 
 and Mr. R. W. Warner. This was the differ- 
 ence between the priests of five hundred years 
 ago and those who now sway the thoughts of 
 women in Masston. The first always knew 
 what they were about, the end they worked 
 for, and the means they used. The second 
 know nothing of either of these important 
 elements in human conduct ; on the contrary, 
 they deprecate a clear understanding as lead-
 
 no MASSTON. 
 
 ing to that proud assumption which chills 
 faith. 
 
 The Rev. William Gadso had watched 
 Mr. Warner's career. His name was on a 
 list which contained the names of some score 
 or so of privileged persons, for whom, on a 
 set day in the week, Mr. Gadso offered up 
 private prayer, with special pleadings. On 
 that sacred list, which no eye but that of Mrs. 
 Gadso ever saw, the name of Edith Ascham 
 stood next to Robert Warner's. When Miss 
 Ascham, in tearful and anxious sympathy for 
 the poor of Masston, came to Mr. Gadso, 
 explained her desires and plans, and announced 
 her intentions to spend and be spent for souls, 
 Mr. Gadso believed that his prayers on her 
 behalf had been approved. As he now stood 
 before Warner in an ecstasy of joy at the 
 thought that he too was another of his crowns, 
 he announced to the master of the Oxford 
 Works the bold and generous aims of Miss 
 Ascham.
 
 MASSTON. I I I 
 
 Addressing Warner, Mr. Gadso said, — his 
 left arm hanging rigid by his side, and the 
 thumb of his right hand resting on the third 
 button of Warner's waistcoat, the fourth fineer 
 five buttons up, — " She has such entire confi- 
 dence in your judgment, and is so persuaded 
 of your energy, that she will confide in you to 
 the uttermost. She came to see you this 
 morning in order to explain. She did so quite 
 with my concurrence ; and when I told her, 
 as I now tell you, that I have besought the 
 Lord for you both, she had a gracious time 
 of refreshing. I am astonished to find that 
 she has gone away without speaking with 
 you ; but, then, her sister was taken faint. 
 Yes, I remember now." 
 
 There was nothing in all this that approached 
 in Mr. Gadso's mind to the union of Miss 
 Ascham and Mr. Warner. But if the clergy- 
 man could there and then have lifted the cover 
 from off Mr. Warner's busy brain, and seen 
 what was going on there, he might have come
 
 I I 2 MASSTON. 
 
 to the conclusion, albeit he seldom .quoted the 
 minor poets, that there were more things in 
 heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his 
 philosophy. But he was so bent on the spiritual 
 linking of these two, or their joint communion 
 in works of charity and grace, that the other 
 form of union never once occurred to him. It 
 is true that if Mr. Gadso had thought that 
 Miss Ascham might marry Mr. Warner, or that 
 Mr. Warner had set his affections on Miss 
 Ascham, the dear clergyman would have raised 
 no objection. Marriages he knew, by his own 
 case, were made in heaven, and those whom 
 God intended to join no worm could keep 
 asunder. Besides, he who had pleaded the 
 sanctificatlon of these two before the throne of 
 grace would never have been prepared to 
 question the propriety of their being united in 
 the holy bands of matrimony. Miss Ascham 
 had great wealth, Mr. Warner vast abilities. 
 Both he believed to be children of grace. 
 Here there was an union of forces specially
 
 MASSTON. 1 r 3 
 
 adapted for working out the designs of heaven, 
 fulfilling the elder and the later prophecies 
 which related to knowledofe coverlnor the 
 earth as the waters cover the sea, and the 
 alteration of the attitude of the Church, in 
 spite of earth and hell, to one of triumphant 
 glory. 
 
 The evil that men do lives after them. If 
 any one could have informed this romantic 
 clergyman, in general terms, of the nature 
 of the seed he was sowing, and the abundant 
 harvest it should yield, he would have smiled, 
 or closed his eyes under a llfted-up forehead, 
 wrinkled with holy contempt. But If a clear- 
 eyed prophet had appeared before him and 
 in definite terms told the Rev. Wm. Gadso 
 that he was robbing a christened woman of 
 her lover, had mentioned her name, and all 
 the circumstances connected with the loves of 
 Sarah Armstrong and Robert Warner, down 
 to the latest act of that human drama, we are 
 quite sure that so eminent a clergyman as 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 I 1 4 MASSTON. 
 
 Mr. Gadso would have found a way of escape 
 for himself and everybody concerned. 
 
 It would seem that the discussion of religious 
 themes, or any kind of religious conversation, 
 among certain of our provincial Christian 
 friends, in which the chief speaker is ear- 
 nest, coherent, and not prolix, is more sug- 
 gestive than discussion or conversation of 
 any other kind. This, perhaps, is sufficiently 
 obvious to need any illustration ; yet we 
 may say that at one particular part of Mr. 
 Gadso's voluble benevolence, Sarah Armstrong 
 came and stood before the mind of Robert 
 Warner as distinctly as the ghost of his father 
 stood before the eye of Hamlet. The master 
 of the Oxford Works turned pale as in 
 rapturous words the divine spoke of Warner's 
 success, springing, as he declared it must, from 
 the pursuit of godliness, and of the praises of 
 him which were in all people's mouths ; and 
 Mr. Gadso, who was accustomed to watch the 
 countenances of men when under the spell
 
 MASSTON. I I 5 
 
 of his eloquence, attributed the blanched cheek 
 of his listener to intense spiritual sympathy. 
 
 It was in reality the Image of Sarah passing 
 across the memory and whitening the visage 
 of her traitor lover. 
 
 " Well, good-bye, Warner ; the Lord bless 
 you. 
 
 And with that — to some, sweet and holy 
 blessing, to others withering scath — the two 
 parted, one to his fold, the other to his mer- 
 chandise. 
 
 The day had advanced. The master of 
 the Oxford Works had yet much to think of. 
 He retired to his room, and having closed the 
 door, a curtain on the outside, which seemed 
 to be self-acting, unrolled itself from the top 
 to the bottom, entirely concealing the door 
 from sight, and the clerks and all concerned 
 then knew that Mr. Warner was not to be 
 disturbed until he should summon some one. 
 
 W^hat a day had it not been. The early 
 dawn was covered with clouds, and chilly
 
 Il6 MASSTON. 
 
 doubts had floated across Mr. Warner s power- 
 ful mind. How these were changed to merry- 
 hopes by the arrival of Birtles from the three 
 B.s of Bristol, and his cheque for ;^ 10,000, 
 we have already seen or conjectured, as also 
 how these hopes were solemnised and enlarged 
 by the unexpected advent of Miss Ascham, 
 the sweetness of her behaviour towards him, 
 the great resolve which took possession of 
 his soul, and finally, by the sacred communion 
 he had been privileged to hold with one of the 
 o^reatest of God's militant ministers. These 
 were no common accidents, and if they excited 
 wonder, delight, awe, and boundless confidence, 
 we must remember that the times were un- 
 common, and men s mind had been softened 
 to receive great impressions — 
 
 " Behind a frowning providence, 
 He hides a smiling face," 
 
 were words which Warner had been made by 
 a sweet compulsion to take unto himself.
 
 MASSTON. 1 1 7 
 
 Other thinofs were brouorht home to him • 
 from without. The great markets of the world 
 were then opening up. The Americas, the 
 Austrahas, the Canadas, and India, were 
 making commercial demands upon England 
 such as had never entered into the heart of 
 man to conceive. There was nothing which 
 could be made in brass or iron, silver or gold, 
 cotton or silk, or leather, which these countries 
 did not then want, and each had millions of 
 newly-found gold wherewith to buy what was 
 so much longed after. 
 
 Mr. K.obert W. Warner was a product of 
 this fine excitement; he was likewise one to 
 whom had been committed the pleasant task of 
 keeping up and intensifying that very same 
 excitement. By six o'clock on the evening of 
 that singularly happy day, he had determined 
 upon a step that should raise him higher than 
 he had dreamed of in his brightest waking 
 dreams. He rang his bell, the door curtain 
 rolled itself up as if possessed with a new
 
 I 1 8 MASSTON. 
 
 energy, and the clerk in attendance entered 
 Mr. Warner's room. 
 
 '' Send to me Mr. Reklaw," was the com- 
 mand of the great man. 
 
 Mr. Reklaw was the general foreman and 
 overlooker of all things and all men at the 
 Oxford Works. 
 
 "James," said Mr. Warner to his lieutenant, 
 '* how many fresh hands have we room for ? " 
 
 " We can take on, sir," was the reply, " three 
 hundred of all kinds." 
 
 *' Very well; that will make us more than a 
 thousand. Proceed about it to-night. Empty 
 every workshop in the town, bring all their 
 men here, and give out all the work you can 
 besides. What is Paul Blanchard about 
 now : 
 
 " Blanchard, sir, is designing a new portable 
 iron bedstead. I am told it is to be one of 
 the most wonderful of things ; can be made 
 for a common soldier, or for the Duchess her- 
 self; can be made of brass, even of silver, of
 
 MASSTON. 119 
 
 papier mache, or of bright steel, a thing of 
 eleeance and use combined, or for common 
 uses merely." 
 
 It should be stated that Mr. Reklaw was 
 known as a great speaker, was a leading spirit 
 in the Mechanics' Institute, and a great autho- 
 rity on books. 
 
 '* Very well," responded the master, '' we 
 must have Paul Blanchard at his own price, 
 whatever it is. What pity is it that the man 
 drinks so much ; we must cure him of that." 
 ' ''Why, sir," replied Mr. James Reklaw, 
 with a familiar and intelligent laugh, "if you 
 were to cure Paul Blanchard of his passion 
 for drink, Masston itself would be too small 
 to hold him, and nobody's money could buy 
 him. For a full swill of liquor you may not 
 only get him and his brains, but his patterns 
 as well, which I know are many. I have heard 
 him, when he has been elevated, say things 
 which convinces me that he knows more than 
 a thlno^ or two."
 
 1 20 MASSTON. 
 
 "James, we must not do evil that good may 
 come ; but get Paul Blanchard here by all 
 means." 
 
 Mr. Warner then with great gravity, his 
 thoughtful face being bent over a paper of 
 figures, still addressing his foreman, said — '' All 
 hands must work overtime for the next three 
 months. Double the pay for overtime in the 
 best room. You may offer a prize of ^10 for 
 something new. Make such increase of pay 
 elsewhere as will secure pains. Pack up for 
 exportation every article in the show-room, 
 and replace with all possible expedition. I 
 will address the hands to-morrov/ night. That 
 is all just now. O James, I wish to have the 
 door leading from the designing-room into the 
 machine-shop blocked up. Attend to that at 
 once." 
 
 Then Mr. Reklaw went to carry out his 
 master's instructions, and the master remained 
 a little while longer to write the following 
 note : — -
 
 MASSTON. I 2 I 
 
 Oxford Works, Masston, 
 \oth July 1853. 
 
 Dear Mr. John, — I can supply you with 
 ;^20,ooo worth of the very highest class of 
 goods, a market for which is now open in 
 Australia. If you and Lord Francis will pro- 
 ceed thither, and be in readiness to receive, I 
 will have them despatched. You will certainly 
 be able to realise ^40,000. ^20,000 must be 
 remitted to me as cost for the goods, the 
 remainder will be divided between yourselves 
 and the works. With care and good judgment 
 you may realise ^50,000. — I am, yours most 
 faithfully, R. W. Warner. 
 
 A Monsieur John Buckle, 
 
 Hotel d'Athenes, Rue Poissonniere, 
 
 Paris, France. 
 
 Our readers will perceive that Mr. Warners 
 great and sublime plan was to execute the 
 order of Birtles, send out the goods, as above, 
 to Australia, and then furnish Birtles with a 
 duplicate supply. He would thus be able to 
 steal Bright, Birtles, & Brush's market, and if 
 all things went well, to realise on both transac-
 
 122 MASSTON. 
 
 tlons a profit by which he could release him- 
 self from all further obligation to Lord Francis 
 Elbston and Master John Buckle. 
 
 The main pleasure next after the sense of 
 the profit, which this vast idea brought to 
 Mr. Warner, was in the thought of the great 
 impetus to trade which his device would 
 certainly create in Masston. There would be 
 work for all ; and what greater good can 
 a people have or desire than their fill of 
 work ? 
 
 In Mr. Warner's room was a concealed 
 door which led into the great yard of the 
 works direct, without need to pass through the 
 warehouse. The warehouse was now closed, 
 all the hands gone, and the great gates 
 were shut. The watchman and his o^reat doo: 
 were, with the exception of Mr. Warner, the 
 only people in the place. It was still light, 
 but a drizzling rain had begun to deepen the 
 evening shadows. Mr. Warner, with the letter 
 in his hand, opened his private door, and on
 
 MASSTON. 123 
 
 the step outside his eyes encountered the 
 drooping figure of Sarah Armstrong. 
 
 There she stood, immediately in front of 
 him, neatly clad, but looking very pale, with a 
 little posey which she held in both hands be- 
 fore her as if it were a prayer-book, seeming, 
 indeed, not unlike the posey itself, — pretty, 
 quaintly bright, but cut off from any certain 
 source of brio^htness. 
 
 ''What, in the name of God, are you doing 
 there — what has brought you here ? You 
 should not come here," stammered forth Mr. 
 Warner, bewildered, confounded, and utterly 
 at sea. He put his hands in his pockets, 
 remained motionless on the step, and did not 
 advance one foot to meet her. 
 
 '' O Robert, they have turned me out. I 
 shall never go back to Russet again, and I 
 thought I ought to come to you." 
 
 ''Well, well, you must go away now; there 
 — go somewhere — and I will see you again ; but 
 you must never come here again," and he put
 
 124 MASSTON. 
 
 some gold Into her hands, which, however, did 
 not remain there, but fell with a shriek on to the 
 stones. *' Go away, I say," the wretched man 
 urged ; *' go away, I am expecting some one," 
 and he put his hand to her shoulder, turned 
 her face round to the gate, went himself and 
 opened it, and Sarah Armstrong went her way 
 into the bewilderinof town. She walked on with 
 trembllnof limbs till she came to a fliofht of stone 
 steps which led into a large, empty house, and 
 there, having sat down, she, overcome with 
 pain, fell asleep In the quiet rain. 
 
 Mr. Warner returned Inside his room to 
 collect his thoughts and wash his hands. 
 The niofht had become cold as the rain In- 
 creased, when Dr. Cumberladge, on his way 
 home, turned the corner of the street, and saw 
 a young countrywoman, very decently dressed, 
 fast asleep on a flight of stone steps, with 
 some garden and wild flowers strewn about 
 her as if they had been thrown away. The 
 doctor roused the sleeper, and told her, in
 
 MASSTON. 125 
 
 a gentle voice, to get up. This she did, 
 and when he saw her face and looked well 
 at her, he said not another word but " Come 
 home with me," and she went in sad and 
 solemn trustfulness.
 
 ( 126 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "When the ear heard me then it blessed me." — Job xxix. II. 
 
 Masston was a profound mystery to the great 
 bulk of the people who lived in it. This 
 could be seen at a glance by any who would 
 take the trouble to go with those of her 
 adventurous spirits who, once in seven years 
 perhaps, would take a holiday, and walk three 
 miles to see the great stone cross which stood 
 in the centre of the little mossy village of 
 Bysshton ; or with those other daring Masston- 
 ites who went to Ashon Church in their new 
 suits, who carried their dinners with them in 
 order to have a long Sunday of enjoyment in 
 antiquarian research, or, what is more likely, of 
 breathing fresh air, as some might imagine, 
 or still again, to go with the little knots of
 
 MASSTON. 127 
 
 wondering souls who on Easter Mondays made 
 pilgrimage to Baston Hall, to the Hermitage, 
 and also to gaze on the painted pomp of the 
 renowned forest which can now be reached from 
 Masston in half-an-hour, but which would take 
 a man six hours to reach on foot, in the days 
 when Robert Warner courted Sarah Armstrong. 
 To watch these various groups of quiet, 
 irregularly built men and women, as they stared 
 at the ancient things before them, one got an 
 impression that they were deaf or dumb ; for 
 whilst they gazed they never once opened their 
 lips to speak to one another, but each took up 
 his place, and assumed an unconscious attitude 
 before the great trees, or the wonderful glass 
 windows stained with glorious colour, or the 
 curious stone and orilt statues of old knio^hts 
 and stately dames, much as If he had come to 
 witness an execution, and were about to be let 
 into some awful secret concerninor heaven and 
 hell. Did these people, whom the man that 
 kept the turnpike looked at suspiciously as
 
 128 MASSTON. 
 
 they straggled and shuffled along the dusty 
 roads, whom no one knew, or seemed to care 
 for, visit those old churches and halls for the 
 purpose of getting a little rest from the whirl 
 of wheels and the din of hammers by looking 
 on things which carried them back to the 
 olden days when men, somehow, were different 
 to what they are now, and the things they 
 lived for and worked at bore some sweet and 
 enduring relationship to the best of all things ? 
 Did the gilt statue of Sir Gower Cumberladge, 
 in the great wide chancel of Ashon Church, 
 give any definable pleasure to the ill-made, 
 ill-clad people, with comfortless-looking faces, 
 who came at all times of the year from Masston 
 to peep at it ? 
 
 This question was often debated in Masston, 
 and still the custom prevailed, even in the 
 worst times, of many of the poorer sort of 
 townspeople straggling into the old country 
 churches to look at the monuments and read 
 some of the tables which hung from their walls.
 
 MASSTON. 1 29 
 
 As these poor ones made their pilgrimage 
 to these ancient shrines along the roads be- 
 neath the blinding glor}- of the sun, one might 
 have thought, so settled was their progress, 
 so full of searching their aspect, that they 
 were the stragglers from some vast and goodly 
 procession of past time, who, severed from 
 their main body, clung with sad hope of 
 finding it to the old w^ays by which they were 
 forlornly going. 
 
 Here are two extracts from one of the tables 
 in Ashon Church chancel : — 
 
 " And in the year of Our Lord's grace, one 
 thousand four hundred and seven, Sir Hueh 
 Bysshe Cumberladge did give two pounds a year 
 for ever to the poor of the parish of Mastelyn." 
 
 " Idleness being the mother of all sin, Dame 
 Dorothy Cumberladge did leave ten pounds 
 a year for ever for the instruction of the sons 
 of the poor of this parish in useful handicrafts 
 and art mysteries." 
 
 These records, which were held up to public 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 1 30 MASSTON. 
 
 show In the little venerable church at Ashon, 
 prove how intimately the Cumberladge family 
 remained connected with the Masston people. 
 And when to these bequests was added a real 
 livine Cumberladge and actual descendant of 
 the great Sir Hugh, and the no less great 
 Dorothy, resident in the very heart of Masston, 
 it will be seen that the ties between the long 
 past Mastelyn, and the persistently present 
 Masston, were neither slight nor probably 
 inoperative. 
 
 Indeed, Doctor Hugh Cumberladge, being 
 the active administrator of the Cumberladge 
 charities, which had increased in value with 
 the increase of the town, It could not be other- 
 wise than that the name of Cumberladge was 
 deeply cherished, and the social position of 
 him who bore it greatly enhanced in Masston. 
 How it came to pass that a Cumberladge was 
 reduced to the level of working for his daily 
 bread, and working as hard as any brassfounder, 
 in such a dirty, smoky, pent-up place as
 
 MASSTON. I 3 I 
 
 Masston, will, no doubt, be made plain before 
 this story comes to an end. The main fact 
 that we are at present concerned with is, that 
 there the good doctor was, and that his wise 
 and compassionate heart led him to take the 
 forlorn girl, who had sought refuge on a door- 
 step, to his own home. 
 
 The doctor led the young countrywoman 
 into the kitchen of his house ; and as Sarah 
 Armstrong stood before its bright fire, being 
 also surrounded with shining pots and pans 
 and covers, everything there seeming to yield a 
 welcome and a healino^ lio-ht ! she looked like 
 a picture restored to its frame. 
 
 '' Mary," the doctor said to his wife, whom he 
 found in his own room, darning stockings, " I 
 have brought a young woman for you to look 
 at, and the only reason I can give you for 
 doing so is that ' they ' have turned her out of 
 home. Who * they ' may be I cannot find out, 
 or why ' they ' should make such cruel fools of 
 themselves is beyond my wit to discover, only
 
 132 MASSTON. 
 
 it seems to me that men get more cruel every 
 day we live." 
 
 " Mary," who was a stately woman, here 
 rose, and bending over her husband, now 
 seated in his arm-chair, with his head thrown 
 back, gave him a kiss as a lover might give 
 his mistress a rose, and then went into the 
 kitchen to see what probably might turn out to 
 be some haggard wretch covered with shame, 
 as her clothes would not fail to be covered 
 with the filth of the orutter. She had met with 
 such helpless ones under the very same cir- 
 cumstances before, and indeed, in that kitchen 
 and at that time of night, no other such ; so 
 that her pity had acquired somewhat of a 
 magisterial air. 
 
 As Mary — it is impossible to call this grace- 
 ful and full-natured wife Mrs. — as Mary Cum- 
 berladge came into the kitchen, Sarah Arm- 
 strong was still standlno^ in front of the clear 
 fire, her face being lighted by its cordial 
 warmth. An easy curtsey from the country-girl
 
 MASSTON. 133 
 
 greatly facilitated matters, and the lady began 
 her catechism, without ceasing her darning. 
 
 " Where do you come from ? " 
 
 " From Russet, ma'am." 
 
 " Why did you leave Russet ? " 
 
 ** They turned me out ; " the voice of the 
 speaker becoming husky as if with great thirst, 
 and her arms dropped to her side. 
 
 The lady would not have asked why they 
 " turned her out," but that it was part of her 
 formulae, so she continued — ''Why did they 
 turn you out ? " 
 
 " Because of Robert Warner " — and by this 
 time the young woman broke down completely, 
 for the mention of this name brought to her 
 mind that she was ** turned out" not only by 
 her own father and mother, but by the man 
 whom she loved, and she uttered a cry like 
 a wounded animal, and fell — not on to her 
 knees — but with her head bowed down on to 
 the right arm of the industrious lady, who to 
 that moment still kept up her darning.
 
 1 34 MASSTON. 
 
 Now Dame Cumberladge, although still 
 young, had great experience in dealing with 
 such creatures as had either wilfully or by 
 accident fallen out of their nests ; but that 
 experience stood her in no stead at this 
 moment, for almost simultaneously with the 
 poor girl's bursting into tears she did so like- 
 wise, and Mary Cumberladge's magisterial 
 pity melted into divine compassion. 
 
 " Sit down, my poor one," she said, as she 
 helped the now sorrowfully-awakened girl on 
 to the broad oak settle which stood against the 
 wall. 
 
 The wife then went to rejoin her husband, 
 and as she went, Sarah Armstrong became hot 
 with pride — her tears suddenly dried up of 
 themselves, and the salt which they left be- 
 hind them produced a bitter smarting, which 
 roused her from her abject state — and she 
 arose, went straight to the door, raised the 
 great iron latch with a noise, and was ready to 
 fly from the house, not to him who should
 
 MASSTON. 135 
 
 have been her husband, not back home, for 
 home she had now none ; but anywhere out of 
 the world. 
 
 "Why, Hugh," said Mary Cumberladge, as 
 
 she entered the doctor's room, " she is " and 
 
 the wife whispered something in her husband's 
 ear and again broke into soft tears, chiefly 
 because she knew that for the woman she had 
 just left there should be many tears, and all 
 full of salty bitterness. " She is so pretty,'' 
 the lady of grace continued, "and Hugh, she is 
 thoroughly good, and looks wonderfully sen- 
 sible." 
 
 Doctor Cumberladore catechised his wife as 
 she had catechised the young countrywoman ; 
 and when he was thoroughly possessed of her 
 story, late as it was he rose from his comfort- 
 able chair, returned the kiss his wife had 
 given him an hour ago, went into the kitchen 
 and found, to his vexation, that the fellow- 
 creature who had excited his helpful pity had 
 fled away."
 
 1 36 MASSTON. 
 
 ** She must be still in the yard, Hugh," said 
 his wife, who by this time had, of course, been 
 applied to, " for the outer door is locked, and 
 here is the key." 
 
 And there the girl lay on the stone flags, 
 close to the great dog-kennel in the corner, 
 and " Trusty," its equally great tenant, had 
 turned out, and was lying on the same cold 
 flags close by the fallen girl's side, as if he 
 knew that some creature more noble than 
 himself was in need of such warmth as he 
 could supply. 
 
 '* My God ! " exclaimed Doctor Cumberladge 
 in a voice of fervent worship, as he beheld 
 that sight, and then he added, ** Trusty, thou 
 shalt have a silver collar for this." 
 
 That night did Sarah Armstrong sleep at 
 the Hermitage Farm, which Is seven miles 
 from Masston, and so did Doctor Cumberladge 
 who carried her thither in his own whiskey. 
 Three months afterwards she became the 
 mother of a son, and Mary Cumberladge, who
 
 MASSTON. I 3 7 
 
 was a woman of all-powerful sympathy, she too 
 brought forth her fifth on the very self-same 
 night as did Sarah Armstrong her first-born. 
 
 Now the doctor had a project, which was 
 somewhat disconcerted by these simultaneous 
 events, but he bore his disappointment like one 
 not unused to chasteninof. 
 
 '' Mary," said the doctor to his wife, " Sarah 
 shall nurse our Dolly." 
 
 " And who, pray, is to nurse Sarah's boy ? " 
 inquired the wife-mother. 
 
 '' I," said the doctor, with a broad intelligent 
 look that lighted up his whole face, '' am going 
 to kill that brat, in order to set its young 
 mother's heart free, and provide for our own 
 bairn ! " and he placed the forefinger of his 
 right hand on his lips and laughed as if he 
 w^ere joking. 
 
 The Doctor procured that Sarah Arm- 
 strong's child should be christened with the 
 names of *' Hugh Warner ; " after that the 
 child was taken by him, and placed out at
 
 1 38 MASSTON. 
 
 nurse in a country house, not far off, where It 
 was to grow, if it could, and as much as it 
 liked, and Sarah returned to Masston and 
 nursed the newly-arrived daughter of her pro- 
 tector and mistress. 
 
 One day Dame Cumberladge asked Sarah 
 
 what tidings of her boy. 
 
 And Sarah replied, " The master has told 
 me that he is dead, and that I am not to cry." 
 
 '' Hugh," demanded his wife, when she first 
 saw her husband alone after that sad announce- 
 ment, " how dare you say that Sarah's child is 
 dead ? 
 
 '' Does she think him to be dead ? " Inquired 
 the doctor. 
 
 '' Firmly." 
 
 " Then let her believe It for ever. I had 
 simply told her that ' he was better off' — mean- 
 ing that he was better off than he could be by 
 being with her ; and she has construed the 
 phrase into the common meaning which is 
 attached to it by our country neighbours.
 
 MASSTON. 1 39 
 
 Encourage her In this. It will be for every- 
 body's good — chiefly her own ; doubtless It will 
 be for the future good of her boy, should he 
 live. I will make this plain to you at another 
 time." 
 
 So Master Hugh Warner Armstrong got 
 baptized Into an irreconcilable enmity with 
 him who was responsible for his appearance in 
 the world, and It is very likely that Dr. Hugh 
 Cumberladge did not fully know what he was 
 doing, when he gave Sarah Armstrong's unoffi- 
 cial son his name, together with ample means 
 of growing into the stature and comeliness of 
 a man. 
 
 There are some actions in life, the conse- 
 quences of which it is the bounden duty of a 
 man to be fully aware. This surely was one. 
 And the doctor appeared to have no misgivings. 
 How he came to lend himself to so unnatural an 
 impulse as that of separating a mother from her 
 child — a child from its mother — can only be 
 attributed to the state of things then prevailing
 
 140 MASSTON. 
 
 in Masston, the peculiar nature of the mother 
 herself, and perhaps some purpose of justice and 
 mercy combined which he fully explained to 
 his wife, who was induced to submit to a trans- 
 action against which the Instincts of her nature 
 rose in revolt.
 
 ( 141 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 My love for you is wartn, is deep. 
 My love for you ca?i never sleep. 
 Those were the words you spoke to me — 
 j What fiend sits where your heart should be ? 
 
 To say that Mr. Warner was not taken aback at 
 the sudden sight of Sarah Armstrong when he 
 encountered her on his door-step would be un- 
 true, and therefore that cannot be stated In this 
 veracious history. He had finished his day's 
 labour, and was on his way home when he 
 opened the concealed door of his room. His 
 return to wash his hands after contact with the 
 child-woman whom he turned aw^ay proved, if 
 it proved nothing else, that he had been taken 
 aback. But in the brief space of that cleansing 
 operation, he had collected his thoughts, and, so 
 to speak, washed his hands of everything con- 
 nected with the simple woman from Russet. It
 
 142 MASSTON. 
 
 might be said that as he dried them, he wiped 
 away the last saving stains of remorse which, 
 to one who had received such sound doctrine 
 as Mr. Gadso preached, together with such 
 splendid opportunities as a supremely fine luck 
 had thrown in his way, were simply matter out 
 of place. As if to show that he had no fear of 
 exposure, annoyance, or damage to his fame, 
 he sat down and wrote out the heads of a dis- 
 course he intended to deliver to the workmen 
 the next evening in accordance with his in- 
 structions to his foreman. Or, it might be that 
 Warner knew enough of Sarah Armstrong to 
 warrant the conviction that she would never 
 trouble him. Cruelty is not always blind, nor 
 always in a rage, but sometimes sees before and 
 after with great distinctness the weight and 
 force of its acts. 
 
 Still, it shows that Masston must have 
 terribly changed when an occurrence such as 
 that of Sarah Armstrong being turned out of 
 her home, caused no noise nor gave occasion
 
 MASSTON. 143 
 
 for much talk or controversy. It also shows 
 that the master of the Oxford Works knew 
 what he was doinor. 
 
 Where were Stephen Jeavons and Benjamin 
 his son all this time ? Where was the parson 
 of Russet who knew Sarah well ? She had 
 many friends and acquaintances. Where were 
 they ? Was there none among them all to wag 
 one poor tongue, or lift up one feeble voice, 
 for an explanation of Sarah Armstrong's sudden 
 disappearance from a home which was one of 
 the brightest In all that country side ? 
 
 The answer Is, Not one. 
 
 '• She had gfone to Masston." That Is all 
 that was said, and that was all that people 
 required to help them to account for one of 
 the deadliest disasters that can overtake a 
 human life. 
 
 During the three months which elapsed 
 between the heroic conduct of the dog Trusty, 
 and the unheroic achievement at the Hermitage 
 Farm, Masston had been In a fever of work.
 
 144 MASSTON. 
 
 The vast orders of the three B.s of Bristol, 
 and those which Mr. Warner had given to him- 
 self, were not the only causes of the ceaseless 
 busyness then proceeding; orders for every pro- 
 duct of Masston came pouring in from all parts. 
 The town was full of stransfers who had come 
 to eive orders, and wait to see them executed. 
 Orders for tea trays and doll's eyes by the 
 million. Eyes with hooks to them, pins, pens 
 of steel, and patent bedsteads, nails, screws, 
 coffin-plates, and finger-plates for doors, locks, 
 church furniture, and stew pans, kettles and 
 coffee-mills, and every description of thing that 
 is made in iron, brass, and tin ; all the superior 
 things invented and made at the Oxford 
 Works. To say nothing of such inferior things 
 as imitation gods for India, glass opals for 
 Ceylon, antique coins for Egypt, brass rings 
 sicklied over with a pale cast of silver for 
 Africa, spurious jewellery and toys of every 
 conceivable sort for every conceivable part of 
 the opening universe.
 
 MASSTOX. 145 
 
 And in those three months much progress 
 had been made in other matters. The streets 
 of the town presented spectacles of an unusual 
 nature. Could Dame Dorothy Cumberladge 
 have returned from the eternal mansions, she 
 would, no doubt, have put in strong claims for 
 the practical carrying out of some of the pro- 
 verbs of Solomon. She would have bearded 
 the church authorities, and used a birchen rod 
 on many a hussy's back, and sent her home. 
 What the Grand-dame would have done, when 
 she found that the hussies had no home to o-q 
 to, it is hard to tell. It is likely that she would 
 seek consolation in the words of despair, and 
 have done nothing but exclaim. " Everybody 
 has forsaken God, and gone mad." 
 
 As Dame Dorothy did not come, we can go 
 on with the story. The lanes and fields of the 
 suburbs were no less striking in their appear- 
 ance than the streets of Masston. Great 
 numbers of foreign men of all nations were to 
 be SQtn walking there in apparently happy 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 MASSTON. 
 
 intimacy with showily-dressed girls, of no ill 
 manners, of all ages and complexions, all good- 
 looking, and not a few of striking beauty of 
 form and features. This, however innocent, 
 intercourse of Masston young women with 
 strangers, who appeared to possess unlimited 
 means and ample leisure, gave rise to many 
 new forms of life and enterprise in Masston. 
 Gaudy shops, whose windows were tricked out 
 with foreign finery, made the old streets new 
 with gaiety by day, and gilded saloons for the 
 sale of attractive liquors gave a charm to the 
 night. In brief, the town was never so busy, 
 trade never so flourishing, or money so 
 plentiful. 
 
 No one, of course, is so foolish as to doubt 
 that free trade is the pioneer of liberty and 
 freedom, or that commerce is the true Elias of 
 the glad tidings of a better life. In a general 
 way that must be true, because it is the freely- 
 expressed opinion of all our statesmen, an 
 axiom of the House of Commons, and there is
 
 MASSTON. 147 
 
 not a newspaper printed anywhere in the 
 EngHsh language that dare say otherwise. 
 And yet so far as Masston was concerned, it 
 is as false as tossing with a double-headed 
 farthlncr. 
 
 And yet it is true. 
 
 The town was never so busy, trade never so 
 good, or money so abundant, and the utmost 
 liberty did prevail, and freedom went almost 
 naked, and everybody seemed to be glad for 
 some great joyful news. 
 Edith Ascham was glad. 
 The orders of Bright, BIrtles, & Brush had 
 been duly executed. The orders in duplicate 
 for the combined profit and advantage of Mr. 
 Robert Welsher Warner and his associates were 
 already despatched, and an assurance on the 
 ofoods to their full value taken out, so that the 
 master of the Oxford Works, influenced by that 
 divine freedom and most perfect liberty which 
 springfrom a flourishing trade and extended com- 
 merce, ventured closer and closer to the great
 
 148 MASSTON. 
 
 lady of Baston Hall. She likewise had, several 
 times since the last time we saw her there, 
 visited the Oxford Works, always with the 
 sister still in the darkness of a natural life. 
 Mr. Gadso likewise invited Mr. Warner to his 
 place to the parlour lecture, which privilege 
 was reserved for the aristocracy of his congre- 
 gation, and the rich old ladies who were too 
 infirm for anything more exciting than a 
 religious service that could be immediately 
 followed by a cup of tea. 
 
 At this parlour lecture everybody was ex- 
 pected to say something, and if any were silent 
 Mr. Gadso would, in the most fascinating way, 
 w^orm something out of them, which would 
 enable him to gauge their spiritual condition 
 or the position they occupied in the kingdom of 
 God. There was nothing inquisitorial about 
 it, or sour, or, when you once got used to it, 
 awful. To many it was a heavenly treat. 
 
 On the occasion of the visit of the great 
 master of the Oxford Works, w^hen he was what
 
 MASSTON. 149 
 
 might be called received into that special com- 
 munion, all eyes were turned upon him as he 
 proceeded to show a new meaning of " Be ye 
 therefore perfect." His exposition was lumi- 
 nous and original. His rich voice penetrated 
 many a heart, and Mr. Gadso, at the end of 
 Mr. Warner's remarks, added not a word, and 
 would not disturb the sacred influence which 
 had proceeded from Mr. Warner's lips other- 
 wise than to say, *' Let us pray." 
 
 It was then that Miss Ascham was effectually 
 drawn to Mr. Warner. She stayed to tea — so 
 did the great tradesman — and they all had a 
 time of deliofhtful refreshinor. 
 
 In this way did what might be called the 
 courtship of Mr. Warner and Miss Ascham 
 proceed. She knew he loved her — she was 
 certain that he loved God. That was her 
 security, and she confided in Mr. Gadso's 
 guidance, and trusted his judgment. 
 
 The eveninor before the meetinor related 
 above, she and Mr. Warner had met in her own
 
 1 50 MASSTON. 
 
 house, where there had been some good people 
 to dinner, including several of the clergy. 
 Some most sweet moments were passed. 
 Prayer, and a little wine, and pleasant fruits, 
 and pictures, and other products of the gentle 
 arts, including music, had helped to make all of 
 one mind. And Warner, who was a master of 
 opportunity, approached, nearer than he had 
 ever done before, the question which Miss 
 Ascham was now willing should be put to her. 
 
 She, in fact, decided for herself that night. 
 Truth to tell, with all her natural firmness, her 
 strong will and thorough breeding, she was a 
 little inclined to be impulsive, and although 
 she thoroughly hated this failing in others, she 
 undoubtedly now and then gave way to it her- 
 self. It sprang from the sweet tenderness of 
 her regenerated heart Mr. Gadso said. 
 
 Warner was cautious. He felt tolerably firm, 
 for was not the God of Jacob his refuge ? He 
 walked down to the works, as was his custom 
 every morning, always in evening dress, and
 
 MASSTON. 151 
 
 not a sparkle of the tiniest bit of gold ornament 
 about his person was to be seen. He bowed 
 to poor young men whom he knew in the 
 Sunday-school, whom he would often meet in 
 the street, and not unfrequently he would stop 
 a pale-faced mechanic — pale, probably, for lack 
 of a little earthly bread — and ask him about his 
 soul ; and he has been known to tell a sturdy 
 beggar in the street, " Man doth not live by 
 bread alone," much to the astonishment of the 
 beesfar and a few domestic women who over- 
 heard the saying. 
 
 Warner was always sure to find some visitor 
 waiting for him in the show-room, as if by a 
 special providence, on the mornings when he 
 was a little later than usual, owing to the length 
 of his spiritual exercises. This morning his 
 happiness was greater than it was wont to be, 
 owing to the certain clearness of the sky over 
 Baston Hall. He walked along, throwing his 
 eyes a thousand yards before him, as if he were 
 driving a valuable span of horses that might
 
 152 MASSTON. 
 
 suddenly break away and leave him prone in 
 that mud from which he originally sprang. On 
 he sailed, smiling at the gilt weathercock which 
 he had given to St. Paul's Church — smiling at 
 the blue heavens — not a smile for all the world 
 to behold — but that smile of content which a 
 cautious man keeps in readiness for a sudden 
 need, by sternly making up his mind to the 
 fact that, happen what might, he is safe : sink 
 who may, he knows how to swim. 
 
 There was a visitor at the Oxford Works. 
 In that very gorgeous room which Mr. Gadso 
 had pronounced to be the Lord's doing, which 
 Edith Ascham had consecrated by her presence 
 and Mr. Warner with prayer, there was waiting 
 one, of whom Mr. Warner had often heard, but 
 with whom he had never till now come in con- 
 tact. The visitor, for one thing, did not belong 
 to St. Paul's Church, nor was he in any way 
 connected with the multitudinous tail of the 
 Rev. William Gadso, and that would account 
 for there being no knowledge of him.
 
 MASSTON. 1 5 3 
 
 " Who did you say the gentleman was ? " 
 inquired Mr. Warner of one of the clerks. 
 
 " The gentleman would not give us his name, 
 but said that he must see you, and would wait." 
 
 " Do you know him ? " 
 
 ^' No, sir." 
 
 Warner picked up a packet of letters of all 
 sorts and sizes — some of them with deep black 
 edores — and thus armed with somethinor to look 
 at or fall back upon, he proceeded to the show- 
 room. 
 
 "You are Mr. Warner, I presume?" 
 
 '' My name is Warner." 
 
 '' My name, sir, is Hugh Cumberladge." 
 
 '^ Indeed!" 
 
 " You, Mr. Warner, are the father of a boy of 
 whom Sarah Armstrong is the mother, and I 
 the godfather. I shall require you to give me 
 ^200 a year for the next fifteen years for the 
 support and education of this child. The 
 mother I wull take care of myself, as you have 
 thrown her away. If the boy lives, as there is
 
 154 MASSTON. 
 
 every reason to believe he will, I shall further 
 require of you to continue this contribution 
 until such time as he may cease to need it. 
 On my part, I promise to keep the secret 
 of his being any relation of yours locked in 
 my own breast. His mother believes him to 
 be dead, and dead he shall for ever be to her 
 and to you on the conditions I have named. 
 You can send me in writing your answer 
 to these proposals. I wish you good morning, 
 and hope never to have any occasion to see 
 you personally again ! " 
 
 And Dr. Cumberladge as abruptly left the 
 presence of Mr. Warner as this chapter 
 abruptly comes to a close.
 
 ( 155 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " How we apples swim ! " — Old Phrase. 
 
 Any ordinary person would have been abashed, 
 crestfallen, and confounded by such an inter- 
 view as that recorded in the last chapter 
 between Dr. Cumberladge and Mr. Warner. 
 But Mr. Warner was not an ordinary person. 
 So far from being abashed, crestfallen, or con- 
 founded, he was more free and easy than ever. 
 True, he had been troubled about Sarah Arm- 
 strong, and the trouble arose from the dead 
 silence which surrounded her. She appeared 
 to have gone out of the world — but no one 
 could tell. Russet ceased to care for her. Her 
 own people, who cast her out, had forgotten 
 her. What was equally strange, no one, so far 
 as he knew, took his name on their lips in con-
 
 156 MASSTON. 
 
 nectlon with one who was as well known as she 
 was loved. The Armstrongs must have had 
 their suspicions, yet they never breathed his 
 name. That, however, was because their 
 own cruelty had made them hard, so that they 
 could neither do justly or see right. They 
 were blind to everything except what they 
 considered to be the diss^race and dishonour 
 brought on their home and name by their own 
 child. The neighbours held aloof: the very 
 crops in the Armstrong fields pined away. 
 Old Armstrong himself passed his days in look- 
 ing over a gate, and refusing to open his lips to 
 any one. It was this dead silence that alarmed 
 Warner. He could do nothinof until he were 
 certain that the woman whom he had wrong^ed 
 would not come shod in velvet, at some 
 supreme moment, and frustrate his new plan of 
 life, or dash from his hand the cup of joy as he 
 was raising It to his lips. But he could learn 
 nothing, In spite of much searching and anxious 
 inquiry. The more he searched, the keener
 
 MASSTON. 157 
 
 grew his desire. This was partly because he 
 kept his own secret, and followed his pursuit 
 alone, so that no one was found to draw a 
 friendly red herring across the scent of his own 
 ralsinof or otherwise divert his attention ; and 
 partly because his vanity became at times so 
 inordinate that it blinded even his eyes. So he 
 kept dallying with his fate, or, as Miss Ascham 
 began to think — dallying with her ; and be- 
 cause he could Q-Qt no authentic knowledo^e of 
 Sarah, he wearied himself with the unauthentic 
 tidings supplied by his own imaginings. Thus 
 the selfish love which once possessed him for 
 the lovely woman of Russet village became 
 transformed into fear — the fear which has tor- 
 ment. He dreaded even the approach of the 
 lady of his ambition lest that other woman, 
 whom he had cast loose on the world, should 
 stealthily steal in between them and ruin him 
 for ever with the breath of her lips. He pro- 
 posed nothing and thought of nothing In the 
 matter between himself and Miss Ascham that
 
 158 MASSTON. 
 
 was not followed by that dreadful alternative 
 being started in his quick brain. 
 
 On one occasion at Baston Hall, Warner, 
 happy in the conviction that Edith Ascham was 
 won, and, feeling that to the raising of his finger 
 she would respond with her hand, said to her : — 
 
 " Would you not like to walk under the 
 trees?" 
 
 For there was an avenue at Baston where 
 for centuries the secrets of the world's heart 
 had been whispered, and the place was haunted 
 with voices. The leaves, the light which fell 
 upon them, the shadows which climbed great 
 outstretched branches, and the sigh, or song of 
 the breeze, came at the touch of occult forces 
 which could be felt but not defined. All that 
 was known of love or hate, joy or sadness, 
 beauty or foulness, grace or trickery, had 
 gathered there as were gathered the devil's oat- 
 meal or the fairy glove, the shepherd's purse or 
 the sweet bells that never jangled, or were out 
 of tune, with heaven. Under the solemn pillars
 
 MASSTON. 159 
 
 of that leafy chancel the lover found his tongue 
 better than when his lips were red with wine. 
 The maid whose heart was troubled with a 
 delicious tremor there found strength, and 
 that peace which comes from a profound calm, 
 undisturbed, save by the voice of her beloved. 
 And there to the coward and the vile was 
 revealed the foulness of their own selves, drawn 
 as if in livid lines on the dark walls of the 
 prison themselves had built, and from which 
 they could not fly. 
 
 Mr. Gadso had walked there often, and the 
 first time, which was with Edith, who had taken 
 him there for the purpose of asking his thoughts 
 regarding the influence which the avenue and 
 its purple and green lights possessed over her, 
 exclaimed as they proceeded together through 
 the majestic space, '' How dreadful is this place, 
 this is none other than the house of God, the 
 very gate of heaven ! " 
 
 He had filled it for her with holy and 
 delicious things, — and who will scornfully
 
 l6o MASSTON. 
 
 reproach the sympathetic man with pantheism 
 or any such other shocking crime ? Is paradise 
 only a thing of the past, and Jacob's ladder 
 nothlnof but a dream ? Mr. Gadso, who knew 
 everything, knew better. 
 
 ^* I will go, with all my heart," replied Miss 
 Ascham to Warner's question, with that 
 glorious smile which only once in her life a 
 woman full of marriage bestows on a man ; 
 a smile ineffable and inexplicable, except to 
 him who loves. 
 
 So they w^ent Into the wood, she taking his 
 arm and looking In his face w^ith the glory still 
 on her own as they solemnly passed the great 
 elms. As she looked, Warner's countenance 
 chano-ed into an expression which she inter- 
 preted into a feeling of divine awe. As for 
 him, he was afraid to trust himself. Speak he 
 could not. He knew full well that the beauty 
 of the face which beamed upon him was the 
 beauty which seeks the music and the touch 
 of love. But, like another guilt-stricken wretch,
 
 MASSTON. T 6 1 
 
 he heard a voice amonof the trees of the ear- 
 den, and was afraid, or rather, which to him 
 was quite as awful, yonder, far off, in shining 
 garments, stood right before him Sarah Arm- 
 strong, looking like an angel, and she came 
 boundinof down the illuminated avenue towards 
 them, smiling a most heavenly and delightful 
 smile as she came on. 
 
 *' Are you sad or thoughtful most when 
 evening comes ? " inquired Miss Ascham in a 
 full mellow tone, suiting its sound to the words 
 she used, and observing the dilated eyes of 
 Mr. Warner shining out from an array of 
 wrinkles on his broad and pale forehead. 
 
 "I am now at times," he answered, ''very 
 sad, when I find myself with you ; but it Is a 
 sadness which is minorled with the crreatest 
 
 o o 
 
 happiness possible to man." 
 
 She pressed his arm, and yet was there no 
 more communion between them. 
 
 This was the second time that Sarah Arm- 
 strong had appeared to Warner, and both 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 1 62 MASSTON. 
 
 times, as we have seen, when some sacred or 
 BibHcal subject had been pressed upon him. 
 Sarah he now beHeved to be dead. Only the 
 dead appear to the Uving as really as if they 
 were alive. In that case she might always 
 trouble him as she had already, coming in 
 upon him with her happy face, whose silence 
 and sweetness produced in him the very turbu- 
 lence of chaos. He began to feel (he was say- 
 ing it to himself then) that the further he went 
 on with his suit, the more frequent would be 
 those appalling apparitions. 
 
 When the two separated that evening the 
 woman believed in her heart that the man 
 would kiss her. But the man did nothing of 
 the sort. They shook hands and departed as 
 if they had just retired from a prayer meeting. 
 To say that Miss Ascham was not wounded 
 would belie the goodness of her heart. She 
 consoled herself, however, with a chapter, a 
 few tears, and a prayer for more grace. 
 
 When the two again met she had, by the
 
 MASSTON. 163 
 
 company and spiritual sympathy of Mr. Gadso, 
 recovered her serenity of mind, and in Warner 
 she discerned an altered, indeed, a transfigured, 
 being. She had been near forming the con- 
 clusion in her own mind that she had been 
 guilty of some unwom.anly act, or that Mr. 
 Warner had discovered that married life would 
 hinder his great work in the world, but was 
 unwilling to make that known to her — the 
 fact being that she had been guilty of nothing, 
 nor could she be guilty of anything unbecoming 
 a lady and a warm-hearted courageous woman. 
 But Warner, unacquainted with the ways and 
 manners of any other w^orld than that in which 
 faith goes further than works, had brought 
 himself to believe that there was nothinof too 
 
 o 
 
 hard for the Lord, that is the Lord who was 
 advised by the Rev. William Gadso, and that 
 He would induce Miss Ascham to throw her- 
 self at his feet for him to pick up, and place 
 where he might chose. And so persistent was 
 this hope in Warner, that it shaped his con-
 
 1 64 MASSTON. 
 
 duct; it almost produced a whisper In Miss 
 Ascham's ear. All Warner's timidity had 
 now vanished. The mist and the fog had 
 cleared away, and the true lovers' sun shone 
 hieh in the heavens. Warners coura«:e re- 
 turned, and he went straight to Miss Ascham 
 and asked her to become his wife. 
 
 She answered him by kneeling at his side, 
 for in an almost insolence of valour he had 
 thrown himself on to her sofa, as If the mighty 
 effort he then made had robbed him of all 
 strenorth in his leo^s. 
 
 She went and knelt down, and looked In his 
 very eyes, which never flinched, but which 
 were very cold ; but she saw her own reflected 
 in his, and took the reflection for the reality. 
 Then she placed her arm under his head and 
 kissed him, and a smile came to lighten her 
 tears. At sight of these, Warner roused him- 
 self, and made a scriptural allusion about reap- 
 ing joy. Well, they had a happy time, and 
 the two began to discuss great plans. All this
 
 MASSTON. 165 
 
 happened Immediately after the interview be- 
 tween Warner and Dr. Cumberladge. Then 
 all mystery was cleared up. Sarah Armstrong 
 was not dead, and was In safe keeping. He 
 had the word of the most trusted man In 
 Masston that the secret of his life — there was 
 more than one, but the other was not so press- 
 ing — should be locked in the breast of honour. 
 It was this that elated Warner, and carried 
 him out of himself 
 
 In reply to Dr. Cumberladge's demand, he 
 went to his room, and wrote as follows : — 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have to express my 
 regret that the warmth of your feelings did not 
 admit of my explaining to you the circumstances 
 which once connected me with her whose cause 
 you have espoused. Nor is It now necessary. 
 I shall best convince you of my own honesty, 
 and freedom from any wrong- doing, by com- 
 plying with your request, and all the conditions 
 laid down by you. I accept them entirely. 
 Had they been placed before me by any one 
 else, I should have rejected them with scorn.
 
 1 66 MASSTON. 
 
 My desire is to please you, and I will pray 
 that she who has awakened your interest may 
 never cause you regret for the part you are 
 playing in her case. 
 
 To prevent any needless trouble to us both, 
 I enclose a cheque for ^looo, — say one 
 thousand pounds, — for the object of your 
 solicitude. 
 
 So far from responding to your own wish 
 that we may never meet again, I desire that 
 our meeting may happen often, and not be the 
 result of chance, but of mutual esteem. This 
 I trust you will do your utmost to promote. — 
 Yours very faithfully, R. W. Warner. 
 
 To Dr. Cumberladge, 
 
 SL James's Square. 
 
 It was after the writing of this note that 
 Warner drove to Baston Hall, and declared 
 himself After all, it will not be thought un- 
 natural that Warner should have been troubled 
 with the thoughts of Sarah Armstrong. For 
 he was busy w^itli the manner of his early life, 
 his belongings, his poor relations, and all the 
 past which he had blotted out for himself, but
 
 MASSTON. 167 
 
 which refused to be blotted out as the time 
 drew near for him to propose to Hnk himself 
 with the future, and with Miss Ascham. The 
 least he thought he could do was to tell her 
 something of who he was, and where he came 
 from, and who belonged to him ; and it was 
 while he was making a selection from these 
 possessions that Sarah's image came up and 
 refused to be iornored. It was all over now. 
 Dr. Cumberladge, In the most unexpected 
 manner, had stepped in and set all things 
 straio^ht.
 
 ( i68 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ** O place ! O form ! 
 How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, 
 Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls 
 To thy false seeming !" 
 
 — Measure for Meastcre, ii. 4. 
 
 The Rev. William Gadso was a great pro- 
 moter of heavenly schemes, and of none was 
 he more proud than the union between the lady 
 of Baston Hall and the master of the Oxford 
 Works. But for him these two could never 
 have come together ; save for his ministry there 
 was nothing that they held in common : and 
 what they had was held in the glare of that 
 glory, honour, and immortality that Mr. Gadso 
 had revealed to them, and which under his 
 guidance, and by his sanction, they had appro- 
 priated to themselves. It was Mr. Gadso who 
 drew up the magnificent prospectus of that
 
 MASSTON. 169 
 
 company in which Edith Ascham was to invest 
 as a bo7ia fide holder of shares, and Robert 
 Warner to become a daring speculator in the 
 stock. No one would be more shocked than 
 Mr, Gadso himself to hear of such a compari- 
 son as this belno^ drawn between him and the 
 latest development of crime and corruption in 
 these modern days ; but it is strictly true. 
 The marriage of beauty with power — riches 
 with grace — a lady with a man of Masston — 
 is about to take place. 
 
 Robert Welsher Warner arose on this, the 
 morning of his wedding-day, filled with the 
 pride of life and the satisfaction that a superior 
 to his fellows may justly feel when he has 
 attained a great end. He had found, for a 
 space at least, something of that peace of 
 which Mr. Gadso spoke so winningly and so 
 well, and which Mr. Gadso alone was privi- 
 leged to understand. It is true that Mr. 
 Warner's mind was too active to be at peace 
 for long, but he was confident that when he
 
 I 70 MASSTOX. 
 
 needed it, or cared to enjoy It, It would come 
 at his call. The nlo^ht before he orave him- 
 self up to a delightful consciousness of security, 
 and it was in a very perfume of serenity that 
 he fell asleep. It was with him in his first 
 waklnof moments this mornlnor. He had won 
 a fortune, and by his own right arm — and with 
 this had come the prize upon which he had set 
 an almost equal value. The ways and means 
 by which these had been achieved were pleas- 
 ing to think of, and he found himself quite as 
 much flattered by the Church and the world 
 as by himself. The daughter of a noble race 
 was about to be allied with him who, but a short 
 while before, had given what had passed with 
 him for love to no higher a person than a 
 villao^e maid. It was the Lord's dolngf. Mr. 
 Gadso himself had so declared. There were 
 times, however, when that consolation must 
 have been severely shaken, for that same 
 village maid, as we have seen, with whom he 
 had done for ever, as most certainly she had
 
 MASSTON. I 7 I 
 
 done with him, would yet assert a claim to a 
 place in his thoughts — and the claim would 
 come, as most claims do, to men who live much 
 on the credit of their neighbours at incon- 
 venient moments. Even now, as her image 
 — always bright and happy — rose to his mind, 
 he felt that some evil was impending over 
 him. It was the herald of the knowledge pre- 
 sently to be forced upon him that not even 
 to the master of the Oxford Works was it 
 given that, by taking thought, he could banish 
 the past wrong-doing from his life and so add 
 one poor cubit to his moral stature. When he 
 came down, flushed with his coming triumph, 
 he had never felt better or looked handsomer, 
 at least so James Reklaw thought; but James 
 Reklaw brought him the early morning's letters, 
 amone which was one that ran as follows : — 
 
 Sir, — You were pleased to tell me that 
 you accepted my conditions entirely. I would 
 point out to you that at the outset you have 
 departed from them. I return your cheque for
 
 172 MASSTON. 
 
 ^1000, which I must ask you to replace by one 
 for ;/^200, to be continued yearly, according to 
 the stipulations laid down in the copy letter 
 sent to you. — Yours faithfully, 
 
 Hugh Cumberladge. 
 
 Warner mechanically placed this letter in his 
 pocket, and, turning round to Mr. Reklaw, said 
 in a subdued and pleasing voice, 
 
 *' Well, James, you have given the hands a 
 holiday ? " 
 
 '* Oh yes, sir, they wish me to ask a favour. 
 They would like to draw the carriage from 
 church here." 
 
 " No, no ; this Is too much," said Warner, 
 reflectively, and then added with decision, ** It 
 m.ust not be. Miss Ascham would not like it, 
 nor should I." No man knew better than 
 Robert Warner that to be drawn in a carriage 
 by men instead of by a pair of splendid horses 
 would bring him no favour in Masston. So 
 he went to meet his bride in the asred church 
 close by Baston Hall, where the Rev. William
 
 MASSTON. 1 73 
 
 Gadso joined them with unctuous benedictions, 
 and with an air of setting his most holy seal 
 upon a thing of excellence In the bands of 
 wedlock. 
 
 The lady of Baston Hall, as she stood at the 
 altar and promised to love, honour, and obey, 
 looked and felt like a woman to whom the 
 privilege of making such a promise was dear. 
 The pride and joy of her heart shone In her 
 face and extinguished any such timid or shrink- 
 ing attitude as Is thought by some to become 
 women who are giving themselves over to the 
 man they have chosen. But, with all the glad- 
 ness and devotion that showed themselves, 
 there was a strange want of the completely 
 human and tender quality which a lover might 
 have wished to see. Much rather did she look, 
 like a novice entering upon her vows to some 
 religious body in an ecstacy of enthusiasm than 
 a bride taking the oath that was to bind her to 
 human happiness. 
 
 Warner, on his side, assumed such dignity
 
 1 74 MASSTON. 
 
 and grace of aspect as he could, and that was 
 not little. There was in his bearing some- 
 thing of submission to a superior power, and 
 something, too, of self-gratulation that by that 
 power he had been singled out to receive 
 special and gracious gifts. 
 
 Good and kind Mr. Gadso too was happy, 
 and happy in the sweet thankfulness he felt as 
 he gazed on Warner s spiritualised face, where 
 he sought and found an expression which he 
 took to mean a befitting sense of the responsi- 
 bilities coming upon him. The spiritualised 
 face was the result of a hand touching the 
 edges of a letter which ruthlessly spoke of 
 " conditions." 
 
 As they left the church, daughters of the 
 Baston tenantry threw flowers in their path ; 
 the bells of the soft gray tower sprinkled their 
 music over the air; the men of the Oxford 
 Works ranored themselves on either side of the 
 road, and raised a cheer at the signal of James 
 Reklaw; and not the less beautiful thing then
 
 MASSTON. 175 
 
 seen was the smile of Mrs. Warner, that 
 reflected her earnest wish for their future 
 welfare, as she thought that not even for the 
 Duchess of Sunnyland could a better greeting 
 been prepared. 
 
 '' How happy they all look, Robert ? " And 
 who can doubt that this time Robert answered 
 to his name, as then he heard it spoken, in a 
 manner quite suitable to the loving tones in 
 which it was uttered. They drove to The 
 Hollies, one of the finest and newest of the 
 palaces of commerce put up in Elbston, where 
 they were to stay before taking up their 
 quarters at the Hall. 
 
 The afternoon was spent in sweet yet active 
 talk, wherein the happiness of the present 
 mingled with the noble schemes of the future, 
 until Edith, tired with the excitement and 
 pomp of the day, fell asleep, while Warner, 
 holding her hand in his, watched her with the 
 same expression of devotion which came into 
 his face when he walked into church, or into the
 
 1 76 MASSTON. 
 
 Oxford Works. Presently he, too, revolving 
 many things in his rapid mind, fell not into a 
 sleep but into a troubled doze, in which images 
 of a gone time came before him with all the 
 cruelty they could borrow from the mind in 
 which they were stored. From this doze he 
 awoke to find his beautiful wife — now restored 
 with one short sleep — gazing at him, and he 
 started with terror at the thought that he had 
 just now called her '' Sarah." 
 
 ''What is it, my darling?" she asked in 
 caressing tones, which showed him how false 
 his fears were. 
 
 "Nothing, dear," he answered; ''I was in 
 that comfortless state between sleeping and 
 waking, and I had a fancy that I had lost 
 you."
 
 { 177 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, 
 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, 
 Neighboured by fruit of baser quality." 
 
 — King Henry V.'\. i. 
 
 ''Dios hizo el hombre bueno : pero parece que Su Divina Majestad 
 echo ases cuando creo la humanidad." — Ricardo Palma^ " Un Proceso 
 contra Dios^ 
 
 God made the good man, but it seems that His Divine Majesty 
 threw aces when he designed to continue the race. 
 
 On went Masston : buzzing like bees, and 
 lacquering, tinkering, hammering, filing, cutting, 
 jointing, polishing, turning, painting, gilding, 
 twisting, and wrapping up. It was as if a new 
 world, to be formed of brass, had been con- 
 ceived by the gods, and Masston commissioned 
 to make it. Men and women continued to 
 work night and day. It was thirsty work. The 
 ceaseless toiling after money seemed to disturb 
 great clouds of dust that settled in people's 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 I "jZ MASSTON. 
 
 throats, which water was not found strong 
 enough to clear away, and the water must 
 needs be mixed with fire to make it effectual. 
 
 It will cause no wonder if we also add to 
 this catalogue of events the fact that thieving 
 now became common in our busy town — not 
 the ordinary picking and stealing known to the 
 common law, but the extraordinary stealing of 
 fresh air and breathing space known to laws 
 which, though unwritten, are well enough 
 known to some of us. To the west of Masston 
 lay the great estate of Elbston, which, less than 
 half a century ago, was an aggregate of damp 
 meadows, where the grass was never cut, no 
 cows were ever seen, and nothing of value 
 grew except great trees, and it would have 
 remained to this day a picturesque wilderness 
 but for its singular luck in being within a mile 
 and a half of Masston. 
 
 Everybody knew that some mystery hung 
 about Elbston. Its owner never lived there, 
 none of his relatives ever visited it, and it is
 
 MASSTON. 1 79 
 
 certain that the place had a sulky aspect. The 
 rain and mist linorered lono^er over Elbston 
 than anywhere else ; the November fogs clung 
 like winding-sheets to the old lanes, which 
 straggled about like a lot of disorderly children ; 
 and there was a dog-in-the-manger appearance 
 in the high walls and mouldy palings which 
 separated the aristocratic acres from the 
 peopled streets of Masston. 
 
 The town, when in its hurry-skurry of bricks 
 and mortar, had pushed itself right under the 
 nose of Elbston, and the shock which this act 
 of familiarity produced to each, to both had 
 serious consequences. The town, instead of 
 spreading over a wide expanse of ground, like 
 a timid hare doubled, turned its back on Elb- 
 ston, and began a course of concentric circles, 
 and Masston became a universal jumble and 
 bewilderment of human dwellings — a mighty 
 maze, without a plan. 
 
 But Elbston was finally laid out in wide 
 roads ; its sleepy fields became alive with
 
 l8o MASSTON. 
 
 Splendid villas, Its straggling lanes became 
 stately drives, palatial residences took the place 
 of paddocks, and noble mansions occupied the 
 hitherto vacant spaces which then lay between 
 earth and sky. All this was done by means of 
 Masston brass, and Masston brass it was that 
 made the great Lord Limethorpe ; and, with- 
 out deviating from the truth a hair'sbreadth, it 
 may be said that the noble owner of Elbston 
 became eternally indebted to the great master 
 of the Oxford Works. 
 
 The old lord never failed to say that 
 Mr. Robert Welsher Warner had been the 
 making of the LImethorpes. He was a pious 
 nobleman, on whom great wealth, acquired 
 late in life, had the soothing effect of sleep 
 or the sudden cessation of pain on a body 
 that had been long racked by It. Had Lord 
 Limethorpe been a younger man at the time 
 that Masston was up to its eyes in brick and 
 mortar, It is just likely that the present con- 
 dition of Masston had been different. But he
 
 MASSTON. I 8 I 
 
 was not only old, he was muddle-headed, at least 
 in everything that related to the order of human 
 things. On the creeds, for example, he had no 
 doubt ; on the subject of work and wage, he 
 was all doubt. If asked his opinion on making 
 iron look like brass, or brass to look like gold, 
 he would say that he had no opinion on the 
 subject, and that it was unnecessary to have 
 opinions on such matters ; that if people liked 
 these things and would pay for them, what 
 harm was there in making and selling them, 
 and reaping a handsome profit ? But, if you 
 asked this simple-minded old lord — he was 
 really not so very old, except to look at — what 
 his opinion was on justification by faith, or on 
 works done before conversion, he would give 
 it straight off without hesitation, just as he 
 would give himself a glass of wine ; and if 
 any radical Dissenter who had grown rich 
 lived in a palace of his own building in Elbston, 
 and, therefore, now and then received an invi- 
 tation to Limethorpe Hall, ventured on asking
 
 1 82 MASSTON. 
 
 the dear old saint what his opinion was on 
 selling for gold that which would stand neither 
 the touch of acid nor the smell of fire, he would 
 look that scornful being steadfastly in the face, 
 not answer him a word, but go and divert 
 himself with reading a sermon by the bishop 
 who crushed the infidel Gibbon, or the great 
 archdeacon who invented the watch. 
 
 The faster Elbston grew the faster did 
 Masston fill. For every house built in the 
 western fields three little miserable cribs were 
 stuck up in the east of Masston, till the town 
 went on and reached the confines of the land 
 by jamming itself against a canal ; and now, 
 bounded on the west by a stubborn old lord, 
 who would not allow a shop to be built on his 
 property, and on the east by a stinking ditch, 
 every respectable person left the streets and 
 went to live in a terrace or a crescent, a villa, 
 or a cottage orne, and yet the town continued 
 to fill, and that was the way the fresh air and 
 breathing spaces were stolen, and men and
 
 MASSTON. 183 
 
 women, condemned to sweltering turmoil, 
 became thirsty more and more. 
 
 One of the thirstiest of them all was Paul 
 Blanchard, whose name has already appeared, 
 and was well known to Mr. Warner. This 
 man's toils swelled others' stores more than 
 his own. He was of an excitable, fine-strung 
 temperament, and had he been born to another 
 wealth than that of ideas, or fell under the 
 influence of another man than that of Warner, 
 or If the accursed thirst which rose in his 
 throat from the floating rust of Masston could 
 have been assuaged by living water instead 
 of being increased by stagnant poison, he 
 might have done what Cellini did ; but now 
 none can tell what things of beauty were 
 born and drowned in Blanchard's cups. He 
 was a man who could mend, or improve, 
 or beautify almost anything which the hand 
 of a workman had formed, but he could neither 
 mend, improve, nor beautify himself. 
 
 " I tell you that if you toast bread at a slow
 
 184 MASSTON. 
 
 fire, you will make it into cinders that will cut 
 your gums if you try to eat it." 
 
 " Why, Paul, whose a talking of toast ? 
 Do you want any toast, Paul ? Are you 
 hungry ? I've got a copper or two left if you 
 are. 
 
 " You are a fool. What I am talking of is 
 the slow fire you are all in here. If the fire 
 were hotter and brighter you would be either 
 burnt up — as some of you ought to be — or you 
 would be splendid men, with souls that give 
 forth light as well as fire." 
 
 '' He's drunk again," said to himself the 
 little man to whom Paul spoke. 
 
 The two men were widely apart now, however 
 near they might once have been to each other. 
 They were both pallid as if they had been 
 starving. They were in reality only sadly 
 drunk. The one was Paul Blanchard and the 
 other an ordinary workman of the town, whose 
 appearance denoted that he had seen better 
 days. He was married, and Blanchard,
 
 MASSTON. 185 
 
 finding him miserable, and himself in need of 
 doing something good, carried him to the 
 Green Dragon to cheer him up. The result 
 appeared to be a good deal the other way. 
 They were in the midst of this when a gentle- 
 man, as he was called, came into the room, 
 called for brandy and hot water in a cheerful 
 and confident voice, which startled the two 
 men into a helpless, squinting attitude, and 
 then proceeded to smoke a churchwarden. 
 
 '' Who are you ? " demanded Blanchard, 
 addressing the new-comer. 
 
 " My name," replied he, *'is James Rek- 
 law. 
 
 " What are you ? " continued the poor ex- 
 cited fellow, shutting one eye, and tilting his 
 mouth on one side. 
 
 ''What I am is of no importance, Mr. 
 Blanchard. We know what you are, and that 
 there is not a man in all Masston who could do 
 better or rise higher if you would give up 
 drink."
 
 1 86 MASSTON. 
 
 ** And that is true," sighed the tepid little 
 man on the other side of Paul. 
 
 " Give up hell," responded Blanchard in an 
 imperious and loud tone. 
 
 " Well," said Reklaw, who knew something 
 of logic, ''you may give up either one or the 
 other, they are both the same, and you will 
 find that I am right." 
 
 " Do you know who you are talking to, sir?" 
 
 " I know," replied the other, ''that I am 
 talking to one who might be a gentleman, and 
 ride in his carriage " 
 
 " Damn your carriages " 
 
 " And be the companion of first-rate fellows, 
 and the friend, yes, the friend of the finest lady 
 in the land, except the Queen." 
 
 " Oh, except the Queen ! And, pray, why 
 except the Queen ? " inquired the daring 
 fellow. 
 
 " Because she refuses to allow men who 
 drink into her presence." 
 
 " Oh, come, that's a lie, you know." Here
 
 MASSTON. 187 
 
 Blanchard Indulo^ed In a tirade ao^ainst certain 
 of the aristocracy and leading politicians of the 
 day, which would lead one to Imagine that, 
 among other Inventions of his, he had also 
 Invented those Illustrious weekly newspapers 
 whose editors are not only dreaded and 
 courted by members of both Houses of 
 Parliament, but are also on Intimate terms 
 with members of the Royal Family. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Blanchard," replied Reklaw 
 with great care, ''these noblemen and gentle- 
 men whom you mention may drink, but they 
 do not neglect their w^ork, and very likely they 
 never get drunk, but I do not know." 
 
 " I tell you they do get drunk, and why 
 shouldn't they ? I suppose they get infernally 
 miserable now and then like everybody else." 
 
 "Are you miserable, Mr. Blanchard?" 
 
 '' What's that to you ? " 
 
 " Much." 
 
 " How much ?" 
 
 " As much as you like to name."
 
 1 88 MASSTON. 
 
 '* No, I'm not miserable, but I'll take some 
 more brandy." 
 
 " Take some soda with it, Mr. Blanchard." 
 
 Blanchard made a sign of disgust, rose and 
 rang a bell, which a rosy-cheeked girl answered, 
 to whom he said, '' My child, bring two 
 tumblers of hot brandy and water." 
 
 " I'm not a child," answered the girl with a 
 toss of her chin. 
 
 " No ; what are you then ? " 
 
 '' I am a young lady." 
 
 *' Really, that is very good ; then, my young 
 lady, bring three glasses of the liquor instead 
 of two." 
 
 The liquor was brought, and Blanchard, 
 taking one of the glasses, presented it to the 
 little man, saying, " Zacchaeus, take you this 
 and climb ; I mean go home, and don't beat 
 your wife when you get there." 
 
 *' She beats me," said Zacchaeus, if such was 
 his name, opening his white eyes very wide. 
 
 ''I am delighted to hear it. All men who
 
 MASSTON. 1 89 
 
 marry below their station should be beaten 
 daily. Pompey, trot home, and be flogged ; 
 away, mortal, and prepare thy skin for stripes, 
 the rod is always ready for the backs of fools." 
 
 Mr. Reklaw, who knew somethinof of Blan- 
 chard, was unprepared for this mood, and 
 began to fear that in trying to catch him for 
 the Oxford Works he mio^ht lose him alto- 
 ofether. He never heard of Blanchard as a 
 talker, and, indeed, Paul himself had broken 
 out in a new place. 
 
 ''Sir," he went on, addressing himself to 
 Reklaw, ''you observed but just now that I 
 might become the friend of the finest lady in 
 the land, but not of the Queen; expound, or 
 prepare for judgment." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Blanchard, I said 
 nothinof of the kind." 
 
 "You did; why, I heard you myself now," 
 said Zacchaeus-Pompey. 
 
 " All men are liars, but all men do not know 
 it," said Blanchard, who had now got out of
 
 1 90 MASSTON. 
 
 the sadness of drink Into its glare. " Sir," he 
 continued, '' I know as well that you said those 
 words as I know that I am drinking brandy 
 diluted with water/' 
 
 '' What I said was, that this lady was not 
 so fine as the Queen, but was next to the 
 Queen." 
 
 " And I said that the whole Privy Council 
 drank, and all the rest of 'em drank, and the 
 Queen received these men, but me you said 
 she would not receive, whilst I might become 
 the friend of the finest lady in the land except 
 the Queen." 
 
 Reklaw, to whose brain the brandy was of 
 some use, saw in the marvellous firmness and 
 steadiness of Blanchard's face and manner, 
 that the only hope of conciliation lay in telling 
 the absolute truth, recalled Blanchard's own 
 question, and the advantage he had taken of it. 
 *'When, Mr. Blanchard, you replied tome ' Oh, 
 except the Queen, and why pray except the 
 Queen ?' did you refer the question to yourself
 
 MASSTON. 191 
 
 or to the Duchess of Sunnyland, I mean the 
 lady whom I intended ? " 
 
 '' I referred, as you referred, of course, to 
 myself." 
 
 " I assure you I did not refer to you ; I 
 only meant that the Queen was, of course, 
 above the Duchess." 
 
 Blanchard was satisfied, and his curiosity 
 aroused. ''Is the Duchess very beautiful?" 
 he inquired, looking into the ether where all 
 beauty dwells. 
 
 '' She is so beautiful, Mr. Blanchard, that you 
 would, the moment you saw her, wish that you 
 had all the fine fruits of the world, and all its 
 flowers to give to her." 
 
 It must not be forgotten that Mr. Reklaw had 
 some claim to be considered a literary gentle- 
 man. " Then those are my terms. You can 
 have me at the Oxford Works — that was what 
 you came here for, you know — you can have 
 me at the Oxford Works for the chance of 
 knowing the Duchess of Sunnyland, who is so
 
 192 MASSTON. 
 
 beautiful that the moment I see her I shall 
 wish for the finest fruits of the world and all 
 Its flowers to give her — my God ! " 
 
 Blanchard became perfectly sober — the spirit 
 of the liquor he had drunk went out like a 
 flash as it came in contact with the divine fire 
 of his nature. He rose and said, taking the 
 little man with the big wife on his shoulder, 
 '' I will carry this poor fellow home, and to- 
 morrow expect me at the Oxford Works." 
 
 And in this way it was that Paul Blanchard 
 was won by James Reklaw for Mr. Robert 
 Welsher Warner.
 
 ( 193 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " It is merely through the quite bestial ignorance of the Moral Law, in 
 which the English bishops have contentedly allowed their flocks to be 
 brought up, that any of the modern conditions of trade are possible." 
 — An Oxford Professor who Strives and Cries in the Street. 
 
 " "What relief from human wit expect ? 
 That shows us sick, and sadly are we sure 
 Still to be sick till Heaven reveal the cure." 
 
 — Dryden, Religio Laici. 
 
 The current of human life In Masston was 
 smooth on the surface, but if a man had time or 
 strength to stand still, and let the current sweep 
 by him, he soon found that though smooth 
 to swim with, it was very difficult to oppose, 
 and when opposed, it became, like the resisted 
 sea of peace, furious and angry. Benjamin 
 Jeavons now had to stand alone in breasting 
 the corruption and Injustice, the violence and 
 Imposture, in which everything seemed to float 
 and be borne in his native town. His old 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 MASSTON. 
 
 warrior father before he died made Benjamin 
 swear that he would steadfastly refuse to be 
 made into a human brick, or a machine, or to 
 make a dozen Inferior things Instead of six good 
 ones, or to lower his prices, or alter his pat- 
 terns ; to go Into a manufactory, and become a 
 mechanical slave, or to leave the home In which 
 he was born, and where his father and mother 
 lived and died. But being only a workman, 
 he was swept by the steady and strong current 
 of things away from his bench ; his tools were 
 wrested from his hands ; his craft disappeared 
 In the rising tide ; or, to drop all metaphor, and 
 come to facts and reason, Benjamin Jeavons 
 was a skilled workman out of work, whom no 
 Masston master required or would hire. But 
 few things were left for this worker to choose 
 from In the condition In which he found himself. 
 He might steal from, or sponge on, his friends 
 and neighbours ; he might go for a soldier, 
 or set up a public-house ; buy beer on whole- 
 sale credit, and sell It for cash with the help
 
 MASSTON. 195 
 
 of some intelliQ^ence, and the chance of doubHne 
 his capital every six months. But not one of 
 these courses entered Benjamin Jeavon's mind. 
 He was, however, convinced of one palpable 
 fact, which stared him in the face, namely, that 
 the saying, ''So long as thou doest well to thy- 
 self, men will speak well of thee," was the say- 
 ing for which most men most cared. To him, 
 however, such doing was not possible. He was 
 standing idle in the market-place because other 
 men had entered into his labour and degraded 
 it. He felt his strenorth Qfoinor out of him. 
 The little money he had saved against a rainy 
 day was melting, and as each day w^ent by him 
 in which no work was done — and only so much 
 taken from the store — his soul began to sicken, 
 and like other sick men, cut off from all human 
 sympathy and the enthusiasm which springs 
 from working in a common cause, he grew 
 bitter, and his thoughts, from being sad, became 
 fierce. 
 
 ** This is not bread ! " he exclaimed to him-
 
 196 ' MASSTON. 
 
 self one morninof as he sat alone over his 
 breakfast, "nor is this butter; this tea is like 
 only so much dish-water ; this may be sugar, 
 I don't know." He wished to know. A 
 strong feeling possessed him, as it often did 
 when an idea came and knocked at his door 
 begging protection or demanding execution. 
 Jeavons knew that knock, opened his heart, 
 and man though he was, felt as grateful and 
 tender, yet proud, as a young girl receiving 
 her lover. The idea was an angel in disguise. 
 
 Jeavons, with a soul which shone in his face, 
 went straight to Doctor Cumberladge. 
 
 *' Doctor, is this bread ? " 
 
 '' That is not the bread your mother used 
 to bake, Benjamin ; that was made for nourish- 
 ment, this is made to sell ; it is a vile com- 
 pound of flour, alum, potatoes, and human 
 brains." 
 
 ''Is this sugar ? " 
 
 '' No." 
 
 " What is it, Doctor ? "
 
 MASSTON. 197 
 
 " It is a small amount of sugar, and a 
 large amount of another article which is 
 worth less than a farthino- a ton." 
 
 '' Is this tea, sir ? " 
 
 " That is not tea, but the worthless leaves 
 of a shrub which does not grow in China or 
 Japan, but in our own English lanes." 
 
 '' And can you tell me if this is butter ? " 
 
 '' I can tell you at once, that no cow has 
 made the smallest contribution to this yel- 
 low substance, sold to you for sixteenpence 
 a pound, and which can be made for less 
 than sixpence." 
 
 '' This is a shameful business, sir," 
 
 To the amazement of Benjamin Jeavons, 
 who was in a state of intense excitement, 
 amountinof to mental exaltation, Doctor Cum- 
 berladge broke into a hearty laugh. 
 
 " I say," said the other in a defiant tone, 
 *' this is a shameful business." 
 
 *' I am delighted to hear you say so," 
 answered the hilarious Doctor, who now
 
 198 MASSTON. 
 
 and then indulged in a little impulsive gaiety ; 
 " delighted to see you look so thunderstruck, 
 ah ! ah ! ah ! You have made a discovery. 
 You draw an inference, up springs a resolu- 
 tion, and out of it new life." And again 
 Doctor Hugh Cumberladge began laughing 
 at Jeavons as if he were laughing for him. 
 
 Jeavons now thought that he caught the 
 Doctor's meaning, and asked for an explana- 
 tion, which was speedily given. 
 
 "My dear Benjamin," — the doctor still re- 
 garded the workman as of old, and as when he 
 first knew him many years ago, albeit they had 
 never dropped each other's acquaintance, — 
 " My dear Benjamin, I am delighted that you 
 have made this discovery. It is nothing new 
 to me. I have long known what you appear 
 to have found out only this morning. Listen 
 to me. You have struck the path which leads 
 to fortune, fame, and power. You can't very 
 well hope to be a bishop, except by accident, 
 or a judge; these offices yet require great
 
 MASSTON. 199 
 
 learning and knowledge to fill them, but you 
 can become a lord, a companion of princes, 
 a patron of artists and of art, and the admired 
 of the most beautiful women in the world, and 
 those are only to be found in London. You 
 can have a park and any amount of deer. You 
 can live like the Pope, or the Sultan, or both. 
 — a Sultan one week, the Pope another. You 
 can have a private chaplain, and own a daily 
 newspaper, and so give a fashion to the church 
 and an opinion to the world. You can build a 
 house, the walls of which shall be of the 
 choicest glass silvered at the back ; in brief, 
 Benjamin, you can become a great man. Ah ! 
 ah ! ah ! ah ! " 
 
 Then he stopped short, and while the mirth 
 was gurgling in his throat, he exclaimed in a 
 tone which made his previous laughter terrible, 
 " There is not a house or garden, church or 
 chapel, carriage or stable, or cellar of wine, or 
 aught of luxury or show in the whole of 
 yonder new Elbston, that has not been brought
 
 200 MASSTON. 
 
 there by fraud or purchased with dishonour. 
 Every charming picture which hangs on those 
 walls was bought either by profits from poison 
 sold as wine, or bestial filth which was sold as 
 bread and butter. Oh," he said, with a sigh 
 expressive of shame, disgust, and despair, ** I 
 could weep like a child, and all because there 
 is no one to take away these spoils, and restore 
 them to those from whom they have been 
 robbed." 
 
 " The poor most," remarked Benjamin. 
 
 '' No, not the poor most," said the Doctor, 
 quieting down into a very serious tone; ''the. 
 trees of the field suffer as much from drouorht 
 as does the grass. The sufferings of the poor 
 are great, so are their wrongs ; but men of my 
 class suffer more, and are more wronged by 
 this universal wrong-doing ; and the greatest 
 wrong of all is our being wronged of the poor." 
 
 " I am afraid, Doctor," said modest, true- 
 hearted Benjamin, *' that you are talking to your- 
 self more than to me, for I can hardly under-
 
 MASSTON. 201 
 
 Stand you ; but is this state of things to go on ? 
 will there be no change for the better ? is every 
 man amone us to become a kneaded clod ? " 
 
 ^* It was a saying of one of my ancestors — 
 let us sit down, Jeavons, and quiet ourselves 
 with a little temperate thought and chat. I am 
 very glad to see you — it was a saying of Sir 
 Hueh Cumberlado^e that there were some 
 things that could not be changed by conflict 
 with them, such as a fog or mist. Out of 
 this you can only deliver yourself by rising 
 higher, and not by struggling with it. Now 
 we are in a fog in Masston " 
 
 " You mean smoke, sir." 
 
 '' Very well, call it smoke ; formerly It was 
 agricultural mist, now it is manufacturing 
 smoke, both are equally good for poisoning 
 and blinding, both come equally from neglect, 
 ignorance, wastefulness, selfishness, and the 
 filthy and devouring thirst for money, and the 
 thing you have to do is to get out of it, and 
 not try to clear it away by fighting with it."
 
 202 MASSTON. 
 
 Jeavons, who had come for knowledge, and 
 not for a sermon, was too much in earnest to 
 sit quietly under the Doctor's metaphors, and 
 he said, " I think you can speak plainer to me, 
 sir, and I should like to understand all this as 
 well as you." 
 
 ''Bravo, Benjamin! To get a clear under- 
 standing is the whole duty of man. Let us 
 then explain. In Masston the vast multitude 
 of its men and women are compelled to see 
 everything alike. The brave have no use for 
 their courage, the pure nothing to see or 
 touch but what is filthy; and when the brave 
 and the pure are reduced to the level of the 
 craven and the foul, they may be said to be in 
 a fog, or mist, or smoke that is very dense, and 
 the sooner they get out of it the better." 
 
 " Do you mean, go and live in Elbston ? '* 
 
 '' That is the new remedy, but it brings no 
 cure, for the simple reason that the fog and 
 smoke are as thick there as they are here." 
 
 ''God help us!"
 
 MASSTON. 203 
 
 " Benjamin, a man needs but two gifts by 
 which to live free of blindness and iilthiness, 
 but they are gifts of the gods, and only given 
 to their favourites." 
 
 " Favourites, sir ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, the immortals have their favourites 
 as well as we. Indeed, the mortal tendency of 
 preferring to serve a young and pretty lass in 
 preference to an old and withered woman is 
 quite Olympic in its origin. You would rather 
 run to pick up the glove of a beautiful girl than 
 go out of your way to raise a poor old woman 
 who had been knocked down in the dirt by a 
 butcher's cart." 
 
 " I would do nothine of the sort." 
 
 " Well, well, keep your seat. I am not a 
 fighting man, Benjamin ; besides, you are twice 
 my weight and three inches taller. The two 
 gifts the gods provide for man that he may 
 live, I say, — as my ancestors and all great men 
 who have ever lived have said, — are courage 
 and a clean heart."
 
 204 MASSTON. 
 
 Jeavons, who had kept close watch of the 
 Doctor's face as he went on dellverino^ his 
 oracles In prose, here Interposed the practical 
 question, " Has this anything to do with the 
 selling of sand for sugfar and sloe-leaves for tea ?'' 
 
 " Everything," replied the Doctor, raising 
 his eyebrows as if they would touch the ceiling, 
 in utter astonishment that a man so honest as 
 the one before him did not possess the divine 
 art of knowing the unexpressed thoughts and 
 meanings of others. " Observe," he continued, 
 " here, in this foul town, the tongue has lost 
 its discernment, the human perception of taste 
 is dying out, for the simple reason that every- 
 thing to eat Is covered w^ith soot, and the stuff 
 Avhich is drunk to wash it down is filled with 
 soot; such soot as enters Into a man's souL 
 which clogs his brain, pollutes his blood, and 
 turns him Into a creeping coward." 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the listener In a deep sigh, 
 which, however, had In It a dash of Impatience. 
 
 '' Yes," rapidly added the speaker, as if in
 
 MASSTON. 205 
 
 explanation, " I suppose you know that here in 
 Masston there are one hundred thousand men 
 and women who drink more sfin and beer than 
 is good for them — are drunkards, in short ? " 
 
 Benjamin Jeavons made a profound bow. 
 
 "Well, this universal disease comes from 
 universal uncleanness. The sure and certain 
 way to produce a drunkard is to keep him 
 permanently dirty ; he then becomes the slave 
 of slaves, the tool of thieves, the victim of 
 disease, the forsaken of God." 
 
 '' I wish you had been a parson, sir." 
 
 " Well, Benjamin of the uplifted arm and 
 spotless apron, I am as you know a descendant 
 of knights, and it was the duty of knights 
 to know something of everything — doctoring, 
 farming, law-making, love-making, governing, 
 fighting, and preaching, — and he that mas- 
 tered most of all these was the best knight. 
 Since the dawn of politics, and the division 
 of labour, I am reduced to the lowest rank 
 of knicrhthood. I am a mere scaveno[-er of
 
 2o6 MASSTON. 
 
 men's dirty bodies, and because the power to 
 better their own condition has been taken 
 from men, doctoring has become a great 
 profession. I therefore preach because it Is 
 in the Cumberladge blood, and am reduced 
 to doctoring by the degradation of mankind, 
 and the prevalence of soot." 
 
 "What good," cried Jeavons in a very 
 sad voice, "are the gifts of courage and a 
 clean heart to them who are condemned to 
 live In an atmosphere of cowardice and 
 filth ? " 
 
 " Benjamin, you delight a man who is 
 weary by the clearness of your sight. Courage 
 and a clean heart are of no use to anybody, 
 if like armour, they are not put on, worn 
 and used, In the battle where they are 
 needed. The filthiness of Masston, by which 
 I mean Its degrading worship of money, has 
 robbed all Its strong men of their purity, 
 and turned their valour Into the courage of 
 the beast which conquers only for itself, and
 
 MASSTON. 207 
 
 turns all others into mere things of prey. 
 The rich pin-makers, pen-makers, brassfounders, 
 lacquerers, spurious jewellery and silver-plate 
 people, who herd in the splendid filthl- 
 ness of Elbston, are the courageous beasts of 
 Masston ; and the hundred thousand toilers, 
 who moil for gin and beer, and nothing — 
 nothing — else, are their prey. They were 
 first made unclean, and then too easily fright- 
 ened out of their souls." 
 
 '' Could not a man in Masston sell bread, 
 butter, tea, and wholesome beer without becom- 
 ing a wild beast ? " 
 
 " No, unless he is content to take only wages 
 for his work, and live a workman all his days. 
 If you can find a man who is willing to do that, 
 I will join him myself in the business, and be- 
 come a purveyor of human food that is fit for 
 human beings." 
 
 '' We could buy up all the milk of Baston 
 and Russet, and Ashon and Bole — make our 
 own butter and cheese, and begin in that way."
 
 208 MASSTON. 
 
 " We ! '' exclaimed the Doctor In surprise. 
 
 " I came here this morning to consult you on 
 that, and ask advice. I never dreamt that 
 there was so much to be done, and I have 
 been Idle many weeks now.'* 
 
 " I have the best butter-maker In the world," 
 said the Doctor, having no definite plan on the 
 subject In his own mind, although he was at 
 that moment thinking of none other than Sarah 
 Armstrong. 
 
 So the idea which came to Benjamin Jeavons 
 on the morning of this long chat with Dr. 
 Cumberladge, and came like an angel unawares, 
 took the shape and form of a provision shop. 
 But then he was to have for his partner a 
 descendant of knights, and perhaps the help 
 and guidance of the best butter-maker In the 
 world ! 
 
 " I thoueht I knew all the butter-makers 
 round here," said Jeavons In a ruminating tone. 
 
 " Her name Is Sarah Armstrong," answered 
 the Doctor ; " one of my best friends."
 
 ( 209 ) 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "How unlucky are the rich in this life, and after death they cannot 
 even go to heaven. ' It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
 needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.' This ter- 
 rible anathema reveals the bitter hatred of the divine communist for 
 the Stock Exchange and the kaule finance of Jerusalem. The world 
 is full of philanthropists ; there are societies for the prevention of 
 cruelty to animals, and much is being done for the poor. But for the 
 rich, w^ho are far more unhappy, nothing is done. Instead of pro- 
 pounding prize questions on silk culture, stall feeding, and Kant's 
 philosophy, our learned societies should offer a large reward for the 
 solution of the momentous question, ' How can a camel be drawn 
 through the eye of a needle ? ' Until the great camel question is solved, 
 and the rich are thus accorded a hope of entering the kingdom of 
 heaven, nothing effectual will have been accomplished for the good of 
 the poor. If the rich were not restricted to mundane pleasures, they 
 would not be so hard-hearted, nor so envious of the poor, who are to 
 fare so well on high. Naturally enough they ask, ' Why should we do 
 anything for this trash, which will one day fare much better than we, 
 and which we shall never meet after death ? ' If the rich felt assured 
 that they would have to meet us hereafter, and live with us through all 
 eternity, they would be careful not to abuse us too much while on earth. 
 Let us, therefore, above all things, solve the great camel question. " 
 
 — Hdnrich Heine. 
 
 The camel question was never shirked in 
 
 Masston, whilst not a few of the very rich had 
 VOL. I. o
 
 2IO MASSTON. 
 
 solved it, at least for themselves. They built 
 houses for the sick, houses for the rest of the 
 old and the instruction of the young of the poor. 
 They built fountains with texts cut in them, 
 and there were soup-kitchens in winter and 
 excursions into the country in summer — all paid 
 for by rich men who never were known to re- 
 fuse an application for money when made in the 
 name of charity. Nay, there was a generous 
 rivalry among them in this, and bankers and 
 brewers, button-makers and great silversmiths, 
 entered into annual competition with railway 
 gods, and the gods of coal, cotton, and brass, 
 which should do most for the needy, the blind, 
 the halt, and the permanent sick of the 
 town. They even had lists printed of names 
 and sums, which were freely circulated. 
 
 The worst of it all was, that the poor 
 never did or could do anything for the rich, 
 could never give thanks even for what was 
 given to them. The poor of Masston, who 
 excited the sympathy of Mrs. Warner and
 
 MASSTON. 2 I I 
 
 the prayers of Mr. Gadso, puzzled every- 
 body, and were a puzzle to themselves. 
 These were the men and women who, for 
 the most part, formed the Irregular army of 
 workers in brass and iron : people who, when 
 trade was brisk, and the Oxford Works full 
 of hands and great in labour, made harvest 
 for the vendors of beer, and increased greatly 
 the labours of the men in blue. When trade 
 was dull, these very same people still gave 
 trouble, and the guardians of the poor had 
 more to do than they could manage, and the 
 rural police less time for early sleeping. 
 
 Every year, now for many years past, did 
 this shiftinof, thriftless mass of human beings 
 go on increasing in Masston. They could 
 not save money, nor could they save them- 
 selves. And these two inabilities or defi- 
 ciencies sprang from like causes — there was 
 no bank where they could deposit their gains 
 either of coin or of wisdom. For let it be 
 noted that a man can no more take care of
 
 212 MASSTON. 
 
 himself, alone, of the growth of his mind 
 and soul, than he can of his increasing 
 moneys. True he can wrap them in a nap- 
 kin, or dig a hole and place them there, but 
 this method has been pronounced unprofitable 
 and reprehensible. There was some deep 
 truth in the answer given by a sturdy and 
 thinking workman to one of those whom soot 
 and beer were choking. 
 
 " How zs a feller to lay up treasure in 
 heaven ? " asked this grimy one. 
 
 *' By remaining my friend," answered the 
 other, and with the answer left him. 
 
 The victim of soot and strong waters did 
 not follow or in any way attempt to recover 
 him. So his bank by his own laches failed, 
 and his treasure was squandered. 
 
 Mr. Gadso and the members of the clerical 
 meeting declared that the public-houses and 
 the liquor traffic were the fatal causes of the 
 gross immorality, idleness, and general sinful- 
 ness of Masston.
 
 MASSTON. 213 
 
 Benjamin Jeavons maintained, on the con- 
 trary, that beer and beer-houses had as much 
 to do with the sinfulness of Masston as the 
 waters of the sea had to do with the devil- 
 possessed swine who rushed headlong into it 
 down the steep place and were choked. But 
 that saying was too deep even for Mr. Gadso, 
 whose refusal to notice it was supposed to 
 spring from its irreverence. 
 
 Some said one thing, some another, and 
 dear old Lord Limethorpe startled the town by 
 announcing it as his opinion that all beer-sellers 
 should be heavily taxed, and a Bill brought into 
 Parliament to shorten the hours when they 
 should be allowed to sell their poison to the 
 public. Lord Limethorpe had become a great 
 authority in Masston ever since. At a public 
 meeting in the Town Hall, he told of the 
 astounding discovery made by himself, un- 
 assisted by any human being, that while the 
 taverns were allowed to open their doors on 
 the Lord's-day for the sale of soul-destroying
 
 214 MASSTON. 
 
 beverao^es ten or twelve hours, the churches' 
 doors were open for six hours only. 
 
 A shudder ran through the villas of Elbston 
 when this saying of the noble lord became 
 known. The gentry of that delightful suburb 
 then bestirred themselves, and an effort was 
 made to see If the claims of God and the arch- 
 enemy of man could not at any rate be 
 equalised, or some compromise effected. The 
 suburb, we may say, continued Its growth In all 
 that could charm the hearts of men made of 
 money. The dark corners of Masston were 
 not without their attraction, and If the distance 
 between them became greater and colder every 
 day, it must have been on account of the faults 
 on both sides. Still, while the " Hollies " and 
 the '' Hawthorns," decked with the glories of 
 the flowering earth, seemed to grow more 
 glorious every day, the Cock-pit and the 
 Pudding Bag grew m.ore dismal — more shock- 
 ing, reckless, hopeless, and aggravating. 
 
 The Pudding Bag of Masston was noted for
 
 MASSTON. 2 I 5 
 
 its hospitality. It cultivated the drama, lite- 
 rature, and the fine arts. It could boast of 
 orators and philosophers, warriors and poets ; 
 nor did it lack the elements of beauty, and 
 the charms of woman. 
 
 Into this Pudding Bag let us now enter in 
 this warm, sunny afternoon. A generous sun 
 has penetrated every dwelling, and brought 
 out all the occupiers of the court, as well as an 
 old black-currant tree, crucified against the 
 western wall. Children, decked as if in honour 
 of old memories, might be seen investigating 
 the treasures cast away by their elders. The 
 fountain in the centre of the court, which, by 
 the art of man, was made to yield downward 
 the stream he needs, and when he needs it, 
 was surrounded by a group of youths of both 
 sexes, evidently communicating with each other 
 by their eyes, for their tongues were mute. 
 Reclininof under the windoAvs, or across the 
 door-ways of the dwellings, men and women 
 were seeking grateful, if not elegant ease, and
 
 2l6 MASSTON. 
 
 they too were as silent as they were still. Only 
 one person, an artist in glass, differed from the 
 rest : repose to him, who had been for a whole 
 week before devoted to contemplation, brought 
 no pleasure ; so he took up his seat, not 
 negligently, on the top of a high-backed chair, 
 turning a porcelain plate on the great toe of his 
 left foot, which excited the attention of all, the 
 wonder of some, and the playful displeasure of 
 his spouse. A number of the men were smok- 
 ing the dear leaf of the tropics, and dreaming 
 of things they may never see or handle. 
 
 In the midst of this there came into the 
 court, at a rapid, uneven walk, a boy of stunted 
 o-rowth, but with broad shoulders and a 
 thoughtful face. He was attended by half-a- 
 dozen other boys of his own age, mere children 
 to look at, but with deep lines on their faces 
 and great pride in their breasts. They might 
 have been abroad in search of some vast trea- 
 sure which they had found, and were returning 
 to bring the glad tidings to their friends; or
 
 MASSTON. 217 
 
 their leader, having fought a giant and slain 
 him, they were carrying their warrior home to 
 be crowned. 
 
 They had simply been to church, where 
 Tom Tappit, the blacksmith's son, had taken 
 down the sermon in shorthand, and the other 
 fellows had been looking on. He said he 
 would do it, at which some mocked, but done 
 it he had, and there the sermon was, in Tom's 
 book, provided for him by Mr. Jeavons. 
 
 "Here's a lark!" cried an artist in brass. 
 " My eye ! " said another; and Tom, looking as 
 if he had been about some desperate deed, 
 made straio^ht to his father, who beine a black- 
 smith by profession, and an amateur gladiator, 
 was a good refuge for the small magician to 
 fly to. 
 
 '' I call that real fun," remarked an animated 
 little man ; *' I'm blest if it ain't as good as 
 bird's-nesting ; goin' and gettin' the parson's 
 sermon and bringin' it home." There was a 
 general laugh.
 
 2 1 8 MASSTON. 
 
 " Get a chair for Tom. Come, lad, and let 
 us hear what the parson has been about." 
 
 A chair was accordingly brought, and great 
 interest taken in the stolen sermon. Every- 
 body was now standing up, and except the 
 blacksmith, there was not another body that 
 stood higher than five feet three or four, the 
 women being very poor and short, looking as if 
 they were the mere ashes of humanity. 
 
 Tom, with much difficulty, and as if groping 
 his way in the dark, began reading in a timid 
 voice, and saying, " The text Is — 
 
 '' ' Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, 
 on the wall, and let us set for him there a bed, 
 and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick.' " 
 
 " Them words ain't in the Bible ! " exclaimed 
 one daring intruder on the silence which had 
 set in. 
 
 *' Yes, they is," said one of Tom's six equer- 
 ries, "they are in the Book of Kings." 
 
 " The Book of Kings," echoed the proud 
 mother of that boy.
 
 MASSTOX. 2 1 9 
 
 " Does anybody else want to make any more 
 remarks ?" inquired the blacksmith, withdraw- 
 ing his long pipe from his lips and looking at 
 the glass-cutter who had first spoken. 
 
 Tom went on, his eyes buried in his brows. 
 
 " These words, my beloved brethren, were 
 addressed by the great woman of Shunem to 
 her husband, on behalf of the prophet of the 
 Lord, ' Let us make a little chamber, I pray 
 thee, on the wall.' Charity, my Christian 
 friends, towards the servants and ministers of 
 God is the distinguishing mark of His children. 
 Without it " 
 
 *' Pass that, Tom, and come to something we 
 don't know," said the blacksmith, who noticed 
 that the women were becoming very atten- 
 tive. 
 
 '' It has been a question among learned" 
 
 " Ah, now, come — here's something- stun- 
 
 nmof. 
 
 o 
 
 '' Whose a torking now? " inquired the glass- 
 cutter bitterly.
 
 2 20 MASSTON. 
 
 " You shut up," answered the blacksmith ; 
 "he's my son, not yours." 
 
 '' He's more mine than yourn," said his 
 mother with animation. 
 
 These interruptions enabled the young steno- 
 grapher to decipher his hieroglyphics, and he 
 continued — 
 
 " It has been a question among the learned 
 — the men who, gifted with patience and un- 
 tiring zeal for their Master's cause, give them- 
 selves up night and day to discover what is the 
 meaning of thinors that are dark and hard to 
 understand, men unmindful of the world's 
 riches, unheeding its prizes, careless of its 
 glitter, and not regarding the power and dis- 
 tinction which it can confer. 
 
 ''It has been, I say again, dear friends, a 
 question among the learned, whether the room 
 mentioned in the text was an upper or a lower 
 room. But it will be a comfort to God's chil- 
 dren to know that it was a room." 
 
 '' Ah, ah, ah ! " " Oh, oh ! " '' My eyes and
 
 MASSTON. 22 1 
 
 limbs ! " " Well, I am blowed ! " were exclama- 
 tions suddenly shot out from all quarters of the 
 little crowd. Even the blacksmith could not 
 refrain from laughing, but the women declared 
 it was a beautiful sermon, and wished they had 
 heard it, and " it was a shame to interrupt the 
 lad like that and he doing so well." 
 
 These words were from the glass-cutter's 
 wife, who had ventured on the confession that 
 if her gown had been out of pawn she would 
 have been at church to hear it for herself 
 
 '' Oh, you would ! Well now, what a pity 
 that uncle of yours shuts up a Sundays," sneered 
 her husband, ''you might go to the evening 
 service. It has been," — continued the satirical 
 cutter of glass, imitating the tones of the after- 
 noon lecturer at the Old Church, — " it has been 
 a question among the learned, whether the man 
 with three gold balls first took in a man's best 
 coat, or a woman's Sunday gown, but it is a 
 comfort to some of God's people to know that 
 he did take in either one or the other. You'd
 
 2 2 2 MASSTON. 
 
 like to have been at church would you ? " he 
 continued, addressing his wife in tones of great 
 cruelty. '' Well, my dear, go ; you have my 
 free consent ; you'll make a good question for 
 the learned, I should think," and the glass- 
 cutter proceeded to make mention of the 
 preachers eyes, and then of the preacher's 
 nose, and declared, amid a flourish of laughter, 
 that the church was '' nothin' else but a damned 
 big nose, wot turned up at folks who stopped 
 away from it on purpose, or because their uncle 
 was out of town, and a nose as smelt into folks 
 bizness, and a nose as went on sniftin' and 
 snortin' all the blessed time you was there, and 
 when you come out you feel just as if you had 
 been a smellin bad tripe." 
 
 There was a laugh at this burst of eloquence, 
 of course, but the sentiments of the glass-cutter 
 were either not understood or lightly regarded. 
 ^ Truth to tell, the Pudding Bag on that day 
 was dull. Perhaps it was the influence of the 
 sermon, or the weather, for people not accus-
 
 MASSTON. 223 
 
 tomed to the sun hardly know what to do with 
 it when it visits them in its fiery glory. The 
 blacksmith and the Tappit family generally were 
 the dullest of them all. Not a soul could raise 
 even a whistle ; and the children, not being able 
 to dance without music, stood about like odd 
 bits of furniture out of place. The smith, 
 unable, or unwilling, to endure the tideless 
 monotony longer, rose up, went into his house 
 and brought thence an immense white jug, 
 capable of holding two or more gallons of beer. 
 With this magnificent vessel in one hand, the 
 other hand being engaged in supporting In his 
 lips a yard of clay, he stalked down the court 
 amid universal stillness, and presently returned, 
 but this time both hands were occupied ; the 
 great stone jug monopolising the service of 
 both, the pipe lying quietly across the rim, like 
 a sword on a drum. 
 
 *' Let's cheer up," said the blacksmith, as a 
 sort of grace before drink. Everybody drank, 
 old and young, the young as much as the old,
 
 2 24 MASSTON. 
 
 and as If they had been born to It, and in an 
 incredibly short time the great white stone jug 
 became full of nothing but air. It was soon 
 filled again, and again. Then came more 
 pipes, and every one's tongue was straightway 
 untied. Some sang ; old songs, and quite for- 
 gotten now in Masston, such as ''The Sweep," 
 ''The Robin," ''The Sigh," and "The Brimming 
 Can." What a treat it was to many to hear 
 the glass-cutter spout " My Name is Norval," 
 for he had a good voice when he was in a good 
 temper. 
 
 " O mother, mother ! " cried a girl In a 
 shrieking voice, as she suddenly entered the 
 yard, ran into Mrs. Tappit's arms, and began 
 crying. 
 
 " You naughty, naughty wench," said the 
 mother, putting her right hand on the girl's 
 head, and pressing it to her breast, " where 
 have you bin ? '' 
 
 This was, in fact, the explanation of the 
 dulness which reigned in the court before the
 
 MASSTON. 225 
 
 advent of the great white jug. 'Lizzebeth 
 Tappit had been out all night, and no one 
 knew where. Every one suspected, and every 
 one was silent, for Tappit could have swallowed 
 every one of them on the least provocation. 
 
 In a mild voice he said to his daughter, 
 '' Well, 'Lizzebeth, have you come back } " 
 
 '' O feyther," was the answer, " I'll never 
 do so no more. I shall never be a bad gal 
 
 ao^am. 
 
 She was a fair girl, her hair tied up behind 
 
 in a knot as if it were a rag : thin she was, and 
 
 haggard ; had you seen her for the first time 
 
 you would say this creature had been beaten, 
 
 or she had been starved, or she had been 
 
 drunk. No one asked her where she had 
 
 been. Even her brother said nothing, but he 
 
 did look at her a good deal, so did they all. 
 
 At last her father poured some of the nectar 
 
 from the great white jug into a cup, and this 
 
 she drank with the deliberation and content of 
 
 a man. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2 26 MASSTON. 
 
 ^' I shall never be a bad gal again, mother/' 
 
 " Hast got religion, lass ? " 
 
 ''Oh, somethin' better nor that!'' she said 
 with great animation, her blue eyes giving a 
 delightful colour to her bony face, which 
 softened it into a human expression. 
 
 ''They took me to the play; Jane Ruckles 
 and her mother, and then they took me home 
 as it was so late. O Tom ! if you see that play 
 it will make a man of you. There was a king 
 and he had three daughters. But Lor', father, 
 such a king ! I never know'd what a king was 
 before, he was so beautiful, and his voice went 
 through you as if it were wine and music. 
 That was at first, but after" 
 
 " What was the play ? " inquired the shorthand 
 writer. 
 
 "Well, Tom, you know, there was three 
 daughters, and the king asked them which of 
 you loves me the best, and the eldest said 
 she did, she loved him better than her own 
 eyes, and beyond anythink, which was all my
 
 MASSTON. 227 
 
 eye, you know ; and the other said the same, 
 and then I know'd they were liars. I found 
 that out myself. But the king believed them." 
 
 '' If you found it out, why couldn't the king find 
 it out as Avell ? " inquired one of the company. 
 
 '' You just wait," continued 'LIzzebeth ; " then 
 the other sister — you could tell at once she 
 wosn't a liar — said as how she loved him as 
 was her bond ! neither more nor less. This 
 was in the palace." 
 
 '' A real palace ?" inquired one of the smaller 
 listeners. 
 
 " Oh yes, beautiful, everything — but you only 
 looked at the king, he made the palace, you 
 know ; there was lords and ladles, a reo-*lar 
 lot, and they all listening to the three sisters ; 
 and the youngest said that she loved him, but 
 when she got married she would love her 
 husband." 
 
 '' Well, that's quite right." 
 
 " On course it were," continued the excited 
 girl ; '' but you should a seen how orful mad It
 
 2 28 MASSTON. 
 
 made the king. Then he gives everything to 
 the two bad uns, and takes off his crown and 
 tells their husbands to halve that between 
 them, and wouldn't give a rap to the little un. 
 Then there was a soldier chap, he was an earl, 
 told the king that he was making a fool of him- 
 self, and took the part of the little un. And 
 the klno^. In a voice that thundered throuo^h 
 everybody, then and there banished the soldier 
 out of England, and off he went, as you think, 
 but he changes his clo's, and he does not 
 reg'lar go, but keeps up a spy on the two bad 
 uns, and stays by the king, just for all as if he 
 smells a rat." 
 
 " Well, well, get on." 
 
 " I am a gettin' on — ril tell it all after, but 
 now I want only to tell about these awful 
 hussies and the little o-ood un. How those two 
 wretches did maul the king, and how he did 
 storm. They took away his horses and his 
 men, and they say the most orful things to him, 
 and he fires up as how to make your very blood
 
 MASSTON. 229 
 
 run cold. It's the grandest sight in all the 
 world to see him." 
 
 The o^reat actor had touched even the com- 
 mon clay of this ill-kempt girl and changed it 
 into ofold. She had seen a kinof — that trasfic 
 Lear, whom none that saw ever forgot. But 
 she had seen likewise her own nature in a new 
 glass that showed it not darkly. She had seen 
 the awful vlllany of the world, and been face 
 to face with all that is noble as well as all that 
 is wretched and base. So clear was it all to her 
 that she made it clear to them, who, though 
 they had not seen it, yet believed. 
 
 The yard was in a ferment, everybody's soul 
 was enjoying itself; in short, they were all 
 happy. Here, two men sauntered into the 
 court who were evidently well known, and 
 what happened shall be related in another 
 chapter.
 
 ( 230 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 *' O what a precious comfort 'tis to have so many like brothers, 
 commanding one another's fortunes." 
 
 — Timon of Athens, 
 
 Mr. Robert Welsher Warner was, as we 
 now know, as well aware as the Jews of old 
 of the Importance of forms and ceremonies. 
 There was, in truth, as Mr. Gadso once said 
 of one of the Epistles, "much of the Jew ele- 
 ment" in Warner. It would have been a pardon- 
 able mistake for a young man of the period to 
 have taken Warner for a converted Jew. For 
 one thing he had not lived among men without 
 learning the value of burnt-offerings, and his 
 was a nature capable of believing that what 
 had once been acceptable to gods, although 
 now despised and rejected by them, might be 
 made attractive to men, and a means of secur-
 
 MASSTON. 231 
 
 ing their favour. Warner was so full of 
 motives that, without being charged with 
 malice, his most intimate friends might, in 
 playful earnestness, have said this of him. 
 
 A beneficent and wise host is, for the time 
 that he sits surrounded by his guests, a king 
 amonof men. Sit where he will, that seat is the 
 head of the table. This was recognised by the 
 noble Romans, who, with the radicalism that 
 underlies imperial convictions, were careful to 
 elect some other than the master of the house 
 as master of the feast. And this remarkable 
 modern man of ours, who could steal a market 
 and allure a duchess, knew, by some method 
 mysterious to us but none the less real, how 
 to combine something of the classical empire 
 of a feast, with a touch of submission that 
 was grateful to those of his guests who had 
 spiritual authority over him. Such guests had 
 been frequent at Warner's table in the days 
 when It had no mistress. 
 
 Now, shortly after his marriage, it was his
 
 232 MASSTON. 
 
 purpose and his wife's, to mark their sense of 
 the respect and gratitude which they owed 
 that holy man Mr. Gadso, by a dinner-party 
 to be given especially in his honour. Mrs. 
 Warner could only honour Mr. Gadso by 
 widening his sphere of usefulness, and bring- 
 ing beneath his influence men whom, but for 
 her and her husband, the eloquent and beloved 
 clergyman would never have seen much less 
 come in contact with. And it was understood 
 that there was some special significance in this 
 their first dinner-party which Warner gave 
 after his marriage, and to which were bidden, 
 in the first place, Mr. Gadso and his Dande- 
 lion, as Julia Ascham, with her inborn tendency 
 to soft and tender satire, would persist in 
 calling Mrs. Gadso. Afterwards came some 
 persons of commercial value over whom Mr. 
 Gadso was to cast his wand ; and, after the 
 manner of Masston, at least make brass look 
 like silver, and give to copper the trick of 
 seeming gold. Then followed some less
 
 MASSTON. 233 
 
 clerical lights, among whom was the Reve- 
 rend Edward Sweetapple, who had sat at 
 the feet of Mr. Gadso, and from him had 
 imbibed much grace. He had not the fiery 
 eloquence or the comprehensive wisdom of 
 the master, but he had certain special gifts, 
 such as a low-toned voice of sino-ular and 
 penetrating sweetness, an eye which could 
 rather entreat than command, and a general 
 aspect of sympathy, which to some was most 
 attractive. 
 
 One maiden lady, of great wealth, was heard 
 to say, that in Mr. Gadso's presence she 
 felt as if that great and good man already 
 knew her secret thoughts, her doubts, and 
 wishes, and it was her custom to wait for 
 him to speak of them. But when she was 
 wath Mr. Sweetapple, .she seemed to be with 
 one who was anxious she should disclose her 
 heart in order that he should relieve, if that 
 might be, its troubles. 
 
 This discrimination of one who knew and
 
 2 34 MASSTON. 
 
 loved both may, to some extent, indicate the 
 difference between the master and the disciple. 
 
 The feast was expected with equal pleasure, 
 though for somewhat different reasons, by 
 Robert Warner and Edith. Julia, her one 
 sister, alone thought it would be as serious 
 as a religious ceremony, and said so, but in 
 words more frank and homely. 
 
 ''Julie, darling," said her sister to her in 
 answer to some light and jesting comment as 
 they busied themselves with the flowers for 
 the table, '' I wish you could look upon these 
 matters as I do." 
 
 " Look upon a dinner-party as a solemn 
 affair ? Is that what you mean, Edith ? If 
 it is, it seems to me you are wrong from 
 every point of view. Would you have no 
 gaiety in the world ? Would you have 
 nothing in common with nature's changing 
 moods ? Would you conduct all things with 
 the same staid gravity ? Would you," she 
 continued, holding up both hands, from which
 
 MASSTON. 235 
 
 fell floretted light, '* would you never laugh 
 with the summer flowers, nor weep with the 
 autumn leaves as they fall tear upon tear to 
 the ground ? " 
 
 ''You know, Julie, I wish for nothing of 
 the kind, and you cannot accuse me of never 
 varying from what you call staid gravity. 
 I can laugh, and do laugh as well as you, 
 but" 
 
 " Yes, that is one of your odious buts. But 
 you do not lose sight of the chief end. But 
 you never forget the one thing needful, 
 whether we eat or drink, w^e must do all — - 
 all — you know the rest." But seeing a tender 
 look of loving appeal in her sister's eyes, she 
 added in her own natural tone of voice — the 
 voice of the Aschams when Baston Hall was 
 merry with music, song, and dance, " I like 
 to laugh out of pure llghtheartedness, and if 
 I were to be thinking always of the same 
 thing I should grow as dull and stupid as " 
 
 "As what ? " said Mr. Warner, who at
 
 236 MASSTON. 
 
 that moment entered the room on his return 
 from the Oxford Works. '* But it is need- 
 less to seek for comparisons. No one can 
 imagine Julia being either dull or stupid." 
 This was said with a bow of solemn courtesy, 
 to which Julia's only answer was the music 
 of a laugh. 
 
 , " The honour of taking you into dinner to- 
 night, Julia," continued Warner, consulting a 
 folded paper, *' is assigned to Mr. Sweetapple." 
 
 Julia, for every use of her Christian name, and 
 for this last piece of news, put on a look which 
 ill became her, and said, recovering herself, 
 " Such honour is too great for me, I am not 
 fit for the Church. I shall be saying ' amen ' 
 instead of 'yes,' or some other very wicked 
 and perhaps abominable thing, which I shall 
 be as much vexed with as either of you." 
 
 " Julia," said Edith, 'T think I would like you 
 to wear my diamonds to-night. Will you ? " 
 
 '' Oh, if I could wear them in my eyes, 
 make them sparkle and glitter in my hair,
 
 MASSTON. 237 
 
 like rain-drops In the grass, would not Mr. 
 Sweetapple turn himself into a missionary 
 on the spot, and set about my conversion ? " 
 And the heathen beauty, with another sweet 
 laugh, went away to dress for dinner, and 
 even Robert Warner felt amused, a thing of 
 more astonishment to himself than to us, who 
 know that not even to such self-made men as 
 he is laughter absolutely proscribed. 
 
 The dinner was attended with that success 
 which so belono^ed to Warner that it seemed 
 to be part and parcel of his nature. He could 
 clothe himself with success as with a garment. 
 The great ones of the earthly and the spiritual 
 world of Masston met and joined hands to- 
 gether on Warner's rug even as spiritual and 
 earthly greatness were combined in Warner 
 himself. 
 
 In those days, and especially In Masston, 
 where trade custom made it a thing of neces- 
 sity and church-going a habit, punctuality was 
 everywhere rampant ; so that between the
 
 238 MASSTON. 
 
 arrival of the o^uests and the announcement 
 of dinner there was not more than time enough 
 for some kind of fusion to take place between 
 the different elements gathered together. 
 When dinner had been announced, and those 
 for whom the table was spread were collected 
 around it, Mr. Gadso delivered a grace before 
 meat across the glittering white and silver of 
 the table, which was perhaps more ornate than 
 the grace before drink delivered by Tappit, 
 the blacksmith, across the great white jug. 
 But its meaning was much the same. The 
 difference was this, that Tappit adjured his 
 fellows and himself to cheerfulness in the be- 
 lief that they could with some effort procure 
 cheerfulness for themselves, while Mr. Gadso 
 seemed to insist upon some heavenly aid being 
 given him towards cheerfulness, or perhaps he 
 thought that It would be Indecorous In him to 
 be cheerful without the consent of the heavenly 
 powers. In whatever manner, cheerfulness did 
 come.
 
 MASSTON. 239 
 
 There was much rejoicing at the end of the 
 table, where Mr. Gadso and Mrs. Warner sat, 
 over the happy future in store for Masston, 
 and the happy present which was now being 
 celebrated : " And," said Mrs. Warner with a 
 smile of confident joy, " I can never forget, nor 
 I am sure can my husband, that it is you whom 
 we have to thank for this." 
 
 Mr. Gadso protested that he was but an 
 instrument that no thanks should be eiven to 
 him for any good that he might have been the 
 means of carrying out, and more skimble- 
 skamble stuff, which to the enorlamoured Edith 
 
 o 
 
 was utterance soft and strong as the divinest 
 voice ever bestowed on man. 
 
 Meanwhile the Dandelion, looking as yellow 
 as her gold, was listening with deepest atten- 
 tion to Warner's picturesque account of his 
 first interview with the beautiful Edith Ascham 
 at the Oxford Works ; and when he had ended 
 his tale, Mrs. Gadso cast a devout look to the 
 other end of the table, and said, " And to think
 
 240 MASSTON. 
 
 that, In a manner, as one might say, it was Mr. 
 Gadso's doing ! " Whereon Robert Warner 
 bowed his head and smiled gratefully. 
 
 Mrs. Gadso was a lady not without sense, but 
 so smothered was it in grace, or the means of 
 grace, that she lost the use of it. Her sense 
 was like her money, consecrated to God and 
 Mr. Gadso. She could build a church, but for 
 the life of her she could not hang a door to a 
 cottage or cure a smoking chimney. She 
 knew the Psalms of David by heart, and en- 
 joyed them ; but a single line out of Shake- 
 speare acted on her brain like a box on the 
 ears. Poor thing, it was not her fault that she 
 inherited many thousands of ill-gotten gains ! 
 
 Mr. Sweetapple, who had often looked at 
 Julia Ascham's face and noticed her engaging 
 ways, said to her, almost as soon as grace was 
 finished, in an Interrogative tone, '' I am sure. 
 Miss Julia, you must think it was a happy day 
 when Mr. Gadso and your sister met — do you 
 not ? "
 
 MASSTON. 241 
 
 It was Mr. Sweetapple's particular province 
 to follow up a half statement of this kind, with 
 a question put in a tone which implied a not 
 unpleasant sympathy between himself and the 
 person addressed, and his listeners had been 
 known to entirely change their minds on im- 
 portant subjects, merely for the pleasure of 
 bidding for this sympathy. To such considera- 
 tions, however, Julia Ascham was blind, and 
 to Mr. Sweetapple's engaging speech she 
 merely answered — 
 
 '' Since my sister's marriage, Mr. Sweetapple, 
 I have been Miss Ascham." 
 
 This was not petulance, but that quality of 
 godlike cruelty, except for which the very air 
 we breathe would become a deadly poison to 
 all new-born things, and the old deprived of 
 the care of the young would grow In nothing 
 but malignity. Julia refused to have her 
 tongue anointed, or her heart washed. She 
 once told her sister, ** If I should become very 
 religious, I will sell all that I have, and give It 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 242 MASSTON. 
 
 to the poor. I have thought much about turn- 
 ing chimney-sweeper, I am thinking of it now, 
 and am quite sure, if I am not allowed to 
 laugh and dance and sing in my own house, 
 I will go and live amongst those who have 
 nothing else to live for ; " and Edith, whose 
 love for Julia was as deep as it was discriminat- 
 ing, from that moment determined on getting 
 her charming sister married as soon as pos- 
 sible, mated with one who would take in his 
 charge her soul. 
 
 Mr. Sweetapple was not abashed by Julia's 
 rebuke. He made answer, " I have so often 
 heard you spoken of as Miss Julia, that it is 
 difficult to attune my mind and tongue to a 
 changed order of things. The world is much 
 ruled by custom, which is responsible for many 
 of its evils. Do you not think so ? " 
 
 " I think there are many evil customs, and 
 some of the worst are those which can hardly 
 be called customs, they have been in existence 
 such a short time."
 
 MASSTON. 243 
 
 '' Such as ? " 
 
 "Such as every one of position in this town 
 of Masston livinof outside of it, avoidinor its 
 walls, except at certain hours, as if they were 
 plague-stricken — and they may be plague- 
 stricken for auofht I know." 
 
 ''What, what, what?" inquired an elderly 
 gentleman with an enormous shirt-frill and a 
 voice like a duck ; others had also noticed 
 Julia's words, and the attention of the whole 
 table was turned on Mr. Sweetapple. *' Surely," 
 said he accepting the notice of the guests as a 
 tribute to his fame, " Surely there are reasons ! 
 The spread of commerce brings with it various 
 unavoidable changes — the distribution of wealth 
 is one, and that alone leads to changes beyond 
 the power of man to calculate or control. Mr. 
 Warner can tell you how paramount are the 
 claims of commerce." 
 
 " Then," answered Julia, with an enchanting 
 air of decision, " let us have no more com- 
 merce."
 
 244 MASSTON. 
 
 On which there rose the first laugh of the 
 dinner, in which all joined, and by which the 
 separate guests, till then like separated links, 
 became one chain running^ round the table. 
 
 Mr. Sweetapple — stabbing the breast of a 
 chicken — his face covered with one of those 
 comprehensive smiles which can commit a theft 
 like any pickpocket, resumed the talk by 
 addressing himself to all, in a melodious voice, 
 and saying, "There are, no doubt, many customs 
 springing up around us daily which are, in 
 Hamlet's words, * more honoured in the breach 
 than in the observance.' " 
 
 It was part of Mr. Sweetapple's composition 
 to have a pretty taste in literature. 
 
 One of the commercial celebrities present, 
 catching these last words, here struck in with 
 much encouragement, '* Have you seen the 
 ereat actor ? I'm told he's a monstrous clever 
 fellow, and has made I don't know how much 
 money, more than any of us ever made in 
 double the time in Masston."
 
 MASSTON. 245 
 
 " I have heard of him, Mr. Bruton," replied 
 JuHa, " and am dying to see him." Her eyes 
 sparkled and her cheeks flushed as she spoke. 
 
 " It is not to be supposed," said Mr. Gadso 
 in mellow tones, '' that a great actor's life is 
 one of idleness. Forgive me, Bruton, if I 
 misapprehend you, but that would seem to be 
 the scope of your remark. I myself am aware, 
 from my labours in the pulpit, how much exer- 
 tion is involved in the mere continuous strain 
 of the voice. It is true that the actor's words 
 are written for him, while we, my dear breth — 
 my dear Bruton — are dependent on our own 
 mental powers, or, I should rather say, on the 
 suggestion — really one might almost say the 
 inspiration, vouchsafed to us. Still the actor s 
 is not an idle profession." 
 
 Mrs. Gadso's forehead appeared to be sink- 
 ing in when she heard these words : many 
 more were aghast at this comparison between 
 the pulpit, which they all held in reverence, and 
 the stage, which was widely regarded as a part
 
 246 MASSTON. 
 
 of the black art. Had such sentiments been 
 uttered by any one but Mr. Gadso — had any 
 one but Mr. Gadso spoken of the theatre in 
 such terms, there would have been a general 
 and a bitter outcry. As it was, there was a 
 general and silent astonishment. 
 
 Mr. Sweetapple, on whom Julia's remark to 
 Mr. Bruton had not been lost, with that half- 
 confident, half-timid air which became him, 
 said, " Then you think, Mr. Gadso, that there 
 is no harm in theatrical representations ? " 
 
 *' It has been well said, ' that everybody has 
 his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, 
 prompter, playwright, scene-shifter, box-keeper, 
 door-keeper all in one, and audience into the 
 bargain.' And surely, Edward," continued Mr. 
 Gadso, who was in the habit of addressing 
 such young soldiers of the Cross as he spe- 
 cially favoured by their Christian names, ''there 
 not only need be no harm — there may be posi- 
 tive good. I do not insist on it. If it make 
 my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while
 
 MASSTON. 247 
 
 the world stands. Still I am reminded that 
 the drama did ever begin by being the servant 
 of the Church, or the direct interpreter of the 
 Church. You will find that in all nations this 
 has been so. What higher aim could any insti- 
 tution have ? " 
 
 " What, indeed ! " arose in a pious chorus, 
 while some exclaimed to each other in hospi- 
 table tones, " What a wonderful man ! where 
 does he get it all from?" Even Julia was 
 softened. She looked at Edith during the 
 delivery of the passage, " Everybody has his 
 own theatre," and Edith returned the look 
 with an admiring glance mixed with great 
 sweetness, as if shaping her lips to blow her a 
 kiss. 
 
 " But," said an inquiring soul, " is there no 
 danger of vaingloriousness, or of becoming 
 habituated to deceit in simulating the images 
 and passions of other men ? " 
 
 *' If it were a sin to simulate the images of 
 others, the painters of those noble faces which
 
 248 MASSTON. 
 
 are now looking down upon us from these 
 walls " — and all eyes for the first time saw the 
 Ascham family of the past looking down upon 
 them — ''would be in evil case. And I opine 
 that to Imitate the passions, the good as an 
 ensample to be copied, the evil to be shunned, 
 may have a salutar)/ effect." [It is almost a 
 pity that Mr. Gadso had no opportunity of 
 becoming acquainted with the personal experi- 
 ence of 'Lizzebeth Tappit.] " Some of you,^' 
 continued the elated man, ^' may remember the 
 impression made by a picture which I drew a 
 month or so ago, of an impenitent sinner's 
 deathbed. I must confess, and some of you 
 will call to mind, that something of that im- 
 pression was due to a gift, a histrionic gift, with 
 which I have been endowed, and which I am 
 accustomed to cultivate by reading aloud with 
 proper meaning and inflection the works of our 
 great Shakespeare." 
 
 Then turning to Mrs. Warner, he said to 
 her in private, " You have a Shakespeare ? "
 
 MASSTON. 249 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 " Well, we will see If my old power has in 
 anything diminished." 
 
 '' How I wish Lord Limethorpe had been 
 here," said one ; *' his views on these things are 
 so positive." 
 
 *' Yes ; and it is such a comfort to be told 
 what to do," said another. " I am sure I shall 
 always look upon the theatre as the greatest 
 evil of our time. Of course Mr. Gadso is an 
 exceptional person. I never follow him except 
 in prayer, and when he is opening up the 
 Scriptures." This was said by a lady in silk 
 attire, whose mind and soul, and all her other 
 thinking apparatus, which was of the meanest 
 order, had as much connection with the brocade 
 she wore as one of the flowers on the table had 
 to do with the mustard pot. Mr. Warner was 
 no doubt surprised, he was opposed for the 
 first time in his life to his clerical guide. 
 But an idea suddenly struck him, and he said 
 to Julia, in a voice which only she and Mr.
 
 250 MASSTON. 
 
 Sweetapple caught, " Would you really like to 
 see this great actor ? " 
 
 And Julia, for the first time in her new rela- 
 tion to him, felt inclined to become his sister. 
 She replied with one word — 
 
 " Immensely." 
 
 And he, observing her cordiality, and how 
 much he could procure by it, responded with 
 the assurance — 
 
 " You shall eo to-morrow."
 
 ( 251 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 *' The play's the thing 
 Wherein I'll catch the conscience." 
 
 — Hamlet^ ii. 2. 
 
 When Benjamin Jeavons heard from Dr. Cum- 
 berladge that Sarah Armstrong was a friend of 
 his, the sunshine to him became more golden, 
 and the air he breathed more sweet. When 
 this maid — about whom he refused to think lest 
 his only belief in the world should slip from him, 
 the belief that whoever, or whatever, God had 
 once touched should never perish — when Sarah 
 did at last come Into his mind as the personal 
 friend of the great doctor, and she whom he had 
 deemed lost was found in safe and holy keep- 
 ing, the fountains of Benjamin's heart broke 
 up, and the first thing he did after leaving Dr. 
 Cumberladge was to go in search of Paul 
 Blanchard.
 
 252 MASSTON. 
 
 Our best sympathies are our good angels, 
 and he is simply a coward who does not obey 
 their ofuidance. 
 
 These two men were well known to each 
 other, but the erratic habits of the designer and 
 man of genius ill suited the sober ways of the 
 would-be provision dealer, and the two friends 
 had not met for some time. 
 
 Now that Jeavons had received into his 
 heart the strength which comes from happiness, 
 he went to seek the man whose moral weakness 
 was to him a constant source of pain and vexa- 
 tion. For Jeavons believed that Blanchard's 
 fondness for the tavern sprang from nothing 
 else than utter selfishness and idleness, together 
 with the steadfast refusal to look upon life as 
 anything else but an evil inheritance, or a piece 
 of ill luck. 
 
 " O Paul, my good fellow ! what are you 
 doing here ? " 
 
 Benjamin had gone to the old haunt where, 
 more in fear than in an^er, he thought to find
 
 MASSTON. 253 
 
 his friend, and found him, early in the day as it 
 was, at the Green Dragon, hi^ human clay soaked 
 into very mud, his eyes red as if they had been 
 staring into a burning fiery furnace ; and all his 
 external being the picture of abject misery and 
 forsakenness. 
 
 " What are you doing here. Master Martin 
 Luther ? " inquired Blanchard, in the impudent 
 manner which always beset him when in his 
 cups, and made him much resemble an ape in 
 his antics. 
 
 " I came to look for you," replied Benjamin, 
 with a touch of pain in his voice. 
 
 *' Well, here I am ; fire up, Calvin, open the 
 everlasting doors, and roll me into the eternal 
 brimstone prepared for the devil and all his 
 ano^els." 
 
 '' Paul, I've got an idea." 
 
 " Then throw it away ; when any new idea 
 comes to me now, I chuck it into a glass, pour 
 over it some dark brown spirit to stupefy it, 
 then kill it with boiling water, and finally
 
 2 54 MASSTON. 
 
 swallow it. I have been living on whipped 
 ideas, like some who live on whipped eggs, for 
 more than a week." 
 
 "I can't throw it away," said Jeavons with 
 o^reat seriousness. 
 
 " Well, give It to me," added the wicked 
 Paul, in a tone which clearly said, " Giving it 
 to me will be just the same as throwing it 
 away." 
 
 Jeavons, standing in front of the man-monkey, 
 whose grimaces would have convulsed any 
 one else with laughter, now folded his arms 
 across his breast, his head thrown back, and 
 his eyes set in rims of glaring chalcedony, 
 said with great solemnity, but in a rich, mellow 
 voice, " I dare not throw it away." 
 
 " Then I'll share it with you." 
 
 '' Share it ? " 
 
 The voice and the messaofe it carried w^ere 
 new to him. 
 
 *' I'm not drunk, Benjamin," the toper said 
 deprecatingly, as if he had been accused ; " and,
 
 MASSTON. 255 
 
 with your permission, I will have one glass 
 more, then we'll walk to Ashon, have some 
 dinner, and you and I will spend the day to- 
 gether like men." 
 
 Blanchard was one of those who can make 
 their bodies drunk while they keep their minds 
 sober. He was not really drunk, as he had 
 said ; he was merely uncottered — all the rivets 
 of his joints had fallen out. He had taken 
 sufficient brandy to turn himself to stone — to 
 take a little more would reanimate him ; and 
 at a siornal from himself all the rivets would 
 fly to their appointed places, the cotters go 
 home, and he once more be made whole. It 
 was a favourite braof of his that what made 
 other men drunk made him sober. 
 
 Jeavons, when he left Dr. Cumberladge's 
 house, although greatly happy in finding the 
 jewel he thought to be lost, was yet lacking 
 something which he could not name, but 
 which his going in search of Blanchard may 
 be said to symbolise. He lacked sympathy.
 
 256 MASSTON. 
 
 A common enough lack, and that, no doubt, 
 is one main reason why there is so much hard 
 drinking in the world, and why Masston was 
 more noted for its accursed drunkenness 
 than any other town in England, or Scotland 
 either. The Doctor had distinctly thrown 
 cold water on his plans, had placed lions in 
 his path, and altogether sneered at Benjamin's 
 provision shop. " A provision shop ! " he said 
 with great contempt. " Everybody opens a 
 shop now. You will never teach the drunken 
 men and women of Masston that their souls 
 are w^orth a damson tart to them. There's 
 only one prescription for their malady, but 
 there is no one to make it up." 
 
 " What is it ? " Benjamin had modestly in- 
 quired. 
 
 " Faith, hope, and charity. I was going to 
 say a fixed income, but that would be to put 
 the cart before the horse." 
 
 •' Does a man's income depend upon his 
 faith ? "
 
 MASSTON. 257 
 
 " You know it does better than I can tell 
 you. 
 
 And Benjamin smiled sadly, but intelligibly. 
 
 It was then that Jeavons went to seek Blan- 
 chard, for he had great confidence In his fire 
 and energy ; resolved to confide to him his 
 plans, allure him If possible from the arms of 
 the Dalilah whose embrace was death, and, in 
 short, see if /le for one could not make up the 
 Doctor's prescription. 
 
 The two men had their walk, wandering 
 some three miles out of Masston, through the 
 meadows and under great elms, till they reached 
 a house noted for its tap and other creature 
 com.forts held in great repute among men who 
 are more men than monkeys. Then it was 
 that Jeavons unfolded to a dreamer his prac- 
 tical scheme for regenerating the world, or 
 rather, just one sinful corner of it, where there 
 lurked much despair, little love, and still less 
 ofood-nature. Blanchard listened like one who 
 had no speech, or muscle, or even breath. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 258 MASSTON. 
 
 Jeavons was so struck with Paul's attention 
 that he thouo^ht he must have fallen into a 
 trance, having his eyes open, so profound was 
 his mindfulness. 
 
 At last the inventor rose from his seat, and 
 without saying a word walked out of the house, 
 down a lane, whose hedges were gardens, into 
 a field at the foot of whose green slope was 
 what appeared to be a motionless river fringed 
 with golden sedge, as the eyes that have known 
 the pain of love are fringed with lashes soft as 
 the shadows within a rose. 
 
 Jeavons who knew the bliss of quiet and 
 being alone with his thoughts, remained smok- 
 ing his pipe, looking at the thoughts he had 
 shared with his friend and watching the new 
 aspect they had taken. 
 
 They were both good-looking men, and 
 beauty in men is doubtless nature's own certi- 
 ficate — sometimes, indeed, writ small — for 
 goodness of temper and freedom of heart. 
 Jeavons was imperious with health and up-
 
 MASSTON. 259 
 
 right as a tree by the water-side. Blanchard 
 might not inaptly be compared also to a tree 
 — the tree which bends over a stream, drinks, 
 and remains prying into what lies beneath its 
 surface. Swarthy he was, with clean shaven 
 face, and eyes of blue enamel, which, although 
 so keenly polished, suggested great sweetness, 
 even the sweetness of a scent that lives long 
 after the flower which gave it has been thrown 
 into an oven. Benjamin, on the contrary, was 
 fair, with a beard marked off with black and 
 brown, — he was a mixture of iron and gold, 
 like a lighthouse at night. 
 
 Suddenly Jeavons, awaking out of his 
 reverie, recollected that Paul had now been 
 absent more than an hour. He arose and went 
 out in search. He could nowhere see a living 
 soul. He ran down the lane, across the field, 
 and on to the river ; and as he ran the thoughts 
 which crossed his mind about Paul endeared 
 him to him. He was his only companion — 
 true, he had neglected him, but would do so
 
 260 MASSTON. 
 
 no more; the hardness of the times and the 
 universal frivolousness had been too much even 
 for him, but he would attend to the Doctor's 
 prescription. And, ten thousand times swifter 
 than it takes to tell, he connected Paul with the 
 river. Where the thought came from, or the 
 vision, he could never say, but there he saw 
 the David of his soul lying stark dead among 
 the silvery pebbles of the clear brown stream. 
 A horrible blackness fell on Jeavons, who, 
 bewildered and panic-stricken, began snatching 
 rapid-revolving glances at the landscape, as a 
 frightened creature hunted to death stares at 
 the dangers which beset it turn where it will. 
 It was a new experience to Jeavons who had 
 never known his imagination wander before. 
 It was the birth of friendship. 
 Turning round he saw Paul close to the 
 river sitting under an oak, which for the divine 
 liquor supplied to it gave It back in return a 
 covering of plumes which gathered heavenly 
 music as it strayed by. Paul was evidently
 
 MASSTON. 261 
 
 playing with the reeds ; and the moment Ben- 
 jamin saw him his heart went out to him with 
 a bound of joy and love, and he ran to embrace 
 him. At least if these two had lived in a land 
 where the sun is never soiled with soot, and 
 where the fruits grow round and oval by the 
 Spirit of God which there rules universal nature, 
 he would have run to embrace the friend who 
 thus had been born to him. But beino- of 
 
 o 
 
 Masston, whence the Spirit of God had flown, 
 or at least but seldom stayed there over a 
 single night in the long year, Benjamin put 
 his hands into his pockets and made his way 
 to Paul as if nothing had happened. 
 
 ''It won't do," said Paul quietly, almost un- 
 concernedly, and then turning his eyes from the 
 reed he was torturing to Ben, and seeing his 
 face wrinkled with pain, his hands, indeed his 
 entire person changed by the sadness of his 
 soul, he sprang on to his feet, and in a voice of 
 gladness exclaimed — 
 
 '* But I have o-ot something: that will do."
 
 262 MASSTON. 
 
 ** What is It ?" inquired Benjamin, his face 
 becoming deadly pale, as if the opening of his 
 lips had made a way of escape for his troubled 
 soul. 
 
 '' A play." 
 
 At other times Blanchard would have laughed 
 at his own words, only he caught sight of two 
 upright bars which very suddenly rose and 
 reared themselves up against Benjamin's fore- 
 head in a direct line with his straight nose, 
 almost of the same proportion, and looking as 
 if they had been made by a blow from a 
 schoolmasters cane. 
 
 *' A play ? " he again inquired in an agitated 
 manner. 
 
 " Yes, you can't do it in any other way. 
 Look here," continued Paul, pulling up three 
 reeds and placing one on the grass as he 
 spoke. '' These poor devils don't care for your 
 good bread, or your pure tea, or saving their 
 money ; why should they ? But if you can 
 show them that they have got as great a soul
 
 MASSTON. 263 
 
 as you have, as great a heart, the same fierce 
 blood for taking vengeance, the same sweet 
 tears to give for pure love and forgiveness, the 
 same divine compassion, and the very same 
 hope of eternal life, then I think they would be 
 glad to deal at your shop — perhaps even wish 
 to live. It's exactly the same with me. I 
 never get any fresh reasons for knowing that I 
 am a man and not a beast, but I want to rush 
 out into the street and tell them to the 
 first man I meet, which, however, generally 
 happens to be a woman In want of food and 
 clothlnof." 
 
 Jeavons heaved a sigh, and though disap- 
 pointed, he saw in his friend an earnestness 
 which made him proud of the emotion he had 
 felt for him ten minutes before. 
 
 '' This is folly," he said at last ; " what good 
 can a play do anybody ? " 
 
 " You have never been to the play ? '^ in- 
 quired Blanchard dubiously. 
 
 ''Never!"
 
 264 MASSTON. 
 
 " My God ! " ejaculated the other, not with- 
 out reverence. " Do you know anything of 
 the man who wrote — 
 
 " Come, let's away to prison ; 
 We two alone will sing like birds i' ttie cage : 
 When thou dost ask my blessing I'll kneel down, 
 And ask of thee forgiveness ; so we'll live 
 And pray and sing and tell old tales and laugh 
 At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues 
 Talk of court news : and we'll talk with them too, 
 Who loses and who wins ; who's in, who's out ; 
 And take upon's the mystery of things. 
 As if we were God's spies ; and we'll wear o at 
 In a wall'd prison, parts and sects of great ones, 
 That ebb and flow by the moon " ? 
 
 *' I know Shakspeare wrote that," said 
 Benjamin modestly. 
 
 " Well, but do you know," rapidly replied 
 the other, *' that those words were written for a 
 play, and if there had been no play-house and 
 no play-actors, and no fire and glory of the 
 stage, they never would have been written at 
 all, and you may read and read yourself blind 
 with them, but until you see a great actor, all 
 endowed with voice and shape and mind to
 
 MASSTON. 265 
 
 give them the form that Shakspeare gave 
 them, you will never know what they mean." 
 
 ''Stuff!" 
 
 " Oh," continued Blanchard, in a little mock- 
 ery, but retaining the earnestness which had 
 charmed Jeavons into love. ''Oh, I do not by 
 ' you ' mean you, Benjamin Jeavons, late artist 
 in steel, now a purveyor of cheese made from 
 milk instead of chalk, and of tea innocent of 
 adultery. I mean rather the unthinking world, 
 for whom the play was written, and by the 
 ' unthinking ' I do not mean those incapable 
 of thought, but rather those weaklings whose 
 attention is never gained except by spectacle 
 and show." 
 
 Jeavons made a gesture of impatience. 
 
 " Let me go on. I don't often preach, but 
 when the fit is strong it is difficult for me to 
 shake it off. Now, I have heard you, Benja- 
 min, rave about Jesus Christ until I have been 
 ashamed of you. By raving I mean saying 
 things of Him which you consider to be pro-
 
 266 MASSTON. 
 
 fane when applied to any one else. Pray tell 
 me this — Are there any words in the New 
 Testament which you are quite sure would not 
 possess another meaning if you heard them 
 spoken by Christ himself ? " 
 
 '* What has that to do with it ? " 
 
 '' No evasion, Mr. Jeavons. Do me the 
 favour to let me hear you repeat these words — 
 
 ^ And take upon's the mystery of things 
 As if we were God's spies.'" 
 
 Jeavons repeated the lines as if they were a 
 portion of the Psalms. 
 
 *' Exactly," said Paul, '' you speak like a 
 Methodist parson, which, with all respect for 
 an estimable person, I may say is not, as a 
 rule, a man of eloquence and taste, and who 
 knows as much about representing the human 
 passion of grief in madness, as a pewter pot 
 knows about the porter which it contains." 
 
 " Now let me make a proposal to you," he 
 continued. *' If you will come with me to-mor- 
 row night and see Macready act King Lear, I
 
 MASSTON. 267 
 
 will promise not to touch another spot of liquor 
 for — well, how long- shall we say ? " inquired 
 Paul, with a piteous look of inquiry on his 
 face. 
 
 Benjamin, who knew the preciousness of 
 this opportunity, hesitated, as if to weigh 
 several eventualities, and at last proposed " A 
 week." 
 
 "It is worth more," said the poor fellow, 
 who began to feel a biting contempt for this 
 sort of compounding. " Til make it a month." 
 
 '' Then I will go." 
 
 And both men were happy. One that his 
 friend was going to the theatre, the other that 
 his friend would not be drunk a^ain for a 
 month. Both became happy in supposititious 
 consequences. 
 
 They went to see King Lear. The mighty 
 actor, then in the very noon of his glory, him- 
 self elated and borne along of the applause 
 which to him, more than wine, brought power, 
 was never so much himself as when playing to
 
 268 MASSTON. 
 
 poor people, and such as were not ashamed of 
 laughing and crying in public. 
 
 Jeavons was utterly overcome, a new world 
 opened to him. And strangest of all conse- 
 quences, one which certainly Jeavons would 
 have spurned away had it presented itself to 
 him a few days before, was this — 
 
 '' Paul," he said, after they came out of the 
 hot pit, '' did we say liquor or brandy ? " 
 
 *' We said liquor," replied Paul, his mouth 
 beginning to water, ''but I really think we 
 meant to specify brandy." 
 
 " I am sure of it," said the other. " Now let's 
 go and have some oysters, brown bread and 
 butter, and a pot of cooling stout. This comes 
 of going to the play. But, Paul, 'the play's 
 the thing.' You are quite right. That I should 
 have lived all these years and never seen a 
 play ! '^ 
 
 It was a wonderful conversion. " Where have 
 I been," he would say, Imitating the actor's 
 wonderful notes at the end of the fourth act.
 
 MASSTON, 269 
 
 ** Where have I been ? — Where am I ? — Fair 
 daylight ? — I know not what to say. — I will not 
 swear these are my hands : let's see ; I feel 
 this pin prick. — Would I were assured of my 
 condition ! " 
 
 The two men whom we saw enter the 
 Pudding Bag on the Sunday evening when 
 'Lizzebeth Tappit had just finished her excited 
 criticism on the same Kino^ Lear were these 
 two. Their mission had been better accom- 
 plished than it could have been had both of 
 them too^ether undertaken it. 
 
 Alas ! there was not ready money enough in 
 the entire Pudding Bag to pay for one poor 
 seat in pit or gallery. 
 
 " The money I will find on one condition," 
 said Jeavons. 
 
 But he met with no response. They were 
 not only past hope — they dare not indulge 
 in it. 
 
 " As many as will promise to pay me back if 
 they are pleased, — mark you, I say if they are
 
 2 70 MASSTON. 
 
 pleased, if anybody says afterwards he was not 
 pleased, I'll not ask him for the money — I'll find 
 the money for them, and then I'll show them 
 how to pay it back. And if that great white 
 jug which I see yonder is empty, I shall be 
 very happy to pay for its being filled with the 
 best Sunday ale that can be bought !" 
 
 " Here's a go ! " remarked one of the Pudding 
 Bag. 
 
 And a mighty go it was.
 
 ( 271 ; 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " A sullen light of hope." — The Opium Eater. 
 
 "Where is every feeling more'roused in favour of virtue than at a 
 good play ? Where is goodness so feelingly, so enthusiastically learnt ? 
 What so solemn as to see the excellent passions of the human heart 
 called forth by a great actor, animated by a great poet? To hear 
 Siddons repeat what Shakespeare wrote ? To behold the child and 
 his mother, the noble and the artizan, the monarch and his subjects, 
 all ages and all ranks, convulsed with the common passion, wrung with 
 one common anguish, and with loud sobs and cries doing involuntary 
 homage to the God that made their hearts ? " 
 
 — Sydney Smith on Hannah More. 
 
 Early the next morning, 'LIzzebeth Tappit 
 might have been seen by the lamp-posts of 
 Masston, running for two miles or more, 
 through streets and over bridges, which 
 crossed a ditch called the canal, where the 
 entire dust of the town had passed the night, 
 and woke up as she ran over them on her way 
 to the house of Jane and Mrs. Ruckles. Both 
 ladies were still in bed. 'Lizzebeth, with the
 
 272 MASSTON. 
 
 preclpitousness of enthusiastic youth, gave a 
 loud knock at the door, which was answered 
 by Mrs. Ruckles, who, opening the casement 
 of her bedroom window, put out her face, 
 which was enclosed in a very large cap with 
 very large snowy frills running all round It. 
 
 " Why, what's the matter ? '* 
 
 " Every blessed soul in the Puddin' Bag Is 
 goin' to the play to-night," answered Xizzebeth 
 throwing back her neck, opening wide her 
 arms, and staring with eyes equally wide up 
 at the cap and frills. 
 
 Mrs. Ruckles received that statement In 
 silence, but she reached forth both her hands 
 into the air, raised one, which, with great 
 emphasis, she brought down on the other, as 
 if she had been an auctioneer knockinor down 
 a bargain, and then disappeared, leaving the 
 window open. 
 
 Jane meanwhile had run down to let 
 'Lizzebeth in. 
 
 '' Mother says you must stay and get break-
 
 MASSTON. 273 
 
 fast ; was they very cross wi' you for stayin' 
 out ? " 
 
 '' No — not when I said I had bin wi' you, 
 and then I up and told them all about the king 
 and the lady. I say, Jinnie, do you think the 
 king know'd as how she did not hang herself?" 
 
 "Why, o' course he know'd, because he killed 
 the slave as was a hanging of her — them's 'is 
 own words." 
 
 '•' Well, it were a treat, and your mother is 
 a angel and have made a angel of me. Now 
 I'm off." 
 
 ** Why, what did ye come for, if you're goin' 
 away a thissen ? " 
 
 " I just thought," answered the other quietly, 
 ''as I'd run down here to the brook and get 
 some water-cresses for their brekfusses ; and I 
 looked in to tell you that they were all goin' to 
 the play to-night, with one of the swell coves 
 as is at the Oxford Works, and a friend of 
 hissn. I thought you'd like to know. Now 
 I'm off." 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 2 74 MASSTON. 
 
 " You'd better stay and see mother — she 
 won t be a minnit." 
 
 ''No; I'm off." 
 
 And off this time she was — with a lie in her 
 throat, and a sorrow at her heart. She had 
 come for no earthly reason than to make glad 
 the hearts of the Ruckleses by the news she 
 carried, as her own heart had been made glad. 
 She was sure they would be ready to jump out 
 of their skin for joy ; and here was Jane 
 Ruckles asking her in the coldest way what 
 she had come for. "Why, what could I ha' 
 come for ? " Then followed the ready lie — the 
 stung pride, the hurt sympathy and bitter rage, 
 for having run all that way '' for nuthin', an 
 worse, nor nuthin'." " Yes — I am a angel, no 
 doubt," the wretched girl said bitterly, being 
 painfully reminded of her besetting sin, the sin 
 of quick and easy lying. So quick did these 
 lies come to her, whenever she wanted one, 
 that it was a cause of humorous wonder to her 
 now and then, ''wherever they could come from."
 
 MASSTON. 275 
 
 " 'Lizzebeth ! " 
 
 When 'Lizzebeth heard her own name 
 shrieked as if from the sky, she turned round 
 and there was Mrs. Ruckles runninor after her. 
 That worthy woman came up with much happi- 
 ness on her face, and a request that 'Lizzebeth 
 would tell her " all 'ticklars about the people of 
 the Puddin' Bag agoin' to the play." 
 
 " Why, it's like a migral. Dear heart ! how 
 a little run do make one blow," she said as she 
 stood panting with the effects of her race after 
 'Lizzebeth. "Well, only to think," she con- 
 tinued after hearing the girl's account, " I could 
 almost cry. Come thee ways back and have 
 some breakfast." 
 
 " No, I told feyther as how I was never goin' 
 to be a naughty gal agin, and I mun go an' 
 look after their brekfusses." 
 
 " Well, well, go thee ways, p'raps Jane an' I 
 will look in at the Puddin' Bag after work to- 
 niorht." 
 
 "Dew!"
 
 276 MASSTON. 
 
 And the two parted, and 'Lizzebeth once 
 more believed in the goodness of the world — 
 and that she ''might yet become a angel." She 
 forgave herself the lie about the water-cresses — 
 nor did she go to gather any, but ran back as 
 fast as she came to look after their brekfusses. 
 
 Mrs. Ruckles was employed at the Oxford 
 Works, as was also a youthful scapegrace, a 
 son of hers, who was a great trouble to his 
 mother. Jane now and then helped her 
 mother when work was brisk, as happened to 
 be the case now, and on those occasions Mrs. 
 Ruckles always gave Jane a treat. Bob 
 Ruckles did not live with his mother for 
 reasons of his own. He, too, was employed 
 at the ofreat works. Mere lad as he was he 
 had already acquired all the matured vices of 
 evil men. 
 
 When Mrs. Ruckles and her dauorhter made 
 their appearance at the works about ten 
 o'clock, a great crowd of workpeople, in their 
 shirt-sleeves and paper caps, were hanging
 
 I 
 
 MASSTON. 277 
 
 about the gateway waiting for the bell to ring 
 that summoned them to labour. 
 
 And to the honour of Edith Warner be it 
 said, that it was owing to her suggestion and 
 her influence that no woman at the Oxford 
 Works began the labour of the day before ten 
 o'clock, or laboured more than three hours at 
 a time, or for longer than six hours altogether 
 out of the twenty-four. 
 
 The groups in shirt-sleeves and paper caps 
 were discussing the play. Some had followed 
 the example of the Ruckleses and had seen 
 King Lear. At this moment Paul Blanchard 
 came up and said, addressing half-a-dozen 
 workmen — 
 
 " Well, lads, if any of you would like to go 
 to the play to-night, there is a banker who 
 will pay for you on the sole condition that 
 you pay him back in his own way — which 
 way is that you condescend to buy your bread 
 and butter and such things at his shop. The 
 difficulty in the matter is, that you will suspect
 
 278 MASSTON. 
 
 some trap is being laid for you, and the diffi- 
 culty is increased by this bread, butter, tea, 
 coffee, and the rest being the very best in the 
 world, and are to be sold to you at the same 
 price as the imitation stuff you have hitherto 
 been getting." 
 
 ''Who is the banker, Mr. Blanchard?" in- 
 quired some of the more intelligent. 
 
 " Well, he is an old friend of mine who 
 thinks he can do some good by helping poor 
 devils to save their money ; and he's got a 
 notion that if the very poor were better fed or 
 could only get the worth of their money in 
 what they buy for food, it would be all the 
 better for them." 
 
 '' So it would," they said. 
 
 ''Why, in course it would," said Mrs. Ruckles, 
 who had joined the group. " My poor Jim 
 never struck me but once in his life, and that 
 was when we were all starving ; a better 
 husband nor a better father never lived when 
 he had his meals reg'lar, and they was warm.
 
 MASSTON. 279 
 
 Are the women to be allowed to m to the 
 play ? " Mrs. Ruckles Inquired. 
 
 She was well known amonor the workmen 
 at the Oxford Works, was one of Its oldest 
 hands, and thoroughly respected. 
 
 ''My dear Mrs. Battle," said Paul, whose 
 generosity In giving away names was as great 
 as In giving away spirituous drink, ''a theatre 
 without ladies would be as bad as a rose-tree 
 without roses — nothing but green leaves and 
 thorns — that Is, cold-hearted men and critics ; 
 of course the women will 2:0. Actors are as 
 fond of tears as they are of hurrahs, and I hate 
 to see men cry." 
 
 " Then put my name down," said Mrs. 
 Ruckles. " And mine," said several others. 
 
 Blanchard, who disliked the carrying out of 
 details, now wished that Jeavons were here to 
 strike this Iron while It was hot, and, after pro- 
 mising to be back in a short while, turned to 
 go in the direction of Summer Lane, where 
 his friend Benjamin lived. He had never
 
 28o MASSTON. 
 
 thoroughly believed in the plan till now, and 
 now it had taken possession of him. 
 
 Turning the corner of the Oxford Works, 
 he met its great proprietor and his beautiful 
 wife. It was Edith's first visit since their 
 marriage. Paul took off his hat and was 
 walking past uncovered. 
 
 "Where are you going, Mr. Blanchard?" 
 inquired Warner somewhat imperatively — but 
 the tone was friendly. 
 
 *' We are organising a little plan,'' said Paul 
 with a slight flush ; for it Is certain that if that 
 beautiful woman had not been hanging on War- 
 ner's arm, the answer would have connected 
 the interrogator with a place whose name was 
 well enough known in Masston, but about 
 whose geographical position almost all were as 
 ignorant as if it had been an African lake. 
 
 " I do not allow any organisation of any kind 
 In the Oxford Works which has not received 
 my sanction."* 
 
 " This is not in the Oxford Works,"
 
 MASSTON. 281 
 
 answered Paul with a menace in his voice, 
 but for the sake of his friend, and for the sake 
 of the plan which had already cost him much, 
 he restrained himself, probably for the first 
 time in his life. 
 
 " But it is with the men of the Oxford 
 Works," returned Warner quite smoothly, and 
 to the perfect satisfaction of Edith, " and you 
 know that I do not approve of organisations 
 among my people into which I have not 
 examined." 
 
 " Quite right," said Edith very sweetly. " Do 
 you not perceive that ? " This was addressed 
 with such a bewitching smile to Paul, that, to 
 use his own expression, " knocked him into 
 a cocked hat." 
 
 " Come," said Warner, " you know I am 
 always ready to assist in any plan that is for 
 the good of the men." 
 
 '' But you will consider this to be for the 
 evil of the men," said Paul, who never flinched 
 from stating his own case with clearness, and
 
 282 MASSTON. 
 
 always demanded the most perfect clearness in 
 others who had " any dealings with him — a 
 quality as rare as gold, which exists every- 
 where but only found by a few. 
 
 "Is it not for that very reason that Mr. 
 Warner should know it ? " remarked Edith with 
 quiet dignity, but still regarding Paul with 
 generous interest. 
 
 " You are so very religious up there," said 
 Paul, turning his face towards Elbston, '' that 
 you will throw cold water on this plan at once. 
 And " — he paused, and then with great deli- 
 beration added — "/will not have cold water 
 thrown upon it." 
 
 Warner, who knew his man, behaved with 
 great tact. " Come," he said, " let us go inside," 
 taking Paul by the arm as if he had been a 
 clergyman ; " let us hear all about this." 
 
 Paul being linked thus with the beautiful 
 woman by her husband, felt a wonderfully 
 sweet constraint put upon him, and the three 
 walked arm-in-arm together through the gates,
 
 MASSTON. 283 
 
 and Into Warner's room, to the astonishment of 
 many, the envy of a few, and the excited 
 jealousy of one. 
 
 " May I go in to hear this ?" inquired Edith 
 with some doubt. 
 
 " Surely," said Warner. 
 
 And Paul added with a confidential smile, 
 " I am sure you won't like it." 
 
 Warner was in capital spirits. He had with 
 some difficulty brought himself to consent to 
 Edith's visit to the works with the object of 
 becoming personally acquainted with some of 
 the work-people. There were reasons why 
 she should not acquire the habit of going there 
 at any time. But such was her bearing with 
 Blanchard, so practical, and yet so gracious, 
 that he began to hope that, perhaps after all, 
 she might find some real pastime in the pur- 
 suit of schemes, some of which she had 
 mentioned to him, and to which Warner had 
 given his consent under the belief that they 
 could never be achieved.
 
 284 MASSTON. 
 
 They entered the splendid private room of 
 the great man. The blind outside the miracu- 
 lous door once again did mysterious duty, and 
 it was Warner s will that the three should be 
 uninterrupted as long as he found any Interest 
 In the interview. At a touch from him the 
 blind would rise, and a message would be 
 brought to Warner that would enable him to 
 dispose of everything and everybody, including 
 himself, in three seconds of time. 
 
 But the blind remained down. Warner was 
 thoroughly charmed with Paul, whose speech 
 was not only good, but every three words he 
 uttered contained an Idea. As for Edith she 
 was dumb. She had not the least Idea that a 
 workman, as she held Paul to be, could talk in 
 that way. As for her plans they met with the 
 fate of the magician's serpents, which were 
 swallowed up by the serpent of Aaron. 
 
 At length Warner said, '* This is excellent ; 
 it Is really very good. I am surprised and I 
 am pleased. I will help this good man with
 
 MASSTOX. 285 
 
 his provision shop, and that will do away with 
 the necessity of going to the theatre." 
 
 '' And I say it will not," returned Paul, with 
 much energy. " The people whom my friend 
 is going to save are already lost. If men ever 
 were lost, they are these. You don't have to 
 wait to go to hell to be lost. As far as I 
 understand anything about it, people are sent 
 there to be punished." 
 
 " Dear me ! " exclaimed Edith, " how like Mr. 
 Gadso. Do you go to hear Mr. Gadso ? " 
 
 '' I never heard of him," and Paul continued 
 — " As for being lost, these wretched men and 
 women have lost not only their all, but them- 
 selves as well. Why they live is my only 
 wonder. But if they once see and hear this 
 man act they will want to live, at least some of 
 them will, and hope among them is as catch- 
 ing as measles." 
 
 ^' I feel quite sure if they could hear my friend 
 Mr. Gadso, — and you might easily persuade 
 them to go some Sunday evening," said Edith
 
 286 MASSTON. 
 
 with very great sweetness of voice and man- 
 ner, — '' it would be better than their going to 
 see this actor that you speak of so highly." 
 
 Blanchard laughed, and his laugh, musical as 
 it was, startled Edith. Beneath its music her 
 fine ear detected tones of rebuke, of contempt, 
 and defiance, but looking close into Paul's face 
 as he said — " Now, if you were dying of hunger, 
 would you like to be taken merely to look at 
 some swine feeding?" and seeing it marked 
 with great earnestness, she said, turning to her 
 husband — 
 
 '' Robert, we must let Mr. Blanchard have 
 his way, I feel it." Then turning to Paul she 
 said with singular clearness, " With my hus- 
 band's consent I will lend this man a hundred 
 pounds ; he will w^ant money to make a good 
 start. I shall be most interested in his work, and 
 trust to be kept well informed of its progress." 
 
 *' He will accept help from no one, and most 
 certainly not from you, or any who live in 
 Elbston."
 
 MASSTON. 287 
 
 " Indeed! may I inquire why ?" replied Mrs. 
 Warner, discovering at the same time no small 
 amount of irritation rising within her, which 
 she suppressed with difficulty. 
 
 " He says, with much bitterness, that the rich 
 have robbed the poor of their pleasure in life ; 
 that they have no pleasures themselves, and, 
 therefore, have none to give away. If he be 
 asked how the rich have robbed the poor, he 
 has a thousand different replies to make, which 
 however mean the same thing, namely, that 
 working people have been turned into machines." 
 
 " Do I know this man ? " inquired Warner. 
 
 " No," said Paul quite innocently. 
 
 " I should like to know him of all things. 
 Is he young or old ? " asked Edith. 
 
 '' I should think about the aofe of Mr. War- 
 ner," said Paul with indifference. 
 
 " And quite a working man ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, but he has always been his own 
 master." 
 
 '* And his name ? "
 
 2 88 MASSTON. 
 
 *' Is Benjamin Jeavons — he lives In Summer 
 Lane." 
 
 There was no apparent recognition of the 
 name by Warner, and It is likely that he had 
 quite forgotten all about the youth who, many 
 years ago, gave him a bloody nose and a black 
 eye. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Blanchard," observed Warner 
 with promptness, '' I will help you, as I said 
 before — only don't go to the theatre. I request 
 it as a personal favour." 
 
 Here the blind outside the door, unseen by 
 any from within, was raised, and a clerk entered 
 with a note on pressing business. The inter- 
 view was over, and Edith remained alone with 
 her husband. Paul bowed to her and went for 
 a short while into the designing-room, and then 
 proceeded to find Benjamin Jeavons. He was, 
 however, detained a moment by James Reklaw, 
 who met him at the door, shrivelled up with 
 jealousy at the length of the interview in 
 the master's room.
 
 MASSTON. . 289 
 
 " Do you go to the theatre to-night, Mr. 
 Blanchard ? " he inquired. 
 
 '' I do." 
 
 *' You are going to take some of the men, I 
 hear." 
 
 " It is, I think, quite as likely that I shall do 
 so as that you to-night will sleep with your 
 mouth open and your nose shut, to the great 
 discomfort of Mrs. Reklaw." 
 
 ''If it is only as likely as that, then you 
 won't go, for I don't snore, and Mrs. Reklaw 
 does." 
 
 " The man who can so easily discover to 
 another such secrets is a beast, beneath all 
 human consideration ! " exclaimed Paul in his 
 mock - grandiose manner, and stalked away, 
 leaving Mr. Reklaw fixed to the ground, 
 and for a while speechless. At last he mut- 
 tered — - 
 
 " Oh, is that it ; perhaps you will one of these 
 days want a little consideration yourself," not 
 knowing what he said. He then proceeded to 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 290 MASSTON. 
 
 ferret out from among the hands what had been 
 determined upon with regard to the theatre, 
 together with the names of those who had pro- 
 mised to go. He knew that this would be 
 expected of him by Mr. Warner. 
 
 There are men in the world who can, at a 
 moment's notice, assume the nature of the 
 lowest animals by a mere act of will. Mr. 
 Reklaw had the greatest pleasure in turning 
 himself into a ferret. Warner knew this, and 
 the utmost confidence existed between both. 
 
 Now, when a man condescends to become 
 one of the inferior animals, the consequences of 
 such incarnation are not easy to determine — 
 for those consequences may affect not himself 
 only, but others likewise.
 
 ( 291 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " I know that Deformed ; a' has been a vile thief this seven year ; a' 
 goes up and down like a gentleman." 
 
 — Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 3. 
 
 When Warner assured Julia Ascham that she 
 should go to the play, it passed through his 
 mind in the course of dinner that if that active 
 young lady chose of her own will to go, go 
 she would in spite of him, while if he made 
 it appear to her that she wxnt because he 
 wished it, he might raise himself in her esti- 
 mation. While Warner was superior to all 
 human sympathy, he was far from being indif- 
 ferent to social influence : he cared much more 
 for what the sparkling Julia might say in his 
 favour, than for any pleasure he could procure 
 for her — indeed of that he thought nothing. 
 At the same time Mr. Warner was a man to
 
 292 MASSTON. 
 
 whom any form, shape, or fashion of Inconsis- 
 tency was a great horror. " Let us, above all 
 things, be consistent," he would say, and no one 
 could be more consistent than he. He deter- 
 mined, therefore, that Edith should procure 
 Julia's going to hear and see the great 
 actor, with whose praises Masston was then 
 ringing. 
 
 It so happened that Edith was thinking of this 
 very thing. Mr. Gadso had spoken encourag- 
 ingly of the drama. Mr. Sweetapple was evid- 
 ently not disinclined to it, and as she was medi- 
 tating Julia's happiness by connecting her with 
 a clergyman, and if possible with Mr. Sweet- 
 apple, she snatched at the opportunity of bring- 
 ing the two tosfether under circumstances which 
 could not fail to be agreeable to both. 
 
 There are two thino^s in this world as firm 
 in their foundations as the bed of the sea, and 
 which no amount of piety or other influence 
 equally solemn has proved strong enough to 
 destroy. One is the love of a priest for his
 
 MASSTON. 293 
 
 dinner, and the other the passion of a woman 
 for making a match ; but then women have 
 been less selfish than men. 
 
 Edith was unquestionably a little anxious, 
 but she could trust Mr. Sweetapple implicitly. 
 
 Moreover, after the interview with Paul 
 Blanchard, in which she learned the use that 
 was to be made of the great actor's powers, by 
 which men and women, hitherto indifferent to 
 life, should become convulsed with a common 
 passion, and be roused to some human enthu- 
 siasm by being wrung with one common 
 anguish, she became possessed of the desire to 
 see the result that would follow. Blanchard 
 had much impressed her with the excellence of 
 his manner, and the earnestness of his speech. 
 She had felt some irritation at first on finding 
 her convictions and plans so ruthlessly cast 
 aside by one whom she esteemed as a mere 
 workman, but a little reflection made her see 
 that she had much to learn in the matter of 
 helping the poor. The more she thought of It
 
 294 MASSTON. 
 
 the more she was convinced that she ought to 
 see for herself the good or ill success of that 
 part of the plan, proposed by these two work- 
 ing-men, which was designed to bring those 
 who were lost back again into the possession 
 of themselves. 
 
 So she said, '' Robert, dear, if Julia is to go 
 to the play I ought to take her. Mr. Sweet- 
 apple can still go with us, and he can bring 
 his mother, who, I am told, speaks quite openly 
 in approval of the play. Will you not come 
 with us ? " 
 
 *' How can I ? " he answered, and his white 
 necktie seemed to grow whiter as he spoke. 
 But he added, '' I think you might go. Mr. 
 Sweetapple is a very superior man." 
 
 '' I quite think so," replied Edith, referring 
 to the Apple. 
 
 " You have known him longer and more 
 intimately than I. Would you wish him to 
 marry Julia ? " 
 
 ** I am praying for it."
 
 MASSTON. 295 
 
 " Then," remarked Warner with emphasis, 
 " it will come to pass." 
 
 So Edith and Julia, Mr. Sweetapple and his 
 mother, went to the play. Mrs. Sweetapple 
 was a charming little round lady, fond of firing 
 off jokes in the French language, dear to her 
 from her girlish days at a French Convent 
 school, at which jokes few laughed, herself 
 probably being the only person who under- 
 stood them. 
 
 They took their books, but the books 
 might as well have been burnt for the use 
 that was made of them. They could not 
 keep their eyes off the man from the moment 
 he exclaimed, '' So foul and fair a day I have 
 not seen," and all through the five acts of 
 Macbeth, did these four sit spell - bound. 
 When all was over, and Julia, in a low sweet 
 voice trembling with anguish, said, throwing 
 herself back in her seat, '' So foul and fair a 
 day I have not seen," she proved how deeply 
 had been impressed upon her the awful sermon
 
 296 MASSTON. 
 
 which the poet had preached, and the poet's 
 actor had expounded. 
 
 " Let us go," said Edith awe-stricken. 
 
 '' Mon Dieu ! " said the Sweetapple, but this 
 time she did not laugh. " Maintenant nous 
 connaissons Fenfer." 
 
 Sweetapple himself was moved, but had 
 sufficient mastery over himself to be aware 
 that if he pressed the hand of Julia, a respon- 
 sive pressure would be returned to him. 
 
 They drove back to the Hall to supper, and 
 the whole four gave Mr. Warner an account of 
 the tragedy, Julia repeating whole passages 
 from memory and, at the same time displaying 
 no small ability in the matter of dramatic 
 criticism. 
 
 " I think," she said, with that impetuosity 
 which belongs to irrepressible youth, '' I think 
 it quite impossible and unnatural that a man 
 who could talk so well as Macbeth could be 
 such a villain — 
 
 " ' Stars, hide your fires, 
 Let not light see my black and deep desires/
 
 MASSTON. 297 
 
 " Again," she continued, " this is not the 
 language of an assassin — 
 
 " ' Pity, like a naked new-born babe 
 
 Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed 
 Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
 That tears shall drown the wind.' 
 
 " A man," she went on, with a thoughtfulness 
 quite new in her, '' with such an imagination 
 ought not to have been a murderer, — 
 
 " ' False face must hide what the false heart doth show.' " 
 
 " Well, but you see he had been met by 
 the weird sisters, who told him he should be 
 king," pleaded Mr. Sweetapple. 
 
 '* But," she retorted, " they did not tell 
 Macbeth to kill Duncan." 
 
 " True," said the clergyman, '' Satan has 
 only to put a crown in reach of a traitor's 
 hand ; he need not tell him to steal it, or 
 murder its rightful owner. Bad men always 
 carry out the devil's suggestions." 
 
 "Had it not been for his wife, Macbeth
 
 298 MASSTON. 
 
 could not have been a murderer. I am sure of 
 it," said Julia with tears in her eyes. 
 Warner laughed a o^ood deal — at least what 
 
 o o 
 
 was a good deal for him — while Mrs. Sweet- 
 apple, disconcerted by Warner's evident mis- 
 conception of the play and the player, said in 
 French, " Had you been there you would have 
 found it as easy to laugh as to steal my purse." 
 
 "But you all forget," said Warner with 
 amused animation, ^' that this is nothing but a 
 play. I laugh at your being so much imposed 
 upon. You are, in fact, in the condition of 
 those who have received a strong delusion to 
 believe a lie — and as your visit to the theatre 
 has helped you to understand a mysterious 
 passage of Scripture, I no longer regret your 
 havinof orone." 
 
 Warner's explanation of his laughter was not 
 altogether true. The passages quoted by Julia 
 had made a strong impression on him. Had 
 there not been in his day much foulness, and 
 was there not in it much fairness ? Was not
 
 MASSTON. 299 
 
 his, also, that strength of purpose which raised 
 Macbeth to a throne ? No doubt, he answered 
 to himself, it was ; but in his composition there 
 was none of the weakness that damned Mac- 
 beth. And this laughter was partly roused 
 by self-gratulation upon this fact, and sprung 
 partly from an irresistible desire to illustrate 
 practically the lines — " False face must hide 
 what the false heart doth show." 
 
 They parted for the night. Never once had 
 the motive which carried Edith to the play 
 occurred to her. She had forgotten all about 
 the working people of Masston — the plans of 
 Blanchard and Jeavons, and her own plans — 
 so captive had she been taken by the magic 
 poetry and the tragic events which had been 
 enacted before her. 
 
 Warner had now for some time enjoyed the 
 cultivated serenity of a life to which he was 
 not indeed born, but which he had been able 
 to secure by his own devices. He was con- 
 soled by the influences of religion ; he was
 
 300 MASSTON. 
 
 flattered by those who were among the most 
 eminent of its professors. The new day brought 
 for him its deliofhtful and refined ease. Its ele- 
 vated occupations no longer brought with them 
 surprise, nor did the closing in of night bring a 
 single fear. He was soothed into a forgetful- 
 ness of the past, by the charms of the engaging 
 present, and for him the future was not charged 
 with a single care. He was a great man, at 
 least he was the greatest man in Masston. 
 
 To all such men there comes a day in his 
 life — one single day — when a man enjoys a 
 perfect consciousness of an absolute possession 
 of all that he has desired, and the goods laid 
 up in store. This was Warner's state on the 
 morning after the play. He had risen early as 
 usual. The fields, with their centuries of 
 garnered beauty, which sloped from his feet 
 were his ; so were the tall trees that stood in 
 the emerald windings, and which, like old re- 
 tainers, bowed to him as he stood like one 
 receiving worship. He recognised the mellow
 
 MASSTON. 301 
 
 and perfumed air of the gardens, as if it had 
 been a servant serving him, and looked upon 
 the myriads of roses that decked the place 
 with blooming sweetness as so many witnesses 
 to heaven, that the talents it had bestowed 
 had not been wrapped in a napkin. 
 
 He was presently joined by Edith, who 
 found sweet relief from the oppression of the 
 tragic turmoil of the night before in looking at 
 the simple forms of life which lay around her. 
 She had been greatly wrought upon, but was 
 by this time fairly disenchanted. The theatre, 
 her husband had well said, was an unsanctified 
 place, and where God was not no Christian 
 should be found. 
 
 Alas ! Edith Warner, good as she was, 
 must be made to spread the contagion of that 
 wrong which reduces the Supreme to a being 
 that can be caught like a mouse. Let the trap 
 be big enough, of the approved shape, and 
 baited in the prescribed fashion, you shall, 
 according to her teachers, not only be able to
 
 302 MASSTON. 
 
 catch your god, but keep him, and train him to 
 do your will. 
 
 Julia came next into the garden, reading and 
 looking as if the watches of the night had been 
 spent on battle-fields, rather than within the 
 peaceful walls of Baston Hall. She came up 
 to Edith and Warner as they were walking on 
 the soft lawn, enjoying the pure day. 
 
 " ' Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.' 
 
 "Is not that beautiful?" inquired Julia, as she 
 gave them " Good morning " and each a kiss, 
 the first, and as it happened, the last she ever 
 gave to one of them. 
 
 '' I wish we had not gone there last night," 
 said Edith, taking Julias arm ; " I regret it 
 very much." 
 
 '' I would not have missed it for the world," 
 replied her sister still reading : — 
 
 " ' I remember now, 
 I am in this earthly world, where to do harm 
 Is often laudable : to do good sometimes 
 Accounted dangerous folly.' 
 
 " Those lines will suit us both, I think, — to
 
 MASSTON. 303 
 
 you belongs the ' dangerous folly,' let me have 
 the laudable * harm/ " She said this with a 
 smile that deprecated criticism, and continued, 
 " I wonder if all the poor people who were 
 there last night — and how full the place was ! 
 — are thinking as much about the play as we 
 are r 
 
 This recalled to Edith's memory Blanchard's 
 words regarding the famous actor. But she 
 was unwilling to believe that the common 
 people, who occupied the pit or gallery, could 
 have received anything but harm from the 
 performance. 
 
 Here the breakfast gong sounded. In those 
 days the early morning newspaper had not 
 found its way to Masston, and men had time to 
 meet and talk with each other, nor did the day 
 rush in upon a man like a young bull mistaking 
 the door. 
 
 Warner strolled away to his works where 
 work was almost always found, although other 
 works were slack ; and in general, work was
 
 304 MASSTON. 
 
 then a little slack In the town. Men said there 
 had been too much *' over-production." And 
 certainly If men occupy their time in producing 
 that which is not wanted, it is likely enough 
 that they will one day find out to their cost 
 that the work left undone by doing that which 
 was not needed, becomes the very work most 
 needed just when the doing of it is Impossible. 
 
 " Morning, sir," said a man, whose shape and 
 figure appeared to have been suddenly altered, 
 addressing Warner, as he drew near to the steps 
 on which the altered one had taken his stand. 
 
 We have seen this man before. But he is 
 not so jolly as he was when we last saw him. 
 The colour has forsaken his cheek. His once 
 ringing voice is hoarse with misery and vexa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Good morning," returned Warner with cold 
 but ample courtesy. 
 
 *' You don't remember me, Mr. Warner ? " 
 
 '' Is it possible that I am speaking to Mr. 
 BIrtles ? "
 
 MASSTON. 305 
 
 " The very same ; the same at least, sir, in 
 name. 
 
 *' How are things with you, sir? Flourish- 
 ing, I have no doubt. Are you still sending 
 to the Australias ? " 
 
 Birtles, who stood with his hands in his 
 pockets, observing Warner about to make some 
 affable rejoinder, made alow bow, and, in his 
 sudden fashion, turned away and walked down 
 the street, leaving the great master of the 
 Oxford Works alone, and for the moment 
 irresolute. The position was one of which he 
 had never dreamt, and for which he had made 
 no provision. Had Birtles remained, no irre- 
 solution could have seized on that ever-pre- 
 pared mind. Had Birtles kept his ground, 
 Birtles might have found himself, as if by a 
 stroke of the enchanter's wand, restored to 
 self-confidence and even success. He would 
 most certainly have increased his knowledge, 
 for Birtles did not suspect, nor had he ever 
 
 suspected, any foul play on the part of 
 VOL. I. u
 
 306 MASSTON. 
 
 Warner. But the vice of suddenness had 
 beset Blrtles all his life through, and this last 
 exhibition of it must convince us of the truth 
 which his wife was always dinning into his 
 ears, that it was as bad as murder for him, a 
 married man, to go treating some people as he 
 did. 
 
 Warner, in an unconcerned manner, walked 
 into his room, took from his safe a little book, 
 pondered over it, and sat pondering till he fell 
 asleep. He had of late much increased in 
 fatness. 
 
 He rose from his nap, and, as he often did, 
 sauntered into the workshops. Everything 
 was in its place, everybody saluted him with 
 respect, sometimes with reverence and awe. 
 The great wheels and flying bands seemed to 
 fly faster — men's elbows to move quicker — at 
 his approach. Submission met him at every 
 turn, and he himself was again master of him- 
 self. 
 
 It had grown into the afternoon ; and a little
 
 MASSTON. 307 
 
 while before the usual hour for Warner to take 
 his leave for the day, Edith drove down to 
 carry him home. 
 
 " Robert, dear, come and agree with me," 
 she said, "in this one plan." 
 
 He was quite ready to go, and in a listening 
 attitude allowed himself to be led to the 
 carriage, where his wife expounded a method 
 for bringing about a matter of grave import to 
 the people of Masston, which shall be duly 
 explained in the right place. 
 
 As the carriage rolled up the wide street 
 which leads into the Elbston Road, it passed a 
 seedy-looking man, who raised his hat and 
 bowed to the Warners. Edith, who was en- 
 gaged in telling her husband of her schemes, 
 noticed him bow stiffly and with an offended 
 expression on his face. 
 
 ** Do I know the gentleman?" inquired 
 Edith. 
 
 " Oh, dear no," answered Warner, and be-
 
 308 MASSTON. 
 
 came so absorbed In thought that he did not 
 hear the rest of his wife's discourse. 
 
 The seedy-looking person was Mr. BIrtles. 
 Warner remained In this profound study during 
 the rest of the drive, and on arriving at the 
 Hall, after helping his wife to alight, said In a 
 strained voice — 
 
 '^ I must return to the works," and the 
 coachman, with rebellion In his looks, and still 
 more In his heart, drove back as he was bid. 
 
 Here was Warner's first opportunity of 
 following Macbeth's advice to himself, thrown 
 away. He was the first to notice it himself — 
 but, lucky fellow as he was, another opportunity 
 followed close on the heels of the one that had 
 been neglected. On his way down to the 
 works he saw Mr. Gadso on foot coming from 
 Masston. He stopped the carriage and said 
 in a cheerful voice — 
 
 " Let me take you up. I shall not be a 
 minute in the works where I am going, and
 
 MASSTON. 309 
 
 allow me the pleasure of driving you home. 
 Or will you not come and dine with us ? 
 Edith will be most happy, and so shall I." 
 
 Mr. Gadso, Avith unusual animation, gladly 
 accepted both invitations. 
 
 " I am profoundly thankful to have met you, 
 I need your sympathy, and that of all good 
 men." 
 
 It is a pity that our art is not equal to repre- 
 senting the heavenly smiles which broke out 
 on the face of each of these gentles. They 
 shook hands, the one descending from the 
 carriage, the other entering It with a low and 
 reverend stoop. 
 
 Warner proceeded to his room. 
 
 "Has any one made inquiries for me ? " 
 
 *'No, sir." 
 
 " Are you quite sure, has the room been well 
 attended ? " 
 
 " We are quite sure, sir." 
 
 And quite sure Warner could be. Birtles
 
 3 I O MASSTON. 
 
 had not returned, had, In fact, not thought of 
 returning, and Mr. Warner rejoined Mr. Gadso, 
 released from the fangs of a biting terror. 
 
 Edith was delighted to see them, and they 
 conversed together all through the evening 
 with much voluble good-nature, will antici- 
 pating will, In boundless confidence, as only 
 people who are In Paradise can. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BV BALI.ANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON
 
 '/^