IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

Fifteen years ago I was a slim, tolerably good-looking young curate, addicted to long coats and Roman collars, condemned by poverty to celibacy, and supporting myself upon the liberal salary of seventy pounds a year. I am now a Liverpool merchant in flourishing circumstances, 'fat and forty,' with a wife, lots of children, and religious views somewhat latitudinarian. 'What a change was there!' it may well be exclaimed. And indeed, when I look back upon what I once was, and compare my present with my past self, I can scarcely believe I am the same man. I shall, therefore, conceal my name, in relating, as I am about to do, certain occurrences accidentally connected with my change of state, and substitute for that of each person and place concerned in the little narrative, some fictitious appellation.

To commence then. I had been for three years curate of St Jude's Church, Ollyhill, a populous agricultural district in Lancashire, when one morning in Easter-week, as I was disrobing after an early celebration, I fell upon the vestry floor in a dead-faint. The sacristan, who fortunately was at hand to render assistance, after accompanying me home, and observing that I was still weak and indisposed, thought proper to convey intelligence of what had happened to the vicar. The result was that in the course of the morning I received a visit from that gentleman, the Rev. Fitz-Herbert Hastings. He found me stretched upon the typical horse-hair-covered sofa of a poor curate's lodgings, suffering from a severe nervous headache, and to judge from his exclamation of concern, looking, as I felt, really ill. Taking a seat by my side, he condoled with me very kindly, expressed his opinion that I had been overworking myself; and went on to prove the sincerity of his sympathy by offering me a fortnight's holiday, with the very requisite addition of a cheque for expenses. Most gladly did I hail his proposition, affording me as it did an opportunity for which I had just been longing, of getting away for a time from Ollyhill. But neither my desire for change of scene, nor my illness, arose from the cause to which the vicar attributed them. It was true that I had of late, during Lent, been working very hard, as also had Mr Hastings himself.

But in producing the state of utter physical and mental prostration in which I now found myself, these duties of my sacred calling had had little share. My malady, unhappily, was not the effect of any mere temporary reaction of overstrained faculties—its seat was the heart. In that tender, though not hitherto susceptible region, I had been sorely wounded—loath as I am to admit it—by the mischievous little god of Love. Six months ago, Lily, only daughter of Squire Thornton, our principal churchwarden and most wealthy parishioner, had returned home from her Parisian boarding-school a lovely girl of eighteen, with rippling auburn hair and distracting violet eyes, but with tastes and manners which I considered a little frivolous. Fenced about by celibacy, and little dreaming of any dangerous result, I had, from our first introduction, set myself to effect an improvement in her taste, and to take a general interest in her spiritual welfare. Only too abundant had been the success which rewarded my efforts. Lily had proved an excellent pupil, looking up to her self-elected monitor (at the superior but not altogether fatherly age of twenty-five) with the utmost reverence, and obeying with an unquestioning childlikeness eminently charming, my slightest wish or suggestion. Under my directions she had given up novel-reading, and had become an active member of the Dorcas Society, a teacher in the Sunday school, and a visitor of the sick. As a matter of course, her attention to these good works had involved frequent meetings and consultations; and the constant intercourse had by degrees proved destructive of my peace of mind. In vain had I, tardily awakening to a knowledge of the truth, made every endeavour to exercise self-discipline. The mischief, almost before I was aware of its existence, had gone too far for remedy. There had been nothing for it, as I had eventually seen, but to avoid as far as possible all further intercourse with my charmer; and upon that principle I had accordingly shaped my action. Then had followed a time of very severe trial. Unable to understand my coldness, Lily at first had treated me to reproachful glances whenever we chanced to meet; subsequently, growing indignant at the continuance of what seemed to her my unaccountable change of demeanour, she had scornfully seconded the avoidance. And finally, my breast had been wrung in perceiving that she too suffered, as was evidenced by her sorrowful air, and by the fact that she was becoming pale and thin.

For several days before that upon which my fainting-fit had occurred, I had missed her from her accustomed place in the church; forbearing, however, to make inquiries concerning her, I had failed to learn, as I might have done, that she had been sent for the benefit of her health to visit a relative residing at a sea-bathing place in North Wales. In ignorance of this, I set off on the morning following my vicar's visit, for the same country, bent upon a pedestrian excursion, and determined, during my absence from Ollyhill, to make vigorous efforts towards conquering my unfortunate passion.

About a week afterwards I found myself, at the close of a day's hard walking, at a small fishing village on the south-west coast, frequented during the summer season as I learned, from the cards in two or three lodging-house windows, by a few visitors. But as yet Lleyrudrigg was, I surmised, empty of all save its ordinary inhabitants. At anyrate, there appeared to be no other stranger than myself in the rather large hotel in which I had taken up my quarters for the night. It was a dismal dispiriting evening. The rain, which had been threatening all day, was now descending in torrents, beating against the windows of the coffee-room and swelling the gutters of the narrow street.

Not a living thing was to be seen; and the long, scantily furnished apartment of which I was sole tenant, looked very dreary as I turned away from the cheerless prospect. Its gloom was increased rather than otherwise, however, when presently that prospect was shut out and two uncompromising tallow-candles were set upon the table. On their appearance I drew a volume from my knapsack, and eliciting a feeble blaze from the smouldering fire, seated myself in front of it and commenced to read. But all endeavours to concentrate my attention upon the book failed; and at length, depressed by the solitude and my melancholy thoughts, I determined upon ringing the bell and begging the landlord to give me his company. I had just risen for the purpose of putting this resolve into execution, when my attention was arrested by the sound of approaching footsteps, and in another instant the door was unclosed and a gentleman entered the room. I say gentleman advisedly, although at a cursory glance there was little about the appearance of the new-comer to indicate his right to the title. He was a small spare man, with large features, and a head almost ludicrously out of proportion with his body. His dress, which was black, was of an unfashionable cut and very shabby, and he wore a voluminous white neckcloth. Pausing at a few paces from the door, he gave orders to the waiter for chops and tea. Then advancing towards the fireplace, energetically rubbing his hands together, he addressed me in perfectly good English, but with a strong Welsh accent, telling me that he had arrived at the inn some quarter of an hour ago, drenched through with the rain—having carried his own carpet-bag from a station distant about a mile—and that in consequence, he had been obliged to change all his clothes. 'And by the way,' he continued somewhat abruptly, 'I had the misfortune whilst doing so to drop my purse, and several pieces of money rolled out amongst the furniture of the room. I feel almost sure that I managed to collect all again; but if you would excuse me doing so in your presence, I should like to satisfy myself completely upon that point. The fact is,' he added with a frank smile, 'that the money in question does not belong to me, and I am the more anxious about it on that account.'

Whilst thus speaking, the little man had drawn from his pocket a huge wash-leather purse, and after waiting until I had bowed permission, he proceeded to empty its contents upon the table. They consisted of a large roll of bank-notes and a considerable sum in gold and silver—and as I watched him furtively over the edges of my book, which I had again taken up—I saw him carefully count and arrange the latter into heaps. A sigh of relief accompanied the announcement which he shortly made to me, that he had found the money correct; and he was in the act of opening his purse to replace it, when the landlord—a meagre, sharp-nosed individual—entered the room with a tray. Happening to glance at this man as he stood by cloth in hand, I detected a gleam of intense avarice crossing his face; and although the expression was but momentary—vanishing as the glittering piles were swept into their receptacle—it left me with the impression that the small Welshman's exhibition of his riches in the presence of strangers had not been an altogether judicious proceeding. No suspicion of its imprudence, however, appeared to disturb that gentleman's mind, and I soon forgot all about the little incident in the interest of the conversation which ensued between us.

From his dress and general appearance I had already conjectured my chance companion to be a Dissenting parson, and his first words as, having finished his tea, he drew a chair to the opposite side of the fireplace, confirmed my surmise. Throwing his eye over my attire, he remarked that he thought we were 'both in the same profession,' and inquired if I were not a 'minister of the gospel.' And upon my informing him that I was a clergyman of the Church of England, we were soon in the midst of a polemical discussion, which lasted a couple of hours and covered a large amount of ground; and which ended (at least as far as I was concerned) in producing feelings akin to sincere friendship.

The insignificant-looking, ill-formed, shabbily dressed Welsh minister had interested and attracted me more than any man I had ever met in my life. Endowed with a rich melodious voice, and with wonderful conversational powers, he was possessed also of an excellent memory and a keen intelligence. His reading, moreover, had been various and deep, as I found when, later on in the evening, the conversation turned upon other than ecclesiastical matters. But it was perhaps even more to his imperturbable good-humour, and to the singular innocence and candour which shone in his clear gray eyes and exhibited themselves in every word he uttered, than to his rare natural gifts, that he owed his ability to please. However that might be, I had certainly found the Rev. Peter Morgan a most charming companion, and when, just as we were about to separate for the night, I learned that he was going upon the following day to Twellryst, a town I was myself intending to visit, I eagerly proposed that we should make the journey together. The suggestion met with a ready and pleased acquiescence from my new acquaintance, and we then exchanged information as to the different objects which were taking us both to this rather out-of-the-way place.

Mine was a very simple one, that of examining the ruins of an ancient monastery in its vicinity. My friend's was a more business-like and, as he laughingly said, a more agreeable errand. It was to receive certain subscriptions which a friend of his, resident in the town, had collected on his behalf. These subscriptions were to be applied to the purpose of enlarging the chapel of which he was pastor at Pwlwyln, a rapidly growing village on the northern sea-board. The money which I had seen him count, the little man went on to state, was the fruit of his own labours for the same cause. He had obtained it by travelling about the country begging from town to town amongst the members of the denomination to which he belonged, and had been engaged in this manner nearly two months. The mission, he concluded, had been crowned with much greater success than he had anticipated. With the subscriptions he was to receive on the morrow, and those already in his custody, he expected to be able to return home (as he was intending to do on the day afterwards) with upwards of three hundred pounds in his pocket, which, together with another hundred raised by his own very poor congregation, would, he anticipated, be amply sufficient to cover all expenses of the alterations.

'And how, sir, do you propose to get to Twellryst?' I inquired. 'As you are no doubt aware, there is no railway line in that direction. I was intending to walk myself; but you surely were not thinking of doing so?'

'Indeed no, my friend,' he replied with the sunny smile which upon the slightest provocation would break over his large plain features. 'At upwards of sixty, one doesn't undertake a walk of thirty miles unless it be under the pressure of stern necessity. No, no; I could walk well enough at your age; but now, alas! the infirmities of age, &c. &c. So if you please, we will go by coach. I have ascertained that one runs twice a week from Abermeulth to Twellryst, passing through Lleyrudrigg. To-morrow will be one of its days, though I do not yet know at what hour of the morning it will arrive here. The landlord, however, will be able to tell us that; and if you will kindly ring the bell, which I see is on your side of the fireplace, we can make inquiries forthwith.'

In bending forward to obey this request, I noticed that a door immediately behind my chair stood a little ajar, and it at once flashed upon me that for some time I had been vaguely conscious of a slight draught. The bell still in my hand, I remained for a moment after ringing, with my eyes fixed upon the door. When last I had looked in that direction it had, I felt quite sure, been closed; and as an instant's reflection convinced me, no person had entered the room by it throughout the entire evening.

Prompted by an unpleasant suspicion which had suggested itself against my will, I advanced quietly, and throwing it more widely apart, peered through. It opened into a small china-closet, connected by another door with a long passage. Both passage and closet were flagged. I had heard no sound of footsteps, yet there, within the latter, stood the landlord. Upon seeing me, he looked, I thought, confused, but immediately recovering himself, stepped into the room, as though he had been coming that way in answer to the bell. I had certainly no proof that he had been listening, but I felt, nevertheless, a moral assurance of the fact, and wondering what could have been his motive in the act, I eyed him sharply whilst he gave a not very satisfactory reply to Mr Morgan's interrogations respecting the stage-coach. According to his account, the vehicle in question was a most irregular and unpunctual one, starting at hours varying from ten to twelve in the morning, and being even less reliable as to the time of its return. This report naturally was not agreeable to the minister; but expressing a hope that the coach would be upon its best behaviour next day, he requested that bedroom candles might be sent in; and the landlord departed to order them. In a few moments, however, he returned, and made us a proposition which had apparently just occurred to him. It was to the effect that we should hire a horse and dog-cart belonging to the hotel. The horse, its owner affirmed, was a splendid animal, and would carry us to Twellryst in half the time it would take the coach to get there. We should, moreover, he promised, have the conveyance for little more than the amount of our coach-fares, since not only did the horse need exercise greatly, but he had besides some business of his own in that town, which could be transacted for him by a cousin who would drive us. By adopting this plan, too, he concluded, we could see the Spike Rocks. Everybody who came to these parts in the summer-time went to see the Spike Rocks, and Jonathan should drive us round that way.

A question or two convincing us that the rocks referred to would be well worth a visit, we gladly accepted the landlord's offer; and waiting only to make arrangements as to the time of starting, bade each other good-night and separated for our respective chambers.