Two days later on, when Walden was at work in his own room seriously considering the points of his sermon for the coming Sunday, his 'head man about the place,' Bainton, made a sudden appearance on the lawn and abruptly halted there, looking intently up at the sky, as though taking observations of a comet at noon. This was a customary trick of his resorted to whenever he wished to intrude his presence during forbidden hours. John saw him plainly enough from where he sat busily writing, though for a few minutes he pretended not to see. But as Bainton remained immovable and apparently rooted to the ground, and as it was likely that there he would remain till positively told to go, his master made a virtue of necessity, and throwing down his pen, went to the window. Bainton thereupon advanced a little, but stopped again as though irresolute. Walden likewise paused a moment, then at last driven to bay by the old gardener's pertinacity, stepped out.

"Now what is it, Bainton?" he said, endeavouring to throw a shade of sternness into his voice; "You know very well I hate being disturbed while I'm writing."

Bainton touched his cap respectfully.

"Now don't go for to say as I'm disturbing on ye, Passon," he remonstrated, mildly; "I ain't said a mortal wurrd! I was onny jes' keepin' my eye on the clap gate yonder, in case the party in the churchyard might walk through, thinkin' it a right-o'-way. Them swagger folk ain't got no sort of idee as to respectin' private grounds."

Walden's eyes flashed.

"A party in the churchyard?" he repeated. "Who are they?"

"Who should they be?" And Bainton's rugged features expressed a sedate mingling of the shrewd and the contemptnous that was quite amazing. "Worn't you expectin' distinguished visitors some day this week, sir?"

"I know!" exclaimed Walden quickly; "Sir Morton Pippitt and his guests have come to 'inspect' the church!"

There was a pause, during which Walden, baring his head as he passed in, entered the sacred edifice. He became aware of Sir Morton Pippitt standing in the attitude of a University Extension lecturer near the sarcophagus in the middle of the chancel, with the Reverend Mr. Leveson and a couple of other men near him, while two more strangers were studying the groined roof with critical curiosity. As he approached, Sir Morton made a rapid sign to his companions and stepped down from the chancel.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Walden," he said in a loud whisper, and with an elaborate affectation of great heartiness; "I have brought His Grace the Duke of Lumpton to see the church."

Walden allowed his calm blue eyes to rest quietly on His Grace the Duke of Lumpton without much interest. His Grace was an undersized fat man, with a bald head and a red face, and on Walden's being presented to him, merely nodded with a patronisingly casual air.

"Lord Mawdenham,"—continued Sir Morton, swelling visibly with just pride at his own good fortune in being able to introduce a Lord immediately after a Duke, and offering Walden, as it were, with an expressive wave of his hand, to a pale young gentleman, who seemed seriously troubled by an excess of pimples on his chin, and who plucked nervously at one of these undesirable facial addenda as his name was uttered. Walden acknowledged his presence with silent composure, as he did the wide smile and familiar nod of his brother minister, the Reverend 'Putty,' whose truly elephantine proportions were encased in a somewhat too closely fitting bicycle suit, and whose grand-pianoforte shaped legs and red perspiring face together, presented a most unclerical spectacle of the 'Church at large.'

The two gentlemen who had been studying the groined roof, now brought their glances to bear on Walden, and one of them, a youngish man with a crop of thick red hair and a curiously thin, hungry face, spoke without waiting for Sir Morton's cue.

"Mr. Walden? Ye-es!—I felt sure it must be Mr. Walden! Let me congratulate you, sir, on your exquisite devotional work here! The church is beau-ti-ful—beau-ti-ful! A sonnet in stone! A sculptured prayer! Ye-es! It is so! Permit me to press your hand!"

John smiled involuntarily. There was a quaint affectation about the speaker that was quite irresistibly entertaining.

"Mr. Julian Adderley is a poet," said Sir Morton, whispering this in a jocose stage aside; "Everything is 'beautiful' to him!"

Mr. Julian Adderley smiled faintly, and fixed a pair of rather fine grey eyes on Walden with a mute appeal, as one who should say with Hamlet 'These tedious old fools!' Meanwhile Sir Morton Pippitt had secured the last member of his party affectionately by the arm, and continuing his stage whisper said:

"Permit me, Mr. Walden! This is one of our greatest London literary lights! He will particularly appreciate anything you may he good enough to tell him respecting your work of restoration here—Mr. Marius Longford, of the Savile and Savage clubs!"

Mr. Marius Longford, of the Savile and Savage clubs, bent his head with an air of dignified tolerance. He was an angular personage, with a narrow head, and a face cleanly shaven, except at the sides where two small pussy-cat whiskers fringed his sharply defined jaws. He had a long thin mouth, and long thin slits for his eyes to peep through,—they would have been eyelids with other people, but with him they were merely slits. He was a particularly neat man in appearance—his clothes were well brushed, his linen spotless, his iron-grey hair sleek, and his whole appearance that of a man well satisfied with his own exterior personality. Walden glanced at this great London literary light as indifferently as he would have glanced at an incandescent lamp in the street, or other mechanical luminary. He had not as yet spoken a word. Sir Morton had done all the talking; but the power of silence always overcomes in the end, and John's absolute non-committal of himself to any speech, had at last the effect he desired—namely that of making Sir Morton appear a mere garrulous old interloper, and his 'distinguished' friends somewhat of the cheap tripper persuasion. The warm May sun poured through the little shrine of prayer, casting flickers of gold and silver on the 'Saint at Rest' before the altar, and showering azure and rose patterns through the ancient stained glass which filled the side lancet windows. The stillness became for the moment intense and almost oppressive,—Sir Morton Pippitt fidgeted uneasily, pulled at his high starched collar and became red in the face,—the Reverend 'Putty' forgot himself so far as to pinch one of his own legs and hum a little tune, while the rest of the party waited for the individual whom their host had so frequently called 'the damned parson' to speak. The tension was relieved by the sudden quiet entrance of a young woman carrying a roll of music. Seeing the group of persons in the chancel, she paused in evident uncertainty. Walden glanced at her, and his composed face all at once lighted up with that kindly smile which in such moments made him more than ordinarily handsome.

"Come along, Miss Eden," he said in a low clear tone; "You are quite at liberty to practise as usual. Sir Morton Pippitt and his friends will not disturb you."

Miss Eden smiled sedately and bent her head, passing by the visitors with an easy demeanour and assured step, and made her way to where the organ, small, but sweet and powerful, occupied a corner near the chancel. While she busied herself in opening the instrument and arranging her musics Walden took advantage of the diversion created by her entrance to address himself to the knight Pippitt.

"If I can be of service to your friends in explaining anything about the church they may wish, to know, pray command me, Sir Morton," he said. "But I presume that you and Mr, Leveson"—here he glanced at the portly 'Putty' with a slight smile—"have pointed out all that is necessary."

"On the contrary!" said Mr. Marius Longford 'of the Savile and Savage,' with a smoothly tolerant air; "We are really quite in the dark! Do we understand, for example, that the restoration of this church is entirely due to your generosity, or to assistance from public funds and subscriptions?"

"The restoration is due, not to my 'generosity,'" replied Walden, "but merely to my sense of what is fitting for Divine service. I have had no assistance from any fund or from any individual, because I have not sought it."

There was a pause, during which Mr. Longford fixed a pair of gold- rimmed glasses on his nose and gazed quizzically through them at Sir Morton Pippitt, whose countenance had grown uncomfortably purple in hue either with exterior heat or inward vexation.

"I thought. Sir Morton," he began slowly, when Mr. Leveson adroitly interrupted him by the query:

"Now what period would you fix, Mr. Longford, for this sarcophagus?
I am myself inclined to think it of the fourteenth century."

A soft low strain of music here crept through, the church,—the village schoolmistress was beginning her practice. She had a delicate touch, and the sounds her fingers pressed from the organ- keys were full, and solemn and sweet. His Grace the Duke of Lumpton coughed loudly; he hated music, and always made some animal noise of his own to drown it.

"What matters the period!" murmured Julian Adderley, running his thin hand through his thick hair. "Is it not sufficient to see it here among us, with us, OF us?"

"God bless my soul! I hope it is not OF us!" spluttered Sir Morton with a kind of fat chuckle which seemed to emanate from his stiff collar rather than from his throat; "'Ashes to ashes' of course; we are all aware of that—but not just yet!—not just yet!"

"I am unable to fix the period satisfactorily to my own mind," said Walden, quietly ignoring both Sir Morton and his observations on the Beyond; "though I have gone through considerable research with respect to the matter. So I do not volunteer any opinion. There is, however, no doubt that at one time the body contained in that coffer must have been of the nature termed by the old Church 'miraculous.' That is to say, it must have been supposed to be efficacious in times of plague or famine, for there are several portions of the alabaster which have evidently been worn away by the frequent pressure or touch of hands on the surface. Probably in days when this neighbourhood was visited by infection, drought, floods or other troubles, the priests raised the coffin by the system of leverage which we discovered when excavating (and which is still in working order) and allowed the people to pass by and lay their hands upon it with a special prayer to be relieved of their immediate sickness or sorrow. There were many such 'miraculous' shrines in the early part of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries."

"Exactly," said Mr. Longford; "I imagine you may be right, Mr.
Walden; it is evidently a relic of the very earliest phases of the
Christian myth."

As he spoke the last words Walden looked straightly at him. A fine smile hovered on his lips.

"It is as you say," he rejoined calmly—"It is a visible token of the time when men believed in an Unseen Force more potent than themselves."

The Duke of Lumpton coughed noisily again, and his friend, Lord Mawdenham, who up to the present had occupied the time in staring vaguely about him and anxiously feeling his pimples, said hurriedly:

"Oh, look here, Sir Morton—er—I say,—er—hadn't we better be going? There's Lady Elizabeth Messing coming to lunch and you know she can't bear to be kept waiting-never do, you know, not to be there to see her when she arrives—he-he-he! We should never get over it in London or out of London—'pon my life!—I do assure you!"

Sir Morton's chest swelled;—his starched collar crackled round his expanding throat, and his voice became richly resonant as under the influential suggestion of another 'titled' personage, he replied:

"Indeed, you are right, my dear Lord Mawdenham! To keep Lady Elizabeth waiting would be an unpardonable offence against all the proprieties! Hum—ha—er—yes!—against all the proprieties! Mr. Walden, we must go! Lady Elizabeth Messing is coming to lunch with us at Badsworth. You have no doubt heard of her—eldest daughter of the Earl of Charrington!—yes, we must really be going! I think I may say, may I not, your Grace?"—here he bent towards the ducal Lumpton—"that we are all highly pleased with the way in which Mr. Waldon has effected the restoration of the church?"

"Oh, I don't know anything at all about it!" replied His Grace, with the air of a sporting groom; "I've no taste at all in churches, and I'm not taking any on old coffins! It's a nice little chapel—just enough for a small village I should say. After all, don't-cher-know, you only want very little accommodation for a couple of hundred yokels; and whether it's old or new architecture doesn't matter to 'em a brass farthing!"

These observations were made with a rambling air of vague self- assertiveness which the speaker evidently fancied would pass for wit and wisdom. Walden said nothing. His brow was placid, and his countenance altogether peaceful. He was listening to the solemnly sweet flow of a Bach prelude which Miss Eden was skilfully unravelling on the organ, the notes rising and falling, and anon soaring up again like prayerful words striving to carry themselves to heaven.

"I think," said Mr. Marius Longford weightily, "that whatever fault the building may have from a strictly accurate point of view,—which is a matter I am not prepared to go into without considerable time given for due study and consideration,—it is certainly the most attractive edifice of its kind that I have seen for some time. It reflects great credit on you, Mr. Walden;—no doubt the work gave you much personal pleasure!"

"It certainly did so," replied John,—"and I'm afraid I am arrogant enough to be satisfied with the general result so far as it goes,— with the exception of the eastern window, of course!"

"Ah, that eastern window!" sighed the Reverend 'Putty' with an air of aesthetic languor which was in comical contrast with his coarse and commonplace appearance; "That is a sad, sad flaw! A terrible incongruity!"

"I made up my mind from the first," pursued Walden, his equable voice seeming to float pleasantly on the tide of music with which the little sanctuary was just then filled; "that nothing but the most genuine and authentic old stained glass should fill that fine circular rose carving, and those lance apertures; so I am collecting it slowly, bit by bit, for this purpose. It will take time and patience, no doubt,—but I think and hope that success will be the end of the task I have set myself. In the meantime, of course, the effect of plain glass where there should be only the richest colouring is decidedly 'crude'!"

He smiled slightly, and there was an uncomfortable pause. Sir Morton Pippitt took out a voluminous red handkerchief covered with yellow spots and blew his nose violently therein while the Reverend Mr. Leveson nodded his large head blandly, as one who receives doubtful information with kindly tolerance. Mr. Marius Longford looked faintly amused.

"I understand!" said the light of the 'Savile and Savage,' slowly;
"You seek perfection!"

He smiled a pallid smile; but on the whole surveyed Walden with more interest than he had hitherto done. Julian Adderley, who had during the last couple of minutes stepped up to the chancel, now stood gazing at the sarcophagus of the supposed Saint with a kind of melancholy interest. Reading the only legible words of the inscription in sotto voce, he sighed drearily.

"' In—Resurrectione—Sanctorum—Resurget!' How simple!—how new!— how fresh! To think that anyone ever held such a child's faith!"

"The Church is still supposed to hold it," said Walden steadily, "And her ministers also. Otherwise, religion is a farce, and its professors much less honest than the trusted servant who steals his master's money!"

Marius Longford smiled, and stroked one feline whisker thoughtfully.

"So you actually believe what you preach!" he murmured—"Strange! You are more of an antiquity than the consecrated dust enclosed in that alabaster! Believe me!"

"Much more,—much, more!" exclaimed the fantastic Adderley; "To believe in anything at all is so remote!—so very remote!—and yet so new—so fresh!"

Walden made no reply. He never argued on religious matters; moreover, with persons minded in the manner of those before him, it seemed useless to even offer an opinion. They exchanged meaning glances with each other, and followed Sir Morton, who was now moving down the central aisle of the church towards the door of exit, holding the Duke of Lumpton familiarly by the arm, and accompanied by Lord Mawdenham. Walden walked silently with them, till, passing out of the church, they all stood in a group on the broad gravelled pathway which led to the open road, where the Pippitt equipage, a large waggonette and pair, stood waiting, together with a bicycle, the property of the Reverend Mr. Leveson.

"Thank you, Mr. Walden!" then said Sir Morton Pippitt with a grandiose air, as of one who graciously confers a benefit on the silence by breaking it; "Thank you for—er—for—er—the pleasure of your company this—er—this morning! My friend, the Duke,—and Lord Mawdenham—and—er—our rising poet, Mr. Adderley—and—er—Mr. Longford, have been delighted. Yes—er—delighted! Of course you know MY opinion! Ha-ha-ha! You know MY opinion! It is the same as it ever was—I never change! When I have once made up my mind, it is a fixture! I have said already and I say it again, that the church was quite good enough for such people as live here, in its original condition, and that you have really spent a great deal of cash on a very needless work! I mustn't be rude, no, no, no!—but you know the old adage: 'Fools and their money!' Ha-ha-ha! But we shan't quarrel. Oh, dear no! It has cost ME nothing, I am glad to say! Ha-ha! Nor anybody else! Now, if Miss Vancourt of Abbot's Manor had been here when you began this restoration business of yours, SHE might have had something to say—ha-ha-ha! She always has something to say!"

"You think she would have objected?" queried Walden, coldly.

"Oh, I won't go so far as that—no!—eh, your Grace—we won't go so far as that!"

The Duke of Lumpton, thus suddenly adjured, looked round, and smiled vacantly.

"Won't go so far as what?" he asked; "Didn't catch it!"

"I was talking of Maryllia Vancourt," said Sir Morton with a kind of fatuous leer; "YOU know her, of course!—everyone knows her more or less. Charming girl!—charming! Maryllia Van!—ha-ha!"

And Sir Morton laughed and leered again till certain veins, moved by cerebral emotion, protruded largely on his forehead. His Grace laughed also, but shortly and indifferently.

"Oh, ya-as—ya-as! She's the one who's just had a rumpus with her rich American aunt. I believe they don't speak, After years of devotion, eh? So like women, ain't it!"

The Reverend 'Putty' Leveson, who had been stooping over his bicycle to set something right that was invariably going wrong with that particular machine, and who was redder than ever in the face with his efforts, now looked up.

"Miss Vancourt is coming back to the Manor to reside there, so I hear," he said. "Very dull for a woman accustomed to London and Paris. I expect she'll stay about ten days."

"One never knows—one cannot tell!" sighed Julian Adderley. "Sometimes to the satiated female mind, overwrought with social dissipation, there comes a strange longing for peace!—for the scent of roses!—for the yellow shine of cowslips!—for the song of the mating birds!—for the breath of cows!"

Mr. Marius Longford smiled, and picked a tall buttercup nodding in the grass at his feet.

"Such aspirations in the fair sex are absolutely harmless," he said; "Let us hope the lady's wishes may find their limit in a soothing pastoral!" "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Sir Morton. "You are deep, my dear sir, you are very deep! God bless my soul! Deep as a well! No wonder people are afraid of you! Clever, clever! I'm afraid of you myself! Come along, come along! Can I assist your Grace?" Here he pushed aside with a smothered 'Damn!' the footman, who stood holding open the door of the waggonette, and officiously gave the Duke of Lumpton a hand to help him into the carriage. "Now, Lord Mawdenham, please! You next, Mr. Longford! Come, come, Mr. Adderley! Think of Lady Elizabeth! She will be arriving at the Hall before we are there to receive her! Terrible, terrible! Come along! We're all ready!"

Julian Adderley had turned to Walden.

"Permit me to call and see you alone!" he said. "I cannot just now appreciate the poetry of your work in the church as I should do—as I ought to do—as I must do! The present company is discordant!—one requires the music of Nature,-the thoughts,—the dreams! But no more at present! I should like to talk with you on many matters some wild sweet morning,—if you have no objection?"

Walden was amused. At the same time he was not very eager to respond to this overture of closer acquaintanceship with one who, by his dress, manner and method of speech, proclaimed himself a 'decadent' of the modern school of ethics; but he was nothing if not courteous. So he replied briefly:

"I shall be pleased to see you, of course, Mr. Adderley, but I must warn you that I am a very busy man—I should not be able to give you much time—"

"No explanations—I understand!" And Adderley pressed his hand with enthusiasm. "The very fact that you are busy in a village like this adds to the peculiar charm of your personality! It is so strange!— so new—so fresh!"

He smiled, and again pressed hands.

"Good-bye! The mood will send me to you at the fitting moment!"

He clapped his hat more firmly on his redundant red locks and clambered into the waiting waggonette. Sir Morton followed him, and the footman shut to the door of the vehicle with a bang as unnecessary as his master's previous 'Damn!'

"Good-morning, Mr. Walden!" then shouted the knight of bone-melting prowess; "Much obliged to you, I'm sure!"

Walden raised his hat with brief ceremoniousness, and then as the carriage rolled away addressed the Reverend Mr. Leveson, who was throwing himself with hippopotamus-like agility across his bicycle.

"You follow, I suppose?"

"Yes. I'm lunching at Badsworth Hall. The Duke wants to consult me about his family records. You know I'm a bit of an authority on such points!"

Walden smiled.

"I believe you are! But mind you calendar the ducal deeds carefully," he said. "A slip in the lineal descent of the Lumptons might affect the whole prestige of the British Empire!"

A light shone in his clear blue eyes,—a flashing spark of battle.
Leveson stayed his bicycle a moment, wobbling on it uneasily.

"Lumpton goes back a good way," he said airily; "I shall take him up when I have gone through the history of the Vancourts. I'm on that scent now. I shall make a good bit of business directly Miss Vancourt returns; she'll pay for anything that will help her to stiffen her back and put more side on."

"Really!" ejaculated Walden, coldly. "I should have thought her forebears would have saved her from snobbery."

"Not a bit of it!" declared Leveson, beginning to start the muscles of his grand-pianoforte legs with energy; "Rapid as a firework, and vain as a peacock! Ta!"

And fixing a small cap firmly on the back of his very large head, he worked his wheel with treadmill regularity and was soon out of sight.

Walden stood alone in the churchyard, lost for a brief space in meditation. The solemn strains of the organ which the schoolmistress was still playing, floated softly out from the church to the perfumed air, and the grave melodious murmur made an undercurrent of harmony to the clear bright warbling of a skylark, which, beating its wings against the sunbeams, rose ever higher and higher above him.

"What petty souls we are!" he murmured; "Here am I feeling actually indignant because this fellow Leveson, who has less education and knowledge than my dog Nebbie, assumes to have some acquaintance with Miss Vancourt! What does it matter? What business is it of mine? If she cares to accept information from an ignoramus, what is it to do with me? Nothing! Yet,—what a blatant ass the fellow is! Upon my word, it does me good to say it—a blatant ass! And Sir Morton Pippitt is another!"

He laughed, and lifting his hat from his forehead, let the soft wind breathe refreshing coolness on his uncovered hair.

"There are decided limits to Christian love!" he said, the laughter still dancing in his eyes. "I defy—I positively defy anyone to love Leveson! 'The columns and capitals are all wrong' are they?" And he gave a glance back at the beautiful little church in its exquisite design and completed perfection."'Out of keeping with early Norman walls!' Wise Leveson! He ignores all periods of transition as if they had never existed—as if they had no meaning for the thinker as well as the architect—as if the movement upward from the Norman, to the Early Pointed style showed no indication of progress! And whereas a church should always be a veritable 'sermon in stone' expressive of the various generations that have wrought their best on it, he limits himself to the beginning of things! I wonder what Leveson was in the beginning of things? Possibly an embryo Megatherium!"

Broadly smiling, he walked to the gate communicating with his own garden, opened it, and passed through. Nebbie was waiting for him on the lawn, and greeted him with the usual effusiveness. He returned to his desk, and to the composition of his sermon, but his thoughts were inclined to wander. Sir Morton Pippitt, the Duke of Lumpton, and Lord Mawdenham hovered before him like three dull puppets in a cheap show; and he was inclined to look up the name of Marius Longford in one of the handy guides to contemporary biography, in order to see if that flaccid and fish-like personage had really done anything In the world to merit his position as a shining luminary of the 'Savage and Savile.' Accustomed as he was to watch the ebb and flow of modern literature, he had not yet sighted either the Longford straw or the Adderley cork, among the flotsam and jetsam of that murky tide. And ever and again Sir Morton Pippitt's coarse chuckle, combined with the covert smiles of Sir Morton's 'distinguished' friends, echoed through his mind in connection with the approaching dreaded invasion of Miss Vancourt into the happy quietude of the village of St. Rest, till he experienced a sense of pain and aversion almost amounting to anger. Why, he asked himself, seeing she had stayed so long away from her childhood's home, could she not have stayed away altogether? The swift and brilliant life of London was surely far more suited to one who, according to 'Putty' Leveson, was 'rapid as a firework, and vain as a peacock.' But was 'Putty' Leveson always celebrated for accuracy in his statements? No! Certainly not—yet—"

Then something seemed to fire him with a sudden resolution, for he erased the first lines of the sermon he had begun, and altered his text, which had been: "Glory, honour and peace to every man that worketh good." And in its place he chose, as a more enticing subject of discourse:

"The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of
God, of great price."