 CHAPTER XI. The next morning saw Theobald in his rooms, coaching a pupil. In the Miss Alibis, in the eldest Miss Alibis bedroom, playing at cards with Theobald for the stakes. The winner was Christina, the second unmarried daughter, then just twenty-seven years old and therefore four years older than Theobald. The younger sisters complained that it was throwing a husband away to let Christina try and catch him, for she was so much older that she had no chance. But Christina showed fight in a way not usual with her, for she was by nature yielding and good-tempered. Her mother thought it better to back her up, so the two dangerous ones were packed off then and there on visits to friends some way off, and those alone allowed to remain at home whose loyalty who can be depended upon. The brothers did not even suspect what was going on, and believed their father's getting assistance was because he really wanted it. The sisters who remained at home kept their words and gave Christina all the help they could. For over and above their sense of fair play, they reflected that the sooner Theobald was landed, the sooner another deacon might be sent for who might be won by themselves. So quickly was all managed that the two unreliable sisters were actually out of the house before Theobald's next visit, which was on the Sunday following his first. This time Theobald felt quite at home in the house of his new friends, for so Mrs. Alibi insisted that he should call them. She took, she said, such a motherly interest in young men, especially in clergymen. Theobald believed every word she said, as he had believed his father and all his elders from his youth up. Christina sat next to him at dinner and played her cards no less judiciously than she had played them in her sister's bedroom. She smiled, and her smile was one of her strong points, whenever he spoke to her. She went through all her little artlessnesses, and set forth all her little wares in what she believed to be their most taking aspect. Who can blame her? Theobald was not the ideal she had dreamed of when reading Byron upstairs with her sisters, but he was an actual within the bounds of possibility. And after all, not a bad actual as actuals went. What else could she do? Run away? She dared not. Marry beneath her and be considered a disgrace to her family? She dared not. Remain at home and become an old maid and laugh that? Not if she could help it. She did the only thing that could reasonably be expected. She was drowning. Theobald might be only a straw, but she could catch at him and catch at him, she accordingly did. If the course of true love never runs smooth, the course of true matchmaking sometimes does so. The only ground for complaint in the present case was that it was rather slow. Theobald fell into the part assigned to him more easily than Mrs. Cowey and Mrs. Alibi had dared to hope. He was softened by Christina's winning manners. He admired the high moral tone of everything she said, her sweetness towards her sisters and her father and mother, her readiness to undertake any small burden which no one else seemed willing to undertake, her sprightly manners, all were fascinating to one who, though unused to women's society, was still a human being. He was flattered by her unobtrusive but obviously sincere admiration for himself. She seemed to see him in a more favorable light and to understand him better than anyone outside of this charming family had ever done. Instead of snubbing him, as his father, brother and sisters did, she drew him out, listened attentively to all he chose to say and evidently wanted him to say still more. He told a college friend that he knew he was in love now. He really was, for he liked Mrs. Alibi's society much better than that of his sisters. Over and above the recommendations already enumerated, she had another in the possession of what was supposed to be a very beautiful Contralto voice. Her voice was certainly Contralto, for she could not reach higher than D in the treble. Its only defect was that it did not go correspondingly low in the bass. In those days, however, a Contralto voice was understood to include even a soprano, if the soprano could not reach soprano notes, and it was not necessary that it should have the quality which we now assign to Contralto. What her voice wanted in range and power was made up in the feeling with which she sang. She had transposed angels of a bright and fair into a lower key so as to make it suit her voice, thus proving, as her mama said, that she had a thorough knowledge of the laws of harmony. Not only did she do this, but at every pause added an embellishment of arpeggios from one end to the other of the keyboard on a principle which her governess had taught her. She thus added life and interest to an air which everyone, so she said, must feel to be rather heavy in the form in which Honda left it. As for her governess, she indeed had been a rarely accomplished musician. She was a pupil of the famous Dr. Clark of Cambridge, and used to play the overture to Atalanta, arranged by Mazingi. Nevertheless it was some time before Theobald could bring his courage to the sticking point of actually proposing. He made it quite clear that he believed himself to be much smitten, but month after month went by, during which there was still so much hope in Theobald, that Mr. Alibi dared not discover that he was able to do his duty for himself, and was getting impatient at the number of half-ginnis he was dispersing. And yet there was no proposal. Christina's mother assured him that she was the best daughter in the whole world, and would be a priceless treasure to the man who married her. Theobald echoed Mrs. Alibi's sentiments with warmth. But still, though he visited the rectory two or three times a week, besides coming over on Sundays, he did not propose. She is heart whole yet, dear Mr. Pontifex, said Mrs. Alibi, one day. At least I believe she is. It is not for want of admirers. Oh, no. She has had her full share of these. But she is too, too difficult to please. I think, however, she would fall before a great and good man. And she looked hard at Theobald, who blushed. But the days went by, and still he did not propose. Another time Theobald actually took Mrs. Cowie into his confidence, and the reader may guess what account of Christina he got from her. Mrs. Cowie tried the jealousy maneuver and hinted at a possible rival. Theobald was, or pretended to be, very much alarmed. A little rudimentary pang of jealousy shot across his bosom, and he began to believe with pride that he was not only in love, but desperately in love, or he would never feel so jealous. Nevertheless, day after day still went by, and he did not propose. The Alibis behaved with great judgment. They humored him till his retreat was practically cut off, though he still flattered himself that it was open. One day about six months after Theobald had become an almost daily visitor at the rectory, the conversation happened to turn upon long engagements. I don't like long engagements, Mr. Alibi. Do you, said Theobald imprudently? No, said Mr. Alibi, in a pointed tone, nor long courtships. And he gave Theobald a look which he could not pretend to misunderstand. He went back to Cambridge as fast as he could, and in dread of the conversation with Mr. Alibi, which he felt to be impending, composed the following letter which he dispatched that same afternoon by a private messenger to Cramsford. The letter was as follows, dearest Miss Christina, I do not know whether you have guessed the feelings that I have long entertained for you, feelings which I have concealed as much as I could through fear of drawing you into an engagement which, if you enter it, must be prolonged for a considerable time. But however this may be, it is out of my power to conceal them longer. I love you ardently, devotedly, and send these few lines asking you to be my wife, because I dare not trust my tongue to give adequate expression to the magnitude of my affection for you. I cannot pretend to offer you a heart which has never known either love or disappointment. I have loved already, and my heart was years in recovering from the grief I felt at seeing her become another's. That, however, is over, and having seen yourself I rejoice over a disappointment which I thought at one time would have been fatal to me. It has left me a less ardent lover than I should perhaps otherwise have been, but it has increased tenfold my power of appreciating your many charms, and my desire that you should become my wife. Please let me have a few lines of answer by the bearer to let me know whether or not my suit is accepted. If you accept me, I will at once come and talk the matter over with Mr. and Mrs. Alibi, whom I shall hope one day to be allowed to call father and mother. I ought to warn you that in the event of your consenting to be my wife it may be years before our union can be consummated, for I cannot marry till a college living is offered me. If therefore you see fit to reject me, I shall be grieved rather than surprised. Ever most devotedly yours, Theobald Pontifex. And this was all that his public school and university education had been able to do for Theobald. Nevertheless, for his own part, he thought his letter rather a good one, and congratulated himself in particular upon his cleverness in inventing the story of a previous attachment, behind which he intended to shelter himself if Christina should complain of any lack of fervor in his behavior to her. I need not give Christina's answer, which of course was to accept. Much as Theobald feared old Mr. Alibi, I do not think he would have wrought up his courage to the point of actually proposing but for the fact of the engagement being necessarily a long one, during which a dozen things might turn up to break it off. However much he may have disapproved of long engagements for other people, I doubt whether he had any particular objection to them in his own case. A pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise. There are such things every day, but we seldom see them. Theobald posed as the most ardent lover imaginable, but to use the vulgarism for the moment in fashion, it was all side. Christina was in love, as indeed she had been twenty times already, but then Christina was impressionable and could not even hear the name Miss Olongi mentioned without bursting into tears. When Theobald accidentally left his sermon-case behind him one Sunday, she slept with it in her bosom and was forlorn when she had, as it were, to disgorge it on the following Sunday. But I do not think Theobald ever took so much as an old toothbrush of Christina's to bed with him. Why, I knew a young man once who got hold of his mistresses' skates and slept with them for a fortnight and cried when he had to give them up. CHAPTER XII Theobald's engagement was all very well as far as it went, but there was an old gentleman with a bald head and rosy cheeks and a counting-house in Paternaster Row who must sooner or later be told what his son had in view, and Theobald's heart fluttered when he asked himself what view this old gentleman was likely to take of the situation. The murder, however, had to come out, and Theobald and his intended, perhaps imprudently, resolved on making a clean breast of it at once. He wrote what he and Christina, who helped him to draft the letter, thought to be everything that was filial, and expressed himself as anxious to be married with the least possible delay. He could not help saying this as Christina was at his shoulder, and he knew it was safe for his father might be trusted not to help him. He wound up by asking his father to use any influence that might be at his command to help him to get a living, in as much as it might be years before a college living fell vacant, and he saw no other chance of being able to marry, for neither he nor his intended had any money except Theobald's fellowship, which would, of course, lapse on his taking a wife. Any step of Theobald's was sure to be objectionable in his father's eyes, but that at three and twenty he should want to marry a penniless girl who was four years older than himself afforded a golden opportunity, which the old gentleman, for now I may call him, as he was at least sixty, embraced with characteristic eagerness. The ineffable folly, he wrote on receiving his son's letter. Of your fancied passion for Miss Alibi fills me with the gravest apprehensions. Making every allowance for a lover's blindness, I still have no doubt that the lady herself is a well-conducted and amiable young person who would not disgrace our family. But were she ten times more desirable as a daughter-in-law than I can allow myself to hope, your joint poverty is an insuperable objection to your marriage. I have four other children besides yourself and my expenses do not permit me to save money. This year they have been especially heavy. Indeed I have had to purchase two not inconsiderable pieces of land which happened to come to the market and were necessary to complete a property which I have long wanted to round off in this way. I gave you an education regardless of expense which has put you in possession of a comfortable income at an age when many young men are dependent. I have thus started you fairly in life and may claim that you should cease to be a drag on me further. Long engagements are proverbially unsatisfactory and in the present case the prospect seems interminable. What interests pray do you suppose I have that I could get a living for you? Can I go up and down the country begging people to provide for my son because he has taken it into his head to want to get married without sufficient means? I do not wish to write unkindly. Nothing can be farther from my real feelings towards you. But there is often more kindness and plain speaking than in any amount of soft words which can end in no substantial performance. Of course I bear in mind that you are of age and can therefore please yourself. But if you choose to claim the strict letter of the law and act without consideration for your father's feelings, you must not be surprised if you will one day find that I have claimed a like liberty for myself. Believe me, your affectionate father. G. Pontifex. I found this letter along with those already given and a few more which I need not give but throughout which the same tone prevails and in all of which there is the more or less obvious shake of the will near the end of the letter. Remembering Theobald's general dumbness concerning his father for the many years I knew him after his father's death, there was an eloquence in the preservation of the letters and in their endorsement letters from my father which seemed to have with it some faint odor of health and nature. Theobald did not show his father's letter to Christina nor indeed I believe to anyone. He was by nature secretive and had been repressed too much and too early to be capable of rallying or blowing off steam where his father was concerned. His sense of wrong was still in articulate, felt as a dull dead weight ever present day by day, and if he woke at night time still continually present. But he hardly knew what it was. I was about the closest friend he had and I saw but little of him for I could not get on with him for long together. He said I had no reverence whereas I thought that I had plenty of reverence for what deserved to be revered, but that the gods which he deemed golden were in reality made of a baser metal. He never as I have said complained of his father to me and his only other friends were, like himself, stayed in prim of evangelical tendencies and deeply imbued with a sense of the sinfulness of any act of insubordination to parents, good young men in fact, and one could not blow off steam to a good young man. When Christina was informed by her lover of his father's opposition, and of the time which must probably elapse before they could be married, she offered, with how much sincerity I know not, to set him free from his engagement. But Theobald declined to be released, not at least as he said, at present. Christina and Mrs. Alabine knew they could manage him and on this not very satisfactory footing the engagement was continued. His engagement and his refusal to be released at once raised Theobald in his own good opinion. Dull as he was he had no small share of quiet self-approbation. He admired himself for his university distinction, for the purity of his life. I said of him once that if he had only a better temper he would be as innocent as a new laid egg and for his unimpeachable integrity in money matters. He did not despair for advancement in the church when he had once got a living, and of course it was within the bounds of possibility that he might one day become a bishop, and Christina said she felt convinced that this would ultimately be the case. As was natural for the daughter and intended wife of a clergyman, Christina's thoughts ran much upon religion, and she was resolved that even though an exalted position in this world were denied to her and Theobald, their virtues should be fully appreciated in the next. Her religious opinions coincided absolutely with Theobald's own, and many a conversation did she have with him about the glory of God and the completeness with which they would devote themselves to it as soon as Theobald had got his living and they were married. So certain was she of the great results which would then ensue that she wondered at times that the blindness shown by Providence towards its own truest interests and not killing off the rectors who stood between Theobald and his living a little faster. In those days people believed with a simple downrightness, which I do not observe among educated men and women now. It had never so much as crossed Theobald's mind to doubt the literal accuracy of any syllable in the Bible. He had never seen any book in which this was disputed nor met anyone who doubted it. True, there was just a little scare about geology, but there was nothing in it. If it was said that God made the world in six days, why he made it in six days, neither in more nor less. If it was said that he put Adam to sleep, took out one of his ribs and made a woman of it, why it was so as a matter of course. He, Adam, went to sleep as it might be himself, Theobald Pontifex, in a garden as it might be the garden at Crampsford Rectory during the summer months when it was so pretty only that it was larger and had some tame wild animals in it. Then God came up to him as it might be Mr. Alibi or his father dexterously took out one of his ribs without waking him and miraculously healed the wound so that no trace of the operation remained. Finally God had taken the rib perhaps into the greenhouse and had turned it into just such another young woman as Christina. That was how it was done. There was neither difficulty nor shadow of difficulty about the matter. Could not God do anything he liked and had he not in his own inspired book told us that he had done this? This was the average attitude of fairly educated young men and women towards the Mosaic Cosmogony, 50, 40, or even 20 years ago. The combating of infidelity therefore offered little scope for enterprising young clergymen, nor had the church awakened to the activity which she has since displayed among the poor in our large towns. These were then left almost without an effort at resistance or cooperation to the labors of those who had succeeded Wesley. Missionary work indeed in heathen countries was being carried on with some energy, but the able to not feel any call to be a missionary. Christina suggested this to him more than once and assured him of the unspeakable happiness it would be to her to be the wife of a missionary and to share his dangers. She and Theobald might even be martyred. Of course they would be martyred simultaneously and martyred them many years hence as regarded from the arbor in the rectory garden was not painful. It would ensure them a glorious future in the next world and at any rate posthumous renown in this, even if they were not miraculously restored to life again. And such things had happened ere now in the case of martyrs. Theobald however had not been kindled by Christina's enthusiasm so she fell back upon the Church of Rome an enemy more dangerous if possible than paganism itself. A combat with Romanism might even yet win for her and Theobald the crown of martyred them. True the Church of Rome was tolerably quiet just then but it was the calm before the storm of this she was assured with a conviction deeper than she could have attained by any argument founded upon mere reason. We, dearest Theobald, she exclaimed, will be ever faithful. We will stand firm and support one another even in the hour of death itself. God and his mercy may spare us from being burnt alive. He may or may not do so. Oh Lord! And she turned her eyes prayerfully to heaven. Spare my Theobald or grant that he may be beheaded. My dearest said Theobald gravely, do not let us agitate ourselves unduly. If the hour of trial comes we shall be best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet unobtrusive life of self-denial and devotion to God's glory. Such a life let us pray God that it may please him to enable us to pray that we may lead. Dearest Theobald, exclaimed Christina, drying the tears that had gathered in her eyes. You are always, always right. Let us be self-denying, pure, upright, truthful in word and deed. She clasped her hands and looked up to heaven as she spoke. Dearest rejoins her lover. We have ever hitherto endeavored to be all these things. We have not been worldly people. Let us watch and pray that we may so continue to the end. The moon had risen and the arbor was getting damp, so they adjourned further aspirations for a more convenient season. At other times Christina pictured herself and Theobald as braving the scorn of almost every human being in the achievement of some mighty task, which should redown to the honor of her redeemer. She could face anything for this. But always toward the end of her vision there came a little coronation scene high up in the golden regions of the heavens, and a diadem was set upon her head by the son of man himself, amid the host of angels and archangels who looked on with envy and admiration. And here even Theobald himself was out of it. If there could be such a thing as the mammon of righteousness, Christina would have assuredly made friends with it. Her papa and mama were very esteemable people, and would in the course of time receive heavenly mansions in which they would be exceedingly comfortable. So doubtless with her sisters, so perhaps even might her brothers. But for herself she felt that a higher destiny was preparing, which it was her duty never to lose sight of. The first step towards it would be her marriage with Theobald. In spite, however, of these flights of religious romanticism, Christina was a good-tempered, kindly-natured girl enough. Who, if she had married a sensible layman, we will say a hotelkeeper would have developed into a good landlady and been deservedly popular with her guests. Such was Theobald's engaged life. Many a little present passed between the pair, and many a small surprise did they prepare pleasantly for one another. They never quarreled, and neither of them ever flirted with anyone else. Mrs. Alibi and his future sisters-in-law idolized Theobald, in spite of its being impossible to get another deacon to come and be played, for as long as Theobald was able to help Mr. Alibi. Which now, of course, he did free gratis and for nothing. Two of the sisters, however, did manage to find husbands before Christina was actually married, and on each occasion Theobald played the part of Decoy Elephant. In the end only two out of the seven daughters remained single. After three or four years, old Mr. Pontifex became accustomed to his son's engagement, and looked upon it as among the things which had now a prescriptive right to toleration. In the spring of 1831, more than five years after Theobald had first walked over to Crampsford, one of the best livings in the gift of the college unexpectedly fell vacant, and was for various reasons declined by the two fellows senior to Theobald, who might each have been expected to take it. The living was then offered to and, of course, accepted by Theobald, being in value not less than five hundred pounds a year, with a suitable house and garden. Old Mr. Pontifex then came down more handsomely than was expected, and settled ten thousand pounds on his son and daughter-in-law for life, with remainder to such of their issue as they might appoint. In the month of July, 1831, Theobald and Christina became man and wife. CHAPTER XIII A due number of old shoes had been thrown at the carriage in which the happy pair departed from the rectory, and it had turned the corner at the bottom of the village. It could then be seen for two or three hundred yards creeping past a fur-copus, and after this was lost to view. John, said Mr. Alibi to his man-servant, shut the gate, and he went indoors with a sigh of relief, which seemed to say, I have done it, and I am alive. This was the reaction after a burst of enthusiastic merriment during which the old gentleman had run twenty yards after the carriage to fling a slipper at it, which he had duly flung. But what were the feelings of Theobald and Christina when the village was passed, and they were rolling quietly by the fur plantation? It is at this point that even the stoutest heart must fail, unless it beat in the breast of one who is overhead and ears in love. If a young man is in a small boat on a choppy sea, along with his affianced bride, and both are seasick, and if the sick swain can forget his own anguish and happiness of holding the fair one's head when she is at her worst, then he is in love, and his heart will be in no danger of failing him as he passes his fur plantation. Other people, and unfortunately by far the greater number of those who get married, must be classed among the other people, will inevitably go through a quarter or half an hour of greater or less badness as the case may be. Taking numbers into account, I should think more mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from St. George's Hanover Square, then in the condemned cells of Newgate. There is no time at which what the Italians call La Figlia della Morte lays her cold hand upon a man more awfully than during the first half hour that he is alone with a woman whom he has married but never genuinely loved. Death's daughter did not spare Theobald. He had behaved very well hitherto. When Christina had offered to let him go, he had stuck to his post with the magnanimity on which he had plumed himself ever since. From that time forward he had said to himself, I, at any rate, am the very soul of honor. I am not, et cetera, et cetera. True, at the moment of magnanimity, the actual cash payment, so to speak, was still distant. When his father gave the formal consent to his marriage, things began to look more serious. When the college living had fallen vacant and been accepted, they looked more serious still. But when Christina actually named the day, then Theobald's heart fainted within him. The engagement had gone on so long that he had got into a groove, and the prospect of change was disconcerting. Christina and he had got on, he thought to himself, very nicely for a great number of years. Why, why, why should they not continue to go on as they were doing now for the rest of their lives? But there was no more chance of escape for him than for the sheep which was being driven to the butcher's back premises, and like the sheep he felt there was nothing to be gained by resistance. So he made none. He behaved, in fact, with decency, and was declared on all hands to be one of the happiest men imaginable. Now, however, to change the metaphor, the drop had actually fallen, and the poor wretch was hanging mid-air along with the creature of his affections. This creature was now 33 years old and looked it. She had been weeping, and her eyes and nose were reddish. If I have done it and I am alive was written on Mr. Alibi's face after he had thrown the shoe. I have done it, and I do not see how I can possibly live much longer, was upon the face of Theobald as he was being driven along by the fur plantation. This, however, was not apparent at the rectory. All that could be seen there was the bobbing up and down of the pastelian's head, which just overtopped the hedge by the roadside as he rose in his stirrups, and the black and yellow body of the carriage. For some time the pair said nothing. What they must have felt during their first half-hour? The reader must guess, for it is beyond my power to tell him. At the end of that time, however, Theobald had rummaged up a conclusion from some odd corner of his soul to the effect that now he and Christina were married the sooner they fell into their future mutual relations the better. If people who are in a difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing, which they can clearly recognize as reasonable, they will always find the next step more easy, both to see and take. What then, thought Theobald, was here at this moment the first and most obvious matter to be considered, and what would be an equitable view of his and Christina's relative positions in respect to it? Clearly their first dinner was their first joint entry into the duties and pleasures of married life. No less clearly it was Christina's duty to order it, and his own to eat it and pay for it. The arguments leading to this conclusion and the conclusion itself flashed upon Theobald about three and a half miles after he left Cramsford on the road to New Market. He had breakfasted early, but his usual appetite had failed him. They had left the vicarage at noon without staying for the wedding breakfast. Theobald liked an early dinner. It dawned upon him that he was beginning to be hungry. From this to the conclusion stated in the preceding paragraph, the steps had been easy. After a few minutes further reflection he broached the matter to his bride, and thus the ice was broken. Mrs. Theobald was not prepared for so sudden an assumption of importance. Her nerves, never the strongest, had been strung to their highest tension by the event of the morning. She wanted to escape observation. She was conscious of looking a little older than she quite liked to look as a bride who had been married that morning. She feared the landlady, the chambermaid, the waiter, everybody and everything. Her heart beat so fast that she could hardly speak. Much less go through the ordeal of ordering dinner in a strange hotel with a strange landlady. She begged and prayed to be let off. If Theobald would only order dinner this once, she would order it any day and every day in the future. But the inexorable Theobald was not to be put off with such absurd excuses. He was master now, had not Christina less than two hours ago promised solemnly to honor and obey him? And was she turning restive over such a trifle as this? The loving smile departed from his face and was succeeded by a scowl which that old Turk, his father, might have envied. Stuff and nonsense, my dearest Christina, he exclaimed mildly and stamped his foot upon the floor of the carriage. It is a wife's duty to order her husband's dinner. You are my wife and I shall expect you to order mine. For Theobald was nothing if he was not logical. The bride began to cry and said he was unkind, whereupon he said nothing but revolved unutterable things in his heart. Was this, then, the end of his six years of unflagging devotion? Was it for this that when Christina had offered to let him off, he had stuck to his engagement? Was this the outcome of her talks about duty and spiritual mindedness, that now, upon the very day of her marriage, she should fail to see that the first step in obedience to God lay in obedience to himself? He would drive back to Cramsford. He would complain to Mr. and Mrs. Alibi. He didn't mean to have married Christina. He hadn't married her. It was all a hideous dream. He would—but a voice kept ringing in his ears which said, You can't, can't, can't. Can't I scream the unhappy creature to himself? No, said the remorseless voice. You can't. You are a married man. He rolled back in his corner of the carriage and for the first time felt how iniquitous were the marriage laws of England. But he would buy Milton's prose works and read his pamphlet on divorce. He might perhaps be able to get them at New Market. So the bride sat crying in one corner of the carriage, and the bridegroom sulked in the other, and he feared her as only a bridegroom can fear. Presently, however, a feeble voice was heard from the bride's corner, saying, Dearest Theobald, dearest Theobald, forgive me. I have been very, very wrong. Please do not be angry with me. I will order thee, thee. But the word dinner was checked by rising sobs. When Theobald heard these words, a load began to be lifted from his heart, but he only looked toward her, and that not too pleasantly. Please tell me, continued the voice, what you think you would like, and I will tell the landlady when we get to Newmore. But another burst of sobs checked the completion of the word. The load on Theobald's heart grew lighter and lighter. Was it possible that she might not be going to henpeck him after all? Besides, had she not diverted his attention from herself to his approaching dinner? He swallowed down more of his apprehensions and said, but still gloomily, I think we might have a roast fowl with bread sauce, new potatoes and green peas, and then we will see if they could let us have a cherry tart and some cream. After a few minutes more, he drew her towards him, kissed away her tears, and assured her that he knew she would be a good wife to him. Dearest Theobald, she exclaimed an answer. You are an angel. Theobald believed her, and in ten minutes more the happy couple lighted at the inn at Newmarket. Bravely did Christina go through her arduous task. Eagerly did she beseech the landlady in secret, not to keep her Theobald waiting longer than was absolutely necessary. If you have any soup ready, you know, Mrs. Barber, it might save ten minutes, for we might have it while the fowl was browning. See how necessity had nerved her. But in truth she had a splitting headache, and would have given anything to have been alone. The dinner was a success. A pint of sherry had warmed Theobald's heart, and he began to hope that, after all, matters might still go well with him. He had conquered in the first battle, and this gives great prestige. How easy it had been, too. Why had he never treated his sisters in this way? He would do so next time he saw them. He might in time be able to stand up to his brother John, or even his father. Thus do we build castles in air when flushed with wine and conquest. The end of the honeymoon saw Mrs. Theobald the most devotedly obsequious wife in all England. According to the old saying, Theobald had killed the cat at the beginning. It had been a very little cat, a mere kitten in fact, or he might have been afraid to face it. But such as it had been he had challenged it to mortal combat, and had held up its dripping head defiantly before his wife's face. The rest had been easy. Strange that one whom I have described hitherto as so timid and easily put upon should prove such a tartar all of a sudden on the day of his marriage. Perhaps I have passed over his years of courtship too rapidly. During these he had become a tutor of his college and had at last been junior dean. I never yet knew a man whose sense of his own importance did not become adequately developed after he had held a resident fellowship for five or six years. True, immediately on arriving within a ten mile radius of his father's house, an enchantment fell upon him so that his knees waxed weak, his greatness departed, and he again felt himself like an overgrown baby under a perpetual cloud. But then he was not often at Elmhurst, and as soon as he left it the spell was taken off again. Once more he became the fellow and tutor of his college, the junior dean, the betrothed of Christina, the idol of the alibi woman kind. From all which it may be gathered that if Christina had been a Barbary hen and had ruffled her feathers in any show of resistance, Theobald would not have ventured to swagger with her. But she was not a Barbary hen. She was only a common hen, and that too with a rather small share of personal bravery that hens generally have. CHAPTER XIV Batters beyond the hill was the name of the village of which Theobald was now rector. It contained four hundred or five hundred inhabitants scattered over a rather large area and consisting entirely of farmers and agricultural laborers. The rectory was commodious and placed on the brow of a hill which gave it a delightful prospect. There was a fair sprinkling of neighbors within visiting range, but with one or two exceptions they were the clergymen and clergymen's families of the surrounding villages. By these the Pontifexes were welcomed as great acquisitions to the neighborhood. Mr. Pontifex, they said, was so clever. He had been senior classic and senior wrangler. A perfect genius, in fact, and yet with so much sound practical common sense as well. As son of such a distinguished man as the great Mr. Pontifex the publisher, he would come into a large property by and by. Was there not an elder brother? Yes, but there would be so much that Theobald would probably get something very considerable. Of course they would give dinner parties, and Mrs. Pontifex what a charming woman she was. She was certainly not exactly pretty, perhaps, but then she had such a sweet smile and her manner was so bright and winning. She was so devoted, too, to her husband and her husband to her. They really did come up to one's ideas of what lovers used to be in days of old. It was rare to meet with such a pair in these degenerate times. It was quite beautiful. Et cetera, et cetera. Such were the comments of the neighbors on the new arrivals. As for Theobald's own parishioners, the farmers were civil and the laborers and their wives obsequious. There was a little dissent, the legacy of a careless predecessor, but as Mrs. Theobald said proudly, I think Theobald may be trusted to deal with that. The church was then an interesting specimen of late Norman, with some early English editions. It was what in these days would be called in a very bad state of repair. But 40 or 50 years ago, few churches were in good repair. If there is one feature, more characteristic of the present generation than another, it is that it has been a great restorer of churches. Horace preached church restoration in his ode. Delicta majorum emeritus lus. Romaine, Donac, Templa, Refecerus. Aedesc, Leventus de Orum, et. Feoda, Negro, Simulacra, Fumo. Nothing went right with Rome for long together after the Augustan age, but whether it was because she did restore the temples or because she did not restore them, I know not. They certainly went all wrong after Constantine's time, and yet Rome is still a city of some importance. I may say here that before Theobald had been many years at Battersby, he found scope for useful work in the rebuilding of Battersby Church, which he carried out at considerable cost, towards which he subscribed liberally himself. He was his own architect, and this saved expense, but architecture was not very well understood about the year 1834, when Theobald commenced operations, and the result is not as satisfactory as it would have been if he had waited a few years longer. Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself, the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him. I may very likely be condemning myself all the time that I am writing this book, for I know that whether I like it or no, I am portraying myself more surely than I am portraying any of the characters whom I set before the reader. I am sorry that it is so, but I cannot help it. After which sop to Nemesis I will say that Battersby Church, in its amended form, has always struck me as a better portrait of Theobald than any sculptor or painter short of a great master would be able to produce. I remember staying with Theobald some six or seven months after he was married, and while the old church was still standing, I went to church and felt as Naaman must have felt on certain occasions when he had to accompany his master on returning after having been cured of his leprosy. I have carried away a more vivid recollection of this and of the people than of Theobald's sermon. Even now I can see the men in blue smocked frocks reaching to their heels and more than one old woman in a scarlet cloak. The row of stolid, dull, vacant plow boys, ungainly in build, uncomely in face, lifeless apathetic, a race a good deal more like the pre-revolution French peasant as described by Carlisle, then as pleasant to reflect upon. A race now supplanted by a smarter, comlier and more hopeful generation, which has discovered that it too has a right to as much happiness as it can get, and with clearer ideas about the best means of getting it. They shamble in one after another with steaming breath furthest winter and loud clattering of hobnail boots. They beat the snow off them as they enter and through the open door I catch a momentary glimpse of a dreary leaden sky and snow-clad tombstones. Somehow or other I find the strain which Handel has wedded to the words, there the plowman near at hand, has got into my head and there is no getting it out again. How marvelously old Handel understood these people. They bob to theobald as they pass the reading-desk. The people hereabouts are truly respectful, whispered Christina to me. They know they are betters, and take their seats in a long row against the wall. The choir clamor up into the gallery with their instruments, a violin, cello, a clarinet, and a trombone. I see them and soon I hear them, for there is a hymn before the service, a wild strain, a remnant, if I mistake not, of some pre-Reformation litany. I have heard what I believe was its remote musical progenitor in the Church of Sant'e Giovanni Epallo at Venice, not five years since. And again I have heard it far away in mid-Atlantic upon a gray sea Sabbath in June, when neither winds nor waves are stirring, so that the immigrants gather on deck, and their plaintive psalm goes forth upon the silver haze of the sky, and on the wilderness of a sea that has sighed till it can sigh no longer. Or it may be heard at some Methodist camp meeting upon a Welsh hillside, but in churches it is gone forever. If I were a musician I would take it as the subject for the Adagio in a Wesleyan symphony. Gone now are the clarinet, the violin, cello, and the trombone, wild minstrelsy, as the doleful creatures in Ezekiel, discordant, but infinitely pathetic. Gone is that scarabade stenter, that bellowing bull of Bastion, the village blacksmith. Gone is the melodious carpenter. Gone the brawny shepherd with the red hair who roared more lustily than all until they came to the words, Shepherds with your flocks abiding, when modesty covered him with confusion and compelled him to be silent, as though his own health were being drunk. They were doomed, and had a pre-sentiment of evil, even when first I saw them. But they had still a little lease of choir life remaining, and they roared out. Wicked hands have pierced and nailed him, pierced and nailed him to a tree. But no description can give a proper idea of the effect. When I was last in Batterisby Church there was a harmonium played by a sweet-looking girl with a choir of schoolchildren around her, and they chanted the canticles to the most corrective chance. And they sang hymns ancient and modern. The high pews were gone, nay the very gallery in which the old choir had sung was removed as an accursed thing which might remind the people of the high places. And Theobald was old, and Christina was lying under the yew trees in the churchyard. But in the evening later on I saw three very old men come chuckling out of a dissenting chapel, and surely enough they were my old friends, the blacksmith, the carpenter, and the shepherd. There was a look of content upon their faces which made me feel certain they had been singing. Not doubtless with the old glory of the violin cello, the clarinet, and the trombone, but still, songs of scion and no new fangled papestry. The hymn had engaged my attention. When it was over I had time to take stock of the congregation. There were chiefly farmers, fat, very well-to-do folk, who had come, some of them, with their wives and children from outlying farms two and three miles away, haters of papery and of anything which anyone might choose to say was popish. Good sensible fellows who detested theory of any kind, whose ideal was the maintenance of the status quo, with perhaps a loving reminiscence of old war times, and a sense of wrong that the weather was not more completely under their control, who desired higher prices and cheaper wages, but otherwise were most contented when things were changing least. Tolerators, if not lovers, of all that was familiar. Haters of all that was unfamiliar. They would have been equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted and at seeing it practiced. What can there be in common between the Theobald and his parishioners? said Christina to me in the course of the evening when her husband was for a few moments absent. Of course one must not complain, but I assure you it grieves me to see a man of Theobald's ability thrown away upon such a place as this. If we had only been at Gaysbury, where there are the A's, the B's, the C's and Lord D's place, as you know, quite close, I should not then have felt that we were living in such a desert. But I suppose it is for the best, she added more cheerfully. And then of course the bishop will come to us whenever he is in the neighborhood, and if we were at Gaysbury he might have gone to Lord D's. Perhaps I have now said enough to indicate the kind of place in which Theobald's lines were cast and the sort of woman he had married. As for his own habits, I see him trudging through muddy lanes and over long sweeps of plover haunted pastors to visit a dying cottageer's wife. He takes her meat and wine from his own table, and that not a little only, but liberally. According to his lights also, he administers what he is pleased to call spiritual consolation. I'm afraid I am going to hell, sir, says the sick woman with a wine. Oh, sir, save me, save me, don't let me go there. I couldn't stand it, sir. I should die with fear. The very thought of it drives me into a cold sweat all over. Mrs. Thompson says Theobald gravely, you must have faith in the precious blood of your redeemer. It is he alone who can save you. But are you sure, sir, she says, looking wistfully at him, that he will forgive me, for I have not been a very good woman. Indeed I haven't, and if God would only say yes outright with his mouth when I ask whether my sins are forgiven, but they are forgiven you, Mrs. Thompson, says Theobald with some sternness. For the same ground has been gone over a good many times already, and he has borne the unhappy woman's misgivings now for a full quarter of an hour. Then he puts a stop to the conversation by repeating prayers taken from the visitation of the sick, and overaws the poor wretch from expressing further anxiety as to her condition. Can't you tell me, sir, she exclaims piteously, as she sees that he is preparing to go away. Can't you tell me that there is no day of judgment, and that there is no such place as hell? I can do without the heavens, sir, but I cannot do with the hell. Theobald is much shocked. Mrs. Thompson, he rejoins impressively, let me implore you to suffer no doubt concerning these two cornerstones of our religion to cross your mind at a moment like the present. If there is one thing more certain than another, it is that we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and that the wicked will be consumed in a lake of everlasting fire. Doubt this, Mrs. Thompson, and you are lost. The poor woman buries her fevered head in the coverlet in a paroxysm of fear, which at last finds relief in tears. Mrs. Thompson says, Theobald, with his hand on the door, compose yourself, be calm. You must please to take my word for it that at the day of judgment your sins will all be washed white in the blood of the Lamb, Mrs. Thompson. Yay, he exclaims frantically. Though they be as scarlet, yet they shall be as white as wool. And he makes off as fast as he can from the fetid atmosphere of the cottage to the pure air outside. Oh, how thankful he is when the interview is over. He returns home, conscious that he has done his duty and administered the comforts of religion to a dying sinner. His admiring wife awaits him at the rectory and assures him that never yet was clergyman so devoted to the welfare of his flock. He believes her. He has a natural tendency to believe everything that is told him and who should know the facts of the case better than his wife. Poor fellow, he has done his best, but what does a fish's best come to when the fish is out of water? He has left meat and wine. That he can do. He will call again and will leave more meat and wine. Day after day he trudges over the same plover haunted fields and listens at the end of his walk to the same agony of forebodings which day after day he silences but does not remove till at last a merciful weakness renders the sufferer careless of her future and Theobald is satisfied that her mind is now peacefully at rest in Jesus. Chapter 16 He does not like this branch of his profession. Indeed he hates it but will not admit it to himself. The habit of not admitting things to himself has become a confirmed one with him. Nevertheless there haunts him in ill-defined sense that life would be pleasanter if there were no six sinners or if they would at any rate face an eternity of torture with more indifference. He does not feel that he is in his element. The farmers look as if they were in their element. They are full-bodied healthy and contented but between him and them there is a great gulf fixed. A hard and drawn look begins to settle about the corners of his mouth so that even if he were not in a black coat and white tie a child might know him for a parson. He knows that he is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of this more firmly but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is sadly in want of occupation. He has no taste for any of those field sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago. He does not ride nor shoot nor fish nor course nor play cricket. Study to do him justice he had never really liked and what inducement was there for him to study at Battersby. He reads neither old books nor new ones. He does not interest himself in art or science or politics but he sets his back up with some promptness if any of them show any development unfamiliar to himself. True he writes his own sermons but even his wife considers that his forte lies rather in the example of his life which is one long act of self-divotion than in his utterances from the pulpit. After breakfast he retires to his study he cuts little bits out of the bible and gums them with exquisite neatness by the side of other little bits. This he calls making a harmony of the old and new testaments. Alongside the extracts he copies in the very perfection of handwriting extracts from Meade the only man according to Theobald who really understood the book of revelation Patrick and other old divines. He works steadily at this for half an hour every morning during many years and the result is doubtless valuable. After some years have gone by he hears his children their lessons and the dally oft repeated screams that issue from the study during the lesson hour tells their own horrible story over the house. He is also taken to collecting a Hortus sickus and through the interest of his father was once mentioned in the Saturday magazine as having been the first to find a plant whose name I have forgotten in the neighborhood of Batterspey. This number of the Saturday magazine has been bound in red Morocco and is kept upon the drawing room table. He potters about his garden. If he hears a hen cackling he runs and tells Christina and straight away goes hunting for the egg. When the two miss alabies came as they sometimes did to stay with Christina they said the life led by their sister and brother-in-law was an idol. Happy indeed was Christina in her choice for that she had had a choice was a fiction which soon took root among them and happy Theobald in his Christina. Somehow or other Christina was always a little shy of cards when her sisters were staying with her though at other times she enjoyed a game of cribbage or a rubber of whisked heartily enough but her sisters knew they would never be asked to Batterspey again if they would refer to that little matter and on the whole it was worth their while to be asked to Batterspey. If Theobald's temper was rather irritable he did not vent it upon them. By nature reserved if he could have found someone to cook dinner for him he would have rather lived in a desert island than not. In his heart of hearts he held with Pope that the greatest nuisance to mankind is man or words to that effect only that women with the exception perhaps of Christina were worse yet for all this when visitors called he put a better face on it than anyone who was behind the scenes would have expected. He was quick too at introducing the names of any literary celebrities whom he had met at his father's house and soon established an all-round reputation which satisfied even Christina herself. Who so integer vitae skillarisk purist it was asked as Mr. Pontefex of Batterspey. Who so fit to be consulted if any difficulty about parish management should arise? Who such a happy mixture of the sincere unenquiring Christian and the man of the world. For so people actually called him they said he was such an admirable man of business. Certainly if he had said he would pay a sum of money at a certain time the money would be forthcoming on the appointed day and this is saying a good deal for any man. His constitutional timidity rendered him incapable of an attempt to overreach when there was the remotest chance of opposition or publicity and his correct bearing and somewhat stern expression were a great protection to him against being overreached. He never talked of money and invariably changed the subject whenever money was introduced. His expression of unutterable horror at all kinds of meanness was a sufficient guarantee that he was not mean himself. Besides he had no business transactions save of the most ordinary butcher's book and baker's book description. His tastes if he had any were as we have seen simple. He had nine hundred pounds a year and a house. The neighborhood was cheap and for some time he had no children to be a drag upon him. Who was not to be envied and if envied why then respected if Theobald was not enviable. Yet I imagine that Cristina was on the whole happier than her husband. She had not to go and visit sick parishioners and the management of her house and the keeping of her accounts afforded her as much occupation as she desired. Her principal duty was as she well said to her husband to love him honor him and keep him in good temper. To do her justice she fulfilled this duty to the uttermost of her power. It would have been better perhaps if she had not so frequently assured her husband that he was the best and wisest of mankind for no one in his little world ever dreamed of telling him anything else and it was not long before he ceased to have any doubt upon the matter. As for his temper which had become very violent at times she took care to humor it on the slightest sign of an approaching outbreak. She had early found that this was much the easiest plan. The thunder was seldom for herself. Long before her marriage even she had studied his little ways and knew how to add fuel to the fire as long as the fire seemed to want it and then to damp it judiciously down making as little smoke as possible. In money matters she was scrupulousness itself. Theobald made her a quarterly allowance for her dress. Pocket money and little charity is in presence. In these last items she was liberal in proportion to her income. Indeed she dressed with great economy and gave away whatever was over in presence or charity. Oh what a comfort it was to Theobald to reflect that he had a wife on whom he can rely never to cost him a six pence of unauthorized expenditure. Letting alone her absolute submission the perfect coincidence of her opinion with his own upon every subject and her constant assurances to him that he was right in everything which he took it into his head to say or do what a tower of strength to him was her exactness in money matters. As years went by he became as fond of his wife as it was in his nature to be of any living thing and applauded himself for having stuck to his engagement a piece of virtue of which he was now reaping the reward. Even when Christina did outrun her quarterly stipend by some 30 shillings or a couple of pounds it was always made perfectly clear to Theobald how the deficiency had arisen. There had been an unusually costly evening dress spot which was to last a long time or somebody's unexpected wedding had necessitated a more handsome present than the quarter's balance would quite allow. The excess of expenditure was always repaid in the following quarter or quarters even though it were only 10 shillings at a time. I believe however that after they had been married some 20 years Christina had fallen somewhat from her original perfection as regards money. She had got gradually in a rear during many successive quarters till she had contracted a chronic loan a sort of domestic national debt amounting to between seven and eight pounds. Theobald at length felt that a remonstrance had become imperative and took advantage of his silver wedding day to inform Christina that her indebtedness was cancelled and at the same time to beg that she would endeavor henceforth to equalize her expenditure and her income. She burst into tears of love and gratitude assured him that he was the best and most generous of men and never during the remainder of her married life was she a single shilling behind hand. Christina hated change of all sorts no less cordially than her husband. She and Theobald had nearly everything in this world that they could wish for. Why then should people desire to introduce all sorts of changes of which no one could foresee the end? Religion she was deeply convinced had long since attained its final development nor could it enter into the heart of reasonable man to conceive any faith more perfect than was inculcated by the Church of England. She could imagine no position more honorable than that of a clergyman's wife unless indeed it were a bishops. Considering his father's influence it was not at all impossible that Theobald might be a bishop someday and then would occur to her that one little flaw in the practice of the Church of England. A flaw not indeed in its doctrine but in its policy which she believed on the whole to be a mistaken one in this respect. I mean the fact that a bishop's wife does not take the rank of her husband. This had been the doing of Elizabeth who had been a bad woman of exceeding doubtful moral character and at heart a papus to the last. Perhaps people ought to have been above mere considerations of worldly dignity but the world was as it was and such things carried weight with them whether they ought to do so or no. Her influence as plain Mrs. Pontifex's wife we will say of the bishop of Winchester would no doubt be considerable. Such a character as hers could not fail to carry weight if she were ever in a sufficiently conspicuous sphere for its influence to be widely felt but as Lady Winchester or the bishopess which would sound quite nicely who could doubt her power for good would be enhanced and it would be all the nicer because if she had a daughter the daughter would not be a bishopess unless indeed she were to marry a bishop too which would not be likely. These were her thoughts upon her good days. At other times she would to do her justice have doubts whether she was in all respects as spiritually minded as she ought to be. She must press on, press on till every enemy to her salvation was surmounted and Satan himself lay bruised under her feet. It occurred to her on one of these occasions that she might steal a march over some of her contemporaries if she were to leave off eating black puddings of which whenever they had killed a pig she had hitherto partaken freely. And if she were also careful that no fowls were served at her table which had had their necks rung but only such as had their throats cut and been allowed to bleed Saint Paul and the Church of Jerusalem had insisted upon it as necessary that even Gentile converts should abstain from things strangled and from blood and they had joined this prohibition with that of a vice about the abominable nature of which there could be no question. It would be well therefore to abstain in future to see whether any noteworthy spiritual result ensued. She did abstain and was certain from that day of her resolve she had felt stronger, purer in heart and in all respects more spiritually minded than she had ever felt hitherto. Theobald did not lay so much stress on this as she did but as she settled what he should have at dinner she could take care that he got no strangled fowls. As for Black Puddings, happily he had seen them made when he was a boy and had never got over his aversion for them. She wished the matter were one of more general observance than it was. This was just a case in which as Lady Winchester she might have been able to do what as plain Mrs. Pontifex it was hopeless even to attempt. And thus this worthy couple jogged on from month to month and from year to year. The reader, if he has passed middle life and has a clerical connection, will probably remember scores and scores of rectors and rectors' wives who differed in no material respect from Theobald and Christina. Speaking from a recollection and experience extending over nearly 80 years from the time when I was myself a child in the nursery of a vicarage, I should say I had drawn the better rather than the worse side of the life of an English country parson of some 50 years ago. I admit however that there are no such people to be found nowadays. A more united or on the whole happier couple could not have been found in England. One grief only overshadowed the early years of their married life. I mean the fact that no living children were born to them. All flesh by Samuel Butler. Chapter 17. In the course of time this sorrow was removed. At the beginning of the fifth year of her married life Christina was safely delivered of a boy. This was on the 6th of September, 1835. Word was immediately sent to old Mr. Pontifex who received the news with real pleasure. His son John's wife had born daughters only and he was seriously uneasy lest there should be a failure in the male line of his descendants. The good news therefore was doubly welcome and caused as much delight at Elmhurst as dismay in Wovern Square where the John Pontifexes were then living. Here indeed this freak of fortune was felt to be all the more cruel on account of the impossibility of resenting it openly. But the delighted grandfather cared nothing for what the John Pontifexes might feel or not feel. He had wanted a grandson and he had got a grandson and this should be enough for everybody. And now that Mrs. Theobald had taken two good ways she might bring him more grandsons which would be desirable for he should not feel safe with fewer than three. He rang the bell for the butler. Gelstrap, he said solemnly, I want to go down into the cellar. Then Gelstrap proceeded him with a candle and he went into the inner vault where he kept his choicest wines. He passed many bins. There was 1803 Port, 1792 Imperial Toque, 1800 Claret, 1812 Sherry. These and many others were passed. But it was not for them that the head of the Pontifex family had gone down into his inner cellar. A bin, which had appeared empty until the full light of the candle had been brought to bear upon it, was now found to contain a single pint bottle. This was the object of Mr. Pontifex's search. Gelstrap had often pondered over this bottle. It had been placed there by Mr. Pontifex himself about a dozen years previously on his return from a visit to his friend the celebrated traveler Dr. Jones. But there was no tablet above the bin which might give a clue to the nature of its contents. On more than one occasion when his master had gone out and left his keys accidentally behind him, as he sometimes did, Gelstrap had submitted the bottle to all the tests he could venture upon. But it was so carefully sealed that wisdom remained quite shut out from that entrance at which he would have welcomed her most gladly, and indeed from all other entrances for he could make out nothing at all. And now the mystery was to be solved. But alas, it seems as though the last chance of securing even a sip of the contents was to be removed forever, for Mr. Pontifex took the bottle in his own hands and held it up to the light after carefully examining the seal. He smiled and left the bin with the bottle in his hands. Then came a catastrophe. He stumbled over an empty hamper. There was the sound of a fall, a smash of broken glass and in an instant the cellar floor was covered with the liquid that had been preserved so carefully for so many years. With his usual presence of mind Mr. Pontifex gasped out a month's warning to Gelstrap. Then he got up and stamped as Theobald had done when Christina had wanted not to order his dinner. It's water from the Jordan, he exclaimed furiously, which I have been saving for the baptism of my eldest grandson. Damn you, Gelstrap! How dare you be so infernally careless as to leave that hamper littering about the cellar! I wonder the water of the sacred stream did not stand upright as an heap upon the cellar floor and rebuke him. Gelstrap told the other servants afterward that his master's language had made his backbone curdle. The moment, however, that he heard the word water he saw his way again and flew to the pantry. Before his master had well noted his absence he returned with a little sponge and a basin and had begun sopping up the waters of the Jordan as though they had been a common slop. I'll filter it, sir, said Gelstrap meekly. It'll come quite clean. Mr. Pontifex saw hope in this suggestion, which was shortly carried out by the help of a piece of blotting paper and a funnel under his own eyes. Eventually it was found that half a pint was saved and this was held to be sufficient. Then he made preparations for a visit to Batterspey. He ordered goodly hampers of the choice of stateables. He selected a goodly hamper of choice drinkables. I say choice and not choicest, for although in his first exaltation he had selected some of his very best wine, yet on reflection he had felt that there was moderation in all things, and as he was parting with his best water from the Jordan he would only send some of his second best wine. Before he went to Batterspey he stayed a day or two in London, which he now seldom did, being over seventy years old, and having practically retired from business. The John Pontifexes, who kept a sharp eye on him, discovered to their dismay that he had had an interview with his solicitors. CHAPTER 18 For the first time in his life Theobald felt that he had done something right and could look forward to meeting his father without alarm. The old gentleman indeed had written him a most gorgeous letter, announcing his intention of standing Godfather to the boy. Nay, I may as well give it in full as it shows the writer at his best. It runs. Dear Theobald, your letter gave me very sincere pleasure, the more so because I had made up my mind for the worst. Pray accept my most hearty congratulations for my daughter-in-law and for yourself. I have long preserved a vial of water from the Jordan for the christening of my first grandson, should it please God to grant me one. It was given me by my old friend Dr. Jones. He will agree with me that though the efficacy of the sacrament does not depend upon the source of the baptismal waters. Yet, serratus paribus, there is a sentiment attaching to the waters of the Jordan which should not be despised. Small matters like this sometimes influence a child's whole future career. I shall bring my own cook and have told him to get everything ready for the christening dinner. Ask as many of your best neighbors as your table will hold. By the way, I have told the sore not to get a lobster. You had better drive over yourself and get one from Saltness. For Battersby was only fourteen or fifteen miles from the sea coast. They are better there, at least I think so, than anywhere else in England. I have put your boy down for something in the event of his attaining the age of twenty-one years. If your brother John continues to have nothing but girls, I may do more later on, but I have many claims upon me and am not as well off as you may imagine. Your affectionate father. G. Pontifex. A few days afterwards the writer of the above letter made his appearance in a fly which had brought him from Gildenham to Battersby, a distance of fourteen miles. There was Le Sur, the cook, on the box with the driver, and as many hampers as the fly could carry were disposed upon the roof and elsewhere. Next day the John Pontifexes had to come, and Eliza and Maria as well as Elithia, who by her own special request was godmother to the boy. For Mr. Pontifex had decided that they were to form a happy family party. So come they all must, and be happy they all must, or it would be the worst for them. Next day the author of all this hubbub was actually christened. Theobald had proposed to call him George, after old Mr. Pontifex, but strange to say, Mr. Pontifex overruled him in favor of the name Ernest. The word Ernest was just beginning to come into fashion, and he thought the possession of such a name might, like his having been baptized in water from the Jordan, have a permanent effect upon the boy's character, and influence him for good during the more critical periods of his life. I was asked to be his second godfather, and was rejoiced to have an opportunity of meeting Elithia, whom I had not seen for some few years, but with whom I had been in constant correspondence. She and I had always been friends from the time we had played together as children onwards. When the death of her grandfather and grandmother severed her connection with Palahem, my intimacy with the Pontifexes was kept up by my having been at school and college with Theobald, and each time I saw her I admired her more and more, as the best, kindest, wittiest, most lovable, and to my mind, handsomest woman whom I had ever seen. None of the Pontifexes were deficient in good looks. They were a well-grown shapely family enough, but Elithia was the flower of the flock even as regards good looks, while in respect of all other qualities that make a woman lovable, it seems as though the stock that had been intended for the three daughters, and would have been about sufficient for them, had all been allotted to herself, her sisters getting none, and she all. It is impossible for me to explain how it was that she and I never married. We two knew exceedingly well, and that must suffice for the reader. There was the most perfect sympathy and understanding between us. We knew that neither of us would marry anyone else. I had asked her to marry me a dozen times over. Having said this much, I will say no more upon a point which is in no way necessary for the development of my story. For the last few years there had been difficulties in the way of our meeting, and I had not seen her, though, as I have said, keeping up a close correspondence with her. Naturally I was overjoyed to meet her again. She was now just thirty years old, but I thought she looked handsomer than ever. Her father, of course, was the lion of the party. But seeing that we were all meek and quite willing to be eaten, he roared to us, rather than at us. It was a fine sight to see him tucking his napkin under his rosy old gills, and letting it fall over his capacious waistcoat, while the highlight from the chandelier danced about the bump of benevolence on his bald old head, like a star of Bethlehem. The soup was real turtle. The old gentleman was evidently well pleased, and he was beginning to come out. Gilstrap stood behind his master's chair. I sat next to Mrs. Theobald on her left hand, and was thus just opposite her father-in-law, whom I had every opportunity of observing. During the first ten minutes or so, which were taken up with the soup and the bringing in of the fish, I should probably have thought, if I had not long since made up my mind about him, what a fine old man he was, and how proud his children should be of him. But suddenly, as he was helping himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson. A look of extreme vexation suffused his face, and he darted two furtive but fiery glances to the two ends of the table. One for Theobald, and one for Christina. They, poor simple souls, of course, saw that something was exceedingly wrong, and so did I, but I couldn't guess what it was till I heard the old man hiss in Christina's ear. It was not made with a hen lobster. What's the use, he continued, of my calling the boy earnest and getting him christened in water from the Jordan if its own father does not know a cock from a hen lobster. This cut me too, for I felt till that moment I had not so much as known that there were cocks and hens among lobsters, but had vaguely thought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as the angels in heaven, and grew up almost spontaneously from rocks and seaweed. Before the next course was over Mr. Pontifex had recovered his temper, and from that time to the end of the evening he was at his best. He told us all about the water from the Jordan, how it had been brought by Dr. Jones, along with some stone jars of water from the Rhine, the Rhone, the Elbe, and the Danube, and what trouble he had with them at the customs houses, and how the intention had been to make punch with waters from all the greatest rivers in Europe, and how he, Mr. Pontifex, had saved the Jordan water from going into the bowl, etc., etc. No, no, no, he continued. It wouldn't have done it all, you know. Very profane idea. So we each took a pint bottle of it home with us, and the punch was much better without it. I had a narrow escape with mine, though, the other day. I fell over a hamper in the cellar when I was getting it up to bring to Battersby, and if I had not taken the greatest care the bottle would certainly have been broken. But I saved it. And Gellstrap was standing behind his chair all the time. Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr. Pontifex, so we had a delightful evening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after-career of my godson. I called a day or two afterwards and found Mr. Pontifex still at Battersby, laid up with one of those attacks of liver and depression to which he was becoming more and more subject. I stayed to luncheon. The old gentleman was cross and very difficult. He could eat nothing, had no appetite at all. Christina tried to coax him with a little bit of the fleshy part of a mutton chop. How in the name of reason can I be asked to eat a mutton chop, he exclaimed angrily. You forget, my dear Christina, that you have to deal with a stomach that is totally disorganized. And he pushed the plate from him, pouting and frowning like a naughty old child. Writing as I do by the light of a later knowledge, I suppose I should have seen nothing in this but the world's growing pains, the disturbance inseparable from transition in human things. I suppose, in reality, not a leaf goes yellow in autumn without ceasing to care about its sap and making the parent tree very uncomfortable by long growling and grumbling. But surely nature might find some less irritating way of carrying on business if she would give her mind to it. Why should the generations overlap one another at all? Why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat little cells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in Bank of England notes and wake up as this fexwas does to find its papa and mama have not only left ample provision at its elbow, but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before it began to live consciously on its own account. About a year and a half afterwards the tables were turned on Batters B, for Mrs. John Pontifex was safely delivered of a boy. A year or so later still, George Pontifex was himself struck down suddenly by a fit of paralysis much as his mother had been, but he did not see the years of his mother. When his will was opened it was found that an original bequest of twenty thousand pounds to Theobald himself, over and above the sum that had been settled upon him in Christina at the time of his marriage, had been cut down to seventeen thousand five hundred pounds when Mr. Pontifex left something to earnest. The something proved to be twenty five hundred pounds, which was to accumulate in the hands of trustees. The rest of the property went to John Pontifex, except that each of the daughters was left with about fifteen thousand pounds over and above five thousand pounds apiece which they had inherited from their mother. Theobald's father then had told him the truth, but not the whole truth. Nevertheless, what right had Theobald to complain? Certainly it was rather hard to make him think that he and his were to be gainers and get the honor and glory of the bequest when all the time the money was virtually being taken out of Theobald's own pocket. On the other hand, the father doubtless argued that he had never told Theobald he was to have anything at all. He had a full right to do what he liked with his own money. Theobald chose to indulge in unwarrantable expectations. That was no affair of his. As it was, he was providing for him liberally. And if he did take twenty five hundred pounds of Theobald's share, he was still leaving it to Theobald's son, which of course was much the same thing in the end. No one can deny that the testitor has stripped right upon his side. Nevertheless the reader will agree with me that Theobald and Christina might not have considered the christening dinner so great a success if all the facts had been before them. Mr. Pontifax had during his own lifetime set up a monument in Elmhurst Church to the memory of his wife, a slab with urns and cherubs like illegitimate children of King George IV and all the rest of it, and had left space for his own epitaph underneath that of his wife. I do not know whether it was written by one of his children or whether they got some friend to write it for them. I do not believe that any satire was intended. I believe that it was the intention to convey that nothing short of the day of judgment could give anyone an idea of how good a man Mr. Pontifax had been. But at first I found it hard to think that it was free from guile. The epitaph begins by giving dates of birth and death, then sets out that the deceased was for many years head of the firm of Fairleigh and Pontifax, and also resident in the parish of Elmhurst. There is not a syllable of either praise or dispraise. The last lines run as follows. He now lies awaiting a joyful resurrection at the last day. What manner of man he was that day will discover.