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Corneling seemed fortified, and no more was said. For a long time after that day he did not see Joshua, and before the next year was out a son and heir was born to the Fellmers. The villagers rang the three bells every evening for a week and more, and were made merry by Mr, Fellmer’s ale; and when the christening came on Joshua paid Narrobourne another visit.

Among all the people who assembled on that day the brother clergymen were the least interested, Their minds were haunted by a spirit in kerseymere, In the evening they walked together in the fields.

" She’s all right,” said Joshua, “ But here are you doing journey-work, Cornelins, and likely to continue at it till the end of the day, as far as I can see, I, too, with my petty living—what am I, after all?...To tell the truth, the Church is a poor forlorn hope for people without influence, particularly when their enthusiasm begins to flag. A social regenerator has a better chance outside, where he is unhampered by dogma and tradition. As for me, I would rather have gone on mending mills, with my crust of bread and liberty.”

Almost automatically they had bent their steps along the margin of the river; they now paused. They were standing on the brink of the well-known wear, There were the hatches, there was the culvert; they could see the pebbly bed of the stream through the pellucid water. The notes of the church- bells were audible, still jangled by the enthusiastic villagers.

“It was there I hid his watking-stick,” said Joshua, looking towards the sedge. The next moment, during a passing breeze, something flashed white on the spot they regarded.

From the sedge rose a straight little ailver-poplar,