been gay with fuchsias, roses and bee-hives. Selfreliance was vanishing and the men found comfort in beer, relief from responsibility in the poorhouse. In spite of the merry-maid the pilchards were often capricious, and even the farmers would suffer from the failure of this ocean harvest. And now thanks to increased vigilance and the French War, smuggling was under a cloud; so that there would hardly be found a cottage in West Cornwall that was not more or less dependent on parish doles. But in the free-trade, as smuggling was called, great numbers were still employed, though a man could hardly earn ten shillings for a night's work as was common even ten years before. Wrecks, too, were unquestioned providences, and though their bounty was capriciously distributed, a stormy winter made a large difference to fishermen's, farmers' and cottagers' comforts. In this particular autumn things were worse than ever before, and the children, to save them from starvation, would be driven like sheep into the poorhouses; and the smaller towns were burdened with pauper apprentices legally forced upon them by the Guardians.1 So Mr. Hoblyn was hated and feared and cringed to by peasantry and fisher-folk alike, whom the new prosperity was driving into drink and pauperism. 1 Vide Appendix C. ΟΝ CHAPTER III THE NORTH DOOR N the following Sunday, St. Neot's had a larger congregation than was ever seen, save at Christmas and Easter. For the nineteen children were gathered there, with Watchman for their consolation. Most of them were so recently come from the poorhouse, where rough usage held them in subjection, that they shrank from human-kind. It was because of this that Mr. Trevenna must gather them into the fold and banish fear by baptism. In St. Neot's, as in some other old churches, the proximity of the font to a North Door was all-important. During baptism it would stand wide to make easy the Evil One's departure from the little child of wrath to his northern abode of cold and darkness. Mr. Trevenna, when interrogated on the queer superstition, would, with his cryptic smile, evade the question as one touching spiritual things and so not to be reasoned upon. But Simon Muggetty knew all about it, and would wonder where you'd been raised if ye didn't know as how all suiciders, an' unchristened folk, an' Jezebels, an' cut-throats, was buried on the north side of the church? 1 Set 'ee down by thicky moorstone cross, sir, an' I'll tell 'ee." Then if you obeyed, this autocrat of the churchyard would chant in his high-pitched and quavering old voice this verse: 1 Vide Appendix D. "With a hangman's halter he bridles his bride, And jumps 'pon her neck, heels gruppin' her side: The children were squatting upon the bare and spotlessly scrubbed slate floor of the little chancel. Aunt Temperance and Captain Kellinack, with two of their sons, were present, and Genny, forsaking her adoptive mother, joined her nineteen companions in adversity. There were possibly other worshippers besides these; for if the half-dozen sheep which the parson kept-not for meat but for wool and for enjoyment of the life given by their Creator along with the cattle upon a thousand hills-chose to wander in at the broken wall of the nave, who was he that he should stay them? Besides these, the owls were always spectators, if not worshippers, and the people reverently called them Parson's cherubim. Thus, again to quote Captain Simon : " 'Here woolly sheep du baa their prayers, Red robins peck up holy crumbs, An' piskies come hoppin' from crannies an' crinks. In the eastern wall of the chancel stood the little table of rough-hewn oak with a home-spun linen cloth covering it. Above, with three little round-arch windows on each side, was the crucifix, upon which the children all gazed with wonder until their shepherd, in dark-blue homespun cassock, took his seat on the left of the table behind a virginal. Well aware that the Bible phrases were so familiar to these starvelings that they probably meant nothing, and would be reminiscent of poorhouse discipline, Mr. Trevenna soon had the twenty hearts beating in a new way. The virginal's singing sweetness has been long forgotten; but Mr. Trevenna would compel its wires to fling into the simplest airs a sense of upliftingness. Thus the well-known folk-music became sacred and fit preparation for baptism. Aunt Temperance Kellinack sat and beamed largely upon the little company. Martha, because of the children and the baptism, must for this once forsake her chapel and face the Popish mermaid and the giant St. Christopher. Nor was she scandalized by what followed, until she reconsidered it in her kitchen. Genny, sitting in front and getting more and more restless, at last jumped up, and wriggling herself free of her neighbours, began to dance. Mistress Kellinack snatched at and pulled her back, and the child earned a smart smack for her wilfulness. Nothing daunted, she got free, and now as the parson opened his eyes and smiled upon the erratic child, no one hindered her. Her arms rhythmically waved with the music, as she turned round and round, sometimes giving a tiny leap. The music caught the little thing and danced with her, like a lark up for first mounting to greet the sun. But, catching the stony glare of Aunt Martha, self-consciousness seized upon her, her wings collapsed and she ran to Aunt Temperance's lap. Then Mr. Trevenna set the North Door open and took the children to the font one by one. With each child kneeling and facing the bright day, he sprinkled water upon the face, made the sign of the Cross upon the forehead, gave them their own name, and whispering the words," In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he flung his hands towards the door, as if casting out for ever the ancient evil.1 So, one by one, the ritual varied by special words of encouragement, even by playful appeal-there was no need for haste-he baptized them, taking each back to the chancel through the carved and painted yet halfruinous screen until all had been welcomed into the Church Militant-all save Genny. Mistress Kellinack, conscience-stricken that she had not hitherto troubled about the little half-wit's soul, brought her to the font fast asleep. 1 Vide Appendix E. "Little Gennifer!" said the clergyman, speaking low as if to the child alone. Perchance, being a halfwit, you have escaped the curse? Perchance the apple will never tempt you to find salvation through its tender skin? Yet you must be one with us all, body and soul. So I baptize you." As Mr. Trevenna took her into his arms, she awoke and looked over his shoulder. At that moment some shadow darkened the place and she screamed. Mr. Trevenna turned as the child gripped him fiercely with arms and legs, and buried her face in his shoulder. Overseer Hoblyn stood in the North Door, with a wide and mirthless smile, and his right arm hanging in a kerchief sling. "No one enters my church by that door, Mr. Hoblyn," said Mr. Trevenna in indignant accents, "and he that goes forth thereby, goes at his soul's peril ! ” He stepped forward, reached up his hand and laid it upon the man's chest, who stood. "I want my children, Parson Christopher," said the overseer insolently, lifting his heavy oak stick in his left hand, as if suggesting the legal powers he represented. But he let it rest on the lintel of the door. "Get you forth, Daniel Hoblyn; and when we have comforted this little one you have offended-the millstone for your neck is already prepared !—I will inquire of your claim to these children." But the overseer shouldered his way in through the narrow door, and it closed behind him with a clang. He laid hand upon Genny's arm, and she again uttered a piercing scream. "Absede a me, Satana!" called out the reverend gentleman, in a burst of indignation, as he dipped into the holy water and flung it in the offender's face. 'Adorabis Dominum tuum et eum solum coles !" Hoblyn's red face changed to a yellow grey, as if words of black magic had been pronounced. He turned again to the North Door, but |