aroma. Does one open a primrose eye, staring in yellow wonder? 'Tis I who come awake! Does one roar through the night's silences? 'Tis I whose soft cubs have empty stomachs awaiting my return! Does one suffer the stress of storm-wind upon his cone-tasselled boughs? 'Tis I who yield and rebound, made stronger in the trial of my weakness! Does one see the pines on the mountain-ridge sudden lit with gold by the risen sun? It is I who break into flame! You remember Lucretius' lines: At saepe in magnis fit montibus,' inquis, ut altis inter se, validis facere id cogentibus austris 'For these and I are all angelic: I come awake with them into the eternal renewal of spring. "Then I asked these angelic forms where I should find one who should have been with me, knowing that her dear heart-being stronger than any of these because she was overcoming what they had never known, namely, the sin of the created world and death -must inhabit this land of vision. Yet they gave me no answer save their songs and dancings. Then I knew the light of this land-being the light of the coming-to-be and not yet of the victory won—could not help me to find her. She waited beyond. "Then I found myself again-my imprisoned self! and that friend of my Oxford days, your uncle. The storm was moving away and as we came in sight of St. Neot's, looking down upon it and my Mullinstow Haven below, the church's beauty, standing out on 1" But it often happens in the high mountains, you say, that the adjacent tip-tops of the trees are driven by strong west winds to rub against one another until they flash forth in bursting flowers of flame."-Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Bk. I. 897-900. its promontory grey and black against the blue sea, was one for adoration. For its own note of perishingness rang out, clear as its bell, and told me of the Resurrection and of Him whose word shall never pass away." CHAPTER XXXIX SIMON MUGGETTY'S MERMAID AND THE ARCH YET DEACON ET Mr. Trevenna was all this time passing through stormy waters. His own attempt to expose England's most lucrative sin had failed, though he had been to its very source and knew the fullness of its horrors. Satan had worsted him-unless, indeed, the beloved lady was devising means to inform Mr. Pitt, or some other power in the land, of the infamies done in the cotton mills. But her burned hand was still painful and she was able to write but little. Although he fully realized the cause, this loss of intimate touch with her in whose life he had found his own, held him often, and for long hours and days, subdued and abstracted. Of that anguish which drives the sufferer to wrestle in prayer, those, who have not like experience, dare conjecture nothing. Suffice it to say that this man was not different from other passionate saints and sinners who do thus assail the Source of Life. Yet such was the healthy resilience of his nature that he greatly enjoyed, if with more of passivity than was his wont, the visit of the Archdeacon, whose interest in and condescending gentleness with Martha greatly perturbed her non-conforming faith. For she cherished thereafter the conviction that his was a soul, not to be plucked from the burning-so proper an' mighty did he set upon his seat waitin' for his castin' down. Yet even Mr. Trevenna could not rescue his friend from the academic mire for more than a few hours together. So hopelessly correct was Dr. Fakenham; so firm was his belief that the High Church Party, the British Constitution, especially as interpreted by the Whigs, the older aristocracy and the bench of judges, were divinely ordained; that he would never again glory in an Easter sunrise or a lark's song or a fisher-lad's strength quite as he had done in the Oxford days. And yet this renewed intimacy with his old friend had brought a certain conflict of conclusions to the Archdeacon. He was constrained to admit that the fisher-folk might be, as his friend averred, the backbone of England. He even conceded that if her Throne was the emblem of Liberty, then the press-gang, the import duties, the vindictive criminal code, denied to the poor the very privileges they could claim as birthright. But against such admissions stood the revolting and barbarous superstitions that seemed part and parcel of their religion. He held mouth tightly closed and eyes turned upwards-to the cobwebs rather than to the sky, thought Mr. Trevenna!— whenever his host argued the innocence of a belief in piskies and mermaids, or even claimed its desirability in so far as it kept supple and elastic their bondage to material things. But the Archdeacon's occasional quick glance downwards at his friend during such enthusiastic talk gave evidence of his interest; and it signified much. The great man was determined to fathom for himself the depravity of this prevailing superstition, though he was reluctant to seek opportunity: it would be conceding an unwarrantable importance to ribald survivals of a bygone paganism, and his pride made him shy. But on Easter morning came his opportunity. Strolling out, as was his custom, before breakfast, he met old Simon and recognized him as the sexton. He was carrying up to the church a great branch of snowy-blossoming blackthorn, and explained, on inquiry, that "Parson du say as thicky must a' been what they soadgers plaited up the crown of, what they clapped 'pon Lord Jesus's head: an' now, come Easter, 'tis blazin' out with li'l stars. 'Tedn' surprisin'!' The Archdeacon had slowed his pace to the old man's. He offered no comment was he thinking that such loose comment on sacred things should not be permitted, or that it was part and parcel of the ribald sanctification of mermaids? But here was his lead for probing the ignorant mind. "You, my man," he said, "holding humble office in the Church's precincts, do not, I am sure, share the vulgar belief in fairies? "Please? but I seen one run athurt my path thicky very mornin', as I come out the cottage door; an' lucky, too, for 'tis my chickens her was after." Now in Cornwall the word fairy means stoat, so that question and answer were at fault. The Archdeacon thought the old man was impudent; so his voice held a note of offence, as he inquired further: Well, well, my man: but I am sure you won't go so far as to assure me you have ever seen a mermaid?' "The only time I seen a live merry-maid, sir, I wahn't nothin' to she," answered the sexton with a sigh, "nothin' to she! Mostly they don't come nigh enough to be seen without there's narra man nigh enough to squinney un, sure. But thicky merry-maid, her comed up to rocks and was crouging 1 an' flopping 'long on her tail faster than ye'd a' thoft she could du without getting scratched on the mussels an' coggans." 'Thicky's the merry-maiden for Simon Muggetty! saith I. But so soon's I comed up, her lost her footingtailing I s'pose she'd a' said and she skittered plop into a pool o' seaweed an' blood-suckers, though the 1 Shuffling. • Limpets. • Anemonies. U |