■ 1 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TIT n, MONKS OF THELEMA 1 fTolicI r-Y WALTER BESANT and JAMES RICE AUTHORS OF •' READY-MONEY MORTIBOY," " THE GOLDEK BUTTERFLY," "bYCELIA's ARBCIE,' "this son of VULCAN," " MY LITTLE GIRL," "tIIR CASE O? UR. LUCRAFT," " WITH HARP AND CROWN," ETC /I N E IV EDITION H tltJ n CIIATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY PK THE MONKS OF THELEMA. CHAPTER I. " Here dwell no frowns nor anger ; from these gates Sorrow flies afar." Two novices are waiting for the cei'emony of reception. They have been placed side by side upon a seat at the loAver end of the great hall, and have been enjoined to wait in silent medi- tation. The low seat perhaps typifies the stool of repent- ance ; but until the reception is over one hardly likes to speculate on the meaning of things. One of the novices is a man, and the other a girl. Two by two the fraternity have entered into this ark ; and two by two they go out of it. So much only is known to the outer world. The man is about thirty yeai's of age, with bright eyes, and smooth-shaven chin and cheek. If the light was better, you would make out that he has a humorous twinkle in his eyes, and that his lips, which are thin, have got a trick of smiling at nothing — at the memory, the anticipation, the mere imagined umbra of a good thing. This kind of second sight is useful for keeping the spirits at a uni- form temperature, a simmering rather than a bubbling of cheer- fulness. The unhappy people who have it not are melancholy in solitude, rush into any kind of company, often take to drink, commit atrocious crimes while drunk, and hang themselves in prison. Mr. Roger Exton will never, it is very certain, come to this melancholy end. He is extremely thin, and rather tall ; also his face is brown, of that colour which comes of long residence in hot climates. In fact Mr. Exton has but recently returned from Assam, where he has made a fortune — which we hope is ;■, large one — some say by tea, or, according to another school of thinkers, by indigo. The question, still unsettled, be- longa to t:ioso open coutroverbies, like the authorship of 2 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Junius," or the identity of the " Claimant," which vex tha souls of historians and tap-room orators. The only other re- markable points about this novice were that his hair was quito straight, and that, although he was yet, as I have said, not much more than thirty, the corners of his eyes were already provided with a curious and multitudinous collection of crows'-feet, the puckers, lines, spiders' webs and map-like rills of which lent his face an incongruous expression, partly of surprise, partly of humour, partly of ci-aft and subtlety. The rapid years of modern life, though his had been spent in' the quiet of the North-west Provinces, had in his case, instead of tearing the hair off temples and top, or making him prematurely grey, as happens to some shepherds, marked him in this singular fashion. The reasons why you cannot see things as clearly as I have described them are that it is past nine o'clock on an evening in July ; that the hall is lighted chiefly by upper windows which form a sort of clerestory ; that most of the glass is painted ; that what amber twilight of a summer evening can get in is caught in the black depths of a fifteenth-century roof, across which stretches a whole forest of timber, a marvel of in- tricate beams ; or falls upon tapestry, carpets, and the dull canvas of portraits which sv/aliow it all up. In the east, behind the pair v/ho wait, is a rose window emblazoned with the arms and crest, repeated in every light, of the great House of Dunlop. Looking straight before them, the expectants could make out nothing at all except black shadows, which might mean instruments of torture. Half way up the wall there ran a rov/ of tiny gas-jets, which had been lighted, but were now turned down to little points of blue flame, pretty to look at, but of no value as illuminators. Over their heads was an organ-loft, in which sat a musician playing some soft and melodious sort of prelude. Of course there were lights in the organ-loft ; but there was a curtain behind him, while in front the organ, cased in black v/oodwork of the last century, rich with precious carvings, was capable of absorbing, without reflection, all the light, whether from candles, gas, oxyhydrogcn, electricity, or magnesium wire, which modern science might bring to play upon it. So that no good came out of the organ-loft lights. The minutes passed by, but no one came to relieve their meditation and suspense. The soft music, the great dark hall, the strange light in the painted glass, the row of tiny gas-jets, the novelty of the situation, produced a feeling as if they were in a church where the organist's mind was running upon secular things, or else on the stage at the opera waiting for the proces- sion to begin. An odd feeling— such a feeling as must have THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 3 passed over the minds of a City congregation two centuries and a half ago, when their Puritan ministers took for Church uso the tunes which once dehghted a court, and therefore belonged to the Devil. The girl heaved a sigh of suspense, and her companion, who had all this time looked straight before him without daring to break upon the silence, or to look at his partner in this momen- tous ceremony, looked round. This is what he would have seen had the light been stronger ; as it was, the poor man had to content himself with a harmony in twilight. She wore, being a young lady who paid the very greatest attention to the subject of dress, as every young lady, outside Girton and Merton, ever should do, some sweet-looking light evening dress, all cloudy with lace and trimmings, set about with every kind of needlework art, looped up, tied round, and adorned in the quaint and pretty fashion of the very last year of grace, eighteen hundred and seventy-five. She wore a moss- rose in her dark hair, and had a simple gold locket hanging round her neck by a light Indian chain. She is tall, and, as is evident from the pose of her figure, she is gracicuse ; she is shapely of limb, as you can see from the white arm which gleams in the twihght ; she has delicately-cut features, in which the lips, as mobile as the tiny wavelets of a brook, dimple and curve at every passing emotion, like the pale lights of an electric battery ; her eyes do most of her talking, and show all her moods— no hypocritical eyes are these — eyes which laugh and cry, are indignant, sorry, petulant, saucy, and pitiful, not in obedience to the will of their mistress whom they betraj', but in accordance with some secret compact made with her heart. Give her a clear-cut nose, rather short than long ; a dainty little coral of an ear, a chin rather pointed, and an oval face — you have, as a whole, a girl who in her face, her figure, the grace of her bearing, would pass for a French girl, and who yet in language and ideas was English. Her godfather called her Eleanor, which proved much too stately a name for her, and so her friends always call her Nelly. Her father, v/hile he breathed these upper airs, was a soldier, and his name was Colonel Despard. Taking courage from the sigh, Roger Exton tried to begin a little conversation. " They keep us waiting an unconscionable time," be said. *' Are you not tired ?" " This is the half -hour for meditation," she replied gravely, " You ought to be meditating." " I am," he said, suppressing a strong desire to yawn. " I am meditating." 1-2 4 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Thon please do not interrupt my meditations," she answered, •with a little light of mischief in her eyes. So he "was silent again for a space. " Do you happen to kno-\v," the man began again — men are always so impatient — " Do you happen to know what they will do to us in the ceremony of reception ?" " Tom — I mean Mr. Caledon, refused to tell me anything about it when I asked him." " I hope," he said, fidgeting about, " that there will be no Masonic nonsense ; if there is, I shall go back to the world." " I presume," she said, " though I do not know anything about it, really — but I expect that the Sisters will give us the kiss of fraternity, and that " " If," he interrupted her — " If we have only got to kiss each other, it would be a ceremony much tov* simple to need all this mystery. After all, most mysteries wrap up something very elementary. They say the IMasons have got nothing to give you but a word and a grip. Tlie kiss of fraternity — that will be very charming." He looked as if he thought they might begin at once, before the others came ; but the girl made no reply: and just then the organ, which had dropped into a low whisper of melodious sound, which was rolling and rumbling among the rafters in the roof over their heads, suddenly crashed into a triumphant march. At the same moment, the long row of starlike flame-dots sprang into a brilliant illumination : the double doors at the lower end of the hall, at the side opposite to that where was placed the stool of repentance, were tlung open, and a procession began, at the appearance of which both novices sprang to their feet, as if they were in a church. And then, too, the hall became visible, with all its adorn- ments. It was a grand old hall which had once belonged to the original Abbey which Henry VIII. presented to the Dunlopwho graced his reign. It was as large as the hall of Hampton Court ; it was lit by a row of windows high up, beneath which hung tapestry, by a large rose window in the east, and a great per- pendicular window in the west. There was a gallery below the rose, and the organ was in a recess of pratique in the wall at the lower end. Along the wall, at the upper, or western, end, was a row of stalls in carved Avoodwork ; the wood was old, but the stalls were new. There were twenty in all, and over each hung a silken banner with a coat of arms. Each was approached by three steps, and each, with its canopy of carved wood, its seat and arms in carved wood, the gay banner above it, and the coat of arms painted and gilded at the back, might have scr^'Otl for the Royal Chapel at Windsor. Between the windows and sbpye THE MONKS OF THKLEMA. 5 the tapestry were trr)p!iies of arms, with antlers, and portraits. And on the north side stood the great fireplace, sunk back six feet and more in the wall ; around it were more wood carvings, with shields, bunches of grapes, coats of arms in gold and purple, pilasters and pediments, a very precious piece of carving. There Vt'as a dais along the western end ; on this stood a throne, fitted with a canopy, and overlaid with purple velvet fringed with gold, On the right and loft of the throne stood two chairs in crimson velvet, before each a table ; and on one table were books. In the centre of the hall Avas another table covered with crimson velvet, in front of which was a long cushion as if for kneeling. In front of the candidates for reception was a bar covered with velvet of the same colour. The novices took in these arrangements with hasty eyes, and then turned to the procession, which began to file slowly and with fitting solemnity over the polished floor of the long hall. The organ pealed out the march from " Scipio." " I haven't heard that," said the man, " since I was at Win- chester ; they used to play it when the judges came to church." First there walked a row, in double file, of boys clad in purple surplices, with crimson hoods ; they carried flowers in baskets. After them came twenty young men in long blue robes, tied round the waist with scarlet ropes ; they carried books, which might have been music-books, and these were singing-men and serving-men. After them, at due intervals, came the Brethren and Sisters of the monastery. There were eighteen iu all, and they walked two by two, every Brother leading a Sister by the hand. The Sisters were dressed in white, and wore hoods ; but the white dresses were of satin, decorated with all the splendours that needle and thimble can bestow, and the hoods were of crimson, hanging about their necks something like the scarlet hood of a Doctor of Divinity. If the white satin and the crimson hood were worn in obedience to the sumptuarjr customs of the Order, no sumptuary law pro- hibited such other decorations as might suggest themselves to the taste of the wearer. And there were such things in adorn- ment as would require the pen of a poetical AVorth to portray. For some wore diamond sprays, and some ruby necklaces, and others bracelets bright with the furtive smile of opals ; and there were flowers in their hair and in their dresses — long ropes of flowers trailing like living serpents over the contours of their figures, and adown the long train which a page carried for each. As the two novices gazed, there was a gleaming of white arms, and a brightness of sparkling eyes, an overshadowing sense of beauty, as if Venus Victrix for once was showing all that could be shown in grace and loyeliuess, which made tjie brain of one 6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. of those novices to reel, and his feet to stagger ; and the eyes of the other to dilate with longing and wonder. " It is too beautiful," she murmvired. " See, there is Tom, and he leads Miranda." They were all young and all beautiful, these nine women, except one, who was neither young nor beautiful. She w^as certainly past forty, and raight have been past fifty ; she was portly in figure ; she was dressed more simply than the rest of her Sisters, and she walked with an assumption of stately dig- nity ; but her face was comely still and sweet in expression, though yeai's had effaced the beauty of its lines. The Brother who led her — a young man who had a long silky brown beard and blue ej-es — wore a grave and pre-occupied look, as if he was going to take a prominent part in the function, and was not certain of his part. All the Brethren were j^oung, none certainly over thirty ; they were dressed alike in black velvet, of a fashion never seen except perhaps on the stage ; and they, too, v/ore crimson hoods, and a cord of crimson round the waist. Last came the Lady Abbess— the Miranda of whom the novice had spoken. She was young, not more than one or two and twenty ; she wore the white satin and the crimson hood, and in addition, she carried a heavy gold chain around her neck, with a jewel hanging from it on her bosom. She, too, by virtue of her office, advanced with much gravity and even solemnity, led by her cavalier. Two pages bore her train, and she was the last in the procession. The doors closed behind her, and a stalwart man clad in white leather and crimson sash stood before the door, sword in hand, as if to guard the meeting from interruption. The Brethren and Sisters proceeded to their respective stalls ; the elder Sister was led to the table on the right of the throne, the Brother who conducted her took his place at that on the left ; two stewards ranged themselves beside the two tables, and took up white wands of office ; the boys laid their flowers at the feet of every Sister, and then fell into place in rows below the stalls, while the Lady IMiranda, led by that Brother whom the novice irreverently called Tom, mounted the throne and looked around. Then she touched a bell, and the armed janitor laying down his sword, struck a gong once. The echoes of the gong went rolling and booming among the rafters of the roof, and had not died away before the organ once more began. It was the opening hymn appointed to be sung on the reception oi a pair of novices. " You who would take our simple vows, Which I'ause no sorrow after, I5ring with you to tliis holy house, Jfo gillS; but joy and laiigute?. THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA, 7 " Oiitsiiie tlie grate, ^vlievc ^vorlillings wdt, Leave envies, cares, and malice. And at our feast, with kindly breast, Prink love from wisdom's chalice. "Ko lying face, no scandal base. No wliispering tonn^ue is found here} But maid and swain with golden cha'n Of kindliness are bound here. •* To charm with mirth, with wit and worth, My Sister, is thy duty ; Bring thou thy share of this good fare, ,Set round with grace and beauty. "And thine, O Brother? Ask thy heart lis best response to render ; And in the fray of wit and play. And in the throng of dance and song, Or wlien we walk in sober talk, No borrower be, but lender. "Stay, both, or go : free a.ve ye still. So that ye rest contented ; No iSister stays against her will, Though none goes unlamented. •'And, last, to sliow where here below True wisdom's only ease is. Read evermore, above our door, 'Here each does what he pleases.' " The first four lines were sung as a solo by a sweet-voiced boy— the first treble, in fact, in the Cathedral choir three or four miles away. The rest was sung as a four-part song by the full choir, which was largely recruited from the Cathedral, not altogether with the sanction of the chapter. But receptions Ti'ere rare. When the organ began its prelude, two of the attendants with white wands advanced side by side and bowed before the novices, inviting them to step forward. The man, whose face betokened entire approval so far of the ceremo-nies, offered his hand to the girl, and with as much dignity as plain evening dress allows, which was, he felt, nothing compared with the dignity conferred by the costume of the Brothers, led the new Sister within the bar to the place indicated by the stewards, namely, the small altar-like table. Then they listened while the choir sang the hymn. The Brothers and Sisters were standing each in their stall ; the Lady Superior was standing under her canopy. It was like a religious ceremony. When the last notes died away, the Lady Superior spoke Eof tly, addressing the Brother at the lovs^ table on her left. '* Our orator," she said, " will charge the novices," 8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. The Brother, who was the man with the blue eyes and brown beard, bowed, and stepped to the right of the throne. " Brethren and Sisters," said the Lady Abbess, " be seated." " It is our duty," began the orator, " at the reception of every new novice, to set forth the reasons for our existence and the apology for our rites. Listen. We were founded four hundred years ago by a monk of great celebrity and renown. Brother Jean des Entommeures. The code of laws which he laid down for the newly established Order of Thelemites is still main- tained among us, with certain small deviations, due to change in fashion, not in principle. In externals only have we ven- tured to make any alterations. The rules of the Order are few. Thus, whereas in all other monasteries and convents, everything is done by strict rule, and at certain times, we, for our part, have no bells, no clocks, and no rules of daily life. The only bell heard within this convent is that cheerful gong with which we announce the serving of dinner in the refectory. Again, whereas all other monasteries are walled in and kept secluded, our illustrious founder would have no wall around his Abbey ; and, whereas it was formerly the custom to shut up in the con- vents those who, by reason of their lacking wit, comeliness, courage, health, or beauty, were of no use in the outer world, so it was oi'dered by the founder that to the Abbey of Thelema none should be admitted but such women as were fair and of sweet disposition, nor any man but such as was well-conditioned and of good manners. And again, whereas in other convents some are for men and some for women, in this Abbey of The- lema men and women should be admitted to dwell together, in such honourable and seemly wise as befits gentlemen and gentle- women ; and if there were no men, there should be no women. And, as regards the three vows taken by monks and nuns of religion, those assumed by this new fraternity should be also three, but that they should be vows of permission to marry, to be rich, if the Lord will, and to live at liberty. " These, with other minor points, were the guiding principles of the Thelemites of old, as they are those of our modern Order. It is presumed, from the silence of history, that the Abbey founded by Brother Jean des Entommeures fell a proy to the troubles which shortly after befell France. The original Abbey perished, leaving the germs and seeds of its principles lying in the hearts of a few. We do not claim an unbroken succession of abbots and abbesses ; but wo main- tain that the ideas first originated with our founder have never died. " Here you will find " — the orator's voice deepened — " none of the greater or the lesser enemies to culture and society. The common bawling Cad will not be more rigorously exiled THE MONKS OF JHELEMA. 9 from our house than that creeping caterpillar of society, who crawls his ignoble way upwards, destroying the tender leaves of reputation as he goes. The Pretender has never, in any one of his numerous disguises, succeeded in forcing an entrance here. By her Ithuriel wand, the Lady Miranda, our Abbess, detects such, and waves them away. The fair fame of ladies and the honour of men are not defamed by our Brethren. We have no care to climb higher up the social scale. We have no care to fight for more money, and soil our hands with those who wrestle in the dusty arena. We do not fill our halls with lions and those who roar. We are content to admire great men, travellers, authors, and poets, at a distance, where, steeped in the mists of imagination, we think they look larger. We do not wrangle over religion or* expect a new gospel whenever a new magazine is started, whenever a new preacher catches the tawn ear, and whenever a new poet strikes an unaccustomed Btrain. And we are thankful for what we get. " Tsewly-elected Sister ! newly-elected Brother ! know that you have been long watched and carefully considered before we took upon ourselves the responsibility of your election. You did not seek election, it was conferred upon you ; you did not ask, it was given. We have found in you sympathy with others, modesty in self-assertion, good breeding, and a suffi- ciency of culture. We have found that you can be happy if ycni are in the atmosphere of happiness ; that you can be sinniiielU withoiit being cynical, that you are fonder of bestow- ing praise than censure, that you love not downcriers, enviers, and backbiters, that you can leave for a time the outer world, jiut aside such ambitions as you have, and while you are here live the life of a grown-up child. We Avelcome you." lie descended from the throne, and, advancing to the table, oITc red his hand to the young lady. " Eleanor Despard," he said, " at this bar you leave your name and assume another to be known only within our walls. Bi-ethren and Sisters of Thelema, you know this novice ; give her a name." The Sister at the right of the throne — the one who was no longer young — called a steward, who took cards in a salver from her and distributed them among the fraternity. There was a little whispering and laughing, but when the steward went round to collect the cards, they were all filled up. The list of proposed names was various. One wrote Atalanta, and there was laughter and applause, and Kelly looked sur- prised. Another wrote Maud, " because there is none like her ;" then tSTelly looked at the Brother whom she had called Tom, and smiled. Another proposed Haydee ; but when Sister Des- deniona read out the name of Rosalind, there was a g2neral lo THE MONKS OF THELEMA. acclamatioR, and it was clear what lier name was to be. The officiating Brother led her to the Abbess. She mounted the tljree steps and knelt before the throne, while the Abbess bent over her, took her hands in her own, and kissed her lips and forehead. " Rise, Sister Rosalind," she said ; " be welcome to our love and sisterhood." Then Desdemona beckoned another steward, who came for- ward bearing a train and crimson hood. " Sister Rosalind," said the elderly Sister, " I am the registrar of the convent. You must sign your name in our book, and subscribe our vows. They are, as you have heard, three. " First, ' I declare that I make no vow against the honourable and desirable condition of wedlock ; that I will not defame the sweet name of love, and that I v/ill never pledge myself to live Blone.' " Sister Rosalind blushed prettily and signed this vow, the light dancing in her eyes. " The second vow is this : ' Seeing that I'iches give delight to life, and procure the means of culture and joy, I vow to take joyfully whatever wealth the Heavens may send.' " Rosalind made no objection to signing this vow also. " The third and last vow is as follows : ' I will be bound while in this place by no conventional rules ; in the Abbey of Thelema I vow to live as I please. What honour and gentle- hood permit, that will I do or say.' " Rosalind signed the third. Then Desdemona produced a box. " In this box," she said, " is the ring of fraternity. I put it on the third finger of your left hand. Here also is the collar of the Order ; I place it round your neck. Upon your shoulders I hang tlie mantle and the hood ; around your waist I tie the crimson cord of our fraternity. Kiss me, my Sister ; we are henceforth bound together Cy the vows of Thelema." Thus equipped, Sister Rosalind again took the hand of hei leader, and was by him presented solemnly to each Sister in turn, receiving from each the kiss of welcome. '' This is a splendid beginning," said the other novice to himself, standing at the bar alone ; " I wish ray turn were come." The Brothers did not, however, he noticed with sorrow, salute their new Sister on the lips, but on the hand. The presentation finished, the Brother led Sister Rosalind to her stall, over which hung, as over a stall in St. George's Chapel, tlie silken banner wrought with her coat of arms and crest ; and behind the throne two trumpeters blared out a triumphant roar of welcome. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. li Then it was tlae torn of the other. The orator -went through the same ceremony. First the stewards sent round the cards, and names were suggested. There were sevcrah One said Brother Panurge, and another Brother Shandy, and another Brother Touchstone ; and the one on which they finally agreed was Brother Peregrine. Contrary to reasonable expectation, the newly-elected Brother Peregrine was not saluted on the lips by the Abbess or by any of the Sisters. As a substitution of that part of the ceremo- nial, he received a hand of each to kiss, and then the trumpeters blew another blast of welcome. Just then the organ began again playing softly, like music in a melodrama, while the orator again stood beside the throne, and prepared to speak. "Brothers and Sisters," he said, " w^e have this evening ad- mitted two more, a man and a woman, to share our pleasures and our sports. Be kind to them ; be considerate of their weaknesses ; make j^ourselves loved by them ; encourage them in the cultivation of the arts which make our modern Thelema worthy of its illustrious founder, those, namely, of thought for the joy of others, innocent pleasure in the delights which we can offer, and ingenious devices of sport and play. And all of us remember, that as the Egyptians, so we have our skeleton." He pointed to the throne. A steward drew back a curtain, and showed, sitting on the same seat as the Abbess, a skeleton crowned, and with a sceptre in its hand. " We have this always with us. It saddens joys which else might become a rapture ; it sobers mirth which else might pass all bounds ; it bids us Xwo. wdiile we may. Brethren and Sisters, at each reception this curtain is drawn aside, to remind us of what we may not forget, but do not speak. Lady Abbess, I have spoken." He bowed low and retired. The Abbess rose slowly. Her white satin, her crimson mantle, her lace, the bright cord round her waist, the spray of diamonds in her hair, her own bright eyes, and sweet grave face, contrasted against the white and crouching skeleton be- side her. " My Brothers and Sisters," she said, " there remains but one tiling more ; you have heard that our founder was the illustrious Friar Jean des Entommeures. It is true ; but the creator of that monk, the real designer of our Abbey, was a far greater jnan. Let us drink in solemn silence to the memory of the Master." One of the stewards bore a golden cup to every Brother and Sister, and another filled it with champagne. Then the organ pealed and the trumpets brayed, and as the Abbess bowed from the throre. an electric light fell full upon a 12 THE MONKS OF 7 H EL EM A. marble bust which Rosalind had not seen before. Ic was on a marble pillar at the end of the hall. It was the bast of the great Master— Francois Rabelais himself— and beneath it were the words in golden letters, "F^Y CE que VOULDn.i^." CHAPTER 11. "These deli^jhts if (liou cansh givo. Mil-lb, with thee I mean to hve." After the reception, it was only natural that a ball should follow. By the time tlae first guests arrived the throne had been carried away ; the crowned skeleton was removed to the place where such mementoes should be — a cupboard. All the properties of the recent ceremony — the red velvet bar, ths tables and carpets, had been put away out of sight. Only the stalls re- mained, with their beautiful carved work in wood, and these were stripped of cushions, crimson carpets, and banners. The hall, save for the rout-stools, was absolutelv empty ; the orgau- loft was dark, and the band were collected in the music-gallery, which ran along the east .snd of the hall, waiting for the dancing to begin. There was no one to receive people ; because none ot the Order were present. But when a thin gathering of guests had arrived, the band struck up the opening quadrille. It was not a large ball, because the number of possible invites was limited. Given a country place, four or five miles from a .small Cathedral town, in a district where properties are large and owners few ; given the season of mid- July, the possibilities of selection do not look promising. There was, however, the Vicar, with his wife and three daughters. This particular Vicar, unlike many of his reverend brethren, did not regard social gathenngs, when young people dance, as a Witches' Sabbath of I he Black Forest. He had in his early manhood perpetrated a play, which had been actually brought out, and which ran suc- cessfully for five-and-twenty nights, once a fair run. He had the courage to justify this wickedness by always going to the theatre when he went up to London, and by attendnig officially, as the Vicar of Weyland, whatever was going on in the country. " Why should a man," he was wont to say, '' who has taken orders, pretend to give up one of the joys of the world and keep the rest ? Why should he go to a dinner and decline a dance ? Why should he listen to a concert, ayd refuse to listen to an THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 13 opera ? Why should he road novels, and refuse to see plays ?'' As a matter of fact he wrote novels himself, i:nder an assumed name. Does he not enjoy a feast still, in spite of his stiff collar ? He was still ready, himself, for any amount of feasting. Does he not laugh at a joke ? He himself laughed much, and made many jokes. He spoke good common sence ; but I do not desire to see the black brigade in theatres, because the step is short from taking a part among the audience, to taking a part in the management, and then to claiming the whole share, so that one shudders to think what the stage might come to. The Vicar's daughters were pretty ; they dressed in simple white frocks, with bright-coloured ribbons; and enjoyed all that could begot in their quiet and innocent lives. Above all they enjoyed an evening like this, when to a delightful dance was added the joy of seeing the latest freak of the Thelema fraternity. There ■n'as a Canon of the neighbouring Cathedral of Athelston, w^hich furnished, besides, a good proportion of the guests. The Canon had a daughter who was jesthetic, dressed in neutral tints, parted her hair on the side, and corrected her neighbours in a low voice when they committed barbarities in art. She was not pretty, but she was full of soul, and she longed to be invited to join the Order. Then there were half a dozen othcers from the depot twenty miles away, and such contributions as the neigh- bouring county houses could furnish. " At the last reception," said Lucy Corrington, the Vicar's eldest daughter, to her partner, " when they elected Sister Cecilia — Adela Fairfax, you know — they all wore the costumes of Henry the Eighch. i>«o one ever knows beforehand how they will dress." " Are you going to join the Order, Lucy r" asked her partner. Lucy shook her pretty head. " No ! Papa would not like it. "We are quiet people, and poor people too. We only look on and applaud. They have made the place very lively for us all ; we are grateful, and hope it will last. You will persuade your son to keep it up, won't you, Lord Alwyne ?" " As if I had any influence over Alan," said his father, who was indeed Lucy's partner. Lord Alwyne Fontaine was the fourth son of the fourth Duke of Brecknock. The red book told everybody what he could not believe, and yet could not deny — that he was fifty-five years of age. How could he be fifty-five ? It was incredible. He was a man of moderate height, rather thin, and he had a face still youthful. His hair had gone off his temples, and was more than a little thin on the top. But these accidents happen to quite young fellows, say of forty, and are not at all to be taken as signs of age. His expression was uniformly one of great good i4 THE MONKS OP THELEMA. humour and content, that of a man wlio had experienced no troubles, managed the cond-ict of life without excess, and yet with no solution in the continuity of pleasure, who had not hardened his heart by enjoyments purely selfish, and who still at five-and-fifty looked around him with as keen an eye as thirty years before ; who was ready to enjoy life, and to enjoy it in the same way as when he began his career. No one ever found Lord Alwyne bored, out of temper, or hlasL No one ever heard him complain. No one ever heard him pour out the malicious theories in which some of his contemporaries rejoiced ; he pos- sessed those most inestimable qualities for a man of wealth, contentment of mind, a good heart, and an excellent digestion. " I have not seen Alan yet," he went on. " In fact, I came down chiefly by invitation of Nelly Despard. She wanted me to see her in all her grandeur. When do they come in ?" " Directly," said Lucy. " They are never much later than half -past ten. Will not Nelly look beautiful? Here they come." In fact, as the clock struck half-past ten, the band, which had just finished a quadrille, burst out into a grand triumphal march ; no other, in fact, than Liszt's " March of the Crusaders." The doors at the end of the hall were flung open, and the Monks and Sisters of Thelema entered in grand procession. The guests ranged themselves in double line as the procession advanced, and v.hen it reached the middle of the hall they formed a circle round them. It was not quite the same proces- sion as that of the reception. There were no choir boys or singing men ; there were only tvro stewards. Sister Rosalind, the newly received, came first, after the stewards. She waa dressed now, like all the rest, in white satin. She was led by Brother Lancelot, whom she had called Tom, after the manner of the world ; and she bore herself bravely under the eyes of the multitude, who laughed and clapped their hands. The costumes were the same as at the reception. " Let us talk all the scandal we can about them all, Lucy," whispered Lord Alwyno. Lucy laughed. " For shame ! There is Nelly. Did you ever see any one look BO charming as Nelly ? To be sure, she is always perfectly lovely, with her bright eyes and her beautiful oval face." Lucy sighed in thinking of her own chubby cheeks and appio face, whicia she was disposed to deprecate at sight of Nelly'a more unusual style of beauty. " See, that is the collar of the Order which she wears round her neck ; and that crimson cord round her waist is the girdle of the Order. They have christened her Sister Rosalind. You know their motto, do you aoi ? ' Fay ce que vouldras ' — Do THE MO A' res OF THELEMA. 15 what you please. What a motto for a nun! And tlicn, j-ou know Tom Caledon, who leads her by the hand. Poor Tom ! They call him Brother Lancelot in the Abbey. Everybody knows that he is desperately in love with Nelly, and she cant marry him, poor fellow, because he has no money, or not enough. Everybody is sorry for Tom." '■ I dare say Tom will grow out of it," said the man of the world. " Love is a passion which improves with age — loses its fiery character, and grows mellow." Lucy looked as if she didn't believe that story, and went on : " There is your son, Lord Alwyne, leading Sister Desde- mona." " I see him. What is Alan's name in rclig — I mean in the Order ?" " They call him Brother Hamlet, I believe, because no one can understand what he vfill do next." " A very good name. I am glad the boy has got fun enough in him to enjoy a little fooling. And I am very glad that he is taking care of Desdcmona." " Do you know her. Lord Alwyne ?" " I remember her coming out at the Ilaymarket thirty years ago, in ' Othello.' She was Clairette Fanshawe. What a lovely Desdemona she made ! And how the men went mad after her ! Poor Clairette ! She threw us all over, and married somo fellow called Dubber, who lived on her salary, and, I believe, used to beat her. Four or five years later, her friends arranged a separation, and she retired from the stage. She has had a sad experience of life, poor Desdemona ! Dubber succumbed to drink." _ " She is the directress and designer of all their fetes," Lucy went on. " She is indispensable. And they all do exactly what she orders. The next are Brother Mercutio and Sister Au.drey. They are a handsome couple, and if they could only agree for an hour together, they would marry, I believe. But then they hold opposite opinions on every conceivable subject, and conduct two weekly papers, in which they advocate their own ideas. So that if they mai'ried they would have to give up the very chief pleasure of their lives — to ■wrangle with each other." ' Not at all, my dear child," said Lord Alwyne, " not at all. Let me disabuse your mind of that fact. I have known many most excellent people, whose only pleasure after marriage was to quarrel with each other ; and the more heartily the better." Lucy shook her head. She preferred her simple faith. " There come Brother Benedick and Sister Romola. She ia engaged, I believe, to a man ia India, and he to his cousin who l6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. is an heiress ; but I should not be surprised to learn— oh ! this is dreadful girls' chatter." " I like girls' chatter," said Lord Alwyne. " IMy son has got wisdom enough for the whole family. Go on, Lucy." " Well, then — but I will not give you all the idle gossip. In Buch a dull place as this, we talk about each other all the day. The next couple are Bayard and Cordelia. Bayard is a V.O."" '' I know him," said Lord Alwyne. " Then come Parolles and Silvia. Brother Parolles ii? a Fellow of Lothian College, you know. He is dreadfully clever — much too clever for a girl like me to talk to. We are afraid of speaking in his presence ; and j-et he puts us right very gently, and only as if he was sorry for us. His name is Eondelet." " I know him too," said Lord Alwyne. " I met him once at Oxford when Alan was up. Now, see the advantage we old boys have over the young fellows. We don't know any science ; we don't care twopence about the new-fangled things in art ; we prefer comfort to aisthetics in furniture. We have quite cold hearts towards china " " But you must let us like china a little," pleaded the girl, " And we have no belief in reforming the world. In a word, my dear young lady, we exist only to promote the happiness of car youthful friends of your sex." " That is very delightful, I am sure !" she replied. " Well, there go Crichton and Cecilia. He chose his own name, bec.iuse he said he knew nothing and could do nothing. And Cecilia plays. That is Lesmahago, the tall, thin man with the twisted nose ; Una is with him. Then Paris and Hero ; and last the new Brother, Peregrine — isn't he a funny-looking man with his crinkled face ? he looks as if he was going to laugh — leading the Abbess, Miranda. Which is the more beautiful, Miranda or Nelly ?" " I should say, Lucy, that for a steady, lasting pattern, war- ranted to wear, Miranda's beauty is superior to Nelly's. For a surprise, Nelly is incomparable." " Ah, and then Miranda always looks so queenly. She was born for what she is, the fair chatelaine of a stately palace." " Lucy, you must come up to London for a season, if only to rid yourself of a most unusual fault in your sex." " What is that, Lord Alwyne ?" " You speak well of other girls." "Oh! but why should I not ■? Miranda is the most beau- tiful girl I know : she is not like an ordinary girl." " She was certainly grand in her robes last night, and h1- / looked her part as well as if she had been all her liiV an Abbfiss. *'■ She would not be Abbess at firefc," Lucy went on, " but Mr, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 17 Dnnlop made it a condition of his lending the Court for the use of the Order." " Hamlet has lucid intervals," said Hamlet's father— not yet the ghost. " Tell me who is the new Brother ?" " It is Mr. Roger Exton." " Roger Exton ! what Exton ?" Lord Alwyne's knowledge of genealogies was extensive and profound, as becomes an idle gentleman of ancient lineage. " There aro Extons of York- shire ; is he one of them ?" " I do not know. He has not long come back from India, where I believe he made a fortune. And he has brought out a poem called ' Lalnee and Ramsami, or Love among the Assamese.' I have not read it, because papa will not send for it ; but it is said to be clever." " Pity," said Lord Alwyne, " that poets and novelists and such people are not kept under lock and key. The illusion is spoiled when you see them. Can't they go about under false names ?" " They are going to dance. See, Miranda goes out with Tom Caledon. She always opens with him, because he is the best dancer in England. I waltzed with him once at the last recep- tion ball O— oh!" If there is any more stately dance, any more entirely delight- ful to watch, than the old-fashioned minuet, I should lae glad to hear of it. There is the polonaise : there is a certain rhythmic inarch, whose name I do not know, which one sees on the stage : there is one single figure in the Lancers— the old Greek entre- lacement of hands, right and IvSft, girls one way, the men the other : all three have their beauty. And there is the waltz danced by a couple who know how to dance, who knov/ that the Teutonic rapture is to be got. not out of a senseless scramble and a Dervish-like spin-totum movement, but by the skilful swift cadences of feet and figure, when two pairs of feet and two figures move together, actuated by a single will. But the minuet de la cour is an altogether stately and beautiful dance. There ai'e suggestions in it — the awakening of love, the timidity of the lover, the respect due from cavalier to dame, the homage of the strong to the weak, the courtesy of man to woman — which are beautiful to look at when the thing is done as it was done by the Order, smoothly and perfectly. The best among them, despite years and figure, was Sister Desdeniona, who trod the boards as if they were the stage, and took no more account of the spectators than if they had been so many faces in the stalls, or so many opera-glasses in the dress-circle. When the minuet was finished, they h.id a grand quadrille ; and then, forming once more in procession, the fraternity marched down the hall, and disappeared. 2 l8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. The music struck up a waltz, and the dancing began again. Presently the Monks and the Sisters began one by one to come back, this time in ordinary evening dress. The Abbesa did not reappear, nor Brother Hamlet, nor Desdemona ; but most of the others came in quietly, one by one, after they had changed their dross. There was a rush for the Sisters. Crafty men, who knew all about the customs on reception-nights, had been careful to fill up only the first dances on the card, keeping the rest free till the Sisters should appear. There could be no doubt in any one's mind that the fair inmates of the Abbey were, for the most part, fairer and much more desirable than the young ladies who were only guests. Not only were the Sisters all young, but they were all beautiful, and represented nearly every conceivable type of beauty. So that, taken together, they were contrasts ; and taken separately, they were models. And they were all young — the united ages of the nine, taking Sister Desdemona out of the reckoning, would not make two hundred years — and yet they were not so young as to be girlish and silly. The charm of the very young lies wholly in innocence, ignorance, And wonder. That soon palls : take in its place the charm of a woman who, a girl still, has acquired the ideas, the culture, the sense, and the esprit which only a year or two of the world can give. It is a charm of which no man ever yet tired. Across the Channel, our unfortunate friends of France can only get it in the young married women. Hence the lamentable tone of their novels, which no doubt represent, not the actual life of Paris, but only Avhat daring novehsts believe, or wish to be, the actual life. Certainly no group of ten ladies more delightful than the Sisters of Thelema could be found in England— and if not ia England, certainly nowhere else in the world. They were not united by any bond of common tastes or pursuits, but only by the light chain of gentle breeding and regard for others. Thus, Sister Silvia was a Ritualist, who thought that the oftener you go to church the better it is for your soul, and that Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were let oif very, very cheap, with mere roasting. Cecilia, on the other hand, v/as a Catholic, avIio held Ritualism in the contempt which is natural to one of the old creed. But she kept her opinion behind the portals of sight and speech, and did not allow it to be apparent. In the same way, both Silvia and Cecilia lived in amity and perfect love with Romola, who was scientific, had a laboratory, and made really dreadful stinks. By the aid of these she proposed tc carry on a crusade against ecclesiasticalism among her own sex. Una, on the other hand, was artistic. She painted, modelled, sketched ; she had strong ideas on the subjects of form and THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ig colour ; she had a tall and slender figure -which lent itself to almost any costume : and she liked heroines of novels to be ivelte, lithe, and lissom. Sister Audrey was a genius. She went to see all the new plays, and she had actually written a play all by herself. It was offered in turn to every manager in London. Their excuses were different, but their unanimity in declining to produce it was as wonderful as it is always upon the stage. For one manager, while regretting his decision very much, said that if it wanted anything, there was a lack of inci- dent ; and another, that the overloading of incident rendered the play too heavy for modern dramatic representation ; a third said that the leading incident was absolutely impossible to be put on any stage ; a fourth, that the leading incident had been done so often as to be quite common and stale ; a fifth, that the dialogue, though natural, was tame ; a sixth, that the cut-and- thrust repartee and epigram with which the dialogue was crammed, gave the whole too laboured an air. And so, with one consent, the managers, lessees, and proprietors refused that play. In revenge, the author, who was an amateur actress, started it in her own company, and represented it whenever she could get a hearing. There was some piquancy at the idea of an amateur play being given by an amateur company, but few of those who saw it once desired to see it again, and even the company re- belled for a time. So that now Sister Audrey had only the reputation of an amateur success to go upon. She was planning a second play on the great Robertsonian model, which, like many other misguided creatures, she imagined to consist in having no story to tell, and to tell it in a series of short barks, with rude- nesses in place of wit. That was not Robertson's method, but she thought it was. A bright, clever girl, who, had she been content to cultivate the art of conversation, as she did the art of writing, would have been priceless. Sister Audrey also wrote novels, for the production of which she used to pay a generous publisher £50 down, and, afterwards, the cost of printing, bind- ing and advertising, multiplied by two. So that she did pretty well in literature. In her novels the heroines always did things just ever so little unconventional, and always had a lover who had, in his early and wild days, been a guardsman. He had an immense brown beard, in which she used to bury her innocent face, while he showered a thousand kisses on her tresses. And he was always punished by marrying the bad girl, who was big and languid, quite heartless, and with a taste for port, so that he lived ever after a remorseful life, haunted by memories of his little Queenie gone broken-hearted. Another of the Sisters, Cordelia, yearned to see womankind at work ; broke her heart over committees and meetings for find- ing them proper work ; lamented because none of them wanted 3—3 20 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. to -novii, and because, after they had put their hands to the plough, most of them turned back and sat down by the fire, nursing babies. This seemed very sad to Cordelia. Hero, again — she was a little bright-faced girl, not looking a bit fierce — was a worshipper of " advanced" women. She admired the " courage" of those who get up on platforms and lecture on delicate and dangerous topics ; and she re- fused to listen to the scoffer, when he siiggested that the love of notoriety is with seme people stronger than the sense of shame. The least remarkable of the Sisters, so far as her personal history was concerned, was the Abbess. Miranda had no hobbies. And yet she was more popidar than any. This was due to the charm of her manner, Avhich was sympathetic. It is the charm which makes a woman loved as well as ad- mired. Everybody confided in her : she was the confessor of ill the Sisters and a good many of the Brothers. As for these, we shall make their acquaintance later on. All this time the ball is going on. Kelly Despard found her card filled up in a few moments, save for two little scratches she makes furtively opposite two waltzes. She was flushed and excited by the strangeness of the whole thing: the reception, the minuet cle la cour, and the ball itself ; but the minuet above all. The reception was cold, comparatively, because there was no audience. For the minuet she had a large and appreciative assemblage. Tom Caledon presented himself without any empressemcnt, and quite leisurely. " Did you think, Tom," she asked, with a little moue, " did you think that I was going to keep my card waiting till you condescended to ask me ?" " All gone, Nell ? Not one left ?" " Suppose I have kept two waltzes waiting for you." " Thank you, Nell ; I knew I could depend upon you. You always were a good fellow. Which are they ?" Then she was caught up by her partner, and disappeared from his sight. Tom went wandering round the room, good-naturedly talking to chaperons, and asking wall-flowers to dance with him, and presently came his reward — with Nelly. Two o'clock in the morning. In the supper-room, Lord Alwyns, the Vicar, and the Pre- bendary. " The Church should countenance all innocent amusements," said the dignitary. " Will you have another glass of cham- pagne ?" '* That is true," said Lord Alwyne ; " but I have looked in THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 21 rain for a Bislaop at a Four- in-Hand Meet. It was very pleasant fooling to-night — glad to see Alan in it. I am going to visit him to-morrow at his cottage. Fancy the owner of AVeyland Court living in a labourer's cottage. Fancy a man five and twenty years of age — sweet five and twenty — with Miranda only half a mile away, and this perfect Paradise of Houris in his own house, and yet — can he bo my son ?" And at the same time, in another room in the Court, Alan Dunlop, Miranda, and Desdemona. The two ladies are sitting with shawls tied round their heads, at a window, opening to the garden. Alan is standing half in, half out of the room. They have forgotten the fooling, and are talking gravely. " And you are not satisfied, Alan ?" asked Miranda. "No," he replies, " I am very far indeed from being satisfied; everything is going badly. I believe everything is worse than when I began ; and I fail more and more to enter into their minds. We do not understand each other, and every day, the possibility of understanding each other seems more remote." " All this trouble for nothing ? It cannot be, Alan." " I fear it is. But it is late, Miranda ; I must go and got three hours' sleep. I have a thatching job to begin at six." He left them, and -walked rapidly away across the park. Desdemona looked after him and sighed. " What a pity," she said, taking a diiferent view to the poet, "that he cannot give — to one — to a woman — that noble heart which he squanders on mankind !" But Miranda would not discuss that question. " Listen," she said ; " that must be the last waltz. 1 almcst V/ish I had gone back to the hall. But I wanted to talk to Alan quietly. Good-night, dear Desdemona." CHAPTER Hi. "They swore strange oaths and wovsliippecl at strange shrines; They mocked at whut the vulgar hold for holy : 2hey scoffed at teachers, preachers and divines : And taught despair, with cultured melancholy. " " The only fault in my son, Alan Dunlop," said his father, " is that he wants youth. He has never been young, and yet he is only five and twenty." To want youth is a fault which, with most of us, grows every day more confirmed. It is an incorrigible vice, which only c,et3 worse as the years run on. Here indeed we are all miseriibla 22 TtlE MONKS OF THELEMA, Kinners, and the greater the sin, that is, the farther off we ara from youth, the greater the sorrow. Which is as it should bo. Alan Dunlop as a boy was a dreamer, with a strong physique. This impelled him into action. The way to make a great reformer, is to get a boy whose brain is like a sponge for tho reception of ideas, and like a hot-house for their growth ; but when his physique is of iron, then you may make a bid at a Luther. No use, however, to produce boys whose ideas are magnificent, and temperaments torpid. lie was brought up in the country altogether, at Weyland Court ; and as his mother foolishly thought him delicate, he was educated till eighteen by private tutors, under her own eyes. He was not delicate at all. And one result of his training was, that he learned a great deal more of books than if he had been at Eton ; but had no taste for boys' games, and read immensely. By his father's orders, he was made, when quite a small boy, to ride every day. Riding and walking were his only methods of taking exercise. His father, however, who spent a large part of his time in London, did not otherwise interfere ; and on finding how very different from himself this son of his was likely to turn out, ceased to manifest much interest in his education. It was clear that a boy who would joyfully spend his whole day in reading philo- sophy and history, who delighted to hear conversation on books, and the contents of books, would never have many points in common with himself, who, as he frankly acknowledged, aimed at nothing more elevated than to get out of life whatever plea- sures a cultivated creature can. He found that there are a good many pleasures accessible to the man who has health, a good digestion, and a longish purse ; and he discovered as the years went on, that with the drawback of east wind in the spring, London offers a larger field of amusement than any other spot on the habitable globe. To be sure. Lord Alwyne Fontaine en- joyed exceptional advantages. He was the younger son of a Duke. That gave him social position, without responsibilities. He received an ample younger son's portion. He married a beau- tiful woman — beauty was a necessity in his scheme of life — who was also an heiress. Money was also a necessity in his scheme. With his own fortune, his wife's fortune, and the splendid estate and rent-roll which came to her, there was no obstacle to his gratifying any reasonable wish. On the other hand, he did not go on the turf ; nor did any sharks of the green table dip into his purse ; nor did he bet, save in moderation ; nor did he buy china. When his son Alan was eighteen, and on the point of enter- ing Lothian College, Oxford, his wife died. Weyland Court with the broad acres round it passed to the Ron, who took hia THE MONKS OF THEl.EMA. 23 mother's name. The v/idower, for his share, had all that was left of his wife's original fortune. Then Lord Alwj-ne took chambers in London, and lived there, Beeing little of his son, who paid him dutiful visits at the begin- ning of vacations, if he passed through town, or when he came up to London, not with the frivolous hope of finding amuse- ment and innocent sport in the " little village," as some under- graduates do, but in order to follow out some side-path which led in the direction of culture and light, generally something to do with Art. He was a shy, reserved man, while an undergraduate. He joined in none of the ordinary pursuits of the place ; was not seen on the river or in the cricket-field ; apparently did not know the meaning of billiards, and would have shrunk in horror from such a feast as a freshman's supper-party, with songs after it. He rode a good deal, but chiefly in a solitary way. He furnished his rooms w'ith great sumptuousness, and was always changing the furniture for new or old things, as, from time to time, he changed his notions of advanced taste. He read the customary things, but without enthusiasm, and subsequently obtained a " second." He wrote a good deal of verse, and astonished rather than pleased himself by getting the Kcw- digate. He was not, however, given over to solitude. On the con- trary, he lived a great deal with his own set. This was the set who, in religion, politics, the science of life, and literature, possessed the advanced ideas. It was the " thoughtful" set. This class read Mill, or pretended to ; read Comte, or pretended to ; read Euskin, and talked about putting his ideas in practice ; read — which is the shortest road nowadays to learning — all the reviews on all the new books, so that they could talk as if they had read the books themselves ; stood before pictures in a row for half an hour together, in silence, as if the thoughts that arose in them were too deep for words ; took up an engraving and laid it down with a sigh ; circulated little poems, not unlike the sonnets of Mr. Rossetti, or the earlier poems of Swinburne, to whom indeed they owed their inspiration, which they showed to each other, and carried about as if they were precious, precious things which only they and 'heir set were worthy to receive. Mostly the verses turned on events of but little interest in themselves, as for instance one, written by Rondelet himself, mystic and weird, showed how the poet stood beneath an archway during a shower, and saw a girl, who came thei'O for the same purpose, having no umbrella. That was all. That was the pathos of it : she had no um- brella. Some, of course, were on hazardous subjects, the dis- ciples holding the creed, in Gommon with the author of " Jenny," 24 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. that Art can be worthily bestowed upon any subject whatever. They read, or affected to read, a good deal of certain modern French verse — not Victor Hugo's Men entendu. When Alan Dunlop was in his second year, the Great Move- ment of the Nineteenth Century began ; at least, that is what they called it. I believe it was Alan himself who started it. I mean, of course, the project for advancing humanity by digging ditches and making roads. They sallied forth, these pioneers and humanists, spade in hand ; they dug and were not a bit ashamed : in the evening they came home slowly, with backs that ached a great deal, with hands blistered where they were not horny, and with a prodigious appetite, to dine in each other's rooms, talk much about the canons of Art, which they thought they understood, drank vast quantities of claret, spoke judicially on all subjects under the sun, sighed and became melancholy over the little poems of which I have spoken, and lamented the deplorable ignorance of their elders. A. distin- guishing mark indeed of the school was the tender pity with which they regarded the outer world ; another was their con- tempt for all other views of life or things. If they met men who held other views — a thing which will happen to even the most exclusive set — they sought to overwhelm them with a single question — only one. They would look up quickly, when there was a pause, and fire their one question, after the manner of Sokrates, as they spelt his name. They did not look for a reply. Now and then they got one, and were even sometimes held up to public derision by some blatant North-countryman, who not only would keep his own vile Philistine opinion, but also dared to defend it. Their leader was Mr. Paul Rondelet, the author of most of the little manuscript poems. He really was almost too highly cultured, so much so that he could not possibly avoid pitying his fellow-creatures. He was rather a tall man, with a droop in his head ; and he had long white fingers, which played plain- tively about his face while he sat. He spoke in a low voice, as if exhausted by the eil'ort of living among humans ; and he spoke with melancholy, as if his superiority were a burden to him ; he affected omniscience ; he talked in a vague way, but a good deal, about the Renaissance — an epoch which his school keep bottled up all for themselves, as if it were to be enjoyed only by the worthy ; he said that we have only one great living poet, Mr. Kossetti ; and one who would be gi'eat if his meaning were not so plain and simple, Mr. Browning. He said also that the greatest master of modern English is Mr. Pater, and that Mr. Whistler is the greatest artist. He shuddered when Chris- tianity was mentioned ; he groaned when any one admired any other modern writer, poet, or painter. As regards politics, ha The monks oh^ thelema. 25 thongbt a refined despair the only attitude worthy of a great intellect, and he wished to convey the impression that behind his brow lay infinite possibilities— things— which would make the whole world wonder when they came to be actually done, could he be only — ah ! if only— persuaded to pass from medita- tion to action. He had got a First in the History Tripos, and was a martinet in historical matters ; went into agonies if any one used the word Anglo-Saxon ; grew angry over the Holy Roman Empire ; called Charlemagne, Karl, and Lorraine, Loth- ringen ; spelt his Greek words as in the Greek character, and startled the unwary by talking of Kuros, Thoukudides, Alki- biades, and Korkura ; almost ahead of the most advanced line ; admitted nothing good except in Germany, yet had a secret passion for Zola, Feydeau, Belot, and other writers. He had no money, being the son of a country vicar Avith a living of £500 a year ; and his fellowship would expire unless he took Holy Orders in a very few years. If it had not been for the amazing conceit in expression, in attitude, and in voice, Mr. Eondelet would have been certainly good-looking. _ Nature meant him even to be handsome ; too much culture spoiled that intention. It was, as a matter of fact, a school of prigs. The truthful historian cannot deny it. Many of them were unhealthy and even morbid prigs. Some of them are still at Oxford ; but some may now be found in London. They lounge about sales of china and hric-d-lrac, they take afternoon tea at the Club, and they worship at the Grosvenor Gallery. They are not loved by any men that I have come across, but are greatly believed in by certain women. They are always promising to do great things, but nothing ever comes. Meantime, they grow daily sadder and yet more sad over the wretched stuff which the out- gide world, the babbling, eager, fighting world, calls art, poetry, and fiction. Alas ! the outside world cares nothing for its prigs ; it goes on being amused ; it refuses any hearing to people who neither amuse nor instruct ; it is, as it ever has been, a world of hu- manity, and not a world of prigs. Things there are which one cannot understand about these young men. What will they be like when they grow old ? Why do they all talk so much about the Renaissance? And will they go on thinldng it a proof of superior intellect to affect the atheist of the Italian scholar type? Surely the 'vrorks of Beccadelli and Filclfo must pall after a time. Alan Dunlop was, as an undergraduate, no mean disciple of this academy ; but he had saving qualities. He was in earnest while the other men were mostly playing, and he had the courage of his convictions. He was the last to abandon th^^ 26 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. sacred task of digging ditches and making roads, and only care it up when it became quite clear to him that he could do uo more good, single-spaded, to humanity. Then he began to cast about for some other and some better way. Nothing was to be too rough, nothing too difficult ; nothing was to require too hard work, if it only was the best thing to do. He remembered, too, that he was wealthy, and, with his friends of the exalted school, began to talk about the responsibility of wealth. It is rare and highly refreshing to find a rich man trying to pass with all his baggage on his back through that narrow archway, intended solely for unladen foot passengers, known as the " Camel's Eye." Many, therefore, were the dis- cussions held among the small circle of intimate philosophers, as to the duties which this responsibility involved. Prigdom was agitated. As none of them had a farthing except Alan, all were agreed on the doctrine of self-sacrifice. The advancement of humanity was to be the aim : the means, so far as one set of most superior spirits could effect, were to be the fortune of the only rich man among them. There were some, Eondelet among them, who went so far as to hint at a general division of the property, so that instead of one, there might be half-a-dozen apostles. Alan Dunlop could not, however, be brought to see things in this light, and it was clearly impossible to ask him to divide in so many words. " There is no work," said Eondelet, who would not have gone a step out of his way to pick up a fallen man, " that is not honourable in the cause of humanity." " True," murmured a certain weak brother whose faith was small, and who afterwards became that thing which young Ox- ford mostly contemns, a clerical fellow, and a methodical parish curate. " True ; you remember, by the way, how Jerome Paturot, in the sacred cause of humanity, blacked the boots of the fraternity." " Of course," Eondelet replied, " one means real work." " Blacking boots i& real work, as well as digging ditches. Try it for an hour or two." " The thing is," said Dunlop, '•' to find out what is the best work to do, and then to do it, whatever it may be. We have to find out, each for himself, our proper place in the great army, and our work when we get there." " One thing at least is certain," said Eondelet loftily ; " it will be ours to conimand." " Say, rather," Dunlop replied, " to lead." With that conviction, that his business was to lead, he loft Oxford. It was not a bad conviction for a young man to begin the world with. His friend, Eondelet, as I havo explained, was fortunate in THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 27 obtaining a fellowship. He remained behind to lecture, sitting Badly, for this was a sort of thing far below a man of intellect and culture, in the College Chapel ; listening mournfully to the talk of the senior Dons, poor harmless creatures, contented wit! the wisdom of their forefathers ; commenting to undergraduates, on Plato with the melancholy which comes of finding that all modern philosophy and all modern theology are exploded things ; an object of interest to some, and of intense dislike to others. As most of the undergraduates revolted from the new paganism of these young lecturers, and went over to Ritualism, with a tendency to become 'verts, Mr. Rondelet grew sadder. Also it grew daily into a more melancholy subject of reflection with him, that unless he took Holy Orders, unless he became that despicable thing upon which he poured out so many vials of pity and contempt, his fellowship would shortly leave him, and he would actually — he — Rondelet— become penniless. He, with his really cultivated taste for claret, and with a love for little dinners in which dining was exalted to a fine art, and with a taste for all that a young bachelor mostly desires ! For it is an extraordinary thing to observe how the superior class, while they can never sufficiently deride and pity the British workman who gets drunk— Tom and 'Arry who go down to Margate brandishing bottles of stout, and the honest British tradesman who when his income expands lets two puddings smoke upon the board — are of all men the least inclined to forego the pleasures of the senses. No anchorites, the prigs of the nineteenth century ; and if they do not drink so much as their ancestors, it is that they have discovered the very much greater pleasui'e to be got by keeping the palate clean, in which we had better all imitate them. At two-and-twenty Alan Dunlop returned to Weyland Court, eager to start upon his career as a regenerator of the world. How to begin ? Miranda, who was now eighteen, and as beautiful as the day, was as eager as himself to witness the rapid strides in the direc- tion of culture about to be made by the peasantry of the place. They held constant council together. The experiment was to be tried by Alan Dunlop on his own people first, and, if suc- cessful, was to be repeated on hers. That was right, because, as a girl, she would not enter personally on the struggle with such vigour or such authority as her friend. She would watch while he worked ; she would make notes and compare, and set forth results. Meantime they had no doubt but that in a short time the manners of ihe people would be raised almost to their own level. " Of course they will give up drink, Alan," said Miranda. " That must be the first thing. I will begin by becoming a 28 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. teetotaler." Alan said this with a sigh, for like the majority of manlcind, the juice of the grape was pleasant unto him. " We must lead, Miranda." "Yes." She too sighed, thinking of champagne at suppers and luncheons. " And smoking too," added Miranda. " Yes, I shall burn all my cigar-cases, and turn the smoking- room at the Court into an additional study." This, too, was a sacrifice, because the "school" at Oxford were fond of choice brands, " And they must be encouraged to choose subjects of study." " Yes," said Alan, " of that we must talk very seriously. V/hat should they study first ?" It was decided that they could not do better than begin with the science of Hygiene. The two conspirators took a leisurely stroll down the village street, which was half a mile long, with cottages on either Bide. There was clearly a good deal of work before this village could become a city of Hygeia, and the hearts of both glowed at the prospect of tough work before them, just as the heart of Hercules must have glowed when he smelt and beheld the Augean stable ; or that of Mr. Gladstone must bound with gladness when ho stands before some more than usually tough monarch of the forest, while crowds are there to witness bus dexterity. Miranda Dalmeny, not j-et Abbess of Thelema, was in ona respect like Alan. She was an heiress, and owner of an esi,ate which ma.vched with that of Alan Dunlop. Her father was dead, and by his death she became at once one of the richest girls in a rich county. Her house, far inferior in stately grandeur to Weyland Court, stood on the edge of Weyland Park. It was called Dahneny Hall. Here she lived with her mother, who was an invalid ; a fact which kept her almost entirely in the country. And here, from infancy, she had knoAvn Alan Dunlop. As children they walked, ran, and rode together ; as boy and girl they played, quarrelled, made it up, and told each other all their thoughts. Then came a time when Miranda, more feminiao, retired within l;eiself, and felt no longer the desire to pour con- fidences into Alan's ear. He, however, went on stiU. So that she followed him through his boyish readings ; through the speculations with which he amused his tutor in the critical age of sixteen to eighteen ; and through the realms of imjiossible culture, wliich his imagination, while an undergraduate, reveaJcd to the astonished girl. They were, in a way, like brother and sister. And yet — and yet— brothers and sisters may kiss each other with kisses THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 29 wl'.ich Hooil calls "insipid tilings, like sandwiches of veal." And indeed they do lacl: a something. Brother and sister may know each other's tendencies and motives without being told ; they may tease each other ; they may depend upon each other, ask services of each other, and exact as well as give. Alan Dunlop and Miranda did not kiss each other ; they did not exact any service, nor did they tease each other, nor did they pretend to any knowledge of motive, tendency, or aim in each other. So far they were not brother and sister. Yet they always comforted each other with the thought that such was their relationship. They wrote long letters one to the other, and they had long talks, rides, and evenings together. Weyland Court was a dull great place for a young man to be in all alone ; and he spent most of his time, while in the country, at Dalmeny Hall. Alan "began his grand experiment in the advance of humanity with a lecture in the school-room. The labourers all came, all listened with the same stolid stare or closed eyes with which they received the Vicar's sermon. The Vicar was there, too ; he sat in the chair and contemplated the audience with a benevolent but incredulous smile. When the lecture was over, he began to throw cold water, aa experienced Vicars will, en the young Squire's projects. " It was delightful, Alan, and so true," cried Miranda. " Yes, yes !" said the Vicar. " Did you notice their faces, Weyland ?" " Not much ; I was thinking of my subject." _ " I did ; they wore exactly the same expression as they have in church, during the sermon. My dear boy, I have watched them for five and twenty years ; I have tried them with every kind of sermon, and nothing makes any difference with them." Miranda looked as if the appearance of a young prophet would make all the difference. The Vicar understood her look, and smiled. The lecture had been on the " Beauty of Cleanliness." It will hardly be believed that next day not one single attempt was made to improve the village, and yet the language of the dis- course was worthy of Ruskin, an imitation, indeed, of that great writer's style. This was disheartening. The young Squire tried another lecture, and yet another, and a fourth ; yet no outward improvement was visible. " You have sown the seed, Alan," said Miranda, consoling him. O woman — woman ! when disappointment ri\cks the brow ! But this was seed which, like mustard and cresrt, ought to 30 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. come up at once if it meant to come up at alL It did not come up. " What shall I do ?" Alan asked the Vicar. " You are young ; you are anxious to do the best, and you do not see your way. That is all natural. Tell me, Alan, do you think that a three years' residence at Oxford has been quite enough by itself to teach you the great art of managing and leading men ? Believe me, there is no task that a man can pro- pose to himself more mighty, more worthy or more difficult." Alan assented to the objection. " You think I have begun too soon, then ? Perhaps a year's more reading " " Hang the reading, man ! You have begun without compre- hending mankind, Alan. Put away your books, and look around you. AVhenever you are trying to find out how other people look at things, remember that there are a hundred ways of looking a-t everything, and that every one of these ways may be burlesqued and misrepresented, so as to become contemptible to ninety-nine men, but not to the hundredth man. That is the important thing. You've got to consider that hundredth man ; you'll find him always turning up, and he is, I do assure you, "the very deuce and all to manage." Alan laughed. "And if I were you, my boy, I would travel. See the world. Go by yourself, and forget your theories." Alan consulted Miranda. She urged him, because, with womanly insight, she saw that he was yet unripe for the task he had set himself, to take a year of quiet wandering. " Travel," the Vicar wrote to Lord Alwyne, " will knock the new-fangled nonsense out of his head." It would, in fact, do nothing of the kind ; it would only modify the new-fangled nonsense, and give the traveller new ideas with which to mould his schemes. Alan packed up his portmanteau, shook hands with Miranda, and went away by himself. CHAPTER IV. "Home-keeping youtbs have ever liomoly wits." " Once away from England and the new crotchets," repealed the Vicar, " Alan will come round again." " Do you think men can grow out of prigdom?" asked Lord Alwyne plaintively. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 31 " Define me a prig," returned tlie Vicar. " Definition requires thought. It is hardly worth the exer- tion." Lord Alwyne sat up, and nerved himself for an effort. " Yet you recognise a prig when he speaks, just as you know a cad when you see him, and before he speaks. Not only does the prig approach every subject from the point of view peculiar to prigdom, but all prigs speak in the same tone. Do you remember the Oxford prig when we were undergraduates ? He had advanced views, if I remember right, about episcopal autho- rity. He was offensively and ostentatiously earnest, too. But he was mild — our prig was m.ild— compared to the modern creatures among v/hom my unhappy son has thrown away his youth. Let us define a prig as a man who ovei'does everything. He becomes a prig because he is not equal to his assumed position. He is not, for instance, equal to the duties of a critic, and falls back upon unquestioned maxims, which rule his epii;Jons. And the universal maxim among prigs is that no one has a right to be heard outside their own body. I wonder," he went on with a sigh, " I really wonder what unfortunate Oxford has done to be so plagued with prigs. You go to Cam- bridge, and you find them not— at least, I am told they are rai'e. At Oxford there are two or three gathered together in every Common Room." " it is the effect of too much cultivation on a weak brain," said the Vicar, " and wears off as men get older. Affectations never last in theology, literature, or art. These young men have nothing new to say, and yet desire greatly to seem to have something new. So they invent a sort of jargon, and call it the only language for the expression of the ' higher thought !' " " Yes," said Lord Alwyne, " everything with them is in the comparative degree. There is the higher thought, the nobler aim, the truer method — meaning, I suppose, their own thought, and aim, and method. Well— Avell ! and so you really think, Vicar, that my son will come back improved ; will drop the livery of prigdom, and talk and think like other people," " I am sure he will," said the Vicar confidently. Alan was away for two years. During this space of time he went all round the world making observations, his object being chiefly to discover how best to lead his fellow-men. First he went to Quebec. On the steamer he made the acquaintance of the third officer, a man of great experience, who had once been admiral in command of the fleet of the Imam of Muscat. He resigned his appointment because the Imam refused to rank him higher thau the twenty wives' allowance, whereas he stuck out for sucb superior rank as is granted bjT right to forty wives. 32 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Kot," said the honest felloAV, " that / wanted twenty wives, bless you, nor forty neither, being of opinion that a sailor gets on best when he's got nobody to draw his pay but himself. But the honour of my country was at stake. So I struck my pennant, and came away ; and here I am, aboard the Corsican, third officer in the Dominion Lino. That's a drop from an admiral, ain't it !" Alan did not remember to have heard any of the customs peculiar to Muscat, and was surprised to learn that the people were most open to influence, and most easily persuaded. He asked hov/ that influence was maintained. "Give your orders," said the ex-admiral. "If they don't carry out them orders, cut their livers out." This method, however effective, was clearly impracticable as regarded Alan's own tenants. And yet it seemed to himself by no means unsuitable to the people of Muscat. Why was this ? Why should a thing good for Muscat be bad for England ? He reflected, however, that he had not yet so far schooled him- self in the enthusiasm of humanity as to recognise an equal in every thick-skulled negro or wily Asiatic. So that it could not, really, be good for IMuscat to cut out livers. When he got to Quebec he began to make inquiries about the French Canadians. They bore the best character in the world. They were pious, he vras told ; they were sober ; they were in- dustrious ; they were honest ; they were fond parents of a pro- lific ofi:spring. He went among them. After, with great diffi- culty, getting to understand their language — their talk is that of a country district in Normandy, in the seventeenth century — he found out that they were all these things — and more. The more was not so attractive to the stranger. Their con- tentment he found was due to profound ignorance, and their want of enterprise to their contentment. " You may lead the people," a priest told him, " with the greatest ease, so long as you do not ask them to receive a single new idea." Now what Alan wanted was, to insp'ire his people with the newest of ideas, and with an ardent desire for new ideas. What seemed good for French Canadians was not good for English- men. So he went westward — stopped a few nights at Montreal, which is the place where the English Canuk, the French Cana- dian, the Yankee, the Englishman, the Scotchman, the Irishman, the German, and the Jew meet, and try their sharpness on each other. It is a very promising city, and will some day become •illustrious. But there was little reason for a social philosopher to stay there. He went still westward, and reached Toronto. This was like being at Edinburgh. There, however, he heard of those backwood settlements where the forests have been cleared, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 33 and the land planted, by men who ■^•ent there axe in hand, and nothing else. It is only a single day's journey to get from the flat shores of Toronto, and the grey waves of Lake Ontario, to the hills and rocks, the lakes, firs, and hemlocks of the back- woods. And there Alan found himself among a people who were not led, but who moved on by themselves, under the guid- ance of their own sense and resolution. This phenomenon / surprised him greatly, and he made copious notes. None, how- ever, of the stalwart farmers could give him any philosophical reasons for the advance of the colony. " We send the little ones to school," one of them told him. " We have our singing choirs and our lectures, and our farms to attend to, and we m_ean to push on somehow." That is the difference, Alan observed, between the common Englishman and the Canadian. Thelatter means to push on some- how. How to instil that idea into his own people ? He made more notes, and returned to Toronto. Then he went to Niagara and stayed there for a month, meditating ov6r against the mighty Falls, till the echoes of the thiindering river, rolling louder and louder, and the thought of the mass of ever-falling waters growing daily greater and greater, grew too loud and too vast for his brain ; and then he came away. He was perplexed by the contrast of the French Canadians, led by their priests, who never want to move, and the English led by the one thought, that they " mean to push on somehow," which is to them like the cloud of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night. And he tlaought all the time of his own rustics who came like sheep to his lectures, sat like shesp while he delivered them, and went away understanding no more than sheep. However, in the States he would certainly learn something. Everybody who is going to try a new social experiment should begin by going to America, if only to strengthen his faith. This, in new social experiments, is apt to be shaken by the fear of ridicule. Anything like a novel adjustment of the relations between capital and labour, landlord and tenant, farmer and labourer, buyer and seller, husband and wife, governor and governed, requires in England such extraordinary courage and confidence that it is absolutely indispensable first to visit a country where new institutions are attempted without such hesitation and fear. New things are tried in America which would be impossible in England, and yet they do not succeed, because, I suppose, the most red-hot reformer becomes Conser- vative when you touch the unwritten laws by which all his ideas are governed unconsciously to himself. Alan Dunlop was going, somehow, to reconstruct the whole of the social fabric. He was about to shov/' on the small scale of bis own estates how culture — what his friends called " The a 34 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Higlier Culture," sighing when they thought how rare it is— may co-exist with the necessities of the roughest daily toil, and differences in rank or station be recognised by those who are yet all equal in their love of " The Higher Art." It had been hia favourite thesis, disputed by the rest, while still among the prigs, that this was not only possible, but within the comp-ass and power of any one man. "Why," he would ask, Vv'ith as much warmth as the fashion of his school allows, " why should a man, because he goes out hedging and ditching, because he carts muck, feeds pigs, even" — he shuddered — " even kills them, be unable to rise to the levels on which We stand ? Can we not im.agine him, when his work is done, sitting with thankful heart in the contemplation of some precious work, over which thought may plunge ever deeper, and never come to the end of all it teaches ?" It was generally conceded that the imagination might go so far as to conceive this vision. Then Alan would continue to argue that whatever the mind of man can conceive, the hand of man can execute ; in other words, that the ploughman might be gently and yet rapidly led upward, till his thoughts rested habitually on the highest levels. And this was his mission in life. He visited, and examined with the greatest interest, all the new social and religious communities which he could hear of. There were those modern Essenes who have everything in common, and who neither marry nor are given in marriage ; those thinkers who hold that divorce should be granted on the formal request of either party to the contract of that partner- ship, which we English hold to be indissoluble even by common consent of both husband and wife, except for reasons held by law sufficient ; the community who divide the work among each other, and serve it out irrespective of liking or fitness, so that he who would fain be writiug at home has to go out and weed the cabbages or sell the strawberries ; the people who work or are idle just as they please ; the institution — in this he was particularly interested — in which the rude farm-work of the morning is followed by transcendental discussion in the evening. Alan was disappointed here, because he only had one evening to spare for the place, and they asked so much about England that it was bed- time before the philosophy began. Then he visited a community in which emancipated woman ruled subject man, and let him have a rough time, until he either revolted or ran away. And he Vv'ent to see the place Avhere the Elect live together, and dance for the love of the Lord. Then he became acquainted with the doctrines and tenets of vegetarians, egg-and-fruit-arians, wheat-and-corn- arians, and total abstainers. He found a little knot of people rHE MONKS OF THELEMA. 35 who would have neither ruler, magistrate, elder, priest, nor clergj^man among them at all, but ruled their affairs for them- selves by a parUament which sits every evening for seven days in the week, and where the talk never ceases. This is the reason why, outside their Parliament House, they are a silent folk. He also visited the Mormons, the Mennonites, and Oneida Creek. And everywhere he made notes. In all his researches on the American continent, he was struck with the fact that the people had no leaders ; they seemed to lead themselves. That unhappy country has no heaven-sent and hereditary officers. They have to live without these aids to civilisation ; and it must be owned they seem to get on very well by themselves. But the British labourer requires— he absolutely requires — thought Alan, to be led. And how to load him? How to acquire influence over him? How to be- come his prophet ? How to instil into his mind a purpose ? Thia ireadful difficulty oppressed onr inquiring traveller, fol- lowed him from one country to another, and became at times a sort of Old Man of the Island upon his shoulders. " Send him over here, sir," said an American with whom he discussed, Vifithout exposing his own views, the character of the British ploughman ; " send him over here, sir ! He can't sit dov/n and be contented in this climate. Discontent is in the air ; ambition is in the air ; and there are no parish work- houses. What you've done with yotir labourer is this : you've plpaited him in a juicy and fertile country, where the rain and fogs make him crave for drink. He's got a farmer driving him at starvation wages on the one side, and the clergyman's wife and the squire's wife and daughters cockering him up on the other. What with too low wages and too much alms-taking, you've knocked all the man out of him. Here he gets no cockering ; there's no squire, no vicar, no union, and no distri- bution of blankets and flannel. You go home, sir, and try your folk on our tack for fifty years or so." That was absurd, when Alan wanted to show his results in five years, or therealaouts. " Of course," his American friend went on, "of course it ii absurd to tell you, sir, because you know it already, the main difference between our men and yours." " You mean- i( I mean the land. When you get your yeomen back again, if ever you do, you will find that out. Do you own land, sir ?" " I do." " Then let your men buy it up on easy terms ; and then you leave them alone to work out their own salvation." This was a hard saying for a young man who had great pos- Bessions—give up his land, and then leave the people aloao? 36 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. What then was the good of having been a leader in under> graduate advanced circles, and an acknowledged exponent of the Higher Thought ?" After his experiences in the Eastern States, he crossed the Continent, and visited California ; there he went to see mining cities, the Yosemite Valley, the City of Sacramento, and the Chinese quarter of San Francisco. There were also the lions. From San Francisco he went to Japan, which he found Angli- cised ; and from Japan he went to Hong Kong. This enabled him to visit the sleepy old city of Macao, where the manners and customs are half of Portugal, half of China, and Canton. The student in social economy cannot get much assistance from the Chinese. A nation who, when they have got a man too lazy, too vicious, too worthless for anything else, make him a priest, may be used by advanced thinkers to point an epigram or illustrate a sneer, but cannot inspire such enthusiasm as leads to admiration. Alan completed his journey round the world in the usual way — he went to Calcutta, Delhi, Simla, Cashrnere, and Bombay. He landed at Suez, and after the usual voyage up the Nile and down again, he rode through the Holy Iiand, and thence across Asia Minor to Erzeroum, finishing the whole by travelling from Odessa to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and so home. I hope that he finds the observations he then made on Russian civilisa- tion of use to him at the present juncture. It is not given to every young man of three or four and twenty to make this extended survey of humanity in general. The general effect produced on the mind of this traveller was revolutionary. Partly, as the Vicar anticipated, the old things fell away from hitn. He ceased to think in the narrow grooves of exclusive prigdom ; he found that men and women may held different views from himself, and yet be pleasant, and not Philistine ; he saw that a good deal of the Art he had been taught to reverence was but a poor thing, conveying in stiff pretence at ease, weak or well-used thoughts with feebleness of expression ; he understood what a wretched quality is that in- tellectual conceit which he had been accustomed to think a mark of distinction ; and he really did quite succeed in compre- hending that Oxford is not the centre of the universe ; and he left off being sad. Now these were great gains- He wrote to Miranda on his arrival in London : " I hope to see you the day after to-morrow. I have an im- mense deal to say, both of the past and the future. I think I have discovered my error in the past, and its remedy for the future. We tried to improve our people by injunction and pre- cept, pointing out methods and rules. That I am convinced is not the best way. They will neither be led nor ordered. But THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 37 Buppose, Miranda, that one were to walk beside them, work with them, eat with them, play with them, be one of them, and tho- roughly enter into their very thoughts— how would that do ?" "How would that do?" echoed Miranda in dismay, as she read the letter. " And what in the world does Alan mean ? Is he going to put on a smock-frcck ?" CHAPTER V. " Rich witli the spoils of travel, lioine he cam*." AiiAN came home. As a dutiful son he called upon his father, in his chambers. Both were agreeably surprised. The father did not seem to the son so frivolous as he had been, nor did the son appear to the father so weighed down with the respon- sibilities of his position. " I congratulate you, Alan," said Lord Alwyne— it was at noon ; the man of the world celebrated his son's return, after the fashion of the world, with a little mid- day luncheon, which he called a breakfast — " I congratulate you, my son. You have seen the world, and shaken oft: your Oxford crotchets." " Say, exchanged some of them for new ones, and modified others," said Alan. " AVe were ignorant at Oxford ; but we rsed to search for ideas. If I am changed, however, you are not." " I am two years older, which is two years worse. In other respects, I believe I am much the same as when j-ou last saw me. Life has nothing new to offer after fifty ; and it is a good thing to enjoy the same old pleasures. I still find good wine desirable ; I prefer young women to old ; I like cheerful people better than those who weep ; and though the cask is getting low, I am glad to say that it still runs clear." His son looked round the room. His father was quite right, and there was no change. The same statuettes, pictuz-es, and books, the same comfortable chairs, the same air of studied and artistic pleasantness about everything, as if the very furniture had to be consulted about its companions. And on the little table in the window, the same pile of letters and invitations ; most of them in feminine handwriting. No change ; and yet he did not find this kind of hfe so entirely frivolous as in the old days, when to think of his father's manner of living was to raifc up the fifth commandment before his eyes like a ghost, with warning gesture. Surely Alan Dunlop had made a great Btep out of pngdom when he arrived at the stage of toleration for a life whirh was not tormented by a sense of responsibility. 38 THE MONKS OF THE L EM A. He even envied his father. Not that he would exist in the sama way ; but he envied the happy temper which enables a man to live in the passing moment, and to let each single day begin and end a round of endeavours after happiness. " If one may ask, Alan" — his father was lying in one of those chaises l-rpr/ues which give support to the feet, his cigarette-casa was on a little table beside him, with a cup of coffee, and his face, after the excellent breakfast, was more than usually bene- volent — " If one may ask, Alan, about your plans for the future ? Let me see, when you went away it was after proposing to refoiTD the world by means of evening lectures, I believe." " Yes," Alan replied, a little shortly ; " I was younger then. The people came, but they thought they were in church, and treated my lecture like a sermon ; that is, thej went to sleep." " Just what one would have expected. By the way, your remark is a dangerous one in these Radical times. People might ask, you know, what kind of teachers those have been to whom we have committed the care of the poor, if it is proverbial that sleep and preaching go together." Alan laughed. This was one of the few points in which he could agree with his father. Nothing pleases the advanced thinker — say, a thinker of the higher order — than a sneer at the clergy. It is pleasant, I suppose, to feel one's self so much su- perior to the constituted spiritual teachers of the people. " Lectures are of no use," Alan went on, " by themselves. "We must not only direct and teach, but we must lead. My next at- tempt will be to lead." '' Ye — yes," said his father ; " that sounds well as a general principle. To descend to particulars, now." " My project is hardly ripe just yet," Alan replied ; " v.'hen it is in working order, I will ask you to come down and sec it for yourself. Will that do ?" " Perfectly, perfectly, Alan. Nothing is more wearisome than a discussion of probabilities. If I find your plan a failure, I can enjoy the luxury, since I know nothing about it beforehand, of swearing that I always knew it to be impracticable. Do not deprive me of that luxury." Alan laughed. " I am going down to the Court this afternoon," he said, " I shall talk over my schemes with IMiranda, and take her advice." " Miranda !" his father's face lit up, as it always did, at the thought of a pretty woman. " Miranda ! She was pretty v*hea you went away ; she is lovely now, and full of fancies. I love a woman to have whims, always loolring out, you know, for tha new gospel. It is delightful to find such a girl. She was up in London last season ; turned the heads of half the young fellows, and all the old ones ; refused a dozen offers, including Professor THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 3^ Spectrum, who thought she came to his lectures out of love for him, whereas she came, you see, because she thought physics and chemistry a part of the modern culture. Then she went back to her place in the country ; and I believe she is there still. T will go down, as soon as these confounded east winds disappear, and make love to her myself. I will, Alan, upon my word I will." Alan looked as if he hardly approved of this frivolous way of discussing Miranda, and presently went away, whereupon Lord Ahvyne sat down and wrote a letter. "Mv DEAR T.TlUAKDA, "It is two o'clock in the afternoon. I have written all my letters, had breakfast with Alan, smoked three cigar- ettes, and read all the papers ; what remains, but to write a letter, all about nothing, to the loveliest girl I know ? N.B.— This is not old-fashioned politeness — Regency manners — but the natural right of a man who has kissed you every year, at least once, since you were a baby in arms. You will have seen Alan before you get this letter. Tell me v/hat you think of him. For my own part, I find him greatly improved. He has lost that melancholy which naturally springs from having had such very superior persons for his friends. He is livelier ; he has more feeling for the frivolities of an old man like myself. He is, in a word, much less of a prig than he was Imagine the joy of a father who hates prigs. I am not without hopes that he may yet come to the point of being able to laugh at a good story. " bf course, he has a head full of projects, and he will carry them straight to you. I was afraid, at one point of the break- fast, that he was going to confide them to me ; but he refrained, for which I am grateful. I forgot to tell you that he accepted the comfort of my chambers and the little light follies of my conversation without that mute reproachful gaze, which used to make me wonder whether he really was my son, or whether he had been changed at nurse, and belonged, perhaps, to the con- verted carpenter. As, however, his ideas, filtered through your brain, will assume a far more attractive form, I confess I should like you to write me word what they amount to ; and, as I may be allowed to take some interest in his proceedings, I shall ask you to throw all the weight of your good sense in the scale. If he should propose to part with the property for any philan- thropic schemes, I think I would go the length of locking him up in a private lunatic asylum, Avhere they will tickle the soles of his feet with a feather. " Writing to you about Alan makes me think of a conversa- tion we had, you and I, that afternoon last year, when you gav9 40 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. up a wliole day to delight an elderly lover of yours "with j^'oni society. You remember the talk, perhaps. We were floating down the river under the Clieveden woods, you and I, in a boat together. I told you what were my greatest hopes. You blushed very prettily, but you said nothing at first, and that elderly lover promised you, at your own request, never to speak of such a thing again ; and never, even in the most distant manner, to suggest such a possibility to Alan. " For once — I believe the very first time in all my life — I am going to break a promise made to a lady, and speak to you about ' such a thing ' again. Those hopes have revived again, and are stronger than ever. ' Such a thing ' would make me happy about Alan's future. As for his present, it is not right that a boy of his age, sweet five and twenty, should be chasing a philanthropic will-o'-the-wisp, when all round him, in this de- lightful world, there are flowers to gather, feasts to hold, and the prettiest women that ever were to fall in love with. Life ought to be to him, as it has been to me, one Eden of delight, and he makes it a workshop. Why, he even mentioned your name — yours, without any apparent emotion, without hesitation, blushing, or sinking of the voice. Think of it, when even I, after all my experience, handle the name of Miranda with a kind of awe, as befits that of a goddess. "And^-ethe is my son, really. I must inquire about that converted carpenter. Sometimes I feel constrained — pity the sorrows of a poor old man ! — to go straight on my less rheu- matic knee, the right one, and offer you the devotion of the short remainder of an elderly life as the man in the play says, as a substitute for youth, the absence of which no devotion could atone for, and the few fragments of a heart long since torn in pieces by a succession of beautiful and gracious girls, if those fragments are worth picking up ; but, indeed, they are not. " I wish I could be sitting with you in your own room, over- looking Weyland Park. I should come disguised as Cupid ; I should bring bow and arrow, and when Alan came along with his long face as full of care as if he were a married pauper, I should let him have a shaft full in the place where his heart ought to be ; but I don't think he has one. " Good-bye, my dear Miranda. You know that I am always as actively devoted to your service as age and rheumatism will allow. Write me a long letter, and tell me eyerything. THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 41 CHAPTER VL Miranda wrote in reply almost by return of post. '■Dear Loud Ai/.vyxe, "A tliousand thanks for your lettei'. I wish I had a great many more lovers like yonrself, as devoted and as nn- selfish. It is very delightful to have some one to say kind things and make one vain. I wonder if it is as pleasant for you to say them as it is for girls to hear them said. Come down and stay with us if you can make up your mind to a dull house, and only me for a companion. You shall sit in my room all day long if you like, and lookout over Weyland Park, which is very beauti- ful just now ; I think the place grows more beautiful every year. But I will not consent to disguises either as Cupid or any- thing else, and I will accept your devotion without any kneeling. " It really was a delightful day that we had together on the river last year, and we mr-st try for another. Only no pleasure seems able to be repeated exactly in the same way. If we were to go there again it would probably rain, or I might be in a bad temper. " Alan came to see us as soon as he arrived. I saw him marching across the park, and I will confess to you that I took my opera-glasses in order to have a good look at him, while he was yet afar off. His shoulders have broadened out, and he walks more upright. He has lost that stoop which used to make him look as if he Avas always working out a difficult problem. I think his beard improves him, somehow ; though you do not wear a beard, it makes him look more like you. His eyes, as he walked over the turf, had a far-off look, just as they used to before he Avent to Oxford, and was always dreaming about the future. So I saw he was back again in the world of imagination, and not thinking of nie at all. To you, because Alan and I are and always will be brother and sister, I may confess that I think this brov.'n-beardcd man Avith blue eyes the handsomest man I have ever seen, as he is the most gentle and the most disinterested. " When I thought he might be near enough to see me Avith my glasses, I put them down and went out to meet him. He was as glad to greet me as I was to greet him, I think. " It Avas six o'clock. Mamma was aa'cII enough to dine with us— it was one of her better days, fortunatol3^ We had a talk in the garden before dinner, and after dinner along talk, he and I alone. " Your son is greatly changed, Lord Alwyne ; in some respects completely changed. He looks at everything from a new point 42 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. of view, and I can see that lie has been thinking and studying dnrinpr the whole of his two years' traveh " All the old schemes are to be abandoned, and an entirely new plan adopted. I confess that at first I was amazed at his scheme, but I am beginning to believe that it is not only noble, but also feasible. It is, to put it in as fcv/ words as possible, this : There is to be no more lecturing and teaching. That, he says, is proved by experience to be useless. Any one can point the way like a sign-post ; any one can stand on a hill and cry out to the people below to climb up if they can as he has done ; any one can write books full of precious thoughts, if he have them himself ; but you cannot always persuade people to read them. The lower classes, he says, all over the world are exactly alike, except in the United States. They v/ill neither read, listen, nor see, with understanding. They are slaves, not to laws, v/hich touch them very little, but to habit and custom. The only way, therefore, to improve the masses, is to break down the slavery of habit." When Lord Alwyne— he was reading this letter at breakfast — got as far as this, he put it down, and heaved a sigh. " I asked her to bring him to common-sense, and he has inocu- lated her. Habit and custom ? And a very good thing for the people too. Let their customs be cleanly, their habits pleasant for other people, and their manners civil. What more does the boy want ? Rigmarole !" " I am sure vou will agree with Alan so far. In fact, all this is preliminary." " Yes," said Lord Alwyno. " I knew that something more " How then, asks Alan, is the task of substituting culture and inquiry for sluggish habit to be undertaken ? There is, he says, but one way. By example. He will come down from his high place, descend to their levels, work with them, eat with them, live with them, and endeavour to set the example of the higher life, and to show how that is possible even with the sur- roundings of a cottage, and the pay of a farm labourer. " ' Not uliat wo give, but wlijit wo stare : For tlie gift without the giver is bare.' " " The De-vil !" This was the reader's interruption. " Now those two will go on fooling the rustics, till the^ '"ake the whole country-side intolerable." THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 43 " I cannot say," continued Miranda in the letter. " how much I admire a man Who gives himself. That is so much higher a thing — so much nobler— than to give money." "If they had my money," said Lord Alwyne, " they might, Lave me with it too, for all I should care. Certainly I sho-.ild not be of much use without it. Go on. my dear Miranda. It is pleasant talking over a breakfast-table." " It is like going out to fight for your country." " Worse," murmured the reader. "Much worse. IVe dcnfl that, and I ought to knovv^. Except for the trenches, it wasn't bad fun. And at least one didn't live v/ith rustics." " Or it is giving up all that one has been accustomed to con- sider bare necessities : abandoning for a time the gentle life." " I am glad it is only for a time. And I hope," said Lord Alwyne, " that it will be for a very short time." " And it is certainly exposing one's self to the misrepresen- tation and ridicule of people who do not understand you ; to unpopularity in the county " " Unpopularity indeed !" cried Lord Alwyne. " Inow I hope to Heaven the boy will not meddle v/ith the Game. Anything but that. And in such a county too !" " And possible failure !" "Ah! ha!" The reader laughed. " Possible failure ! IIo I ho !" " All these Alan will cheerfully face. He must have our support and sympathy, and v\'e must wish him success. " If you would like to hear more details of the plan " " I should not," said Lord Alwyne. " Come down and stay with us. You might have Weyland Court all to yourself, and even sleep in the haunted room, if you prefer ; but as Alan is entirely occupied with his plans, I think you would see little of him, and would be more comfort- able with us." " I most certainly ehould, my dear Miranda," said Lord Alwyne. 44 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. But he liad to postpone his visit, because some one, who had a charming wife, who also had two charming sisters, proposed to him that he should join them, and all go to Egypt togethei*, to escape the English winter. When he returned, it was at the beginning of the London season, and he had so many people to see that he could not possibly get away till July. Finally, it Avas not till Kelly Despard took the vows that he was able to get down to Weyland Court. And by that time Alan's experi- ment v/as a year old. CHAPTER VII. •' Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, liound to thy service with unceasing care." As Miranda told Lord Alwyne, no time was lost in putting the new plans into execution. " Uy acti:ally living among the people," said Alan, with the calmness of conviction, " I shall in a short time succeed in per- suading them to look upon me as one of themselves — a simple fellow-labourer, who has received a better education, and had greater advantages to start Avith. I suppose one cannot hope AvhoUy to eradicate the feeling of caste. And for the present, that seems not quite desirable. It is well, until all have alike the same education, that the better educated, who are also the richer and the more cultivated, sho-uld be looked upon as the natural leaders." " Surely. Alan," said IMiranda, " you are by birth as well as education the natural leader of these people ?" '' I think I am," he replied, with that far-off look in his blue eyes which belongs to the enthusiast. " I am certain I am ; otherwise there would remain nothing but to sit down in indo- lent ease at Weyland Court, and live the ignoble life of the country squire." That is what he called it : the enviable life where there are no duties, no daily mill, and no care for the yearly income, the life of the country gentleman — he called it " that ignoble life." " It is a beautiful dream," said Miranda. " And, oh ! Alan, I wish I could rise with you to the belief that the dream will ever become a reality. I want your enthusiasm as well as your self-devotion" " It must — it will become a reality, Miranda," he answered, with a fiush of conviction. " I have chanced upon the one thing wanting in all the old schemes. They directed, too lead ; ihey instructed, wc set the example. Our sports, our labours, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 45 nnr jcys ■u'ill be what theirs should be ; as their life ought to be, so will we try to make ours. In externals, at least, we shall be on the same footing ; as our habits will be, so ought theirs to be." Miranda listened with kindling eyes. Her heart beat with sympathetic fire in the presence of this strong and brave nature which dared to follow out a line of its own — the line of right. And she sought in vain for examples in history of others who had thus practically and earnestly devoted themselves to the safety or regeneration of mankind. Marcus Curtius, a leading case, narrowed his self-sacrifice to patriotism ; monks and nuns still further narrow theirs to the advantage of their own in- dividual souls ; curates and parsons, Avho work day and night among the slums, gladly exchange these retreats for the more congenial sphere of country livings ; professional philanthro- pists not unfrequently exaggerate the pecuniary value of their services, and have even been known to help themselves secretly from the treasury : but that a man like Alan Dunlop, with everything at his hand which men crave for, should volunta- rily resign them all, and become a labourer amongst labourers, without hope or prospect of reward, was a thing wholly without parallel. They were talking in Miranda's own room at Dalmeny Hall, the place which the young heiress had daintily adorned to suit her own tastes. It was a room on the first floor, which over- looked Weyland Park. It had a south aspect, it was fitted and furnished with everything that is delicate, pretty, artistic, and delightful, from the pictures on the wall to the carpets and the chairs. The time was just before the establishment of the Abbey, when Alan spent most of his leisure-time discussincr things at Dalmeny Hall with the fair chatelaine, who alone of mortals regarded his project with sympathy and interest. It was a retreat kept quiet by an invalid mother, and yet full of liberty to the few who, like Alan Dunlop, Tom Caledon, Des- demona Fanshawe (she had long resumed her maiden name), and others had the entree. Alan believed the more strongly in his own theories when that fair face looked up in his, and he road in those steadfast eyes the loyal faith of recent conversion. " A beautiful dream !" she repeated. " The dream of a noble mind. But, oh ! Alan, I cannot bear to think of you breaking your heart against the rocks of ignorance and stu- pidity." " Ignorance," he replied, " we can overcome : stupidity may be met with patience. What I fear most is habit. That is the greatest enemy of all progress." " But how can you live at the Court and yet live as a labour- ing man ?" 46 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " I shall not live at the Court ; T shall leave it, and tako a house in the village." " And never come out of it at all, Alan ? Never come up here to see me ? Not come and dine here, as you do now ?" He hesitated. " What T want to do, Miranda, is to live in all respects as a laboui'ing man may, upon his wages. If I come up here to dine, it would be a temptation in the way of luxury. I shall earn, I suppose, a pound or eighteen shillings a week. That will have to do for me. I think you must not ask me to dine here. But I will come up sometimes on Sunday mornings if you like, and report progress." Miranda sighed. She was prepared to see her chief friend and adviser resign all — but herself. That was a practical out- come to the new theories of life which she had never contem- plated. Life would be dull indeed without Alan Dunlop to enliven it. The requisites of a prophet are, first, to believe in yourself ; secondly, to believe in your theory ; thirdly, to believe in your people. Alan Dunlop possessed all these requisites. As an English gentleman, he had the hereditary belief in himself, so that to stand in the front was, he felt, his proper place. He liad retained this belief, and even strengthened it during the three years at Oxford, and subsequently while travelling round the world. He had thought so long over the duties which rise out of the responsibilities of wealth, that he was by this time as profoundly convinced of his mission as Moses or Mahomet ; and, lastly, he had a firm belief in the latent power of tha common people for imbibing nev/ ideas presented in the right way. " Could you, Miranda," ha asked once, in half -hesitating tones, " cotdd you too give up this atmosphere of delicate cul- ture, and change it for that of village life among the villagers?" " I could not, Alan," she replied frankly-. " I love to read about noble things and self-sacrifice. It is one of the pleasures of life to feel one's heart glow over some glorious tale. But the details, when one comes to realise them — think of living among the labourers' wives Oh, Alan !" " No," he said, with a sigh, " I suppose you could not." "Had he proposed to her and been refused?" she thought wheii he went away. " Surely she had not refused him ?" '■'■ II y a toujours iin qui aiine et tm qui est climes There vrere once two children. One v/as a boy, and one was a girl. The boj^, who was named Alan Fontaine, was three years older than the girl, who was called Miranda Dalmeny. Their houses were half a mile apart. The boy v/as born at Weyland Court and the girl at Dalmeny IlalL The former stood in a great park, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 47 the latter in nothing but its own gardens ; but it overlooked Weyland Park ; and the property belonging to its owner was almost as great as that enjoyed by Lord Alwyne Fontaine in right of his wife. Both owners, Alan's mother and Miranda's father, died. The boy and girl became heir and heiress. Alan Fontaine became Alan Dunlop, and for miles on either side of Weyland Park the broad acres of their lands marched side by side. They grew up together, shaved the same sympathies, had the same vague yearnings for that glorious future which is the dream of generous youth, when all noble things seem possible, and we are as yet but dimly conscious of that heritage of evil Yv'hich, like Setebos, troubles all. They communicated their thoughts to each other, dwelling always on the plans of the after years. They read in the great library of Weyland Court strange old books wiiich filled their minds v/ith thoughts, not of the nineteenth century ; and they rode about the country together, this ncAV Paul with a new Virginia, talking, thinking, and dreaming poetry, sentiment, and enthusiasm. When Miranda was eighteen Alan was twenty- one, and just returning from Oxford. By this time the girl had, after the fashion of her sex at that age, left off telling her thoughts, and kept them locked up in her own brain, waiting and accumulating until the arrival of the man with a right to them. Alan, as men will, went on telling his. After his unsuccessful attempt to improve the village by lectures, Alan went away on his journey round the v/orld. It was, at first, very dull for Miranda at the Hall. Then Lord Alwyne persuaded Desdemona to go and stay with her as a sort of com.panion, and she v/ent to town for the season, which was a diversion. At least, it would have been a diversion but for one thing. Her beauty, v/hich was considerable, was naturally enhanced and set off by her income. A girl whose rent-roll is told by thousands is an object of general interest in herself, even if she has a face like a door-knocker. And at first it went to her heart to refuse the young men, who took every oppor- tunity, in conservatories, at dinner- tables, in the park, at garden- parties, at balls, and even in church, to offer their hands and hearts. They were so deeply in earnest, they felt so profoundly the enormous advantages of hanging up their hats in Dalmeny Hall, they had a respect so unfeigned for the beauty, the intel- lect, the desirable qualities of the girl who owned so splendid a property, that poor Miranda felt guilty with shame to herself for being so insensible, when they stammered forth the custom- ary vrords and she had to send them away sorrowful. But when they came in swarms, when the memory of Impecuniosus the First, dismissed with sorrow and some sort of shame, was driven 48 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. away by the advent of Tmpecuniosus tlie Forty-First ; when she had learned all the various methods pursued by men who pro- pose, and experience had taught her the best form of refusal, viz., that which leaves no room for hope, she ceased to pity her suitors, and even began to ridicule them to Desdemona and liord Alwyne ; grew hard-hearted, cvit short the aspirant at the very first words, and sent him away without expressing the least sympathy. Everybody knew and everybody said, that her heart was given to Alan Dunlop, the queer, wild enthusiast of Oxford, who headed the road-makers. Certain it is that her happiest days were those when, from some far-off foreign place, a letter came to her in the well-known handwriting. And equally certain it is that wherever she went, there Vv-as always present the youthful form and face of Lord Alwyne, warding off the undesirable partis, protecting his ward against the wiles of the impecunious. In the fulness of time Alan came homo rich with the spoils of all the world. There was no word of love between them before he went away. Among the many hundred letters he wrote from various habitable points upon this sphere, there was no word of love ; and when he came back, there was again no word of love. Miranda said that Alan was a brother to her. Probably Alan might have thought much in the same way of Miranda, with the difference, however, that the fondest brother contemplates the possibility of his sister's marriage without a pang, while Alan never for a moment imagined how he could get on without her. Had she actually refused him? A burning spot rose in either cheek as she thought this over. But no ; she remembered all her wooers and their ways. She recalled the signs, which she knew too Avell, of an intention to propose. They were alike in substance, though they differed in detail. There was the ardent but diffident young clerk in the Foreign Office, who laid himself with pitiful abasement at her feet, and there was the proud and penniless peer who confidently proposed the exchange of a title for a rent-roll. But in Alan's question there was nothing of all this ; neither doubt nor anxiety, nor emotion of any kind— only a plain question. To live among the wives and daughters of the labourers ! Could she do this ? Not even, she felt, for that which Lord Alwyne had told her in the boat under the Clieveden woods was the one thing which he hoped for his son. Dear old Lord Alwyne ! always so kind and thoughtful. And, oh ! so very fond of saying pretty things to pretty girls. Other pretty girls, Miranda thought, with a little pang of jealousy, would have those pretty things said to them. And what would become of Alan's self-sacrifice ? Would that go on all his life ? Was he to b« THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 49 Beparated from her by half a mile of park and village, and yet to belong to her no more ? As for Alan himself, ho was far indeed from asking for Mi- randa's hand. There had occurred to him for a moment only a beatific vision, in which he and Miranda — brother and sister labourer— should be living in the village among "the people," belonging to them : he to the men, and she to the women, so that while he introduced new ideas and combated old habits among one sex, she might be among the others, inculcating the arts of cleanliness, order, good temper, or the rudiments of that sweet culture which, in a very few years' time, was to make a home of delight in every cottage, and to form a West-end club, except for the drink and luxurious living, and the cigars and the easy- chairs, in every village. But the vision was momentary. It faded before Miranda's resolute reply, and he walked away sorrowful. He would have to fight the battle single-handed. Among the farms on his estate was one of three hundred acres, leased by a certain Stephen Bostoclc It was the smallest— it was the lowest-rented, the least productive, and the tenants were the least satisfactory of any upon his estate. He went to Stephen Bostock himself. He pointed out, having ascertained these facts from his agent, that he, Stephen Bostock. was getting deeper every year in the mire, that he had no money, that things were certain to get worse with him instead of better, and then he asked him what he proposed to do. Stephen Bostock was a man with a very red face, as many rustics have, and a very long, square chin, as few rustics have. The red face was due to habitual intemperance, whenever he could find the money ; the long, square chin was a mark and a certain proof of cunning, obstinacy, and self-reliance. A long chin means tenacity — a square chin means resource. When you get them both together, you have such a man as Stephen Bostock. Stephen Bostock was between forty and fifty years of age. He who has made no money at fifty never will make any. That is why a man of forty-five who has made none begins to grow anxious. Stephen Bostock had nothing in the world except the lease of a farm v/laose rent he could not pay, a dairy whose pro- ceeds kept the house supplied with meat and drink, and a wife and daughter who looked after the dairy, kept- chickens and ducks, and saw that the pigs were fed. lie was a small tenant- farmer, one of the most hopeless class, rapidly becoming rarer, in this realm of England. If the land were their own, they could live on it, thrive on it, work on it, and be happy. But it is not, and so the class deteriorates, starves for a while, becomes bankrupt, either sinks back to the soil, or goen to so THE MONKS OF THELEMA. (Janada, where free-lands can be taken up, and men become &i a stroke yeomen, after the fashion of their ancestors. " You see, Bostock," said Alan, " things seem getting -worsa instead of better with you." " Yes, sir," he replied, " they certainly be. A little ease in the rent, now, might make everything right." " ISTo, it would not," Alan went on ; " nothing v/ill make everything right with j-ou. The land is suffering from starva- tion and neglect. You have no stock, and next to no horses. You have got through all your money, whatever that was, and nothing can save you." " A good spell o' rainy weather," began Stephen, his mind turning feebly in the direction of turnips. " No, no," said the Squire. " Now listen to me, Bostock. Suppose I were to take the lease off your hands — don't speak, but Hsten. Suppose I were to oft'er you to remain where you are, in your own house, not as tenant of the farm, but its bailiff, on a salary ?" "Oh!" said Stephen, startled, "on a celery" (he pronounced it so), " and in my own house ! Without rent ? As bailiff ! Ah !" " On a salary to be fixed between us." (Stephen resolved that, if it depended on him, it should be fixed pretty high.) " And that you should look after the practical business of the farm, which I intend to work on my own plans : that you should faithfully fulfil your part of the contract ; that is, buy and sell, arrange the rotation of the crops, and direct the labour of the farm, to the best advantage of the proprietor, exactly as if it was your own." Here Stephen Bostock, who began by staring hard, compre- hended the position, and that so suddenly, that he was com- pelled to produce a red cotton handkerchief to hide a grin which^ despite every warning of politeness, wozfZr/ spread from ear to ear. " A celery ; manage the farm for the Squire ; go on living in the house, rent-free ; buy and sell for the best advantage — ho ! ho !— for the best advantage of the farm." It really was too much. Was it real ? Yes ; before him stood the young Squire with grave and re- solute face, square brows, and solemn blue eyes^eyes which somehow took the grin out of the corners of his mouth, and en- abled him to lay down the pocket-handkerchief. " Let me hear it all over again," he said. " I'm slow by- nature, but I'm sure. I am to live, rent free " — that was his own addition — " in the farmhouse. That's the first thing. I'ni slow, but when I tackle a thing, I do tackle that thing. I am to Bell the lease for a consideratiou." Tl)at v/as also his own addition. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 51 "Not at all," said Alan. "You will not sell the lease ; yt;u will give it to me, to escape bankruptcy." Mr. Bostock made a face. Nobody likes the ugly word bank- ruptcy. " Well," he said, " you will have your joke, Mr. Dunlop. We'll say that I surrender the lease, not sell it. But I am to get something, I suppose. I am to give up the lease, am I ? And then I am to be bailiff. On a celery. And what might be your opinion of the celery that I should be worth as bailiff to this farm ?" " I have hardly thought about it," said Alan. Of course, a hundred a year would have been plenty for such a man. " But we might begin with two hundred." '■'■And fifty, if you please, Mr. Dunlop," said Mr. Bostock firmly. " And then we shall be going dirt-cheap — dirt-cheap. Two hundred and fifty, or three hundred. I think I ought to say a celery of four hundred. But, knowing you and your family as I do knov/ you and your family, and having been a tenant for a many years, and my wife once lady's-maid to her ladyship, and all, makes one inclined to cut down the figure." " We will say, then, two hundred and fifty," said Alan. He was accustomed to make this sort of compromise, and thought it showed the prudence of a business man. The other con- tractor to an agreement, for instance, whoever he was, invari- ably asked him for three times what he ought to have demanded. Alan conceded twice, and congratulated himself on having shown extraordinary knowledge of the world. Then he offered the wily Bostock two hundred and fifty, when he might have got him for a hundred, " Well," Bostock grumbled, " to please you, sir. But we must have the dairy, and a field for the cows and the fowls, and the pigs, and the orchard, jest as at present so arranged.'' ''You can have all those," said Alan, ignorantly adding another hundred to the new bailiff's salary. " That," said Bostock, " won't make the celery none too high. Besides, the dairy and the pigs is a mere nothink. But there — And when will you begin, sir ?" "As soon as I can," said Alan. "I am going"— here he hesitated a little — " to manage this farm on an entii'ely new pi'inciple, of which I will explain the details afterwards. That is, you will manage it, but the results of the farm — the profits — ^ are to be applied on a new principle." " I thought, sir," said Bostock — his face lengthened consider- ably at the prospect of the farm being managed on new prin- ciples — " I thought that I v/as to buy and to sell for the be^t advantage of the farm." " Why, so you are. That is not what I mean." -5—3 53 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Oh !" said Bostock, relieved ; " that is not what you mean, Bir?" " Not at all. You will really buy, sell, and do everything. You will be the responsible manager of the farm. The profits, however, deducting your salary first, and the necessary expenses of wages, stock, implements, and so forth, will be divided in certain proportions between myself and the farm labourers and you, as the bailiff." Once more Mr. Bostock was obliged to take out that pocket- handkerchief, with which he blew his nose violently, choked, became crimson in the face, blew his nose again, choked again, and finally, resumed his calm. " Oh !" he said ; " the profits of the farm, after paying me, the bailiff, and the wages and the necessary expenses, will go to ua all in proper pi'oportions, will they ? Well, sir, that's a most generous and liberal offer on your part. I don't think there's another Squire in all the country, as knows land as you know land — because you've been round the world and must know all the land as is fit to call itself land— no, not a single other Squire alive as would make that proposal. Mr, Dunlop, I'm with you, and if you'll shake the hand of a honest man '' — he held out his horny paw — " there you are." Alan took it, almost with tears. " I believe you will serve the farm honestly and well, Bostock," he said. " I will, sir," replied the new bailiff. " Look round you and see the improvements I've made already with my small means. Why am I a poor man now, and my neighbours rich ? Because I put into that land what they take out of it. Look at the farm implements — you'll buy them at a valuation, of course ; I'll value them for you. Look at the horses and the stock, look at the machines, look at the fields. People come — ah ! for miles round — to visit this farm. It's been in print. Bostock's Farm, they call it. And after all these years, there's the rent unpaid, and — I'm not ashamed to say it, because the money's in the land, not in the bank — I go out of it, and become the bailiff at a salary of two hundred and fifty, paid weeklj^, which is five pounds a week, and a house rent-free, and the dairj' and a field for the cows, and the pigs, and the orchard, and the farm stock at my valuation. Squire, you've got me dirt-cheap, I don't grudge the bar- gain, because my heart's in the work, and I shall have no more trouble about rent, and give my whole mind to the farm. You'll have to spend a little money on the place," he added, waving his hands with the air of one who commands. " But, Lord ! it will all come back to you. Only you Avait till we've been at work for a year or so. A little money here and a little there, a steam-engine here and another there. More cattle, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 53 more horses. IMr. Dnnlop, I believe," he cried in A burst of enthusiasm, " I believe you'll say, come this day five years, that you never did a better stroke of work in all your life than vrhen you gotME, Stephen Bostock, to be yourbailiff, dirt-cheap. It isn't for me to say who's the best man in all the county. Go to Athel- ston and ask at the farmers' ordinary on market-day. And all I've got to say is — here am I, at your service. Trust everything to me ; let me, Stephen Bostock, buy and sell all by myself for the best advantage of the farm, as you say, Mr. Dunlop, and no questions asked, nor interference, nor anj'thing, and — and then wait for the profits to be divided between you and me and the labourers. It's the labourers," he added, after a pause, " that I think on most, not mj-self, nor you. You've got your rents, Mr. Dunlop. You're a gentleman. I've got my salary — on'y two hundred and fifty, but ' sufficient is enough to a contented mind, and better is a stalled ox with contentment than a dinner of herbs and strife therewith.' But they pore labourers, they've got nothing, only their wages. Well, sir, we'll make it up to them. You and me together, we will," There was something contagious in the hearty, though vulgar, enthusiasm of the new bailiff, and Alan shook hands with him with effusion. When the Squire was gone, the bailiff, after watching him carefully across a field and a half, sat down and resumed openly that broad grin which he had before concealed behind the handkerchief. " Me to buy and sell," he said. " xhul the two hundred and fifty! ^4??fZ rent free ! And the dairy! And \\\q pigs! And the cows ! And all to the best advantage of the farm. Dammit, it's fine !" he said this critically. '' That's what it is — it"s fine." Ho lay back, and laughed low and long. Then a sudden thought pierced the marrow of his heart, and he sat up again. " How long will it last ? One year ? Two years ? Stephen Bostock, my lad, make hay while the sun shines. Buy and sell as much as you can to the best advantage. Ho ! ho !— the best advantage — ha ! ha ! — of the farmer — ho ! ho ! — and the la- bourers — ha! ha! — the labourers! Yar !" He added the last words with the most profound contempt, which it was as well that Alan did not witness. CHAPTER VIII. " That monster, Custom, who all sense dotli eat." After this gratifying interview with Farmer Bostock, Alan felt himself warranted in at once proceeding to business. Pending the signing of the agreement, which Xha honest bailiff under- 54 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. took to get drawn up, he began by inviting the labourers on the farm to meet him on Saturday evening at the schools, when, after supper, he proposed to set forth in simple language, cau- tiously abstaining from eloquence or metaphor, his scheme for the advance of the higher civilisation. The men were invited to bring their wives, and those of the women whose family ties allowed, accepted with as much readi- ness as the men. Here, it was felt, was a distinct step in advance. On the last occasion when the Squire met them in the schoolroom, he offered them a lecture, and never so much as a glass of beer to wash it down. Now, whatever suffering might be in store for them in the way of speeches, one thing Vt'as quite clear, that there would be compensation in the way of meat and drink. The butcher and the landlord of the Spotted Lion, indeed, were ready to state what amount of com- pensation. " The supper," said one of the group in the Spotted Lion, on Friday evening, " is roast beef, and roast mutton, hot, with potatoes and cabbage." " Ah !" from all lips sympathetically. " And beer. As much beer as we like. None o' your half- pints v/ith young Squire. I seen the Squire's orders in writing." " Ah !" — unanimously. " Seems a kind of a waste now, don't it?" asked a venerable sage, smoking in the corner. " Saturday night an' all. Might ha' bin here as usual, and had the beer to ourselves, and kep' the beef for Sunday." That was true, and feelingly put. '• And there's a lecture, AVilliam ?" the ancient sage went on. " Same as two year ago." "Ay. There's a lecture. But, L''^-^ CHAPTER X. "Metliiiiks it were a happy life, To be no better than a komoly swain." " Well, sir," Bailiff Bostock said, " if you really do mean iti> and will take and work with the men Do you mean it- just as you say, and no favour ?" " I mean just what I say. I shall begin to-morrow, and am here now to learn my duties for the day." Alan was determined there should be no more loss of a day. " You can't follow the plough, that wants practice ; and you can't manage the engine, that wants training." The bailiff rubbed his chin thoughtfully. " There's a st;ick of hay we're going to cut into to-morrow ; but I can't send you up the ladder, atop o' that great stack. Sure as twopence you'd fall down and break something. Can vou drive. Squire ?" " Of covirso, I can." " Then I'll tell you what you shall do. It is a dirty job, too " " Never mind how rough it is." " I think you will be able to manage it, for the first job, better than anything else. You come here to-morrow morning, at six sharp, and I'll find you a day's work, never fear." With this assurance, Alan was fain to be content. He then proceeded, being thoroughly ashamed of the morning's fiasco, to guard against a repetition of it. With this view, he hired a boy to call him at five sharp, got a ventilator for his bedroom, aa alarum clock, which ho set for five o'clock. He next purchased a new kettle, and provided such materials for breakfast as he could eat, deferring the cold pork until such time as he should become hardened to the bread of affliction. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when these arrangements were finally completed. He remembered that he had dinner to get, bought a beefsteak and potatoes, and ijroceeded, with such slender art as was at his command, to grill the former and boil the latter. The potatoes came out hard, but he had eaten horse- beefsteak in America. Dinner over he sat down, and spent the evening in calculating how best he could live on eighteen shillings a week, with a little extra at harvest-time— say a guinea, all told. Rent, half-a- crown ; clothes and boots, five pounds a year at least — say two shillings a week. Remained, sixteen shillings and sixpence for everything. Fuel, candles, soap, odds and ends, would carry away half-a-crown of this. iTowteen shillings left for food and THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. O5 pavings ; for Al.an was resolute on showing the rustics how to save. Say eighteenpence a clay for food. Food. What is food ? Half-a-crown goes at the club for luncheon alone with great ease. He would want, he thouglit, a pound of meat, hali: a dozen potatoes, and a loaf of bread every day. There is eighteenpence gone at once. Tea, coii'ee, sugar, milk, butter, cheese, small groceries : all this had to come out of the odd sixpence. And how much would be left for saving ? Every penny would have to be looked at, every tcaspoonful of tea hesitated over. And then the washing. The male mind dees not at first understand the meaning of this item. Now it occurred to him that unless, in the dead of night, and with barred doors, he did his own washing, this charge would be the last straw to break the camel's back. And j-et, with the was'a- ing before their eyes, the labourers found money to spend at tho Spotted Lion. It must come out of his meat. Overcome with the prospect, Alan folded up his paper and went to bed. In the morning he had a beautiful dream. He was v/alking hand in hand with Miranda in a flowery meadow, in whose hedges highly-cultured peasants had planted geraniums, stan- dard and monthly roses, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, dahlias, and the stately hollyhocks, which raised their heads and blos- somed among the hawthorn, honeysuckle, and straggling black- berry. Beneath them, on the banks, flowered mignonette, ver- bena, heliotrope, and all sorts of sweet flowers, growing appa- rently wild. The grass amid which they walked was luxuriant and long, and bright with buttercups and cowslips. Round them, as they walked hand in hand under a sunny sky, sat, walked, or played the villagers, engaged in various occupations, all of which demanded the Higher Culture. For one, clad in a smock-frock, scrupulously clean, was reading Mr. Pater's " Studies of the Renaissance ;" another, similarly attired, was studying Darwin's " Descent of Man ;" another, an older man, was sitting, brow bent, and pencil in hand, with which he made marginalia over Mill's "Political Economy ;" a fourth was com- posing music ; a fifth was collecting specimens in the hedges for a liortus siccus. Of the girls, three were standing together in the attitude of the Graces, only daintily attired, singing part Bongs, with clasped hands ; some were making embroidery for their Sunday frocks, and one was reading Ruskin's " Fors Clavigera " aloud for the benefit of those who embroidered. Of the younger men, one in a corner by himself was declaiming, Shakespeare in hand ; another was airily reading that sweet, and 6i)nple, and musical poem called " Sordello," singing from its rippling measures as he brushed away the dew across the upland lawn ; another was correcting the proofs of a Note on the village archajology. which traced +be connectioii of tlie parish pump 66 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. with tlieRomnn occupation — these proofs "were destined for.tlia Academy I another was catching swiftly and deftly with brush and paper the ever-changing effects of cloud and sunshine on the river; the blacksmith wos writing a villanelle ; and the schoolmaster was guessing a double acrostic. The elder ladies, assisted by the oldest inhabitant cf the village, Methusalem PaiT, were engaged in committing to paper the folk-lore of the dis- trict, with a view of sending it to the editor of Mehisine. Among the mdrchen thus set down for the first time was a nursery story of a Pig, a Porcupine, and a Piper, which afterwards became famous, and was traced to the very foot of the Hirnalaj-as, where the inhabitants believed that it descended from Heaven. Just as Alan, in explaining to Miranda the honour and glory which this relic of old-world story v/ould confer upon the village of AVeyland, his dream grew a little troubled. The young men and the maidens got confused before his eyes ; the meadow grew cloudy ; the villagers all seemed to start asunder in terror ; books, pens, pencils, all were thrown aside, and they fled multi- vious with oaths and shrieks, which were not loud and coarse, but loy>^ and cultured. Then the meadow changed itself into a small whitewashed room, there Avas no Miranda at all, and he was lying in his cottage bedroom alone. " Ting-a-ring-ting !" — was ever alarum more wildly irritat- ing ? He sprang from his bed and hurled a boot v*duch silenced that alarum for ever. Bang, bang, bang ! " Five o'clock, master." That was the boy calling him. He composed his shattered nerves as well aa he could, and proceeded to dress. It was with a mixture of foolish shame and i^ride that he put on his corduroys, button- up waistcoat, and clean white smock ; these assumed, he de- scended the stairs, lit the fire, made his tea, managed to get through a little bre.id and butter — five o'clock is really too early for breakfast — tied his red handkerchief I'ound his neck, put on his soft felt hat, and sallied forth a noAV Don Quixote. He naturally felt uncomfortable in his new garb : that was to be expected. And as he walked rapidly down the village street, along which the labourers were slouching slowly to their work, it was not pleasant to hear the rustics, whose sense of humour is naturally sti'ongest when the point of the epigram refers to their own famihar pursuits, explode as he passed, and choke respectfully. In the farmyard, besides the usual belongings, was a cart and horse ready for use, led by a boy. Bailiff Bostock, his own horse ready saddled, was waiting impatiently for Alan. '' Now, Squire," he taid, pointing to such a heap as might have cone from the Augean stables, " you see that pile o' muck. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 67 It's got to be carted to the fields and spread out m littlo piles, same as you've often seen when you go out shooting." " I understand," said Alan, his heart warming with the pros- pect of real work ; " it's got to be pitchforked into the cart^, driven to the field, and pitchforked back again. Isn't it bojfi' work, Bailife ?" The Bailiff grinned. " Ask me that in half an hour," he said, and, jumping into his (.saddle, rode off on the business of the day. Alan rolled up the sleeves of his smock, and took up the pitchfork. The boy went behind the cart to grin. The smock- frock was white, and the job was so very, very likely to destroy that whiteness that the boy needs must go behind the cai't to laugh. Had he not been afraid of the Squire he would have toltl him that he should begin by taking off the smock and the gmart waistcoat under it. Then the job began. To handle a pitchfork, like other re- sponsible work, requires practice. The crafty pitchforker grasps his instrument at some point experimentally ascertained to be that of least weight and greatest leverage. Had Alan been a Cambridge instead of an Oxford man, he would have known something of such points. But he was ignorant of mechanics, and had to find out for himself. Half a dozen times that boy, who should have been on the shafts, assisting at the reception of the stuff, came from behind the shafts, each time to go back again and laugh as noiselessly as he could. Alan heard him, though he condoned the offence, considering the novelty of the thing. The first time that boy looked round the cart the Squire was beginning to puff and pant ; the second time he looked, the Squire had pulled off his hat, and his face was shining as the face of one in a Turkish bath ; the third time he had throwr aside his red neckerchief and the perspiration was streaming from his brows. But still the Squire worked on. Never before had that boy seen a cart filled more swiftly. "Now, boy," he said good-humouredly, "when you have done laughing you may tell me where we have to take this h)ad." The boy essayed to speak, but choked. The situation was altogether too funny. He could only point. Alan drove the cart down one lane and up another without nny disaster, the boy following behind him, still grinning as noiselessly as he knew. Then they came to their field, and tho boy pointed to the spot where they had to begin. " This will be easy work," said Alan, mounting the cart. The task, indeed, was simple. Only to pitch out the manure in small heaps standing in the cart. o— 2 68 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Thn boy went to the horse's head. After the first heap was out — rather dexterously, Alan thought ■ — the boy made a remarkable utterance : " O— osier !" Instantly the cart went on, and Alan, losing his balance, was prostrated into the cart itself, where he lay supine, his legs kicking up. At this sight the boy broke down altogether and laughed, roaring, and bellowing, and weeping with laughter so that the welkin rang. Alan got up rather ruefully. To be sure, it was absurd to quarrel with the boy for laughing. And yet the condition of that smock-frock from shoulder to hem ! Could the washing bo included in the fourteen shillings? He pitchforked the second pile out of the cart. " O — osier !" cried the boy, and the cart went on. This time Alan fell on his hands and face. The front of the smock was now like the back, and the boy, who had a fino sense of humour, sat down on the ground for unreserved enjoy- ment of his laugh. " Why the devil," cried the Squire, " can't you tell me when you are going on ?' "I did," said the boy ; " I said ' O— osier.' " Alan was silent, and resumed his work with greater care to preserve his balance at the word " O — sier." Just then the Bailiff rode into the field. " Well, Squire," he said, " boys' work— eh ?" "Not quite." " Had a fall in the muck ? Better have taken ofE your frock and your waistcoat, too. Live and learn, sir. Don't you be too wasteful o' the muck. That stuff's precious. My missus, she says, if the Squire '11 drop in when he's ready for a bite, she'll be honoured." " Thank you. Bailiff. I am going to live as the men live." " What ha' you got for your dinner, boy ?" " Bread and cheese." " AVhat has your daddy got ?" " Bread and cheese." " You see, Squire, bread and cheese won't do for the likes of you. However, you have your own way. Have you got your dinner in your pocket, sir ?" " AVhy— no." " Now, sir, do you think we can afPord the time for the la- bourer to go all the way home and back again for dinner ?" That argument was irresistible, and Alan went to the BailiiT'a house, where he was relieved of the unlucky smock. Mrs. Bostock gave him some boiled pork and greens, with a THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 6g glass of beer. That was at twelve o'clock : never had ho bsen BO hungry. After dinner, he fed the pigs. Then he was set weeding, which the Bailiif thought a light and pleasant occupation for an October afternoon. " I can hardly sit up," he wrote to Miranda that evening, " but I must tell you that I have done my first day's work. At present I have had no opportunity of conversing with the men, but that will come in due course, no doubt. My only com- panion to-day has been a boy who laughed the whole time. Oocd-night, Miranda," CHAPTER XI. " The mansion's self was vast and venerable : AVitli more of the monastic than bas been Preserved elsewhere : the cloisters still were stable. The cells, too, and refeciory, I ween." It is not to be understood that Alan was entirely satisfied with a lonely evening in a two-roomed cottage, or that he ceased altogether his visits at Dalmeny Hall. Occasionally, to be sure, but this was only at the beginning of his career as a peasant, he varied the monotony of the evening by inviting a brother farm- labourer to take supper with him. On these occasions the repast was of a substantial kind, accompanied by coffee, and followed by pipes. But it brought little joy, much less than might have been expected. The beefsteak was eaten with hunger, but in manifest dis-ease ; there was no camaraderie as between fellow- workers in the same noble cause ; the coffee was accepted as a poor substitute for the beer of the Spotted Lion, and conversa- tion flagged. Perhaps, Alan thought, there was some defect in his own mind which checked the sympathy necessary to bring out the full flavour of rustic society, and to enter into its inner soul. Else why should the talk be a series of questions on his part, and of answers on the other, like the Church Cate- chism ? And why should his friend, departing at the earliest hour possible, manifest in his artless features a lively joy that he was now free to seek the shades of the Spotted liion, and pour ffjrth to friendly ears the complaint of a swain who found a supper too dearly bought at the cost of a night with the Squire. Once, and only once, Alan ventured within the walls of the tavern. It was in the evening. A full parliament was as- Bembled in the tap-room. Every man had his pipe : every man his mug of beer : the windows were close shut : the lire was burning brightly : the i)etrol'-,ura lamp was turned 70 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. or full : and what -vritli the beer, the tobacco, the smell o^ clothes dr\-ing slowly in the warm room — for outside it was raining — and the petroleum, the stench was like a London fog, inasmuch as it could be seen, felt, and handled almost, as well as tasted. "When Alan appeared at the door, clad like themselves in cor- duroys, with red handkerchief round his neck, he observed that the same expression gathered slowly, like a cloud roUing up from the west, upon every face. It was not a pleasant expres- sion. There was astonishment in it : there was also disgust : and there was an attempt to force the perfunctory gi-in of wel- come. For every man felt as if he was a schoolboy, and as if Alan was the master. What right, that expression said aa plainly as looks can speak, what right had the Squire prying there ? As if it was not aggravation enough to have him always about. Alan read the expression correctly. But he sat down and en- deavoured to say pleasant things. The things were not received as pleasant things at all, but of quite the opposite kind. And, as no one would talk while he was there, he came away dis- heartened. It was not by the tap-room that he should get at the real heart of England's peasantry. As, therefore, the men cared nothing for his society, would rather not have it, and were gtnh with it, as most of us should be had we to spend an evening alone with a duke, and all of us had we to converse with an archangel, Alan fell back upon his own resources, and when he was not devising new things for the improvement of the people, or when he was not too tired physically for further exertion, he began again those visits at Dahneny HaU which were almost a necessity of his daily life. That he prefered the garb of an English gentleman to that of an English labourer goes without saying : and also that it was a rehef beyond the power of words to escape from the narrow limits of his cottage, and find himself in Miranda's room, in the sun- fchine of her presence, away from the sordid and mean conditions Vith which he had surrounded himself. At first, all their talk was of the gi'eat experiment and its ehances of success, which were as yet uncertain. But when Miranda had other guests, and her own share of talk with Alan v.as small, he found himself taking interest, as of old, in mun- dane affairs of a general nature. It was hard to say whether he returned to his cottage with renewed vigour or with disgust. Certainly it looked meauer and more sordid every day : certain the details of his work appeared more disagreeable : but, on the other hand, he had the sympathy of Miranda, and after each talk with her, the approval of his soul was more largely bestowed upon the Work of his life as he called it (with a capital AV), be* THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 71 cause she. too, thought it great, and ■worthy, and commend- able. And on Sundays he spent the whole livelcrg day with Mi- randa, grudging the lap-e of every hour. In the afternoons, when the morning church, necessary for example's sake to every leader of bucolics, was finished, they would talk. There were the gardens of Dalmeny Hall set about with lawns and flower-beds and shady walks ; there were the splendid elms and rolling turf of Weyland Park : there the banks of the silver Wey winding round meadows, lawns, and among great trees : or there was the great Hall of Weyland Court itself, or there was its library. Alan was a great talker to Miranda alone. To her he talked like Coleridge, in a full, rich torrent, though perhaps he was not so unintelligible. To the rest of the world he was a man of reserve, respected because he had the courage of his opinions, and a great cause of small talk by reason of his crotchets, hobbies, and flights. A man with the mysterious power v.-hich belongs to one who can hold his tongue. Great in the might of silence. It was out of these talks that was evolved the Abbey of Thelema. It began one afternoon in January, when for once the north wind slept, and a warm west wind, which did not carry rain with it, brought comfort to the buds which made all the under- wood purple, and were already whispering to each other that the spring Avas coming. As they walked along the river-bank, Weyland Court rose at their right, on a low hiU, in lawns Bloping away on svery side. They stood and looked at it. " It is a beautiful place, Alan," said Miranda for the thou- sandth time. " What a pity that you cannot live in it still, and carry out your plans in your own place." " Not yet, Miranda," he replied ; " not yet for j-ears ; net till a new generation has grown up who can run alone in the path of culture." "What can you do with it?" she asked. "It would be a shame to let it." " I will never let it." " And it seems a shame that no one lives in it." The house was in red brick, and stood round a quadrangle open to the south, like one or two courts of the red brick col- leges of Cambridge, say the second court of St. John's, or tho ivy court of Jesus, or the single court, only that is faced with Etone, of pretty Clare, It had a splendid great hall, which we have already seen ; it had a chapel, a library, a long drawing- room, running over the whole ground-floor of one side : it had a garden within the quadrangle : its walls were covered with all kinds of creepers : it had a stately gateway of that orna- 72 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. mcnted iron^vork in which the genius of English art seems mosi to have concentrated itself. On the west and south lay tho great gardens : on the north the view stretched across the park over hundreds of acres of splendid land which, I suppose, ought to be turned into fields arable, but which was rich with wood and coppice and clastic turf. On the east side was planted a thick grove of pines to keep off the English mistral. The place was erected for a convent, but never fulfilled the purpose of the founder, because after his death — he had been a stupendous sinner, and thought to patch matters up by found- ing a nunnery — came the dissolution of all the religious orders, and the generous monarch who sent all monks and nuns out into the world, bestowed Weyland Priory, which became Wey- land Court, upon the first Dunlop who had ever received the xujyal favour. Then Miranda had an idea. " Alan," she said, " we have talked about all kinds of frater- nities, societies, and communities, except one." " What is that, Miranda ?" " A society where ladies and gentlemen can live together without any aims, either religious, political, or social." " Is not that the ideal of modern society ?" " But an ideal never reached, Alan. Suppose we formed such a society and placed it at Weyland Court." " The Galois and the Galoises were such a society," he re- plied, laughing. "They lived according to their own lights, which I suppose they thought advanced. But I fear we cannot imitate them. Then there was tho Abbey of Thclema, which seems to meet your case." " What was the Abbey of Thelema ?" " When we get home, I will read you all about it." " Then let us go home at once, and you shall read it to us." They went home. Desdemona was staying with Miranda, her mother being mere than usually ill. Alan went to the library, found the first volume of Urquhart's Rabelais, and read about the story of the celebrated Abbey, which, as every- body knows, breaks off short at the very beginning, and tells an expectant vrorld nothing more than how the Abbey was started. " It is the way with all good things," sighed Miranda. " ^Vhat I always want is to go beyond tlic story ; I want to find out how they got on with their Abbey. Did the Brothers and Sisters fall in love with each other ? Did they go on living together without quarrels and little jealousies?" "My dear," said Desdemona the wise, "when the curtain drops, the lovers part, the weeping father diies his eyes, and wo all go home to humdrum supper and bed. That is all to b^ THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ti got out of going beyond the story. Believe in the happy mo- u-ent. The rest is below consideration." " Ah !" Miranda replied. " But if it were only possible to have such an Abbey." " Why not ?" asked Alan. " To collect together a band of men and women who would simply lead the pleasantest life attainable, and n^ver forget that they are gentlemen and gentlewomen." "Why not?" repeated Alan. " My dear Alan," said Desdemona, " the fact of your ex- traordinary freedom from young men's follies, though you are yourself a mere boy, makes me hopeful that you mean some- thing." " I mean," said Alan, " that if you and Miranda could get up such an Abbey, there is Weyland Court for you. First, because it will please Miranda ; and secondly, because while I am trying my experiment in the village, Miranda may try hers with people of culture and see what will come of it." "But it will cost unheard-of sums," urged Desdemona. " Weyland Court can afford a good deal. It is only keeping open house for a time." " Alan !" Miranda clapped her hands. " If you really mean it — but, of course, you always mean what you say. Quick, Desdemona, dear ; let us have pen and paper and begin our new Abbey. Only," she hesitated for a moment, " people would say that it is quite too absurd." " People say what they please," said Alan. " Wild words wander here and there. They say I am doing an absurd thing in Avorking on my farm. That is gravely absurd. Suppose we do an absurd thing which shall have no gravity about it at all, but only whimsical, and start our Abbey after the rules laid down by Father Rabelais." " Yes, Alan, let us try it ; we have been too grave lately." " Then, on one condition, JMiranda. It is that you become the Lady Abbess, and that Desdemona gives us her help in organising the thing." " No — no," said Desdemona. " In your own Louse you must be Abbot, Prior, or whatever you call it." But Alan was inflexible on this point. He promised to be- come an active-working Brother, so long as it did not interfere v.ith his work in the village ; he would attend regularly, dine fcometimes, take a leading part in the ceremonies, but Miranda must be the chief. So it was settled. "And for the ceremonies," eaid Miranda, " Desdemona must direct." "I will do what I can," said Desdemona. " Of coursCj you 74 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. will have mediEeval things revived. You ought to Lave games riding at the ring, tournament.*, medis3val singing and dancing' and mediaeval dresses. All the Brothers and Sisters will be rich, I suppose." " All but Tom Caledon," said Miranda ; " and if we have Tom Caledon, we must have Nelly, and she is not rich at all. But that does not matter." " Not at all," said Alan. " Ah ! you two," murmured Desdemona. " What a thing for two young people, not one, which always happens, and which is the reason why this world is so lopsided — what a thing, I say, that you can do what you like without thinking of money ! If I could only persuade you to run a theatre on high principles, which would not pay." " The Abbey first, dear Desdemona," said Miranda. " And when that is done with, if ever it is, we will have our theatre, and you shall be the manager." But Desdemona shook her head. " Women ought not to be managers," she said. " They make bad administrators. There is only one man fit to be the dictator of a theatre. And that is— but I will tell j-ou v/hen we start the new house." Then they all three went over to "Weyland Court and ex- amined its capabilities. " What do you think ?" asked Alan. " The hall," said Desdemona, " v.-ill, of course, be the refec- tory, and the ball-room as well. Think of dining habitually in so splendid a hall. The lovely drawing-room, which is like that of Guy's Cliff, only longer and more beautiful, will do for our ordinary evenings ; I see several rooms which v/ill do for breakfast and morning rooms. There are stables ready for fifty horses : the kitchen is fit for a City company "' " And rooms," Miranda interrupted, " for as many Brothers and Sisters as we can take in. Shall we have twenty-four Desdemona ? That seems & good round number to bciin with." But Desdemona thought twenty v/ould be better, and they resolved on twenty. " Every Brother and Sister to have two rooms," the girl went on, warming to her work, " and one room for his or her servant. That makes sixty rooms ; and there are plenty to spare for guests, without counting the three haunted chambers." " Oh !" said Alan, " you will have guests ?" "Of course," Desdemona answered. "What is the good of shoAving the world how to live if nobcdy comes to see you ? You might just as well act to an empty house." *' And v.'ho will you iuvilc tojoin ? ' Alan asked. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 7i Miranda threw herself into a chair, and took paper and pen. " You, Alan, for one. What name will you talce ? But we will find you one. And you, Desdemona dear, under that name and no other. And I Miranda, because I shall not change my name. That makes three out of the twenty. Then we niu«t ask Adela Fairfax, if only for her beautiful playing. And ]']dith Cambridge, because she is so beautiful and so clever. And perhaps Major Vanbrugh will join us. And then there is Tom Caledon. Oh ! what an Abbey we shall have !" So the Abbey was started. And to the County it seemed a more desirable piece of madness than the farm. And nothing gave the world so much satisfaction as the name conferred upon Alan Dunlop. For, as Lucy Corrington told Lord Alwyne, as the Brethren never knew what he would do next, they called him Brother Hamlet. " But what, in the name of goodness," asked Sister Desde- mona, " are we to do with the Chapel ?" CHAPTER XII. "Wo may oulnm By violent swiftness fliat which wo do run tit, And lose by overrunuiug." Meantime, the days crept slowly on with Alan. To rise at dawn, or before it ; to go forth after a hasty breakfast prepared by his own hands, to receive his orders from the Baililf ; to get through the day's work as well as he could, feeling all the time that he was the least efficient labourer of the wliole twelve hands, or even, counting the boys, of the whole twenty-four, employed upon the farm, a useful but humiliating lesson for the yoimg Oxford man who had been trained in the belief that whatever a gentleman put his hand to, he would immediately do better than anybody else ; to wear those confounded cordu- roys, turned up at the ankles ; to meet his friends in such a disguise that they seldom recognised him ; to pass a cavalcade of ladies riding along the road, and to pull his cart — as a carter Alan was perhaps as good as any other man on the estate— -out L'f their way into the ditch ; to work on in a field, conscious that a dozen people were leaning over the gale, come forth on purpose to see the Squire attired as a labouring man, carrying out the teaching of the " Fors Clavigera ;" to acquire an enor- mous appetite at the ungodly hour of eleven, and appease it, sitting in a hedge, with great bunches of cold bacon and bread — ■ actually, cold bacon and bread— P.nd other homely catcs ; to plod 76 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. home at night to his dismal damp cottage, there to light a fire, and brew a solitary tea for himself; and after tea to fight against the physicarfatigue, which seemed to numb all his fa- culties at once ; — this was the life which Alan for the most part led. As regards his work, he found that he made but an indif- ferent labourer ; that his companions, who undoubtedly ex- celled him in practical bucolic art, scofEed at him almost be- fore his face, and that, so far from becoming the friend and confidant of the men, he day by day seemed to be drifting farther from them. It was from no pride or exclusiveness on his part. He fed the pigs, drove the cows, groomed the horses, carted the manure, hedged and ditched, learned to manage the steam plough, taught himself the great Art and Mystery of Thatching, learned a little rough carpentering, tried to shoe a horse, but got kicked, and grubbed up the weeds as patiently as any old man in the village. " The busy hours," he said to Miranda, " are doubled by tho solitude. The men, among themselves, talk and make merry after their fashion. What they talk about, or what their jokes between themselves are, Heaven only knows. When I come among them they are suddenly silent. Even the boys are afraid of me." " You will understand them," said Miranda, after a time. He shook his head. " I begin to despair. And in the evening when I should be useful and ready to devise new schemes for their benefit, the weariness is so great, that I sit down in my chair, and half the week, fall fast asleep." " And can you live on your wages, Alan ?" Here, I regret to say, he positively blushed, because here, ho felt, was the great breakdown of his plan. " No, Miranda, with all my economy, I spend exactly double what I earn. I cannot understand it. I began with drinking nothing but water and coffee. Yet one gets so confoundedly hungry. How do they manage it ?'' Not only did he begin with coffee and water, but he began by knocking ofi: tobacco. He would no longer smoke. " And yet " he said to Miranda, " it made no difference to tho people whether I smoked or whether I did not. They don't seem to care what T do. As for beer, they drink as much as they can get ; and as for tobacco, they smoke as much as tiiey can." " Although," said Desdemona, " you have sacrificed your in- terest in Havanna, they retain theirs in Virginia. Why not ?" " So I have taken to tobacco again, and I confess I like it." "And the total abstinence plan — how does that work?" asked Desdemona, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 77 *' I have bad to gi TO it up. What is the use of letting the people know that you have given up wine wlien they cleave to their beer ?" " Exactly," said Dcsdemona, who could never bo taught to sympathise with the grand experiment. " You gave up your allegiance to the grape of Uordeaux, and you fancied tliey would give up theirs to the barley of the Spotted Lion. Poor enthusiast !" " AYell, I have taken to my claret again, now. And, of course, it is absurd to pretend any longer to live within my wages." " You have been brought up," said Desdemona the sceptic, "to live as all English gentlemen do ; that is, well. You tried suddenly, and without preparation, to live as no English gentle- men do ; that is, in a minimum. What could 3'ou expect but a breakdown ?" " Yes," he said sadly. " It is a breakdown, so far." " As your daily diet is dilTercnt from theirs," the woman of experience went on, " so are your thoughts different from their thoughts. Your brain is quickened by education, by generous diet, by freedom from care ; theirs are dulled by no education, by low living, and by constant money anxieties. You have travelled and read ; they know nothing but what they see. My poor Alan, what sort of minds do you propose to understand with all this trouble ?" " There is a sense in all men," said Alan, which lies dormant in some, but must be a lingering spark that wants the breath of sympathy to kindle it into flame. It is the spur of all noble actions. I want to light that flame in all their hearts." " In your rank," said the actress, " they call it ambition, and it is laudable ; in theirs, it is discontent, and it is a crime. AVould you fly straight in the face of your Church Cate- chism ?"' As the days went on, the physical weariness grew less, Alan became stronger ; the pains went out of his legs and arms ; he could stoop over a field and go weeding for hours Avithout suffering ; he acquired, as we have said, an enormous appetite, and, probably because he lived better than the rest of the men, he found himself after a time able to sit up in the evening, work, ■write, and devise things for the good of the village. First, he began to look into the doings of the Parliament, which had now held a weekly Saturday evening sitting for soma six weeks. He discovered, on inquiry, that liis orders about pro- viding a good supper, with abundance of beer, had been literally and liberally carried out, but that, as no minutes of proceedings were kept, it was impossible for him to discover what, if any- thing, had been discoursed. What really happened, as he soon found oat, vas, that the men. after pating the supper and 78 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. drinking tho beer, adjourned without any further debate to ths Spotted Lion. This discovery sti uck Alan with consternation. lie took blame to himself for the carelessness with which he had left the Parliament to its own duties. He ought, he remembered, to have attended at every meeting, to have presided, suggested topics of discussion, and led. But he had always been so tired. One thing, however, was cleax*. It was not enough to point the way. The rustics required a leader. That he ought to havo knov/n all along. Accordingly on the next Saturday evening, the members of the House of Commons received an intimation by means of a flyleaf, that supper would no longer be provided, as it appeared to be a hindrance to deliberation. '• You may," Alan wrote, " when you divide your profits from the farm, vote whatever proportion you please to be spent in a weekly supper. Indeed, some such sort of common festal meal, to which the women and children could be admitted, seems most desirable and helpful. But I cannot longer exicourage a feast which I designed as a preliminary to serious talk, and which seems to have been converted into a drinking-bout." "What does the Squire mean by this here, William?" asked the oldest inhabitant. But William could not explain this unexpected move. It was beyond him. A weekly supper which had lasted for six weeks seemed destined to last for ever. When the men recovered sufficiently to discuss the matter, it was considered as an act of meanness beyond any precedent. On the following Saturday, Alan came to the Parliament, bringing with him a bundle of papers for discussion. At the hour of assembling there v/as no one there at all. Presently the cobbler of the village dropped in casually. After him, pro- tending not to be his friend, came in a stranger, who practised the art of cobbling in the cathedral town of Athelston, near Weyland. And then the schoolmaster looked in. The cobbler of Athelston, after a decent pause, rose energetically, and asked Alan if this was a place for freedom of speech. " Certainly, my friend," said the young reformer. " We are met together to discuss all points." " Then," quoth the cobbler, " I am prepared to prove that there is no God." Alan assured hhn that political and social problems, not theo- logical, were the object of the Village Parliament. But he would not be convinced, and after a few withering sarcasms directed against autocrats, aristocrats, and priests, he retired, followed by his friend, the village cobbJer whosecretlj nourished similar THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 79 persuasions. There is somellimg in the smell of leather which IS fatal to religion. There was tlien only the schoolmaster loft. He was a moody discontented man, who chafed at being under the rule of the vicar, and longed for the superior freedom of a school board. Being by right of his profession a superior person, he cherished the companion vices of contempt and envy. These naturally go with superiority ; and he came to the Parliament like some of those Avho go to church, namely, with the intention of scoffing. His intention was gratified, because, as no one came at all, he had the satisfaction of going home and scoffing in his lodgings at the Squire. Alas ! a secret scoff within four walls brings no real satisfaction with it. You must have two to bring out the full flavour of a scoff. Fancy Mephistopheles enjoying a solitary sneer ! That is one reason why hermits are ouch exceediiigly jolly dogs, ever ready for mirth, and credulous to a fault. " It is no use," said Alan to the schoolmaster, " not the slightest use bringing forward a measure for discussion when there is no one present but you and me. Let us adjourn the house." As they passed the Spotted Lion together they heard the voices of the rustics in high debate. The tap-room was their true House of Pai'liament. There was once a good and faithful missionary who, after weeks of unrewarded labour, succeeded one eA^ening in persuad- ing three native boys to mount with him into an upper chamber, there to make inquiry. He naturally began with fervent prayer, and being carried away by fervour, continued this exer- cise aloud, with eyes closed, for the space of forty-five minutes or thereabouts. On opening his eves, this poor labourer found that the three inquirers had stealthily cre^jt away during his uplifting, and were gone. Alan felt as sad as my friend the missionary. People who •will not be led, and to whom it is useless to jjoint the way, must be gently pushed or shoved in the right direction — a fruth which Baxter perceived many years ago, and which is illustrated by a well-known tract. Therefore, as self-reform was not to be hoped for, he began to reform the village for them. First he opened a shop in the village on the most en- lightened co-operative principle. It was that by which the purchasers divide the profits in proportion to their purchases. Alan first proposed to the village sliopkeeper that she should exchange her shop for the post of manager under the new system. But she was a person of defective imagination, and could not be persuaded to see the advantages of the offer. Alan then issued a tract iu which he explained exactly and So THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. clearly tlie metliod to be followed. Every purchase, with ths name of the purchaser, was to be entered in a book, and at tho close of the year, when the books were made up, the profits were to be divided equitably according to the amount of the purchases. The shop was to be a sort of universal provider. Alan entrusted the management to a young man who promised to give it his undivided care for fifteen shillings a week, rent, fire, and candles. The young man was not pleasant to look upon, but he was highly recommended by his uncle, who had a grocery establishment in AthcLston. He was a Particular Baptist by conviction, and ready to preach if invited. He was only eighteen, and had sandy hair, which, of course, Avas not his fault. " We must succeed, Miranda," cried Alan, in a sort of rapture, standing in the newly-opened shop. " We sell everything at ten per cent, over cost price. We sell everything of the best, there will be no adulteration, of course ; we give no credit, and conse- quently have no bad debts. And in our tract we appeal to almost the lowest of all human motives — the desire for gain. It is a system which only has to be stated and understood in order to be adopted at once. Not only will our customers sco that they get their tea and other things cheaper, but better, and in the long-run that they share in the advantages of honest trade. Good tea," — here he clasped the canister to his heart, — " good sugar, good rice, good cheese, good flannel — everything good. Why, the village-shop will regenerate the village. And Miranda, the first step is taken when I have made them discon- tented with their present condition." Alan laid in for himself as much tea and groceries as would suffice for ■ten cottages. Then, in his ardour, he ordered his housekeeper at the Coux't to use the village-shop ; persuaded Miranda to drive into the village and order quantities of things which she did not want, all of which wei-e paid for on the spot, and got the Vicarage people to patronise it, so that the shop began with a fair stroke of business. One thing only went to mar the general cheerfulness : none of the villagers went into the shop at all, unless when Alan invited them, and, after ex- plaining at length the principles of co-operation, bought articles of domestic consumption for them, and paid for them on the spot. Then they went away, bearing their pounds of tea, and came no more. The reason was, not onlj' the habit of going day after day in the same way, in the fetters of use and wont, but also a more important reason, that they all had " ticks " at the old village-thop which they could not pay off. Alan's only plan would have been to have shut up the ancient establishment, pay all the debts of tho village and startfair. Even then, there would be some of the nior§ dashing spirits "who would spend THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 8l their wages at the Lion, and ask for credit on ttie very next Saturday. There was a third hindrance to the success of the shop : one which was as vet unsuspected by its promoters. It Avas, that the manager, the sandy-haired young man of the name of Hatchings, was contracting the habit of sitting secretly and by night over the ledgers, not with the lawful desire of esti- mating profit and loss, but with the reprehensible design of cooking the accounts. As nobody interfered with him, and ho gave no receipts, this was not difficult ; and as immunity en- courages the sinner, he soon prepared two ledgers, in one of which he entered faithfully before the eyes of the purchaser any item, and in the other he divided the purcliases by half, or even left them out altogether ; and he put the money into hia pncket, and went off to the city of Athelston every Saturday tvcning. " I hope, George," said his uncle, meeting him, " I do hope that you have had a Avarning, and are now going straight." "Ah! yah! there you go," replied his nephew, "always throwing a thing into a poor fellow's face. Why don't you go off and tell the Connection ? Why don't you take and 'vriif f/j Squire Dunlop ? Ah ! why don't you ?" " If you'd been my son," said the man of virtue, " I'd ha've behaved to you as a parent should — cut your liver out first, and turned you out of the house next." Which shows what a useful thing is a testimonial, and how, like charity, it may be made to cover a multitude of sins. Exhilarated by the dream of his shop, Alan prepared the way, by another tract, for his next great move ; this was nothing lesa than a direct blow at the Licensed Victuallers' interests. " I propose to establish," he said, in the introductory tract which he sent about the village — these were now so numerous that they ceased to interest the village mind at all, any more than the Sunday serniou — " I propose to establish a bar at which only plain and unadulterated beer, sent to the house by the best brewers, shall be sold, with the addition of a very small percentage for management and carriage. The price shall be exactly that which can repay the producer. It will, therefore, cost about half of what you now pay, and will, of course, be infinitely better in quality. Three-fourths of the crime of this country is due, not only to excessive drinking, but to the drinking of bad liquor ; and the same proportion of disease is due to the same shameful cause. My shop will be called the ' Good Liquor Bar.' The beer will be drunk on the spot, or carried away to be consumed among your own families, or while you are following your favourite studies. It will be 6 82 THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. yaid for -vvlien ordered. The bar will be under the same roof. as the shop." Mr. Hutchings, fortunately, had a young friend in Athelston ■who, although a sincere Christian and a fellow-member of the Connection, was experienced in the liquor traffic. By his re- commendation the young friend was appointed on probation. He was not nice to look at, any more than his companion, but good looks go for nothing. The two young men lived together, and when the shop and bar were shut, it was pretty to see them innocently making up their double ledgers. On Saturday even- ings they put money in their pockets and went off to Athelstcn together. " You see, Miranda," Alan explained, when he was offering her a glass of pure beer in the Good Liquor Bar itself, " you see that if we offer them a room with table and chairs, we only perpetuate the waste of time vv'hich goes on at the public-house over the waj'. As they will not do without beer altogether, which we could wish, perhaps they will learn to use the bar as a house of call, not as a village club. We must wait, however, I suppose, until we have got our reading-room before we shall succeed in getting them to spend the evenings rationally. Already, I think, there are symptoms of a revival ; do you not, Miranda ? I saw one of them reading my last tract this morning." " It is the young man they call Will — i — am," said Miranda ; " I saw him too. It was he who ordered in the cask of beer at the first Parliament. No doubt he is thinking how to get some advantage to himself out of the new bar." " William has not, to be sure, enlarged "views," said Alan. " In the lower levels the instinct of self-pieservaticn assumes offensively prominent forms." " You are looking fagged, Alan," she said in her kindly sym- pathetic way ; " are you taxing your strength too much ?" " We had some heavy work this morning. Nothing more. I am a little disheartened sometimes, that is all. Any little thing like the sight of our friend with the tract gives me a little encouragement. And then one gets despondent again." Already he was beginning to feel that culture was not to be suddenly and swiftly made admirable in the eyes of Old England's peasantry. The Work was, however, as 3'et far from complete. Alan's designs embraced a great deal more than a Co-operative ^hop and a Good Liquor Bar. His next step was to build a Bath House with a Public Laundry attached. There were hot and cold baths, a swimming-bath for men and another for women. This was an expensive business, and one which he never ex- pected to pay the preliminary outlay. But it was part of his THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 83 Echeme, and in a really eloquent tract lie explained that those \s'ho regard bathing as a Inxury for tho rich, forgot that it is one of the accompaniments of godly living. The institution was to be on the same co-operative principles as the shop and the bar, the profits being divided among the bathers and the washer- women. He began by setting an example of an early mornirg tub to the whole parish. No one followed him. He might as well, indeed, have invited the villagers to sit up to the neck ia a clear fire for half an hour as ask them to take a cold bat!i. Bathing, however, he recognised to be a thing which requires gradual training. " The history of bathing," he said to Miranda, " is a curious chapter in that of civilisation. I do not think either Lecky or Buckle has treated it. Once, indeed, Dr. Playfair made the egregious blunder of stating in the House that for a thousand 3'ears nobody ever vi'ashed himself. Notliing could be more untrue ; what really happened was that the public bath of tho whole Roman people became a private luxury reserved for the rich among the Westerns. In England and France the nobles never ceased to enjoy the luxury of a bath, and there are plenty of evidences to show that the poor took it when they could get it. But in England the custom fell out, and it is true that for something like a thousand years poor people have ceased to wash themselves. Heaven only knows what ideas may not come in with the return to personal cleanliness." When the Bath-rooms were completed, or even before, ha began to convert what had been a Dissenting Chapel into a Free Library and Reading Room. This did not cost much. He fitted bookshelves round the walls, filled them with a selec- tion of a couple of thousand volumes, wdiich he partly chose from the Weyland Court Library, and partly bought from cata- logues, put in a few chairs and a couple of tables, laid out pens and paper, gave orders for certain papers and magazines, and installed a Librarian. The Librarian was a pale-faced pupil-teacher, a girl whose delicate constitution would have broken down under the pressure of rough school- work, and to whom the post of custodian of the Library and Reading Room, at a salary of sixty pounds a year, Avas a little heaven. She was. the first convert whom Alan Dunlop made in the village. Like another Cadijah, she was an enthusiast. Mr. Dunlop was her prophet : she read all his tracts and kept supplies of them for her friends ; she absorbed all his theories, and wanted to carry them right through to their logical conclusion ; she preached his doctrines in season and out of season. To her Mr. Dunlop was the greatest thinker, the noblest of men, the wisest of mankind. Needless to add that a tract appeared as soon as the Library and Reading Room opened, 6 — 2 84 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. pointing out tlie advantages to bo derived from serious study, and tlie enormous superiority of the Reading Room as a place of comfort over the Spotted Lion. " And now," said Miranda, when she came with Desdemona to admire the Library, " now, Alan, that you have done every- thing that you can for the villagers, I suppose you will give up living among them and come back again to your own place ?" " Evei'ything, Miranda ? I have as yet done next to nothing : if I were to withdraw myself, the whole fabric whi^h I have begun to build up with so much care would at once fall to pieces. Besides, I have only just begun, and there is nothing really completed at all." " Well, Alan, go on ; I can sympathise -with you, if I can do nothing else," said Miranda gently. They were in the Library, which had been open a week. It ■was in the evening, a fine evening in early January, when the frost was out on the flooded meadows. No one was in the Library but themselves, Desdemona, and the young Librarian, who was gazing with large rapt eyes at her prophet. " Go on, Alan. There are only Prudence Driver and our- selves to hear you. Prudence will not gossip in the village. Tell us what you think of doing next." " I have not decided quite on the next step. There are so many things to do. Among other plans, I am going to organise for the next winter — not for this— a series of weekly lectures on such scientific subjects as can be made popular. Astronomy, for instance, practical chemistry, and so on — things that can be made interesting by means of oxy-hydrogen slides, diagrams, and experiments. Some of the lectures I shall give myself. Some I shall have to pay for." " These will not come out of the profits of the farm, I sup- pose ?" said Desdemona, who really was a Didymus for want of faith. ' JNo, it would not be fair ; the lectures will be for the whole village, and will be my own gift to them. Of course they will be free. If only I could get the men out of that wretched habit of abstracting their thoughts the moment one begins to talk. Then I shall have a night-school ; a shed where we can drill the younger men and boys " " And, oh ! something for girls, Mr. Dunlop," pleaded the young Librarian. " Everything is done for the boys, and the girls are left to grow up as useless and as frivolous as — as — as their sisters." " You shall take the girls under your charge, Prudence," said Alan kindly, " and I will do for them whatever you think best. Consider the thing carefully, and propose something for the girls." THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 85 " Next," he went on, " I mean to have a Picture find Art Gallery." " A picture gallery ? For rustics, Alan ?" Miranda was Amazed, and even Prudence, prepared for any length, gasped. Desdemona sat down and fanned lierEcU", though it was a cold night. ^' A Picture and Art Gallery,'' he repeated. " Why should Art belong only to wealthy people ? Are we not to suppose a love of beautiful things — a feeling for form and colour — to exist in the minds of our poor ? Tell me, Prudence, child, what yoa think?" She shook her head. "My father is one of them," she said, ' and my brothers and sisters. I think there is no such love of Art as the books tell us of among them." She had the Library all to liersclf, and browsed in it at her will, so that she could speak of books with authority. " It is only latent," said Alan. " The contemplation of beau- tiful things will awaken the dormant sense. Lly pictures will be only copies, Miranda, and my collection of other things will be a loan collection, for which 1 shall put all my friends under contribution. Prudence is going to be the fust Curator of the Gallery." The girl's eyes sparkled. This was too much happiness. " And then, Miranda,'' Alan went on. " I am going to have festivals and dances for the people. They are stupid because they get no amusements ; they have no amusements because tho?e who have taken charge of them, the clergy, have fostered an idiotic notion that amusements such as people like — those which stir the pulses and light up the eyes and fxll the brain with excitement— are wicked. It is wicked, the people have been taught, to dance. It is wicked to dress up and act ; it is wicked to go to theatres, though, to be sure, our poor folk have got small chances of seeing a play. Now I am going to start in my village a monthly ball for Saturday night, at which the dances will be the same as you have at your own balls — the young people will soon learn them, I believe ; I am going to build a small theatre and run a country company for a month in the year, without thinking whether it will pay ; I am going to en- courage thcra to try acting for themselves as an amusement ; I shall train a band of village musicians, and establish a madrigal club ; I shall hold festival?, to Avhich the people can invite their friends from other villages, and which shall be directed by themselves as soon as they have learned the art of self-govern- ment ; and I am going to organise expeditions to distant places to Loudon, for instance, in order to teach th? people how v/ide 80 THE MONKS GF tllELEMA, ihc world is, and how men and women livo in different fashion." " That sounds very beautiful, Alan," said Miranda, " if it is feasible. But do you think it is ?" " I hope so— I think so. At least we can try it." •'' And how long will your experiment take ?" " All my life, Miranda," he answered, meeting her look, which had an expression almost of pleading, with an inspired gaze of enthusiasm. She left him and drove home, sorrowful. All his life ! To live all the years of his life in that little cottage ; to work every day at rough and thankless farm-work ; to toil every evening for the slow and sluggish folk. Surely even the " Fors Clavi- gera " did not exhort to such self-sacrifice. Always, every Sunday, as the vv-eeks went on, Miranda thought Alan more melancholy over his experiment. And there was always the same burden of lament. " I cannot enter into their minds, Miranda." No talk of giving up the work ; no leaving the plough and turning back ; only confession of failure or of weakness. " If I could only understand their minds !" The autumn deepened into v/inter ; winter passed away, and spring ; and summer found Alan Dunlop still plodding among the furrows all the day, and working for the rustics all the evening. But hs grew worn and downcast, finding uo fruit of all his toil. CHAPTER XIII. " But none were genh : tlie great hour of union "Was run;; by dinner's kuell : till then all wer« Masters of tlieir own time — or in communion Or soliiary as they chose to bear The hours."' A MONASTERY which has no fixed rules may yet have certain practices. Among these was one that no Brother or Sister should be called in the morning, unless by special arrangement. The father of this custom was a philosophical Brother vvho held that the time to go to bed is when you can no longer keep your eyes open, and the time to get up when hunger compels you. Naturally, this Brother was alwajs last at breakfast. It is not easy, with every desire for innovation, to impro%'a very much on the national custom of breakfast. Some took a cup of cofTce at eight, and breakfasted at eleven in French fashion. One or two, including Desdemona, breakfasted in their own rooci.s. No oue, said Desdemona, onglit to bo ex- THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA. S? pected to bo in good spirits, to say clever tilings, or to be amus- ing in the morning. She added that her experience of life taught her that good temper is not a thing so abundant as to be lavishly squandered over foolish extravagances early in the day, but to be carefully guarded and even hoarded for the even- ing, when it is wanted to crown and complete the day. For this reason she kept her ov/n room. For the rest, separate tea and coitee sets were provided for every one, and they came down at any time, between eight and one or two, which seemed good. On the morning after her reception, Nelly appeared at half- pa.st eleven, a little ashamed of herself for lateness. Tom was in the breakfast-room, waiting for her. Miranda had long since gone to Dalmeny Hall. There was a melodious tinkling of music in the corridor as she pai^sed the Sisters' rooms. There v>as a rehearsal of a new two-act piece going on in the theatre ; and there was all the bustle and sound of a big house in full swing for the rest of the day. Only her fellou'-novice. Brother Peregrine, was still at breakfast. Nelly tonk a chair beside him, and Tom began to run about getting her things. " Sister Rosalind is not fatigued, I hope V" asked Brother Peregrine, with more anxiety than Tom thought altogether called for. " Thank you ; not at all," replied the girl, attacking breakfast with the vigour of twenty ; " I never am tired after a bali What makes me tired is sitting at home with mamma." " Still, that must be delightful for her," said Mr. Exton, " Not delightful at all, I assure you. We only quarrel. Don't we, Tom, especially when there is some one to quarrel about?" Tom laughed, and declined to compromise himself by any statements on Mrs. De?pard's domestic mauxjcrs and customs. Mr. Exton began to draw conclusions. "I am very late, Tom," she went on. "Give me some tea, please. We might have had a ride before breakfast. Why did you not send somebody up to call me ?" " We will ride after breakfast instead." " And now, tell me, what do we do all day in the Abbey ? And how do you amuse the Sisters ?" "We all do exactly what we please," said Tom — " the Sisters paint, play music, practise theatricals, consult about dress, ride, walk, — and, in fact, they are perfectly free to act as they think best." " Of course," said Nelly, " else I should not have come heie. That was the reward you held out if T would come. There are uo duties, I suppose i do chapel six times a day, iot ir,i lance." 88 THE MONKS oF THELEMA. " Absolutely none. Tlisre are not even calls to be mntla Tbe Sisters have decided that they are not bound to return visits Avbile in the Abbey." " Now, that is really delightful. All my life long I have been yearning to escape from the round of duties. They were bad enough at school, and most intolerably stupid, but sometimes now I think they seem even far worse. Have j-ou duty letters to write constantly, Mr. Exton ?" " Pardon me, Sister Rosalind — Brother Peregrine, I have no duty letters, now that I have left India." "Brother Peregrine, then— do you have to drive round in a one-horse brougham leaving cards ? Do you have to remember how long since you have written to people you care nothing about ? Those are my duties. And very, very hard work it is. But now that I am here, Tom, I expect to be amused. What will you do for me ?" '' I will ride with you, dance with you, act with you, talk to you, walk with you, and fetch and carry for you." " That is very good, and just what I expected," she replied. " And what will you do for me, Mr. Exton ?" " Pardon me. Sister Rosalind — Brother Peregrine," he cor- rected again, gravely. " Brother Peregrine, then — what will your Brothership do ?" " I can do some of the things which Brother Lancelot pro- poses. Perhaps I can do a few which he has not proposed." " What are they ? I am very easily amused, co long as I am kept in a good temper ; am I not, Tom ?" Tom laughed. " Can you be frivolous ?" she asked. " Can you be mis- chievous ? Can you make me laugh ? Tom breaks down just at that point. He can't make me laugh. Can you — can you, Brother Peregrine, become, to please me, Peregrine Pickle ?" The face with the myriad crows' feet grew profoundly grave. " To be frivolous," taid its OAvner, " v.ithout being silly has been my aim and constant object in lii'c, I studied the art in the North-western Provinces, where there was nothing to dis- tract one. What shall I do ? I can juggle for you. I can tame serpents ; I can make apple-trees grow in the ground before your eyes ; I can swallow swords ; I can make little birds come out of the palm of my hand — " " You shall have an evening at the theatre," said Tom, " and show off all your conjuring tricks." " I can sing to you, after a fashion ; make songs for you, after a fashion ; play the guitar, too, still after my fashion. I could even do acrobatic tricks, and walk on my hands, or stand on my bead, if that would please you." " It would, indeed !" Nelly cried with enthusiasm. " I have THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 89 Ticver seen a grown man walking on his hands. It would please me very much." " Well," interposed tl\c young man she called Tom, ''you are not going to be entirely dependent on us two for your amuse- ments. Let us look at the day's engagements." He took a card from a silver stand on the breakfast-table. It was like the menu of a big dinner, being printed in gold letters on coloured card with edging and border- work of very dainty illumination. " This is the list of the day's engagements," Tom went on. *' Of coui-ee no one is engaged, really, because here we all do what we please. But there seemed no other word that quite met the case. Desdeniona draws it up for us every day. Sometimes it remains the same for several days together. Sometimes it varies. I will read it to you while you finish breakfast. " ' The Abbey of Tiielema. " ' Engagements of Tuesday, July 9, 1877. " ' 11 A.M. — Brother Bayard will deliver a lecture in the hall on the Eastern Question, and the duty of England at the present juncture. Admission by the western door for the Order.' " " At eleven ?" asked Nell}'. " But it is half-past now. And besides,"— she pulled a long face—" one hardly went through the trouble of being received and everything in order to have the privilege of heaving lectures. Is it, after all, only like the Crystal Palace ? 11— Lecture. 12— the Blue Horse. 130— the Band. 2.30— the Burlesque. Tom, I am disappointed. After all, it is useless to expect anything from life but what one has already got." " When you have quite finished," said Tom gravely, " you will let me remind you that you have not yet mastered the tirst rudiments of the Order. ' Fay ce que vouldras.' If you feel any yearning to give a lecture, go and give one ; if you want to hear anybody else's lecture, go and attend. I suppose that Brother Bayard has been reading all sorts of pamphlets and papers on the Eastern Question, and has got his head full. It is much better that he should work oil the thing in a lecture, than that he should keep simmering over it, writing a book about it, or troubling the peace of the Abbey with it." " Then we need not go to the lecture ?" " Certainly not. If you like wo will look in presently and eco how large an audience he has got together. And if you really take an interest in the subject, you ^^ll very likely find it published next Saturday in the Abbey Gazetlc." " Have you a newspaper here, then ?" go THE MONKS OF -IHELEMA. " There are three. The Gazette is the official organ, ^vhich generally comes out, unless the editor forgets, on Saturday morning. In the Gazette eveiything is published which the members like to send — verses, love stories, articles, anything." "How delightful! May I send something?" Visions of glory floated for a moment before Nelly's eyes. Yes, she, too, would be a poet, and write verses for the Thelema Gazette. " I ought to mention one drawback," Tom went on ; " I believe nobody ever reads the Gazette. But, if you send any- thing and tell me of it, 1 11 make a point of reading it." " Thank you," said Nelly. " An audience of one doesn't seem much, does it ? I think it must be hardly worth while writing verses for one person." Brother Peregrine here remarked that in his opinion that was the chief charm of verse-writing. '• Then there are two other papers," Tom continued, " edited and written by two members of the Order, known to ourselves as Brother Benedick and Sister Audrey. Tliey run their novels through the papers, I believe, and Eondelet, whom we call Parolles, because he is all words, contributes leading articles to inculcate the doctrines of the Higher Culture. Nobody reads either of these papers. I forgot to say that you will find their editors in private life most delightful people. In public they squabble." "Who is Mr. Rondelet ?" " He is a Fellow of Lothian, Oxford." Tom looked as if.he did not care to communicate any more about Rondelet. " Lcl us go on with our engagements for the da v." " ' At 12.30— Organ Recital, by Sister Cecilia.' " " It is exactly like the Crj-stal Palace," cried Nelly. " Only without the people. Fancy having the Palace all to yourself and your own friends ; fancy acting, singing, dancing, just as you liked, without the mob." " If I acted," said Nelly, only half convinced, " I should like somebody to be looking at me." Tom did not contest the point, but v.ent on : " ' At 2.30 P.M.— Polo ia the Park, if the Brothers like to play.' " '* I shall go, for one," snid Tom, with brightened eyes. " So shall I," said the Brother they called Peregrine. " We will play on opposite sides," said Tom, jealous already of the newly-elected Brother. IMr. Roger Exton nodded, and went on with the cold beef. " ' At 5 P.M. — The Abbess will receive in the Garden.' " " I forgot to tell you, Nell, that the Sisters have their own afternoons. There is no necessity to hamper ourselves with the divisions oi the week, and a.s there aa-e now ten of you, wo THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Ql Bliall have to give you the tenth day. The days are announced in the mcrning list of engagements. Of course nobody is obliged to go. Mostly we go into the garden at five when it is fine, and find some one there with a table and a teapot." " Wlien I have my afternoon, Tom, will you be sure to come ■?" " Of course I will." Then their eyes met and dropped with .1 light smile, as if they had memories common to both, and perhaps pleasant. "May I come, too, Sister Rosalind?" aslred the man of a thousand crows' feet, noticing the look and smile Avhile he drank '' Certainly, Mr. Exton." " Brother Peregrine — I beg pardon. Sister Rosalind," he cor- rected gravely for the third time. " ' At G P.M. — Carriages will be ready for tho?e who want to drive. Brothers 'vyho want a dog-cart must give early notice at the stables.' " " Carriages ?" Nelly asked with a laugh. " Have you any number of carriages?" " I '■.hink there are a good many. Alan has half a dozen of various kinds that belong to the place, Miranda has sent over bers, and a good many of the Fraternity have sent down horses and traps of all sorts. So that we can turn out very respect- ably." '• I think, Tom," said Nelly, " that if you would go to the Btables and say that you want a dog-cart for six o'clock, you might drive me about and show me the country." " ]May I sit behind ?" asked the crow-footed one gently and humbly. Tom scowled on him. " Certainly you may," said Nelly, " if you like sitting behind." " I do like sitting behind — sonietimcs," he replied. Then Tom went on with the list. " ' At 7.i>0 P.M. — Dinner. Choral night.' That means," he explained, "that the bind will play and the boys will sing. Do you like hearing music and singing during dinner?" " I never tried it," the girl replied. " If it was not nois}* music I might like it. One ought to think of one's neighbours &t dinner ; that is the most important rule." Mr. Exton said that self-preservation was the first law of life, and that he always thought of eating as the first charac- teristic of dinner. " ' At 9.30— Performance of an entirely new and original comedietta in two acts in tlie Theatrs of ths Abbey. Stage mauagcr, -Sifter Der=deaona.' " 93 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. "Ah!" sighecl Nelly; " that all seems very delightful. And what do v,'e do after dinner, Tom ?" " Isn't that enough, child ? After that we shall probably meet in the drawing-room. This is like all other drawing- rooms. Somebody sings ; somebody plays ; if a waltz is played, perhaps two or three couples may go round the room as if they Avere waltzing. I can go no farther, Nelly ; your imagination must supply the rest." " And do you always live like this ?" She heaved a deep sigh of content. " Always ?" '' Yes, while v/e arc in the Abbey." " And is no one ever cross ?" " Never, unless in their own rooms." " Does nobody's mamma ever come down and order somo un- fortunate Sister back again to home and duty ?" " No ; that has never happened yet." " Do you have guests ?" " Yes ; but they are not allowed to get cross either. Every- body in this Abbey is always in the best possible of tempers. It is impossible to be anything but pleasant in this fortress of happiness." " Did you — ever — ask — mamma, for instance," — Nelly put this question slowly, as if it was a poser, — " to join the Abbey for a few days ? ' " I do not think we have," replied Tom, with a light in his ej-es ; " I cannot ask her for my own part, you know." " Well, Tom, until you have asked her, I decline to believe that your Ch;'iteau Gaillard is impregnable. However, if your tempers are always perfect, your days are surely sometimes a little dull. Now, without falling into temper, which is, after all, an ill-bred thing to do, it is quite possible for young persons of my sex to get together and say unkind things about each other. Do the Sisters — oh, Tom, tell me this — do they never show a little— just a little — envy, and hatred, and uncharitable- ness about some one's dress — or — perhaps certain attentions paid to some one ?' " I really think, never." "Then," said Nelly, rising from the table and putting licr little foot down firmly, " this is a heaven beyond which I never care to go." " In the North-west Provinces " began Brother Peregrine. " Dees that anecdote," interrupted Nelly, " bear upon the Abbey, or upon juggling, or upon walking on your hands ?'' " On the last," he replied, with a certain sadness. " Tlien it will wait, I think. Come, Tom, it is getting late. Let us go and see the lecturer." " I forgot to say," said Tom, as thfy walked along the corri- THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 93 dor which led to the hall, " that some of the Sisters have morn- higs. "Would you like to receive in the morning ?" " It sounds pleasant. What do you do at a morning recep- tion ?" " Nothing. You receive. Any one may call on you in your own cell. They call them cells, but really all are beautit'r.l boudoirs ; and some, Dcsdemona's for instance, are large rooms." " But perhaps only one would call." " Well, Nelly ?" " But, then, it would give rise, perhaps, to wicked tongues." " There are no wicked tongues in this place. "We all live as we like ; we never think evil, or speak evil, of each other. ' A perfect trust,' Miranda says, 'is the true ground v/ork for the highest possible form of society.' Give up your worldly ideas and be a true Sister of the Order, and, like your namesake in 'As You Like It,' 'forget the condition of your estate, and devise sports.' Let us be happy together while we can, Nelly." " Yes, Tom," she replied prettily and humbly, while bis hand sought hers for a moment. " What morning will yon havQ ?" Tom asked. '• Let me see — Sunday " " Oh ! Tom, you heathen — church on Sunday." " Monday — 'Tuesday — Wednesday ; I think no one has a Wednesday, and you can receive between twelve and tv/o." " Yes, I see ; all comers. Perhaps only one comer ; what an opening ! And just suppose, Tom, only suppose for a moment that you were that one comer, and that all of a sudden mamma were to arrive, and catch me receiving you all by myself. Oh h !" " I don't know, I really do not know, what she could say worse than what she said at Hyde. However, here is the hall- door. Hush ! we must not disturb the lecturer." There were no signs of a crowded audience, quite the con- trary ; everything was still and deserted, but they heard the voice of the orator within. Tom pulled a curtain aside, and they looked in. The hall was quite empty. Nobody was there at all, except the lecturer. He was provided with a platform, on which were the usual table, carafe of water, and glass, with a desk for his manuscript. In front of the platform rows of empty seats. The lecturer, who was just finishing, and had indeed arrived at his peroration, was leaning forward over the table on the points of his fingers, while in earnest tones, which echoed and rang along the old hall, he spo'ke. " Yes, my friends," he was saying, " all these things point in one direction, and only one. This I have indicated. Standing, as I do, before an audience of thoughtful men and women, deeply penetrated as I am with the responsibility of wordo 94 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. uttered in this place. I cannot but reiterate, in tlie strongest terms, the convictions I have already stated. Shall then, I ask, shall Encjland tamely submit " Tom dropped the curtain. " Come," he whispered, " we have heard enough. Let us go back. That is the way we inflict our opinions on each other. I lectured the other day myself." " Did you, Tom ? What on ?" " On the Inconveniences of a Small Income. Nobody camo, indeed I did not expect anybody, and I spoke out like Cicero." " Indeed," said Nelly ; " I have always thought, when men will talk politics at dinner, how very pleasant it would be for each man to have said all he had to say by himself for a qua.rter of an hour before dinner. Then we might have rational conver- sation." " Your rational conversation, Nell. I like it, though. Tho prettiest prattle in the world to me." She looked in his face and laughed. " Let me go and put on my habit. That sort of speech i3 dangerous, Tom." When she returned, she found the horses waiting, and Brother Peregrine mounted too, ready to go with them. " I found your horses Avalking about," he said. " May I join j-our ride ?" Of course he might, Nelly said. Tom thought it the most confounded impertinence, and rode off in stately sulkiness. " Now," he said to himself, " she is going to flirt with the fellow, because he has got ten thousand a year. She's the most heartless, cold-blooded " And after the little ride he had pictured to himself, solus rum sold, along the leaf^^ lanes, listening to her pretty talk, so frank, and sometimes so cynical. You can't thoroughly enjoy the talk of a lovely damsel when it is sliared by another fellow, and he a possible rival. As the old ballad says, in verse which means well, but is rugged : "Along the way tlicy twain did play, The Friar and the Nun : Ever let twain alone remain For eoinpanie : three is none." But the day was bright and the sun warm, and Nelly garo him a good share of talk, so that Tom recovered his temper and came home in that good humour which befits a Brother of Thelema. There was no polo after luncheon, because nobody except Tom appeared anxious to play, not even the new Brother, whom Tom found, with a pang of jealousy, surrounded by the Sistei's, THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA, 95 doing Indian tricks, to tlieir nnbonnded delight. He made tbem find rings in their poclcet-handkerchiefs, watches in their gloves, and bracelets in their sleeves. Then he called his Indian servant, who brought a bag of little clay balls and sat down before him playing a turn turn, a necessary part, the conjurer explained, of his incantations. He took the little balls in his hand one after the other, and they changed into singing-birds and snakes, which worked round his wrist and made as if they would bite. Then he planted one in a floAver-pot and covered kt with a basket. When he took the basket off for the first time there was a tender little plant ; when he took it off the second time there was a little tree in blossom ; and when he took it off for the third time there was a little tree in full fruit. All this was very delightful, and more delightful still Avhen he took a sword, and vehemently smote, stabbed, and hacked his servant, who had done nothing, and therefore took no hurt. And, lastly, he covered the servant over with a big basket, and when he took that off, behold ! he was gone. After the Indian tricks some of them went into the gardens. There was at AVeyland Court a garden which had been con- structed somewhere about the thirteenth century, and remained ever since untouched. It had an immensely high and thick hedge along the north and east sides. It was oblong in shape, and surrounded on all sides by two terraces. You passed by stone steps from the higher terrace to the other ; on the upper v.'as a sun-dial, round whose face was carved a Latin inscrip- tion in old-fashioned characters ; in the middle of the garden was a fountain. It was planted with rosea and with the flowers dear to our grandmothers ; wall-flowers, double stocks, sweet- williams, candytuft, and so forth. All sweet-smelling flowers, but no gaudy beds patterned in uniformity of red and blue and yellow. There were no walks, but grass grew everyv/here be- tween the beds, turf green and well kept, on which on warm mornings one might lie and bask. Ijow seats were here too, on which were spread cushions and soft things of rich colours, which contrasted against the soft green of the turf, and the splendour of the floAvers. Here Miranda held to-day her five o'clock tea, and Avhile some played laAvn tennis and others prac- tised archery, she received those Avho came to talk lazily, lying on the grass or sitting beneath the shade, \Adiile Cecilia sang old French songs to the accompaniment of a zither ; and Nelly's merry laugh, like the ripple of a shallow brook over the pebbles, was music sweeter to one ear at least than all the harmonies that can be produced from zither or from lute. The monastic names were a cjhw to some ; to others the names fitted naturally. Tom Caledon, for instance, AA-ho was Brother Lancelot on days of oeremony, was more easily addressed 96 Tllh MONKS OF THELEMA. as Tom. But Desdnmona, Cecilia, and one or two others wor« tlieirname always. Nelly, to those who hadnot known herbefore, was the prettiest and most natural Rosalind in the world. There was something outlandish in Mr. Roger Exton's good- liumonr, quiet persistency, and cleverness which made the whole Brotherhood address him habitually as Peregrine. On the other hand, Rondelet, Alan Dnnlop, and one or two others had mon- astic names which in a way were deceptive, so that these were seldom used. Yon cannot be always calling a man Hamlet, be- cause you do not know what he will do next ; nor Parolles, not because he is a braggart, but because he is all words and talks about everything. When the shadows of the July day began to lengthen they gradually left the garden, and went, some driving, some walk- ing. Tom did not take out the dog-cart that day, but strolled with Nelly in the park and through the glorious woods. " If mamma knew that you were here, Tom," she whispered, " I should be ordered home at once. What am I to say when I write ? I must tell who is here." " Shall I go, Kell ?" She shook her head. _" That would spoil all. I will mention your name in the middle of all the others, instead of first, and write it quite small, and drop a blot upon it. Then, perhaps, she will not notice." Poor Tom ! Then he really was first in her mind. " And if she says anything, why then, I will tell her you have promised to abstain from foolishness." "Foolishness!" echoed Tom, with a sigh. " But we are to have plenty of walks and talks together." CHAPTER X.IV. " "With evening came the banquet and tbe wine ; Tlio conversazione ; the duet, Attuned by voices more or less divine." TiTE dinner-hour was half-past seven, a time fixed by Dosde- mona, as Arhiter Epularum. She said she did not want to turn night into day, and liked to have an evening. Dmner was served in the great hall, ^Yhich made a noble refectory. Not only Des- demona, but one or tv/o of the Brothers exercised steady sur- veillance over the menu, of which the great feature was that it presented every day a dinner which was not only excellent, but also composed of few courses. "There are," said Desdcmona, " only two or three countries which have any distinctive dinners. But by judicious seloctioo THE MONk'6- OF THELEMA. 97 cf plals we may dine after the fasliion of any country we piease." So that sometimes they dined a la Frangaise, and sometimes d VEspagnoh, when they had OUa Podrida ; oi- a I'Arabe, when there was alwaj's a pilhiu ; or a Vlncle when there Avere halE-a- dozen different kinds of currj^, from prawn curry, whicli is the king, prince, and even the emperor of all curries, down to cur- ried vegetables ; or d VA llemande, when they had things of veal with prunes ; or a VAnglaise, when, in addition to other good tilings, there was always a sirloin of beef ; or a V Riisse, or d V Italicnne. As there is no cookery in America, it was impossible, save by the aid of canvas-backs, to dine a V Americaine. A ser- vant stood behind every other guest, and instead of the wine being brought round, every man named what he would take. The table was lit by wax candles only, which shed their soft light upon the flowers and silver. And all round the table stretched the great hall itself, the setting sun still lighting up the glories of the windows, and wrapping in a new splendour the painted glass, the black beams of the roof, and the silken banners of the fraternity. When the sun was set and the day ended, the hall was very dark and black save for the table itself, the lights upon the sideboards, and, on choral nights, the lights for the musicians and the choir. Nelly sat between Tom and Brother Peregrine, who occupied his place by right of his age in the Order, which was that of the youngest. She thought she had never before assisted at a ban- quet so delightful and so splendid. Opposite to her was Miranda, at whose right was Alan Dunlop, fresh from the fields, looking grave and even melancholy. Next to him, Desdemona, clad in a robe of heavy satin, looking animated and happy. There was music too, to make the feast more luxurious. The boys who Bang the hymn at the Reception were there, in a sort of stage costume, and the band which played at yesterday's ball, which was, indeed, a company brought down from London expressly for t.he Abbey. They played soft music, old-f a,shioned minuets and gavottes, music selected by Cecilia, which was not intended to fire the blood, nor lead the thoughts into melancholy channels, nor constrain the talkers to give their undivided attention to it ; music of a certain gravity, as becomes dinner music, which should inspire thought, recall memories, but not be sad. And from time to time the boys threw up their fresh young voices into the air in some tuneful old part-song, which fell upon the ears of the guests, bringing a sense of coolness as from the spray of a fountain on a summer noon. Diring was no longer the satisfac- tion of an appetite ; it became the practice of one of the fine arts. And the claret was of the softest, tho hock of the most reductive, tho champagne of the brightest. 7 98 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. For dress, the men wore a black velvet costume, designed by DesdemoDa herself, though I think Mr. Planche would have recognised it. The sombre black was relieved by the collar of the Order, and the crimson rope Avhich girded every waist. It was a dress which sat well upon men who wei'e young and tall. The Brothers were all young and mostly tall. As for tho Sisters, they wore vv'hat they pleased, and they naturally chose to wear what suited them best. But all had the collar, the hood, and girdle of the Order. Sister Desdemona surrounded her portly person with a magnificent robe of satin, in which she might have played a stage queen. Miranda had soma gauzy and beautiful dress of soft grey, and Nelly wore white. " It is like a dream, Tom," said the latter. " It is so splendid as to seem almost wicked. Do you think it is really a dream ? Shall I wake up and find myself in Chester Square again, with mamma exhorting on the sinfulness of dancing three times with a detrimental ?" " Especially if his name is Tom Caledon," said that Brotliex*. They gave one toast every evening, which Alan, or Brother Hamlet as the Public Orator, gave without speech or ceremony. " The Master." Then all rose, and murmured as they drank — " Fay ce que vouldras." The theatre had been built in the last century by a former Dunlop, owner of Weyland Court, after his own designs. The stage was small, but large enough for all ordinary purposes, and especially adapted for drawing-room corned}'. The audito- rium was semicircular, the seats being arranged so that every row was a foot-and-a-half above the one below it, like a Roman theatre. It is an admirable method for sight and hearing, but has the disadvantage of narrowing the number of the audience. The lower seats consisted of easy-chairs, in crimson velvet ; tho upper ones, which were given to the servants, who could bring as many of their own friends as they pleased, were padded benches, with arms and back. The house held about a hundred and eighty or two hundred, and on evenings of performance was generally quite full. It was lit by oil lamps and was candles only, so that the pieces were necessarily of the simpler kind, and no effects of light could ever be attempted. Desdemona, by right of her previous profession, was naturally the stage manager. It was she who conducted the rehearsals, drilled the actors separately and together, suggested the by- Elay, and sometimes, if s part suited her, went on the stage erself. The piece played to-night was a little drawing-room comedy, taken, of course, from the French : time, and therefore dress, the last century ; dialogues sparkling with cleverness, and that THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 99 kind of epigram whicli only the French dramatists seem able to produce ; which has a point, but yet does not stab ; which dis- ai'ms an enemy, but does not fell him to the ground ; which turns the laugh against him, but does not insult him — in fact, dialogues of the days when men respected each other on account of the appeal to duels. It was a very little after-dinner piece and took less than an hour in all, so that one rose from the amusements refreshed and not fatigued, as one generally is by a long evening at the theatre. Then they all went back to the drawing-room. It was an old-fashioned room, very long, narrow, and low, running along a whole side of the quadrangular court ; its windows opened out upon lawns ; it was dimly lighted by only a few lamps and candles, and these were shaded so that the rooms would have been almost dark save for the brightly-lit conservatory at one end. The evening was all too short. One or two of the Sisters gang and played ; there was talking and, so far as Nelly's prac- tised eye could discern, there was more than one flirtation — at least there were the usual symptoms. Peregrine sat by her and began to talk, but his idle woi'da jarred on the girl's ear,?, and seeined out of tune with the beauty of the day and the place. She escaped, and took refuge in the conservatory, where Tom Caledon was sitting with Miranda, Desdemona, and Alan Dunlop. She noticed then how heavy and careworn the j'oung Squire, who was also a farm labourer, was looking. " Yon like the Abbey, Nell dear ?" asked Miranda. Nelly sank upon a cushion at the feet of the Abbess, and took her hand. " It is too wonderful and delicious," she said ; " I feel as if I were in a dream. Miranda, if mamma knew the glorious time I am having here, and — and " — here she glanced at Tom — " and everything, I should be recalled, like an ambassador." " it is a great relief to me," said Alan, " coming over here after a rough day and finding myself among you all. My house was never put to so good a pui-pose before." " How does your public kitchen get on, Alan ?" asked Mi- randa. " Nothing gets on well," he replied gloomily. " We started very well. We had five and forty women cooking their dinners, at the same time. We gave them the materials for the first day, you know — chops and steaks. Next day, when nomate- rials were given, nobody came ; and nobody has been siaca except my own womaUj" Miranda sighed, 7-2 'O' loo THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Wliy do you persist in going into the troublesome village, Alan ?" Desdemona murmured from her chair, which was close to some heavily-scented flower, the property of which was to soothe the soul with a sense of luxury and content, and to make it irritable at the thought of struggle, discomfort, or unrest. Else Desdemona was generally the most compassionate and sympathetic of creatures. To be sure, she never could quite sympathise with Alan's schemes, and she lost her patience when she drove out and, as sometimes happened, met him in a smock- frock driving a cart in the lanes. " Why do you go into the troublesome village at all, Alan ?" she asked in such a voice as they acquire who linger too long in lands where it is always afternoon. " Come up and stay for ever here with us, in tlie Abbey of Tlielema. Here you shall be wrapped in silk, and lulled to sleep by soft music : or you shall take your part, acting in the delightful comedies we are always devising. We will make much of you, Alan." But he shook his head. Then that elderly lady, intoxicated with the perfume, wont on murmuring softly : " I take my part in the play and make my points, and it is so like the stage that I look round for applause. Children, I will not be called Desdemona any more. I am in a glorified Bohe- mia — not the place where poets starve and artists borrow half- crowns, and both make love to milliners— but in Shakespeare's Bohemia, where Miranda is Queen, and I am one of the Ladiea- in-Waiting, and this is a Palace in the City of Prague." CHAPTER XV. *' It Ti-as a lover and a lass, "SVith a hey, and a ho, and a hey ronino." " T TiiouG riT, Tom, we were to be Lancelot and Rosalind in the Abbey ?" said Nelly. They were in the park, sitting under the shade of a mighty chestnut. Outside, the stillness of a hot summer noon. For once, Tom had the girl all to himself, without the lean and crows'-footed young Nabob, who persistently intruded himself upon his proposed duets with her. Quite alone, she was very pretty that morning, he thought ; prettier, even, than on the evening when, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, she danced the minuet with him in the robes of a Sister. Perhaps a corresponding vein of thought was running through her mind, too. Girls do not, I believe, fall in love with men fof THE MONKS OF THELEMA. loi tfaeir beanty, and certainly no one ever called Tom Caledon an Adonis. Adonis is generally pictured as slender, delicate, effemi- nate. Tom was broad-shouldered, strong of limb and sturdy. There was nothing effeminate about his short curly hair, his ruddy cheek, his swiuging stride. " Tom," Nell might have said to herself, " is the best of all the men I know, and the most considerate for me. He is not so clever as Mr. Rondelet : be isn't so full of projects as Mr. Dunlop : he is not so distinguished as Brother Bayard, V.C. ; but he is the best of all the Brothers, and I wish — I wish " I do not know what she might have wished, because Tom began answering her question very slowly. " When we are together, Nell, which is not often, on account of that confounded fellow who haunts you like a shadow, we may foi'get the monastic names." "It is not my fault, Tom, that we are not oftener together. I can t tell people to go away and leave you and me alone, can I ?" " But you needn't encourage people," he grumbled. "I had a letter from mamma, yesterday," Nelly went on. " She has heard, she says, that a Mr. Roger Exton, who has made a fortune in Assam, is at Weyland Court — she won't give in to calling it the Abbey — and she hints that, so long as I behave properly to Mr. Exton, she v.'ill let mc go on staving here." Tom growled. " So you see, Tom, if you want to see anything of mc, you bad better make up your mind to tolerate Mr. Exton." " Hang Mr. Exton !' " I am sure I should not care if you did. But don't be cross, Tom. Remember you are in the Abbey of Good Temper. Besides, it is not like what you used to be in the good old days. We will be a good deal together if we can. Perhaps," she sighed, " wo shall never get the chance again." " Do you like it, Nelly," Tom asked, " being — a good deal together. I mean ?" His face was not so frank and open as his companion's. It was a year and a day since he had put a question, similar in import, but perhaps of more special meaning, to the same young lady It was on Ryde Pier, and in the evening, what time the summer waters of the fair Solent stretched broad and smooth on either hand, and the lights of the ships at Spithead, the yachts in the roadstead, and of Southsea, five miles away, made long lines across this ocean lake ; while the summer air was soft and warm ; while the lazy water of the flowing tide lapped at the supports of the jnor and gurgled among the planka below ; while, as they two leaned side by side, looking out lo:^ THE MONKS OF IHELEMA. beyond the pier, and picturing endless happniess, the steps of those who came and went upon the pier dropped unheeded on their ears, and the music of the band was only the setting of the love-song in their hearts. A year and a day. Did she, he asked, in faltering tones, did she like him well enough to be always with him ? Ko matter what answer she gave. It was what he hoped, and it filled hi a heart with joy unspeakable, so that the rest of that evening was spent within the gates of Paradise. Well, it is a very pleasant place to visit even for a single night, and the memory of it lingers and is a happiness to dwell upon. But, unfortunately, these visits never last long, and in Tom's case he was promptly expelled by a person w^ho, somehow, had the guardianship of his Paradise. The angel with the flaming Bword in this instance took the form of the young lady's mamma. She was a person of commanding presence, great power of speech, trained by long battle with her late lamented warrior-spouse to use winged words like sharp arrows, and, being herself poor and of good family, filled with ambitious hopes for her daughter, so lovely and so sweet. Therefore, when Tom confessed that his income was under seven hundred a year, and that he had no prospects to speak of, or prospects of the vaguest and most un- reliable character, Mrs. Despard allowed wrath to get the better of politeness, and let Tom have it. He must never, under any circumstances, speak of such a thing again. She w'as surprised, she was more than surprised, she was deeply hurt, at what she could call nothing but a breach of confidence. She had trusted him with her daughter, feeling sure that she was safe with on© who had known her from infancy. With his means, his very humble means, the matter was ridiculous and not to be thought of for a moment. Did he know the expenses of housekeeping ? Did he know the cost of bringing up a family ? Had he thought that her daughter, her Eleanor, was to become a com- mon household drudge ? And, finally, she must Avish Mr. Caledon good-morning — for ever. Henceforward they were to meet as strangers. So Tom found himself outside the door. It was a facer. And there was no help for it. The energetic widow fcilowed up her onslaught by a letter, in which she said that she should feel more at her ease in Hyde if Tom was out of it ; and that, if he did not see his w^ay to changing his quarters, she should be obliged to sacrifice the rooms which she had taken for two months at eight guineas a week. So poor Tom had to go, packed up his portmanteau, and went mooning about by himself on the Continent. He did not enjoy himself much till he came to the Engadine, which was full of Hugby auU Marlborough masters, so that the contemplatioa oi THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 103 thoir great superiority, and tlie listening to their artless prattle, eoothed his soul and made him think of Mr. Roudelet, the man in v.-hom Alan Dunlop believed. A j-ear and a day ; and here he ivas again at the Pearly Gates, and no infuriated mamma as yet in sight. " Do you like it, being a good deal together ?" he asked un- grammatically. " Yes," she replied frankly and without the least hesitation. " Haven't I told you so over and over again ? Men will never believe what one says. Does it please you, Tom, to hear mo Bay it again ? I do like it, then ; I like it very much ; I like it too much for my peace of mind, Tom. Will that do ?" " Oh, Nelly !" cried the enraptured lover. " I like being with you better than with anybody else, man, woman, or child, in the whole world. I am sure it ought to bo 80. You have known me so long that you are a kind of brother by this time." " Brother ! oh !" Tom groaned. " Which reminds me " — her manner changed suddenly. While she confessed her " liking " for Toms society, her face was glowing, and her eyes were soft and tearful. She was very near havmg a weak moment, only that stupid Tom was afraid, and let the opportunity for a bit of real love-making gu by. " Which reminds me," she said, suddenly putting on a careless and even a flippant air, " that there are certain thmgs which cannot be talked about." " Why not, Nelly ?" " Because they are impossible things ; yes, Tom ; quite — quite. Isn't there a rule that the Brothers are not to say foolish things to the Sisters ?" " No rule of the kind at all," he said. " In fact I was never in a country-house Avhere so many foolish things are said. To be sure ttie place is full of charming girls." " And of course you find it easy to say foolish things to all of them," she said, with the least little delicate shade of real jealousy. *' Don't, Nelly ; you know well enough," Tom was again un- grammatical, but perfectly intelligible. " This is a world, Tom, as mamma says, in which common sense is wanted. You have only got seven hundred a year. I have got — nothing. Can we — could we — does anybody live on £even hundred a year ?" " I believe Dunlop is living on eighteen shillings a week," Tom replied. " But we could, Nelly. I have calculated it all out on paper, and we really could. And you should have ahorse to ride as well." " And a season in town ; and a run down to Brighton ; and perhaps six weeks on the Continent ; and you to have your club I04 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. and hunter— oh ! and my dress, because mamma has always said that she shoukl not consider it her duty to help me after I waa married. Tom, can we do all this on seven hundred a year ? Ask your heart, as they say on the stage." Tom was silent for a few moments. " But we need not want all this, Nell. "We could live some- how where things are cheap— beef at twopence, and potatoes free— you know ; and we would be "—here he looked queer— " we would be economical, NeU." She burst out into a merry laugh. " You are a ridiculous boy, Tom. How coidd we be economi- cal ? Isn't the hfe we lead the only hfe we can lead with any pleasure ? And are you not a most extravagant man ? How much do you owe ?" " One can't be very extravagant on seven hundred a year," said Tom, with a sigh. " And to think that you of all girls are ready to throw yourself away for money — oh, Xell !" " Tom, I've heard that kind of thing said in novels and in plays, over and over again, 1)ut you know in real life it is silly. Lord Methusalem marries little artless Lily, and then the satir- ists talk about it as if it were so awful for Lily. Why, Tom, she isn't artless at all ; she likes it. She knows perfectly •well what she is doing. Am I artless, do you think ?" " You look artless, Nelly." " You know very w^ell, then, that my looks are a snare. I never had any secrets from you, Tom, "had I? Who knows better than you that I must marry, if I marry at all, a rich man ; and the richer the better ? I suppose that men are not necessarily brutes and bears because they are rich. AVhy, there is Alan Dunlop ; he is rich, and not a brute ; and half-a-dozen of the Brothers ; and lots of others that I know. I really do not see why a rich man should not be as pleasant as a poor one, though he never is in the novels. My husband must be rich, and I only hope with all my heart that he will be pleasant." " But it's such a mercenary — I mean — you know what I mean." " I know, Tom," said Nell. " If we could do just whatever we liked, there is nothing I should like better than to say ' yes ' to you — just as I did on the dear old pier ; you know that, Tom, don't you?— and go straight away to church, you and I to- gether. Oh ! howliappy I should "feel while the clergyman tied the knot ! And what a rage mamma would be in ! But that is all nonsense. We are born in a rank of life, as the Catechism says, and have to be contented therewith. That is, I suppose, wa must accept our fate and make the best of it. And my fate ia —not Tom Caledon— poor old Tom '.—but somebody or other— L ord Methusalem perhaps. And don't think I shall be miserabla THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 105 nnd die of a broken heart I I sTiall do nothing of the kind. I shall make a fair bargain. I shall marry a man who will give me a good income, a position, kindness, and — and— perhaps — what you make such a fuss about, Tom" — here she turned red and hesitated, picking at a flower — " what they call — Lovo. And I shall give him all I have got to give — all any woman can give — myself." She stopped for a moment, and ecemed as if she wire tr\ ing to collect her thoughts. " And it will be a bar- gain all to my advantage." " What, Nell ? A man gets you, and you think it is a bargain to your advantage ?" " Ah ! Tom, you think that girls are artless, you see. That is the mistake that men make. ]\Iy dear Tom, we are miracles of common sense and prudence." Tom pulled the most dismal face in the world. " Don't, Tom." Nelly laughed and then sighed. " Don't. It's hard enough as it is, not being able to — to have one's own way. You might at least help me." " I will, Nell. I declare I will. I promise you that I will not ask impossible things — as you call them. But you must give me something for my promise. You must walk with me, dance with me, and ride with me." " I will do all that," said Nelly. "But, Tom, j^ou must not be angry if I— flirt with anybody I like among the Brothers of the Order." " I suppose," said Tom ruefully, " that I have no right to say a word, whatever you do. And there are plenty of men here for you to flirt with ; and I suppose I shan't have the chance of edging in a word at all." " Certainly not, if it is a disagreeable word," she said. Tom got up. " There must be something wrong in the management of the world," he said, " when two people like you and me, who are made for each other, can't be married for the want of a few mis- erable dollars. Why, Nell, can you conceive of anything jollier than for you and me to be always together, to do what we like, go where we like, and live as we please ? Do you think you would get tired of me ? To be sure I am not clever." She shook her head ; something like a tear came in her ej-e, and she did not look up. " I should never get tired of you, Tom. It is the meu who get tired of their wives, not the women of their husl)andh.'' •' I wonder, now," said Tom, " whether I couldn't go in for something and make money. There was Maclntyre cf ours, I remember. He went into the Advertising Agency business, and told somebody, who told me, that he was making a thousand a year over it. And there was another man who went into wine lo6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. on Commission. And another who took to writing. And Tom Bellows went into manure." " And I hope he stuck there," said Nelly. " Oh ! Tom, to think that you will ever make anything. You ? There's another point of resemblance between us, Tom, that we are both born to spend, not to save. It is a much happier con- dition of life. And now let us go home for luncheon. Is not that Peregrine coming to meet us ?" " I thought he couldn't let us alone very long," growled Tom. CHAPTER XYI. "So many hours must I tend mj flock, So many liours must I take mj' rest, So many hours must I eonteraplalo, So many hours must I sport myself." After nearly a year of continual effort in the village, it waa almost time that some results should be arrived at. And yet the young Reformer's countenance grew darker every day as he looked about for what should have been the fair and smiling harvest of his toil, and found only thg same old weeds. Every one of his projected reforms had been by this time fairly com- menced. The Parliament — the plan of which he had hoped to widen, so as to make it embrace the broad interests of tho AYhole village instead of the comparatively narrow business of a single farm — was a House of empty benches. On the sup- pression of the gratuitous supper the rustics ceased to take any further interest in the proceedings. A show of a weekl3^ con- ference was held, it is true, but it was like the Roman Senate under the Empire, having no power, and being the mere shadow of a name. It consisted, indeed, entirely of a duet between Alan Dunlop, himself, and his bailiff. Perhaps, now and then, the two young men of religious principle who had charge of the Co-operative shop and the Good Liquor Bar, put in a silent ap- pearance. Occasionally, as has already been stated, the meet- ings were attended bj' the saturnine schoolmaster. He showed little enthusiasm for a movement which brought no good to himself. The cobbler of anti-religious sympathies abstained after his first visit. If you could not discuss Atheism, what was the good of Parliament ? He considered all this talk of farm work sheer waste of time, which might much better be devoted to the destruction of Christianity, monarchy, and the aristocracy — to parcelling out the land and introducing com- vuuuibOi, One night the young man they called William cam* THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 10? and proposed, with greater liberty of expression than might have been expected of him, a vote for the increase of wages and the decrease of hours, which he supported on the plea that it would afford the labourers time to attend the night-school and the reading-room. But Mr. Bostock made short v/ork of him, so that he came no more. Still the Parliament was kept up, and Prudence Driver entered the minutes regularly, acting as Clerk of the House. Also, Alan always introduced his new ideas first to the House, and then circulated them in the form of tracts. In the course of the year quite an extensive literature of tract.s grew up in the village, all v.-ritten entirely by the Squire, and most generously given away for the exclusive use of the people. Among them were — The Tract on the Co-operalion of Emiiloycr and Labourer^ with a Tentative Conjecture on the share which the latter ought to have in the Profits. This was the treatise presented to the first sitting of the Parliament, but as it was unfortunately mis- taken for paper provided as pipe-lights, it became immediately out of print. I believe a copy is now as rare as an Editio Prin- ceps of Gargantua. The Tract on Total Abstinence which followed, produced the results which such tracts always do. The woman got hold of it and quoted figures. Then came domestic disagreements, and the men, to escape nagging, went to the Spotted Lion, where they agreed on the merits of the Tract, and wondered vrhy no one followed the Squire's example. But the weekly chalks did not grow less. The Tract on the Good Liquor League obtained an additional importance from the fact that the landlord of the Spotted Liou thought it was meant as an attack upon himself, particularly when the writer spoke unkindly of treacle, salt, and sugar as additions to beer which ought not to be made. Otherwise this Tract would certainly have fallen flat. In the same way the Tract on Co-operation in the Village-sJwp met with no readers except the one village shopkeeper. She, hke the landlord of the Spotted Lion, resented its appearance as aimed directly at herself and her own interests. But her weekly lists of tick did not diminish. The Tract on Cleanliness in the Home was kindly and even cheerfully received by the men. They snorted, chuckled, and grinned, wondering what the women would say to it. The wives, however, thought the Squire had best keep to subjects more proper to man-folk, and spoke disrespectfully about meddlers, even throvv'ing out hints on the subject of dish- clouts. The Tract on Art m Common Life was. as Alan felt himself io8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. a liltle above their heads. The beautiful language regaidiiig Common Things, the Blade of Grass, the Tuft of IMoss, the common wild flowers, and the singing of the lark in the sky. fell unresponsive on their hearts. The Tract which recommended daily bathing was received with an apathetic silence, which left no room for doubt as to the opinion of the village. The Tract about Free Libraries and a Public Eeading-room was considered to concern other people. Probably it had been printed and given out at their doors by mistake. The villagers, anxious not to think their Squire a madman, charitably put this down as the postman's error. The Tract on Amusements excited surprise rather than curiosity. They were to dance every week — dancing was an Art strange and forgotten. They Avere to have a theatre — they had never seen a theatre — and a circus and a band of music, and to go out all together for holidays. Like the hoys, and girls, which was degrading. The Tract on the Model Cottage, showing how the garden and the pigsty paid the rent and provided the Sunday dinner of beef and cabljage, with the pudding under the gravy, excited aspirations which were as fleeting as vague, and were speedily drowned in beer. It may be confessed that not one single cot- tage grasped the idea that roast beef and Yorkshire pudding were attainable objects. The great difficulty was that nobody wanted to read — nobody wanted to change — nobody wanted to improve. The duty of discontent had not been taught these simple rustics. It was sad for Alan to hear in the evening those voices of the real village Parliament raised in clamorous cheerfulness in their tap- room which were silent at his own Assemblies ; it was sad to feel that his tracts fell unheeded on dull and contented ears ; it was sad to meet the Vicar and acknowledge that, so far, he had done no better from his cottage than his reverence from hia pulpit ; or the Vicar's daughters, who respected him mightily and were unfeignedly sorry to learn how things did not advance a bit, and how, the only purchasers at the Co-operative shop were themselves and Miss Dalmeny. Perhaps the failure of his shop and his bar was the saddest thing about the whole ex- periment, because in establishing them he had, as he told Miranda, appealed to the very lowest principle, that of self- interest. Could people be so stupid as not to be alive to their own interest ? Both the excellent young Christians who resided together and administered shop and bar. stood, all day long, at the receipt of custom with brightly varnished beer- handles and polished counters, but had no custom. And jet the tea was good and tlio Hugar good ; and the beer was the THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 109 briglit and sparkling fluid from Burton, not tlie sugary mess of the Spotted Lion. For this stiffnecked generation took kindly to nothing except what was actually given to them. As long as soap was dis- tributed the mothers came to the Public Laundry. When they had to bring their own soap, they preferred the seclusion of home. The men, for their part, gave a ready patronage to the Bar so long as the tap ran free, which was for the first week. During that blissful period every man was allowed a pint in the evening. By this it was intended to cultivate the village palate into a taste for real beer. The pint despatched, it was mourn- ful to see them slouch across the road and enter their accustomed taproom. It was almost as painful to visit the Library where Prudence Driver sat every evening alone. Now and then, perhaps, the schoolmaster might look in to borrow a book and exchange gloomy remarks with her. Then he would go out, and the door would bang behind him, and the girl would sit by herself won- dering why people preferred to be ignorant, and endeavouring to master the principles by which her Prophet was guided. Once the shoemaker, already referred to, came with a list of books beginning with Toland and Volney, and ending with Eenan. As none of these works were in the Library, he ex- plained to Prudence that she was an accomplice in the great conspiracy, of which every king, priest, and holder of property was a member, for keeping the people in ignorance. It is im- possiole, however, to satisfy everybody, and when the Primitive Methodist minister of the circuit visited the Library and found the works of certain modern philosophers upon the shelves, he asked the Librarian whether she realised the possession of a Boul, and whether she knew of the punishment allotted to those who wilfully disseminate error. So that it seemed as if nobody was pleased. But the girl had her consolations. Sometimes Mr. Dunlop himself would sit in the reading-room all the evening, and now and then he talked with her over his plans. Sometimes Miss Miranda would call at the Library in the after- noon. And sometimes the young ladies from the Vicarage would come in and run round the shelves like butterflies, brightening up the place. Otherwise Prudence Driver's life was a dull one. The Public Laundry and Bath-houses were as deserted as tho Library, After the work of nearly a whole year, was there nothing ? Yes ; one thing there was. When the Squire, at vast ex- pense, hired a whole circus company and had performances open to all the people— just as if they had been so many ancient Eomans — for nothing, they »ppreciated the act at its highest no THE MONKS OF THELEMA. pofisiWe value. Never was any performer more popular than the clown. And yet, in spite of the temporary popularity which accrued to him by reason of the circus, Alan did not feel altogether as if the success of this experiment was a thing, to the student of the Higher Culture, altogether to be admired. It was much as if a great tragedian were to step suddenly, and by no conscious will of his own, into the position of a popular Tom Fool. Keenly conscious of this, Alan next got a company of come- dians. They were going about the country playing a piece which had been popular in London. It was not a great piece, not a plav of that lofty ideal which Alan would have preferred to set before his people, but it was something better than tba clown's performance. On the first nigbt the villagers came in a body. They expected another clown. What they saw was a set of men and women in ordinary costume, carrying on and talking just like so many ladies and gentlemen. That was not acting at all. No real interest in it ; no red-hot poker ; no tiimbling down and dislocating limbs ; no spectacle of discom- fiture and suffering such as calls forth at once the mirth of the mstic mind. The next night nobody came but a few children. Clearly, the dramatic instinct was as yet but feeble." About this time Alan had a great consultation. It was in Desdemona's " cell,"— a luxurious apartment at the Abbey — on Sunday afternoon. Those who were present at the Conference were besdemona herself, Miranda, Tom Caledon — who was rather short of temper in consequence of discovering that Nelly had gone for a walk with .Mr. Koger Exton — Mr. Eondelet, and Alan himself. The Abbey was veiy quiet that afternoon ; the drowsy in- fluence of the midsummer day lay upon all, and made them talk languidly and dreamily. " After a year of work," said Alan, lying back in his chair and speaking to the ceiling, " there is nothing." He raised him- self and addressed Miranda. " I told, you, Miranda, at the very outset, that Habit was the great enemy. I begin almost to be- lieve that nr'thing can be done against that deadly enemy." Then Mr. Rondelet, standing by the open window, toyed deli- cately with his eye-glass which he half raised twice, and as often dropped. I really believe that he could see as well without it. Then he stroked lais smooth cheek and smiled languidly . "You have proclaimed," he said . . . there was always a nttle difficulty about Mr. liondelet's r's, which had a tendency —a tendency only, not a brutal determination — to run them- selves into w%. Mankind are divided in opinion as to whether this is affectation or a congeuitai iniirmity ..." You have pro* THE MONKS OF THELEMA. m claimed," ho said, " the responsibilities of wenlth. You have set an example which may be followed and must be quoted." " It will be quoted," said Tom Caledon, who was sitting by Desdemona. " It will be quoted most certainly, but as for being followed " " I have made an experiment," said Alan, " in what I believe to be the right method. But the success has not ]38en, I confess, altogether what I could desire. It seems almost impossible to enter into their minds." " Perhaps," murmured Desdemona gently — " Perhaps, Alan, they haven't any." " And, perhaps," said Mr. Rondelct, " there is still something to be said in favour of the old method of imposing obedience and lajdng down rules. Our ancestors assumed to possess what we cei'tainly do possess — the Higher Intelligence." " That is driving, not leading," said Alan. " My principle is the Example. It v^as an old Oxford principle, Eondelet." Miranda observed with a sigh, that she had hoped to see some development in the direction of Art. It was an unfortunate remark, because the failure of the Picture Gallery was the most conspicuous of all Alan's late defeats. No one, after the first day, cared to go into the Pic- ture Gallery at all. " I hoped," said Alan, " that we should make the gallery into a sort of silent and continuous educator. That series of pictures showing the development of manhood from the flint-weaponod savage to — to " here he looked at the Fellow of Lothian College — " to the highest product of modern civilisation, I thought would become at once a stimulus to the discontent I want to engender." " Even the contemplation of the — the Highest Modern Pro- duct failed to interest them ?" asked Mr. Rondelet, with a show of carelessness as if he did not know that in the neglect of the Highest Modern Product ho had himself been neglected. " Yes ; they took no interest in the progress of civilisation. Then I had a series to illustrate the History of England. But they cai'ed nothing about the History of England." " There were the dances," said Miranda, joining in the chorus of lamentation. " Oh ! I did hope that something would come of the dances. A weekly dance, with an inexpensive supper — a real dance — of quadrilles and waltzes for the people. It Eeemed so delightful. And to think that we should break down from such a trilling cause as boots." " Did thej?^," asked Desdemona, languidly, " did they try to waltz in the boots of their working hours ?" " Well," said Miranda," the fact is we forgot that detail. On the first night Tom was good enough to giv« us his ^sistance. U2 THE MONKS OF THE LE 31 A. But there was only one girl. Alma Bostock, who could be madtj to go round at all, and she being the daughter of the Bailiff, is, I suppose, a little above the rest. Dancing is extinct among the English peasantry'. It is a lost art." " Begin again next winter," said Desdemona. " Provide plenty °of thin shoes, and I will go down and teach them how to dance." " You must give them a supper too," Miranda said, " other- wise they will certainly not come. They are like little children, who must be approached by the temptation of something to eat." " The night school has to be shut now, Miranda," continued Alan gloomily. " We have been going on for some time with a single pupil, Prudence Driver's brother. I have reason to believe that she bribed him int3 attendance, and that, as she is c.t the end of her resources, he refuses to attend any longer." " Then," said Tom, " as you have gone quite through the whole of your projects, and they are all dead failures, I suppose you are ready to come back to civilisation again." " And own to failure ?" Alan replied. " Not yet. The last word has not been spoken." Then Mr. Rondelet, leaning against the open window-frame and letting his white fingers roam daintily about his smooth cheek, spoke low and in a certain measured accent, as if the warmth and sunshine of the afternoon had entered into his BOul. " You have shown the way, Dunlop. You have taken the place which an Oxford man of our school was bound to take. You have illustrated what should be and what will be, perhaps, in the fulness of days. You have also shown how immeasurably in advance of the age is that school to which you belong. The common herd now know what it is — the Higher Life. You have done, we think," he spoke as if he was in himself the Common Room of Loildan — " enough for honour. In the cen- turies to come the tale will not be allowed to drop and be for- gotten. It will grow and spread from this little centre of Weyland village till it becomes a great mythus. In the course of the generations, antiquaries will be trying to trace back your legend to the far more remote birth of the Sun-God Fable, and the allegories of Vishnu, Moses, Tammuz, and Apollo. It will be demonstrated that Alan Dunlop's history, as preserved in a fragmentary condition, was an allegory, constructed slowly and bit by bit, of the progress of the year. You will be relegated to the pra3historic period. Treatises will be written to show that your culius existed before Homer, and is referred to in the Iliad ; that it was a branch of the great Aryan family of tra- dition, in spite of tb« inevitable* German scholar who will try to THE MONKS CI' THELEMA. 113 maTce yon out Semitic. And -with all the talk no one will be able quite clearly to separate j'ou from Hercules, Samson, or Apollo. You are doomed to become prseliistoric. Round your name will gather proverbs, sayini^s, legends, and miracles. You will be accepted, and even worshipped as the Founder of a new religion ; men will dispute first on the genuineness of the miracles, then on the authenticity of the records ; and lastly, on the broad fact whether you ever really existed or not. In fact, I see very well and clearly pronhesy that everybody in tlie future will have to become Dunlopians or Anti-Dnnlopians, and a High Place for your Worship will be set up in the village of Weyland. So far, at least, you have succeeded." Dcsdemona clapped her hands, and even Miranda, who was not always pleased with Mr. Rondelet's I'cmarks, laughed. Alan alone did not seem to appreciate the fulness of the glory prophesied. " Another thing you have do:ie," said Tom, the practical, " is that, with your three shillings a week for your farm-labourers, and your free feeds, the whole village has grown fat. I met two men yesterday, once thin, who positively waddle. They now bear before them, like an alderman " " And your festivals, Alan," asked Miranda. " Did the last go off well ?" Alan hesitated for a momen " So far as the children wei-e concerned," he said, " we got on very well. The Vicar was there, with the girls, and we amused them. The women were less easy to please, and I am sorry to say that, owing to some confusion about the orders for beer, the men all got drunk. We left them behind, lying on the roadside in different stages of intoxication." " It will be reported," said Mr. Rondelet, " in the mytlius, that the young god was such that those men who gazed upon his face fell to the earth instantly, as if they were drunken with new wine : but that the women followed him singing hymns." " AVe went to Weyland Priory," said Alan, unheeding. " I lectured in the ruins, but who knows with what result ?" There was silence for a space. And then Mr. Rondelet left the open window and sought a chair which stood in the mids't of the group, just as if ithad been left there for the Master. And laying his chin upon his left hand, in such wise that the fore- finger and the second finger were parted and lay on either side of his mouth, and sitting so that the elbow of tke left arm rested on the chair, he spoke slowly : " I have brought myself to think, notwithstanding all the talk we had in Oxford, when we were younger men, Dunlop, that the great men— the giants — of the Renaissance were right in leaving the common herd to their owa devices. They lived 8 114 THE MONKS OF THhLEMA. like go Is, apart and enjoyed by themselves the true pleasures of the Higher Cultiu'e." This Fellow of Lothian could never utter a dozen sentences without lugging in the Higher Culture. " Had they gone beluw, had they tried to improve, to change the vulgar crowd, they would have lost the cream and glory of life. In these days there is again a small school of Humanists • — ciiiefiy or wholly sprung from Oxford — of whom the world knows little. There i: ore we live by ourselves. Shall we not, then, live /or ourselves ? Perhaps fate — the gods — chance — may throw in the way of one or two " — he looked, perhajDs accident- ally, at Miranda — " a companion, a woman, whose social and sesthetic taste may be our own, and whose lines of Culture maj^ be the same. Wliat more delightful life may be imagined than an atmosphere of Art among a little circle, from which all ig- noble people will be excluded, all contact with the uncultivated hedged out ? This Abbey of Thulema partially, but only pai'- tially " — here he looked at Tom Caledon, as if that young man marred with his broad shoulders and stalwart figure the delicate effeminacies of his ideal — ■" only partially, I say, realises my ideal. So hedged in, our lives would become first a mystery and then an example to the admiring world ; and in this way Culture would be helped by emulation. This, however, Dunlop, is a different method from yours. What do you think, Miss Dalmeny?" " Your method seems to me the highest form of selfishness," she replied. " But to return to your project, Alan," said Desdemona. " Are you quite sure that you began in the right v/ay ?" "I still tliink so," he said. " The fault is with me, not with my method." " Everybody who has a method thinks that," said Tom Caledon. " I like having none, and using the world as I find it." "The clown of to-day," said Desdemona, "is the clown of yesterday and of tomorrow. But if you really hope to make any change you must begin with the children. And for that purpose you want a woman's help. You must have a vdfe, Alan." He gazed intently upon his adviser for a few moments, and was silent. And presently thej' began to talk about other things, and the church bells rang out pleasantly beyond the park, making the soft air of the summer day melodious, And the three men fell to thinking about the same subject, each from a different point of view. For Tom was in love, arid w^anted to carry that sentiment to a legitimate conclusion hy marriage ; and Alan was in earnest, and thought to complete bis THE MONKS OF TIlELEMA. n\ experiment by marriage ; and Mr, Rondelet was in debt, and •wanted to clear off his liabilities, and make himself free from similar annoyances for the future by marriage. CHAPTER XVII. *' Fn'erulsliip ia constant in all oLlif^r tbiugl Save iu the oflice and afl'uirs of lovo." Ai-AN mused over Desdemona's advice for the whole of the next week. His solitary work in the fields made him introspec- tive, and he was beginning to find out reasons for his failure ii\. the defects of his own character. His great defect, of which he was unconscious, was that he lacked that bonhomie which is in- fectious, and spreads from man to man, like a ball which is caught up and thrown from hand to hand. He was a grave man, and to the rustics he appeared as a schoolmaster or as a clergyman, always preaching unpleasant things, to which one had to listen. When one of them emei'ged from the Spotted Lion, after a simple half -pint, it was painful to him, especially if he were a rustic of sensitive disposition, to encounter the deep sad eyes and grave face of the Squire. Had Alan been able to meet that backslider with a hearty round of abuse by way of admoni- tion, something might have been effected. But as the case stood to the village, here was the seigneur of the village come down from his high estate, \vithout any apparent motive except that of meddlesomeness, working among them and for them, dressed as one of themselves, leading the saintliest of lives, more laborious in the field than themselves, more abstinent than any baby ; the thing was from the very first disagreeable, and it became in the course of months a matter of profound resent- ment. Alan knew that he was personally unpopular among the people, which he attributed to his unfortunate inability " to enter into their minds " ; and as has been seen, he did not scorn to seek advice from his friends. There was a general as- sent among them that it was no use working all day in the fields if none of the men liked to work with him ; that the pro- fession of temperance, if no one followed the example, was foolish ; and that it was a pity to keep on inviting people to be taught who preferred to remain ignorant, or to wash themselves when they preferred the ancient unwashedness^ From that point they diverged. The Vicar stuck to the principle that men want ofiicers and orders — not superior com- irades. Miranda thought that the men should have their wagea 8—2 ii6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. on the condition of attending niglit-scliool, wliich was a woman's ■way of looking at things. l\ir. Rondelet, clinging to his new views invited Alan to give up the whole thing, and leave swine who liked wallowing, to walbw ; "only," he said, "let them have separate sties, a long way from us." And Tom Caledon said that to him it vras foolishness ; that gentlemen should live with gentlemen ; and that in this realm of England people who have the pluck to rise can rise, and even run their sons for the prizes of social position. And while he was in this dubiety, and while the cold feeling, which damps all enthusiasm, was beginning to creep over him that he might be making himself ridiculous, and sacrificing youth, wealth, and ease for the sake of making rustics snigger, there came this hint from Desdemona, that with the aid of a wife he might at least do something with the children. Of late he confessed to himself with sorrov/, he had felt strange yearn- ings for the old manner of life ; and there were moments when there flashed across his mind visions splendid and beautiful, in which Miranda was chatelaine of Weyland Court. But to marry : to have a wife who would share in his aims, and strive to realise his ideas : — but then he thought that for such a wife he must look in the class among whom his labour was to lie, No lady could do what he wanted her to do : a lady, indeed, would fail for the same reason and in the same way that he had failed. His wife must be of the lower class by birth ; she must represent their virtues, and be cognisant, by experience, of their failings ; she must be able to reveal their sympathies, and show him the avenues by which to reach their hearts. As for the farm-work, lie would give that up as useless. The evenings of mental prostra- tion after a hard day of pitchforking Avcre a proof that labour of that kind was useless ; and by learning his way to the affections of the people by changing their sentiments towards him so that they should no longer shuffle out of his path, he would be of far greater use than by merely going through tlie form of com- panionship in labour. Whom to marry ? He was not a man with a roving eye which lights on beauty here and beauty there. Quite the contrary ; he thought very little of beauty — much less than most young men, whose thoughts, I believe, run a good deal on pretty faces : when he did think of beauty at all it was to illustrate the topic with the face of Miranda. Yet it occurred to him at once that the young woman must be comely. Prudence Driver, for in- stance, who quite sympathised with his views, was out of the question by reason of her unfortunate figure, Avhich was a little twisted. Who, then ? Bud that was a matter of detail, and it would wait. Meantime, he would go over to the Hall, and see Mirancla. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 117 Fortunately, Dosdcmona was witli her. " I have been thinking over what you suggested, Desdeiuona," he said, calmly. " AVhat was that ?" _ " About having a wife." " The man speaks as calmly aa if he were going to bviy a horse, " said Desdcmona. " The more I think of it, the more I like the idea," Alan went on. " It is an idea," replied Desdemona, " which has commended itself tc all your ancestors ; in fact it is with you an hereditary idea — almost a family trait." " We men lack insight," he said, gra.vely. " "VYe do our best, but women surpass us in that sympathetic power of \'ision which pierces the most rugged shell of selfishness and rudeness. You arc quite right ; I must have a wife, and I want your advice." " For such a sensible resolve as that. Alan, I will give you as much advice as you can carry away. But had you not better begin by falling in love ?" " Oh ! no, not at all. That is not what I mean." "But you must, Alan," Desdemona gasped. — "Wasit a dream? Or what did he mean ?" Miranda looked perplexed and pained. '' No ; I am not at all likely to fall in love with the person I marry. Esteem and respect, of course, she will look for." " But, Alan, what is the meaning ? we do not understand you." " I mean that my wife, in order to be the helpmeet that I want must belong to the lower classes, the very lowest " "Good heavens!" cried Desdemona, "is the man going to marry a housemaid ?" " Not a housemaid necessarily ; though why not ? However, I want to find some poor man's daughter who will understand her class, and help me to enter into their minds." "My poor Alan," said Desdemona, "they haven't got any minds. I am sure they haven't." She smiled from the superiority of her knowledge. "Will you, however, you two friends and allies of mine, the closest and the best, help me to find such a girl ?" It was Miranda who made answer. Her face had gone sud- denly pale, and there was a strange light in her eyes. " I will help you," she raid, " in everything. If you think this is the wisest thing for you, you will only tell me what I am to do in order to help you." " I do not think I can premise, Alan," said Desdemona, slowly. '• This is a very serious step which you propose. And I must think of Lord Alwyne." ii8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " You see now," said ALan, " ydiy there need be no question of love." " But marriage witliout love ? Ah, Alan, you do not kno^7, you cannot guess v/hat that will be." " No, Alan," said Miranda. " I should not like you to fall in love with a girl of that class. Of course it is impossible." She spoke v/ith the noble scorn which alvi^ays seizes a demoiselle at the mere mention of a possibility of a gentleman falling in love Vi'ith a maid of low degree. And yet she had read of King Cophetua, and the Earl of Burleigh, and Cinderella, and Griselda, and m.any other cases. Young ladies, indeed, seldom fall in love with the sons of gardeners. Pauline and Claude Melnotte do not form a case in point, because poor Pauline was grossly deceived. Therefore they argue that the reverse case is impossible. They should put a few confidential questions to the shop girls, who might surprise them. But, per- haps, on the whole, they had better not. "We must not think of love," Miranda repeated. " But you must look for something. Ideas you will not get, nor com- panionship." " Not at first. But women are receptive. Com.panionship will come. For the first thing. I want great power of sym- pathy." " Cannot Prudence Driver do what you want without ?" Miranda could not bring herself to frame the word. Alan shook his head. " No," he replied. "She will not do. I want a wife. It is only by the constant companionship of mind with mind that I can hope to bridge over the gulf between myself and my vil- Isgers." •' She ought to be pretty, too," Miranda went on. " I should not like to see you married to a perfectly common woman." " You will not see me very often," he said ; " after I am mar- ried I have to put my shoulder to the wheel, and I must not look back, nor regret the days of old." There was a little bouquet of cut roses lying on the table, which Miranda had brought in from the garden. Alan picked out a bud. '' This is a beautiful bud, Miranda — wear it in your hair to-night. I will dine with the Order. It will not be many times more that you will see me among them." " Oh ! Alan." Miranda's eyes filled with tears. She was so stately to all the rest, and to him alone so womanly. " Alan, YOU will not desert me, will you ? AVhat would my life have been — what will it be — without you ?" Had there been in the enthusiast's eyes the slightest tou?h of softening, Desdemona would have swiftly and «u.ddenly vanished from the rooia. But there was uct. He did not look in htr THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 119 eyes, Tvliere love Lay hiding, but visible to him, had not his heart been of stone. He was loolcing far av/ay. " I must not be tempted, Mii'anda, even by you. If I marry in the village I shall be tied for life to the village. One must not leave a young wife, even though she has red arm_s." Miranda said nothing. The prospect thus suddenly opened vras appalling to her. There was silence, and presently Alan rose to go. " We are to help you then, Alan," said the artful Desdemona ; '• but if we are to render any real help you must promise not to act hastily, and without consulting us." " I promise you," said Alan, " that I will rnarry no one with- out your approval. Docs that content you, Miranda?" " It ought to, Alan," she said, smiling rather v/eariiy. " It is very good of you." And then he went avray. " "\Ve have got the power of veto, my dear," said Desdemona. '' And we will exercise it." Then she got up and shook her voluminous skirts. " You GOOSE," she said, addressing no one \>y name. " Oh ! j-ou goose. All men here are geese ; but you — oh ! you are the most goosely goosk. Have you eyes ? have you ears ? have you understanding ?" " Desdemona dear !" " Miranda, here is a house full of lively, accomplished, and Bweet young ladies. And Alan is a rich, handsome, clever, and pleasant young man. That is all I mean, m.y dear child — that is all. And again aud again I say — oh ! you goose 1 you GOOSBl" CHAPTEE XVIIL "Iilalian Aplirodite, beautiful, Fiesli as the foam new bathed in PapLian wells, With rosy, slender fingers backward drew From her warm brows and bosom, her deep hair Ambrosial, go.lden, round her lucid throat." " We must help him, Desdemona," said Miranda. Her cheek was grown suddenly pale, and there was a strange light of paiu in her beautiful eyes, which she lifted heavily as she spoke. " We must help Alan in everything." " Except in this, Miranda, which is suicide." " It need not be quite so bad as it seems." " It is certain to be much worse than it seems, unless," Des- demona murmured, half to herself, " unless we can stop him in time." I20 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " There must be, somewhere, if only one knew her," Miranda v.'cnt on, " a girl who would coma up to poor Alan's ideal. I have shamefully neglected the poor people, Desdemona, and now this is my punishment." " That is nonsense, my dear. It is true that you have not gone poking and prying into cottages, like some ladies. But as to neglect !" " She must be, first of all, a good-tempered girl. Good temper is such a very great thing." " It depends," said Desdemona, " greatly on the size of the hou&e. Of course, in a cottage good temper is everything. At Dalmeny Hall or the Abbey you might almost dispense with it. Some day I will write an essay on good temper, especially as required for the stage." "Good temper, at all events," Miranda M^ent on, "is almost an equivalent for good breeding among poor people." " Unfortunately, it generally gees with stupidity," said Des- demona. " But that will be part of my essay." " She must not be stupid. And she must have a soft voice. If possible she should have taste in dress. But I suppose wa cannot hope for everything." "A lady's-maid," said Desdemona, "would perhaps be the nearest approach to Alan's ideal. Can you not spare him your own ? And, oh ! Miranda, to think that it was my own doing — mine— to put the notion into his dear, queer, cracked brain. What will Lord Alwyne say, when I tell him that it was my suggestion ?" It is not an easy thing to find a village girl possessed of those virtues which were thought by Miranda requisite for Alan's wife. Perhaps she looked for too much. Good temper : gentle- ness : the germs of good taste : modesty of deportment : refine- ment in personal habits : ready sympathy : quick wit : and some pretensions to good looks. Miranda was not above the weakness of her class, which car> seldom acknowledge beauty below a certain rank. Ladies would have said, for iuftance, and doubtless did say, of Nelson's Emma, that she was a person wlio might be called good-looking by some. — Could all these qualities be found united in one person ? And where was that person ? " Let us, like Austria, claim the right to a veto," said Des- demona, " and then we can go on exercising it for the next fifty years or so, until Alan is quite cured of this folly." " Can we have a fete in the Park, and invite all the girls from Weyland and the villages round ? Perhaps we shall be able to Boe some one Vv'ho may be thought of." This idea seemed promising, and Desdemona began to cos- eider how such a fete cenld be organised. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. \i\ First, she thought it might consist exchisively of the girla and young unmarried women of the country-side. True that in no rank of Ufe would maidens look forward with rapture, or even complacency, to a gathering in which there were to be no young people of the opposite sex. That was a drawback. Yet Des- demona thought that by prolonging the festivities till late in the evening, a door would be opened, so to speak, for the young people of t1io opposite sex to meet the maidens, home returning, in the lanes. Desdemona, although cut to the heart to think of assisting at Alan's social suicide, was a kindly person, and thoughtful of her guests' happiness. Then, she thought, inde- pendently of the possibilities of a moonlight ramble home, each sola cum solo, there would be a novelty in the exclusion of lovers, brothers, fathers, mothers, and babies. There should be no children. The youngest girl should be at least sixteen. Every girl in Weyland village and all the neighbouring hamlets within a radius of six miles should be invited to come, and bring with her every other girl of sixteen and upwards whom she might know. And then the busy brain of the actress began to contrive means for making the thing into a pageant and a show. She took the Brothers and Sisters, one after the other, into consul- tation separately and together. Tom Caledon, who volunteered to do anything that was asked of him, except kiss-in-the-ring, thought that if the Brethren alone had to amuse these young persons, there might be jealousies. Nelly observed that if that was the arrangement proposed, she should feel it her duty to put on her habit and ride about as a mounted policeman all the day. Miranda was quite sure that the Monks of Thelema might be safely trusted not to flirt with village girls. All the monks present became at once much graver of aspect than was at all natural or usual with them : and Brother Peregrine, in a sepulchral voice, remarked that monks in all ages were notori- ously above suspicion in that respect. Sister Cecilia changed the conversation by asking to be allowed the selection of the music. She was going to have nothing but old English tunes and songs, such as Green Sleeves, LiUibulkro, and so on. The unappreciated novelist suggested a reading, and volunteered to devote the whole afternoon, if necessary, to readings from her ovv'n works. Other offers and suggestions were made, considered, and adopted or dropped, until the thing resolved itself info a grand series of entertainments designed to last the whole of the afternoon and evening. The fete was fixed for a Saturday ; it v.-as to be held, if the weather proved fine, in that part of the park which lies between the Court and the little river Wey, which here winds its pretty course, and makes a great tongr.e of land, in 122 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ■wWcli staTid noble elms and sycamores, and where there is a goodly stretch of sloping grass. The grass, however, was covered with tents and marquees, and was gay with Venetian masts and bunting of every kind, so that it was festive to look at. There were tents for everything, including a theatre and a concert room. The whole of the amusements, except the band and the choir of boys, were personally provided by the members of the Order, who vrere the hosts and hostesses. Only Miranda begged that there should be no waiting on the girls by the Sisfers. That part of school feasts and village festivals, she said, where the ladies go round with plates, and do awkwardly what trained servants do well, spoils the pleasure of the guests by making them feel awkward and ill at ease, and turns hos- pitality into condescension Miranda was one of the very few people who undcrsta.nd how to give. The program.me was printed in red and gold on silk, so that every girl might carry away and keep hers as a little memento, just as right-minded men love to keep the mcnuHol good dinners, and turn to them in after years, with mingled feelings of regret for the excellent things eaten, drunk, and said, on those joyous occasions. And it ran as follows — the red and gold are hero unavoidably omitted : ABBEY OF TIIELEMA. Floral Games, July 28, 1877. To be enacted, represented, and performed for and by the maidens of Wcyland Village and the country round. The games will commence at three p.m. But those who arrive earlier will find dinner laid for them in the long marquee at one. The Band will begin to play at two, and will go on, with intermissions, all the day. At 3 p.m. — There will be a canoe race on the river between Brother Peregrine and Brother Lancelot. The prize will be permission to bestow a gold locket on any one of the gLiests. At 3.30.— The Wizard of Assam. At 4 p.m. — A game of Polo, in which the Monks of the Abbey will each worthily play a monkly part. At 5 p.m. — There will be a running race for the younger girls. Prize, a new bonnet, to be selected by the winner. At 5.30 p.m. — Tea in the long marquee. At G.30 p.m. — A Lottery in the Lottery tent. At 7.0 p.m. — The performance of a new and original village Comedy, written especially for this entertainment by Sister THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 123 Desdemona. Music and songs by Sister Cecilia. Tiie clia- ractcrs -svill be sustained by the Brethren and Sisters of tlie Order. At 8 p.m. — A concert of old En<;lish music. At 8.30 p.m.— Dancing and Lighting of the Lamps. At 9 30 p.m.— Slipper in the Long Marquee. At 10 p.m.— A Grand Surprise, by Brother Peregrine. At 10.30.— Fireworks. The guests are invited to enter freely all the tents, especially that of the Gip-y, and that of the Magic Jilirror. God Save the Queen. This programme looked very pretty indeed, edged round with flowers, and beautifully printed, as I have ?aid, in red and gold. It was presented to every visitor on arriving at the lodge gate. There were about a hundred and fifty girls in all. They came from all sorts of places for miles round ; they came on foot ; they came in Fpring-carts ; they came in omnibuses ; they came in vans. They came hours before the time. They came dressed in their very best, and in the happiest mood. But though they knew something of the preparations -which had been made, they vv-ere not prepared for tlie splendour and beauty of the scene which awaited them ; for the Venetian masts, the streaming banners, the bright tents, the music— which began sooner than was advertised, because there were so many who came as early as noon — and the crowd which went to and fro, and gave life to everything. There were no men except the servants, for the monks did not appear till the time came for their performances. Ladies there were in plenty, come to see the fete, the real purpose of which was known only to Desdemona and Miranda, but no gentlemen were admitted with them. I do not think the rural nymphs lamented the absence of their swains. Some few might, perhaps, have allowed a transitory feeling of regret that so much care on their ap- pearance would have no result in attracting some other girVs young man ; some might have felt that with a bashful lover at one's elbow things v/ould have seemed more complete. But with most there was a feeling that the shepherd swains would certainly have got drunk, as they did at Mr. Dunlop's festival, and so spoiled everything. Fancy a lot of drunken louts among these beautiful tents and flags. Village beauty is a flower of not unusual occurrence, aa many of my readers have observed. In Gloucestershire there is a prevalent oval type which soraetimes gives a face of 124 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. P'ng'.ilar sweetness r in Somersetpbire tlio type is squared off, somehow, and when you get a pretty face there it carriers aa expression of something like sidlenness : the Hampshire folk, with their brown hair and round faces, arc sometimes comely : and the Northumbrians, with their long faces, blue eyes, and gentle voices, are often charming. At Weyland Park, which, as everybody knows, is in no one of these counties, the average of village beauty was not, perhaps, very high, but there was plenty of health in the rosy faces, and of vigour in the sturdy arms : considered as the mothers of England's future sons they afforded reason for rejoicing ; but the general type of face was decidedly common. Yet there were exceptions. No one among them all who could have guessed the real reason of this lavish preparation for a simple girls' merry- making. To Miranda, no expenditure could be too lavish, so that it was for Alan. With a sorrowful heart she provided this magnificent entertainment as a sort of welcome to his wife ; supposing that his wife was amongst the hundred and fifty country nymphs who graced her feast. The Brothers and Sisters dropped in one by one. and fell into the places assigned to them in the programme. The cancc race was paddled on the narrow little river, as tortuous as the Jordan, by Tom Caledon and Brother Peregrine, and it was won by Tom because his adversary, in his extreme eagerness to win, lost his balance and upset, to the I'apturous joy of the assem- blage. But some thought that he upset himself on purpose, in order to prerent the pleasing and interesting spectacle of a figure dripping wet, embellished with duck-weed, and running over the lawns to change flannels. In former days this amusement used always to be provided on Procession-day at Cambridge ; the boats taking it, I believe, in turns to sacrifice themselves on the altar of public derision. Sister Desdemona presented Tom Caledon with his prize, a gold locket and the permission to give it to whatever girl he pleased. There was a general flutter among the maidens as he stood like a sultan, the locket in his hand. They stood grouped together in little knots, as if jealous of each other ; and all ej'es were open, all lips parted in eager expectation of his choice. There was one girl among them who looked at Tom with a kind of confidence — she alone among them all. She was a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl ; tall, pretty, and of graceful figure. " Alma thinks she's going to get it," they murmured. " There's lots piettier than her." Tom, however, did not give it to her. He stepped straight to where, quite in the background, little Prudence Driver, Alan's librarian, stood, little thinking of tha honour that was about to fall upon hei". She was not pretty, uor was sho graceful, but Tom kcew how Miranda regarded THE MONKS OF THELEMA. I25 bcr, and he thought to please the Abbess. An angry flush ros3 to tlio chock of the gh-1 called Alma, but there v/as no possibility of disputing the award. The Polo fell rather flat, although the Brothers played well and with address. Polo docs not powerfully appeal to the village maiden's imagination. Then there came the lottery — all prizes and no blanks. The prizes were articles of costume, useful and ornamental. Nelly held the bag, and each girl on drawing her number rushed straight to the lottei\y-tent to see what vras her prize. Then came the wizard with his Indian conjuring tricks, which made them breathless with wonder and terror. And all this time the music played under the trees ; and there was the gipsy's tent, in which your fortune was told for nothing and you came out knowing exactly not only what kind of husband you were to have, but also, what Mrs. Harris yearned to extort from Mrs. Gamp, your " number." And then — ah ! then — there was the tent of the Magic Mirror. Within, among many curtains, and in a dim twilight, eat an aged white-bearded black man in black robes and wonder- ful hat, who asked your name and your age, and who then in- vited you to behold yourself in a mirror. That was not much to do, but as j'ou looked, your own face disappeared, and behind it came a picture — a scene in your future life. And then this re- markable old man told j-ou things. These must have been dif- ferent, because some of the girls came out with heaving bosoms, glistening eyes, flushed cheeks, and pallid lips, gasping in antici- pation of the promised joy. But some emerged with downcast looks, pale and trembling, their day's enjoyment gone. The prophet was no other than Brother Peregrine himself ; it was no business of any one's that he had with him in the tent a certain " wise woman " who whispered him little secrets about every girl as she came in. She was invisible behind a curtain. I regret to say that the fame of this wonderful sorcerer spread- ing upwards, so to speak, many of the ladies and some of the Sisters sought the tent of the IMagic Mirror. Among these was Nelly, who came out looking sad and disappointed, and when she met Tom sighed and said, " I am so sorry that I went into the tent of the Magic Mirror. Poor Tom !" Now Tom knew who was the sorcerer, and he gathered that his rival had taken a mean advantage by means of his magic spells. Therefore he inwardly cursed all necromancers. Where was Alan ? Miranda was disappointed at his absence. He had faithfully promised to come — and now evening was ap- proaching and the beauty of the fete was over, but there was uo Alan. The play, which wao a light builetta, with village girls and 126 THE MONK'S OF THELEMA. pretty songs, was well received, and the concert was endure J. And then they began to dance, for the sun v^^as down now, and the summer twilight was fallen upon the trees and the pai'k, and they were lighting the coloured oil lamps. It was a new Vauxhall, only none of those present could remember the splen- dours of that place. And what with the coloured lights and tha band and the glamour of the whole, a sort of intoxication seized the girls, and they became, in a way, possessed of the Bacchante madness, insomuch that they laughed and sang, and seized each other by the waist and whirled round madly till they fell. And among them all ran in a,nd out that tall thin man, with the lines in his face, whom they called Brother Peregrine, who whispered to one and danced with another and conjured for a little group, all at the same time, and with unflagging ac- tivity. As for the rest of the monks, they were dancing with such as knew how to dance, except Mr. Caledon, whom all the girls knew ; and he walked up and down among the lights with Misa Despard, whom they knew as well. And her face was melan- choly. And Miranda moved here and there, always graceful, always queenly, with her little court, consisting of Desdemona, Cecilia, and Mr. Eondelet, happy in her expei'iment but for one thing, that Alan, for whom this entertainment was designed, was not present. At ten the supper was served. There was a sort of high table at which sat Miranda, with her court. She was look- ing up and down the long rows of girl-faces before her with a critical but disappointed eye. " They giggle dreadfully," she whispered to Desdemona, who was sitting beside her. " People who live far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife generally do giggle," Desdemona replied. " And I am not at all sure about their temper. Look at that black-haired girl ; should you think she was good-tempered ?" " Certainly not," said Desdemona. " I know the sort — short of patience, hasty in wrath, and unreflecting in the matter of punishment. She would box Alan's ears every day till he brought her to Weyland Court." " I have looked up and dov/n the rows at the table; bi.I' I can see no one who in the least degree approaches Alan's siujpA* ideal I despair !" " So much the better, my dear, because the fancy may pass away. We have always got our right of veto. Just suppose, however, that these girls knew what we know. Fancy the airs, the bridlings, the jealousies with which these Cinderellas would receive the gracious Prince when he came. I suppose, by the ^ay, that he will corae some time this evening ?" THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 12? " He said he would. One would think," said Miranda, with a Utile bH.terness, " that hs v;ould feel some httle interest ia the assembly." But supper seemed to be over. YvHiat was the surprise pro- mised by Brother Peregrine ? He answered the question himself; that is to say, his Indian Bwrvant brought him a small box. With this in his hand, he begged Miranda's permi.ssion to make a little speech. " What are you going to do V" she asked. " I am going to minister to their vanity," he replied. " lu my experience of the uneducated— only the uneducated portion — of your sex, I have found that to minister to their vanity is to afford them the most lively gratification. I am going to make one girl supremely happy, two or three madly envious, and the rest proud of their sex and of themselves." He took Miranda's permission for granted, and advanced to the front, facing the long tables at v/hich the girls had taken Bupper. " Girls," he said, holding solemnly before him the mysterious box, " I promised you a surprise with which to close the day. It is here, in this' box. In the days when the old gods pre- tended to govern the world, and made such a mess of it that we have been ever since occupied in setting things to rights which they blundered over, there was once a banquet — not so good a banquet as this at which we have just assisted, but still a creditable feed. And while the gods were sitting over their wine and the goddesses looking at each other's dresses " — the girls began to wonder what on earth all thir; unintel- ligible patter meant — "some one, v/ho shall be nameless, threw among the assemblage a golden apple— a golden apple," he repeated, " on which was inscribed, ' For the Fairest.' The adjudgment of this apple produced great disasters to the human race, which mattered nothing to her who received it, because she scored a distinct triumph over her rivals. This preamble brings me to the box. Trumpeters, if you please." The two trumpeters of the Abbey, who had meanwhile stationed themselves at either side of the speaker, but on a lower step, blew a great and sonorous blast. " This golden apple," the orator went on, " supposed to have been quite lost for many thousands of years, has been miracu- lously preserved to the present day. It is in my possession ; it is in this box. I am about to restore it to its original use. Trumpeters, if you please." While they blew again, the attention of the girls being now thoroughly aroused and their interest excited to the highest point, Brother J'eregrine opcaed the box, and took out, eub- i28 tHE MONKS OF THELEMA. pended by & silver chain, an apple, wrought, or cocming to be wrought, in solid gold. He handed this to his Indian servant, who, bearing it re- verently on a cushion, passed down the lanes of the girls, allowing them to hold it in their hands, to weigh it, and to gaze at it. The dark Indian, with his turban and white tunic, the silver chain and the golden apple, and the mystery of the whole thing, filled all hearts with a trembling eagerness. "That apple," continued Brother Peregrine, "is ofPered to the fairest of you all. The ladies of the Abbey of Thelema do not propose to enter into competition. It is for their guests alone that this gift is olVercd. Point me out the fairest." There was first a dead silence, and then a confused hubbub of tongues, bat no one was proposed. " Tiiis will not do," said Tom Caledon. " Let them separate into committees and vote." It was difficult, but was effected at last by the process of dividing them into groups of ten, and making them select the two prettiest girls from among themselves. This reduced the number of candidates from a hundred and fifty to thirty. The tliirty were then ranged in a row, while their less fortunate sisters sat behind, silent, and devoured by irrepressible envy. " The number must be still further reduced," said Brother Peregrine. " I must have three presented to me, among whom I shall choose the fairest." Again Tom Caledon managed the business. He gave them voting-papers and collected their votes. There were thirty voters. When the papers were unfolded it was found that there were thirty nominations. It thus became apparent that every girl had voted for her- self. This was discouraging, but Tom began again, offering each girl two votes. The result of this method was that there was a distinct and large majority in favour of three girls, whom Tom Caledon placed before the giver of the apple, in a row, and then re- tired. It was an impressive scene. On the platform stood Brother Peregrine — tall, tlhin, with a smile in his eyes, though his lips were firm. Below him his Indian servant, bearing the apple and the chain on a cushion. At either hand the gorgeous trumpeters. Behind, the ladies and the Brethren of the Abbey. The three girls standing trcm]jling with ill-disguised impatifnoe, edging away involun- tarily from each other like guilty persons. And behind, tha crowd of girls pressing, swaying, laughing and whispering THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 129 " Tiicy avo all (livee pretty," whispered Miranda to Nelly ; " and all three in difi'erent styles." The first was a tall girl, with perfectly black hair and plenty of it, done in a careless kind of knot which allowed — though that was perhaps the effect of dancing — one or two braids to fall upon her neck. She carried her head in queenly fashion, and looked straight before her into the face of the man who represented the shepherd of Mount Ida, with a pair of full lustrous black eyes, which were what some ladies might call bold. Her features were regular : her mouth was rather large, and her figure full. Her limbs were large, and of generous contour. She was Black Bess — her Chrissom name was Pamela, but everybody always called her Black Bess — the daughter of the blacksmith. She was the girl of whom Desdemona had said that, if Alan's choice fell upon her, she would box his ears every day until he took her to reign at Weyland Court. And she looked it. As for for- warding his schemes in the village, or laying herself out for the Higher Culture, whatever intentions in this direction she might start with, the end of those intentions was apparent. She wore white muslin with cherry- coloured ribbons, which would have been in excellent taste, and suited her shape and complexion, but for an unlucky yellow sash which revealed the imperfectly-educated taste, and made Miranda shudder. In her hand she carried her hat by the ribbons, and her face ex- pressed the eagerness of tumultuous hope. Next to her, the second of the chosen three, was a girl not quite so tall as Black Bess, but with a figure as commanding and a look as queenly. She had brown hair and hazel eyes, but the eyes w^ere as cold as those of Black Bess were full and lustrous. Her hair was piled and rolled upon her head so that it resembled a helmet. Her features were more prominent than those of her rival, and had a certain hardness in them. Also her chin was a little too long and square, and her forehead a little too high. She wore a dress of some soft lavender colour, without any ribbons, but a rosebud at her neck, and another in her hair. And she, too, carried her hat by its ribbons. " See," whispered Miranda. " She has taste. But what a cold expression !" She was a nymph from a neighbouring village ; Black Bes"? and the third were Weyland girls. The third, indeed, was no other than the bailiff's daughter, Alma Bostock. She was less in stature than the other two, but as graceful in figure, and far more lissom. She was a buxom, healthy-looking damsel, about eighteen years of age, with light- blue eyes, and light-brown hair which fell behind her and over 9 I30 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. her shoulders in an abundant cascade : she had a rosy cheelj and a white forehead : she had red and pouting lips, with a little dimple in either corner : her nose was just a little — per- haps — tip-tilted. She had thrown aside her hat, and was stand- ing with clasped hands and trembling figure, her eyes fixed eagerly on the golden apple, mad to win the prize of Beauty. She, like Black Bess, was dressed in white, but she had blue ribbons, and there was nothing whatever to mar the simple taste of her costume. Indeed her mother, the ex-lady's maid, superintended it personally, and made her discard every scrap of colour, out of all the ribbons which Alma wished to wear, except the simple blue. So that of all the girls at the fete, there was only one, the tall, brown-haired damsel beside her, who was so well and tastefully attired. And then Brother Peregrine, taking the prize from his ser- vant — at which act the eyes of the Chosen Three lit up suddenly, and became wistful — dangled it thoughtfully before them for a few moments, and then began, slowly and with hesitation to speak. " I am not Paris," ho said. The elected wondered what ho meant, while the Monks and Sisters of Thelema pressed more closely behind him, wondering what would happen ; Miranda vexed that Alan was not there, and yet half afraid that if he came ho might take some sort of fancy to one of the Three. " I am not Paris, the shepherd of Mount Ida. Nor is this, irrdeed, the mountain. And Avhat I hold in my hand is not, I am sure, an Apple of Discord. You, my very lovely young friends " — here he cast an eye upon Nelly, on whose face there might have been seen a half -amused, half-contemptuous glance, as if nobody under the rank of a lady could be called lovely — " are not goddesses, it is true. You are not Here : nor you Athene ; nor you, pretty damsel with the light-brown hair, Aphrodite. Yet, at this important juncture, I feel as if you were, respectively, those three divinities." He stepped down from his position of vantage. " Let me try the chain upon the neck of each," he &aid. '• Advance, maid of the ebon locks and lustrous eyes." Black Bess understood the look, though the language was too fine for her, and stepped forward promptly. "Let us see," said Brother Peregrine, " how the chain looks round your neck." He threw it over her neck, and, as he did so, whispered quickly : " What will you give me for it ?" " I will teach you," whispered the half -gipsy girl, hotly and eagerly, "how to wire hares and pheasants, how to cheat at cards, so that no one shall know how — oh ! I've taught lots of men — and how to tell fortunes, and steal away girls' hearts." THE MONKS OF THELEMA. i^i He laughed, took the chain from her neck, and called the next one. '' What will you give me," he asked, " if I let you have the apple ?" Perhaps she had heard the former question, and had time to make up an answer. "I will tell you," she whispered, "what girls talk about — ladies too — and what they want, and then you will never be afraid of your wife, and rule your own house." It was an odd thing for a village girl to say ; but perhaps she had read books. '' It is the truest wisdom," Brother Peregrine murmured in reply. " And if knowing your wife was the first step to ruling her, one might be tempted. But I have known husbands who knew their wives quite thoroughly, and yet v/ere ruled by them." He took the chain from her neck, and called the third girl. " What will you give me for it ?" he whispered, as he put it on. " Give me the apple and the chain," she whispered, with quivering lips. " Give them to m.e, and I will give you as many kisses as you like." Brother Peregrine, with a virtuous frown, took off the chain, and returned to his platform. The excitement was at its highest. " It is mine," he said, " to award the prize. I have seen the three candidates, I have spoken to them ; I have, before you all, tried them. Girls, I wish there were three golden apples. But there is only one. And a precedent has been laid down for us. Like the Ideean shepherd, I adjudge the prize — to Aphrodite." He stepped down, and laid the chain once more round the neck of Alma Bostock. The other two girls, without a word, turned away, and, with heavily-laden eyes, pressed through the crowd, and so into the outer night. Under the trees, beyond the light of the coloured lamps, they spoke to each other. " What did she promise to give him ?" asked Black Bess, with heaving bosom and parted hps. " I don't know — I don't care. A Cat," replied the other. Then they separated by the space of two yards and a half, and, sitting down upon the grass, broke into sobbings and cries. But v/ithin the marquee it was the hour of Alma's triumph. There was a murmur of approbation as Brother Peregrine sus- pended the chain round her neck. Indeed, she was the prettiest, and, at that moment, as she stood there, her eyes brightened, her cheek flushed, the silver chain round her neck, the goldea 9-2 132 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. apple at her heaving breast, every eye upon her, the hands of all applauding, her whole frame swaying beneath the excite- ment and victory of the moment, Alan Dunlop entered the marquee. Miranda, Nelly, and Desdemona, with the other Sisters, were stepping from the platform to congratulate the victor ; the band was striking up a triumphant march ; the girls were all laughing and talking together. Alan concluded, rashly, that the whole thing had been got up by Miranda for his own benefit. In this sweet-faced village girl, the queen of the festival, he saw the maiden whom Miranda had chosen for himself, and he caught her hand with effusion. "Miranda," he whispered, with the deepest feeling, "you have found for me the girl I have been in search of. I thank you — for a wife." CHAPTER XIX. " The rank is but the guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that." " All is lost, my dear," cried Desdemona when the fete waa over, and the pair were sitting alone at midnight in Desdemona's cell. " All seems lost, that is ; because while there is no wedding-ring there is hope. But to think that we have fooled away our right of veto !" Miranda could only sigh. " The sight of that girl, looking really beautiful, for a girl in her position," continued the elder lady, making the usual reser- vation, " finished the man." " And he thinks," said Miranda bitterly, " that I got up the whole scene for the sake of advising him 1 I even to dream of his marrying Alma Bostock !" " It has been all my doing !" Desdemona said in sorrowful accents. " All mine. I told him he ought to marry ; I devised the fete. I arranged the Surprise with Brother Peregrine. I only am to blame. And yet, it is fate." Then Miranda began to take comfort out of what comfort remained. " After all," she said, " if he is going to marry a country girl, he might easily do worse. Alma Bostock will never rise to hia level, but she may be sympathetic ; and perhaps she will respect him. Oh ! Desdemona, it is a poor consolation, this ' may-be.' And I feel that I cannot any longer sympathise with Alan." " No ; that would be difficult indeed. A man may make mistakes of all kinds ; he may even go and live in a village and pretend to be a farm-labourer ; but the mistake of such a THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 133 marriage he may not make, for Society will never forgive that kind of mistalvc. A bad marriage " Here she stopped, and was silent, thinking, perhaps, of her own married life. " There ought," she went on, " to be special juries, composed entirely of married men — and they should be gentlemen, not greengrocers — to consider cases of mistakes in marriage ; and divorce should be granted as the only relief. Poor dear Alan ! Poor mad Hamlet ! Go to bed, my dear Ophelia, and sleep with happy dreams, while I think how I can alter the last act of the play," and turn it into ' All's Well that Ends Well.' " And when the next day Lord Alwyne came on a visit to the Abbey, Desdemona received him in fear, not daring to tell of the impending trouble. He began to talk at once about his Eon. " I have seen Alan sitting in a labourer's cottage, with a stone floor and a deal table. I have also seen him masquerading in a smock-frock, with a cart. And after that, Desdemona, I felt that there was no further room for astonishment whatever the misguided boy might do. It is not a pleasant thing, however, for an old-fashioned father to see his son's name flourishing in the papers. The other day they had a special column and a half devoted to an account of a visit to Weyland, and an inter- view with the shepherd Squire, as they v/ere pleased to call Alan." Desdemona could say nothing in solace, because what was coming was a gi'eat deal worse than what had gone before. And they talked of other things. In fact, Alan came over without delay to communicate his intentions to his father. It was filial of him ; and I suppose there were still some remains of ancient prejudice as regards rank and caste about him, because he approached the subject with some hesitation. " I fear," he said to his father, " that you have no sympathy with my present mode of life." " Why. no, Alan, I certainly have not." Desdemona was present ; in fact, the interview took place in her " cell," where she and Lord Alwyne had been holding an animated conversation over certain m.emories of old days— the days when she was 3'oung, when there were little suppers after the performance, and little dinners at Richmond on Sunday evenings. Alan's sudden appearance, with liis grave face and Bolemn eyes, rudely disturbed this harmonious duct of reminis- cence. " No, Alan," his father repeated, " I have never attempted the necessary effort at pumping up sympathy for you ; it would 134 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. require too great an exertion : but I pity you, my dear boy. I find I can manage so much without fatigue." Alan smiled. He could afford to be pitied ; but he could not afford to fail and be ridiculed. " Perhaps you will pity me more when I tell you what I am going to do next." " I don't think I could," said Lord Alwyne lazily. " All my available pity, now that my old friends and I have to pity each other for the loss of youth, is yours already. There is only a certain amount of pity in every man's constitution. Men differ in this respect, however, as they differ in v/eight. You may try, if you like, Alan." " I have been long thinking upon the best way to bridge over the gulf which divides me from the mind of the labouring classes." " I thought you had answered it by jumping into the gulf, just as young Parisians, who think that everything is finished, jump into the Seine. But if that did not do " " It did not quite. In fact, I have had to confess lately that my experiment has in some respects been a failure." " Aha ! Kow I am really glad to learn that. I am interested this time. Then, Alan, I hope that you will give up masquerad- ing as the homely swain, and come back to our arms as the country gentleman again. Desdemona and Miranda will for- give you, and all shall be forgotten. We will never allude to the dreadful past again." Alan shook his head. " Not yet, sir, I think. Most likely not at all ; because I am now going to commit myself to an act which is also experi- mental, and yet, if it fails, can never be undone." " That sounds very serious. Do you know what he means, Desdemona '?'' " I am afraid I know too well." " In fact," continued Alan, not facing his father's eyes, but uneasily playing with the ornaments on the mantelshelf, " I have come to the conclusion that the only way for one class to understand another is for them to intermarry." " I see," said Lord Alwyne slowlj^, while a look of pain and disappointment crossed his face. " I see — and you propose — yourself — to intermarry with the class Vv'hich is the lowest. Is that so?" " That is what I mean." " Do you wish to introduce this as a general practice or t illustrate in your own case how the theory works ?'' " I live in the way I think best for carrying out my own ideas, ' said Alan, with a little pride. " Others may follow me or not, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 135 as tlbey may tbink best. I am only sorry that my proceedinga must shock your feelings." " Nothing shocks me," said Lord Alwyne untruthfully ; " I am too old to be shocked by anything. And, besides, your idea is not a new one. Royal houses have often bridged over the gulf by marriage — morganatic. By means of the femala branches, indeed, all ranks of society must have been by this time thoroughly understood by the higher class. But, pray go on." " I am perfectly serious," said his son. " To intermarry with a family of the soil will be to create new sympathies, and establish ties which may lead to all sorts of valuable results. "We v.rill suppose that I am married to — to a girl of this village, poor, of course, but creditably brought up by respectable parents, endowed with as much mother- wit as any of her superiors, able to give me her experience in dealing with the class from which she sprang. ..." " The situation is novel," said Lord Alwyne ; "but I doubt if my imagination can follow it in all its consequences. . . ." " Well, but will it not afford me opportunities such as I could gain in no other way, of influencing the villagers ? They will look on me as one of themselves : I shall be their cousin, their brother . . . You think this wild enthusiasm, I suppose ?" he said in an altered voice. " No, my son, not at all ; I think nothing. You have the advantage of me by thirty years. That is a great pull to begin with. I shall not try to understand where the modern ideas come from, nor whither they tend. It might make me un- comfortable. It might even make me v/ant to follow you, and, like Don Quixote, go a-shepherding in my old age. That would be detestable. But I confess I am interested. Let us see ; you marrj' this girl. You are therefore the cousin of half the village at once. That will, as the first obvious consequence, enable them to borrow money of you. You will live here, at your own place ?" "No; I shall live in the village. Only I shall get a more comfortable place than I am in at present." " That will be in some respects better. As to jovx wife's relations, now : they would be free of the house ?" " Surely ; that is part of my purpose. It would be an education for them to see how a household may be simply con- ducted on principles of the best taste." " In case of a dinner-party, now, or an evening- " " We should give no dinner-parties." "I was only thinking," said Lord Alwyne softly, "of an elementary difficulty — that of evening dress. Excell.-^ufe as your 136 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. new relations would be in all the relations of life, I supposo that a dress-coat is not considered necessary in their circle ?" " Surely," said Alan, " in such a matter as this we need not stop to discuss evening dress." " Indeed, no. As the poet says : " ' The rank is but (lie guinea stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that.' The matter only occurred to me in thinking of what your own prejudices might be. Mere prejudices. In smock-frock or evening dress, what is a man yiit a man ?" Alan moved uneasily. " Evening dress — evening dress," he repeated. ""What liavo we any more to do with evening dress ?" '' Your wife will be able to receive," pursued his father, " at five o'clock tea. Desdemona, you will describe to me by letter^ I am sure, how the Sisters of Thelema got on with, the gentle — I mean the employes in smock-frocks. It will be almost like a scene from the opera . . . By the way, Alan, at such receptions the smocks are clean, I suppose ?'' " My dear father, I am serious." " So am I, my son — so am I. Never more so, I assure you." Lord Alwyne's words were genial enough, but his manner was cold. Alan knew without these symptoms what his f athers reception of his grand project would be. " And when you return to the Hall, with your wife, whom you will have trained by that time in your cottage to the out- ward semblance, and perhaps the bearing, of a lady — what will you do then about the relations ? By that time, though, they too will have adopted the manners of polite society, and will be able, I suppose, to hold their own at a dinner or a ball. We shall have the smock-frock in society at last." Alan made a gesture of impatience. He was thinking of the pi'esent, and here v/as his father making suppositions about the future. " I shall never go back to the Hall," he said with decision. " My life is devoted to the village." " Yes : that is noble. But what about the children ? I s-jp- pose we may contemplate that possibility ? You cannot lcav3 Weyland Court to any one but your eldest son. He will, I suppose, be trained to occupy his position as a gentleman !" Alan refused to contemplate the possibility of children at all. Children would complicate his proposed arrangements alto- gether. Then Lord Alwyne summed up. He lay back, resting his eyes on fhe comely proportions of THE MONKS OF THELEMA. lyi Desdcmoria, and speaking languidly, as if, wliicli was the capo, the busincc3 was beginning to bore him too much to talk about it. " Of course, Alan, you know, without my telling you, what must be my feelings as regards this project. In the benighted days of my youth I was taught that by birth, by education, and perhaps by the inheritance of those qualities which pushed ray fathers to the front and kept them there, I was one of tlie natural leaders of the people, I chose my line, as my elder brother chose his ; and while he very properly accepted the position of politician, a sacrifice which must require a great deal of resolution, I, for my part, preferred to become a leader in society. Up to the present I have seen no reason to regret my choice. The country never had better statesmen or better soldiers than when they all came from one class. And I think it never will again have better, because our men have nothing to gain, either in money or rank. The other classes may pro- duce poets, novelists, artists, lawyers— all sorts of worthy and delightful people — but has not yet produced great adminis- trators or great generals. And, in my opinion, that comes of descent. For work which requires a cool head and unflinching courage in the storms of unpopularity or ill-success you want a man who inherits those qualities. That is my simple creed, Alan. The Fontaines have been to the front ifor six hundred years or thereabouts. The Dunlops, your mother's people, iiave been country gentlemen, knights, and soldiers for as long. And all the time we have kept on intermarrying. We have kept to our own class. You will marry out of it. For my own part, I do not wish to bridge over the gulf between my- self and my servants ; I would rather let that gulf remain. The country allows those to rise who are strong enough to rise. Let the weak stay where they are." " Social economy " began Alan. " My dear boy, let us not begin with social economy. It will teach us nothing. "VVe will discuss this affair no longer. Hence- forward, Alan, I shall be very glad to see you, personally, in London, but I can come to Weyland Court no more after you are married." " I am sorry ; I am deeply sorry to pain you, sir," said Alan ; *' but when higher duty than that of deference to your wishes falls upon me " " Very well , Alan," his father interrupted him. " "We under- stand each other, which is quite enough. Go your own way, and forget the old notions, if you please. But I cannot go along with you. Shake hands, my boy ; we l;ave not quarrelled, aad do not intend to." Alan went away, his face rendered tadder. Out in the pari* 138 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Lis eyes suddenly lit up, and he raised his head. Was he think- ing of that bright and blooming girl who stood before them all ia the marquee, the light of the lamps upon her face, her lips parted, her bosom heaving, her eyes dancing with pride and joy while Brother Peregrine gave her the golden apple ? It is quite possible. Man is but man. Even Aristotle, as everybody who has read the "Lay of Aristotle" knows, succumbed to a pretty face. And as Alan proposed to marry her, he was dans son droit in letting his thoughts run upon his future wife. But perhaps, after all, he was thinking how Miranda would approve of this additional self-sacrifice. When he was gone. Lord Alwjme turned to Cesdemona, I'aising his hands before his face, palms outward. It is the gesture of sorrow, disappointment, or disgust. "Poor Alan!" he said — "poor boy! All his fine theories have come down to this ; to live in a cottage, work as a common labourer, and marry a labouring man's daughter. I always told my wife that bringing him up at home would be his ruin. Marry a labourer's daughter ! — bridge over the gulf ! — oh ! Desdemona, for the first time in my life I regret that we are not in France, before the Kevolution, and that I cannot get a letfre de cachet." " He is not married yet," said the actress. *' Not yet ; but he will be married before long." " I say he is not married yet." " Do you mean, Desdemona, to hold out hopes ?" " I do," she said. " I will tell you nothing more : but I have hopes, and I shall set to work." Lord Alwyne reflected. '• I will not ask now," he said. " I would rather not know. I cannot plot against my son. But, Desdemona, in memory of our long friendship, help me if you can." She did not answer for a while, sitting in thought. Pre- sently her clear eyes became heavy with tears. " Ours has been a long friendship, Lord Alwyne," she said, " and it is my greatest pleasure to think about it. It is thirty years since first you stood by the young actress and protected her vcputation against cruel attacks that were made upon me, and are always made on women of my profession. I am grate- ful for that. And it is five and twenty j'ears since when, iu my day of trouble, there was no one in the world but you who had the courage to take me away from it, and to do it openly, so that no one could throw a stone. As dear as my honour is to me, Lord Alwyne, so deep is my gratitude to you." Meantime in Alan's brain was ringing the name of the girl he had seen last night, her face lit up and surrounded as by a nebula of joy and pride. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 139 "AlmaBostock" And while the name went clanging in his brain, he began to think of his future father-in-law. The outlook in that direc- tion was not promising. " He is crafty," said Common Sense. " He is not a man of broad views, but hard-working," said Enthusiasm. "You suspect his honesty," said Common Sense. " That is because I am growing suspicious," replied En- thusiasm. " He thinks bad beer and you think fine claret," said Common Sense. " Then we will teach him a liking for claret," said Enthu- Biasm. And so on, cari'ying on the conversation for a mile and a half, until all that could be said against the worthy Bailiff had been said, and the result remained that if ever there was a fitting subject for the operation of example, precept, and ex- hortation in the direction of the Higher Culture, Bailiff Bostock was that special subject. And he could be got at readily by means of his daughter, Alma Bostock ! Now that the idea of marriage was assuming a concrete form instead of a vague and shadowy umbra, like a ghost to look at and quite as terrifying, it did not seem so dreadful a business. When Panurge was sutlering from those cruel doubts of his concerning marriage, he had no one, so far as we have been informed, in his eye. Kow Alma Bostock appeared to Alan the very girl made to his hand. There must be, he had always said, some approach to delicacy in his wife. This he could hardly expect to find in the coarse and red-handed daughter of a ploughman. His wife must belong to the class among whom he was about to live. Alma's father was but a step removed, while her mother was herself the daughter of a cottager. Here he m.ade a great mis- take. Bailiff Bostock considered himself much more than a step above the labourer. Just as the Queen must find it diffi- cult to understand, even with the help of Miss Yonge's novels, the little distinctions of middle life — how the chemist is a greater man than the grocer : how the smallest professional man keeps apart from trade : how the curate cannot break bread with a retailer — so Alan Dunlop did not understand that his Bailiff stood upon a platform a great deal higher than his labourers, and that Alma, v.hatever she might do, would cer- tainly not be likely to sympathise with the rustics. Alma Bostock was the one girl in the village who would do lor him — of that he was quite certain. All the rest were coarse, commonplace, repulsive. \1% spent an agitated evening, wandering into the library I p THE MONKS OF THELEMA. and out of it, talking in a purposeless way Avith Prudence, his librarian. There "wns no one else there, of course. " Prudence, you nii^st be lonely, sitting here every evening, and no one coming here but yourself." " No, sir, not very lonely ; I've got the books." " We must find some one to come here a good deal, and brighten-up things for you." He was thinking in some vague way how Alma would set the example of spending an evening or two every week among the books, and how that example would spread. The next morning, instead of going ofE to the farm work, he put on the ordinary- habiliments of an English gentleman, and went over to the farm house. It was nine o'clock when he started. Miranda, he thought with a pang, reflecting how his marriage would separate him from her, was at that moment taking breakfast— probably at the Abbey. The members of the Order would be dropping in one by one in their lazy fashion. There would be devising of plans for the day, talking over all the things which rejoice "cul- tivated men and women ; and all in the pleasant softness of ease, and art, and luxury. And he was going to cut himself off at one stroke from this Castle of Indolence. Was it yet too late ? Yes : the experiment must be tried : his long-maturod scheme for the regeneration of mankind must be carried out to the very end. Farewell, Thelema : farewell, Desdemona : fare- _w(ili, Miranda. For here he was at the garden-gate, and there, in the garden, was the very girl whom he came to woo. 1 think that even Miranda, Nelly, and Desdemona, jealous as they are of conceding beauty to women of the lower class, would have acknowledged that Alma Bostock, standing in the garden, made a pretty picture in the morning sunlight. It was a long, narrow garden, sloping down the hill on which the house stood. On either side was an orchard, and stray apple-trees were stand- ing in the garden itself. These were old, and covered with yellow lichen, which contrasted with the dark branches, and the light green leaves. Pehind the garden v/as the farm-house, a picturesque and gabled red brick house, with ivy climbing over one end of it, and throwing arms round the angles so as to embrace the whole house. Facing the garden, a window on either side, was a broad and ma'^sive porch of wood-Avork, round which the creepers clung and clambered. The garden was planted with gooseberry-bushes, currant-bushes, raspberry- canes, and strawberry beds. There was a narrow walk in it from the porch to the garden-gate, bordered with box, and behind the box an edging of flowers— such as gilly-flower, double stocks, sweet-william, candytuft. Venus's looking-glass, London pride, and mignonette— the kind of flowers which require least THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 141 gfirdening ; and there vcre a few standard roses close to the house itself. Under the apple-trees, with the soft light of the sunshine broken up into a thousand fragments by the dancing leaves before it fell upon her, stood Alma herself. She was out there to gather red currants, and she had a basket on her arm for the purpose ; but she was not gathering currants at all, only standing with head bare, and thrown back, gazing into the dis- tance, lost in meditation. Alan thought of certain lines of poetry, aiid his heart softened towards the damsel. She looked dainty all over. Her head was shapely and her profile clear ; her dress fitted her pretty figure perfectly ; in fact, her mother, formerly lady's-maid to Alan's mother, made it for her. And it was of a soft grey colour, which suited the light greenery of the apple leaves. One of her arms was bare : and it was not a red and blowsy arm- not at all — it was as white as any arm could be, and as well shaped. And on either side of the garden lay the orchard, with little glades of sunlight and of shade. While Alan looked, the girl tied a handkerchief over her head, which set her face in a ■white frame, and made her look ten times as pretty. So pretty a girl, Alan thought, could not be other than bright and sym- pathetic, and quick to feel and to respond. Besides, was she not the selection and choice of Miranda ? As for Alma, indeed, opinions among her acquaintance were divided. For her enemies, who were the young women of the place, declared that she Vv^as deceitful and treacherous. Tliey also said that she was by no means so pretty as she thought herself. The young men of the place, on the other hand — curious what diversity of opinion may exist in the smallest village— declared that there was nobody so pretty as Alma Bostock. The only objection they had to her was that she held her head so high and made believe to be a lady. Meantime, she stood beneath the trees, a very pretty picti;re. Did a painter want to draw the ideal country girl, engaged in the ideal country occupation, he would find no more charming picture than that of Alma in the garden, with her basket ready to hold the ripe red -currants. A very pretty picture, and a suggestive picture. Alan's thoughts flew with a rush to the Arcadian life he had imagined, which would, with the help of Ahna, begin as soon as the wedding bells should ring. Ho lifted the latch, opened the gavden-door, and stepped ir to begin his wooing 142 THh MONKS OF THELEMA CTTA.PTER XX. " Her disposition slie inlierits, wliicli mates fair gifts fairer." Al.ma Bostock saw Mr. Dunlop open tlie gate and walk up the path without any othei' emotion than a little surprise that he should be without his contemptible smock-frock. She held him in small respect, considering his self-denying life as a proof of mere feebleness of brain ; but he was undoubtedly a man to whom outward respect was due, as the fountain and source of the family well-being. There was perhaps another reason why she regarded Alan with some contempt. It is well known in her class, and among her sex, that gentlemen, of whatever rank, are not insensible to the attractions of pretty girls, even when of lov/ly birth. Alma had good reasons for knowing this fact. Only a week before, Mr. Caledon, meeting her in a shady lane, while she was balancing a basket on her head, bet her a sovereign that he couldn't kiss her lips without the basket falling off. He lost the bet. And Mr. Roger Exton, the gentleman who gave her the golden apple — made her Beauty-Laureate— the funny man with the lines about bis face, walked home with her through the park, when Lliss Miranda and the ladies had gone away, and insisted on payment of the promised reward. But from Mr. Dunlop, who was so much about the place, no atten- tion of that or any other kind. No use being the prettiest girl in the village, if you get no compliments by it. ]\light as well be the ugliest. Mr. Dunlop had eyes for nobody, they said, but Miss IMiranda. And yet in no hurry to put up the banns. If it had been Tom Caledon marching up the path. Alma would have smiled and nodded gaily, sure of a talk and a laugh. As it was only Mr. Dunlop, she made a salutation of ceremony, which was by no means too graceful. Alans thoughts were quite simple. " She is good-looking," he might have said. "A little awk- Vv'ard, which teaching will cure. I wish she would not drop a ciu'tsey. She looks appreciative, as well as pretty. She must be sympathetic and ready, otherwise Miranda would never have selected her. Of course, I am not the least in love v/ith her. How could one be, after Jliranda ?" " Good-morning, Alma," he said, taking off his hat, as to a 3'oung lady. Alma thought this cold and ceremonious, but quite charactei'istic of the Squire. " I came over to see you by your- self. Are you alone ?" " To see me, gir ?" she asked with wonder. " Yes, I am alone. IMother's gone a-marketing, and father's about the placo Romewhore." THE MONKS OF THELEMA, 143 ''' Alone. Then we can talk, you and I ?" " Yes, sir." Alma, at sight of those solemtj eyes gazing in- tently and earnestly in her face, felt her ancient respect for Mr. Diinlop increase rapidly, until it almost amounted to terror. " Yes, sir. There is no one here. Will you come in out of tho hot sun ? Father '11 be in for dinner, and I'll give him your message." " My message is altogether for yourself, Alma. 1 ou may tell your father afterwards if you like." What on earth was he going to say ? Could that rash fellow, Harry, who promised to tell nobody anything, have gone talk- ing to the Squire ? It must be Harry ; and what a rage father would be in ! Certainly, Harry's position in society was not that which could be expected of one who would mate with a Bostock. With these misgivings, Alma led the way into the best room, the apartment reserved wholly for visitors of distinction. It was a room of small dimensions ; what, however, it lacked in Epace it made up in stiffness, like some small dame of dignified and upright bearing, decked in antique bravery. The table had a dozen keepsakes, and such light reading, ranged round it. There were slippery horse-hair chairs, on which no one could sit, unless he held on by the back of the next chair ; and a horse-hair sofa, ou which if any one had ever tried to recline, needs must that he repent it afterwards. And the artificial flowers on the mantelshelf, and the vases of thirty years ago, and the cheap German prints, and the coldness of the room, whose windows were never opened, struck Alan's heart with a chill. And yet what a room might this be made when the principles of the Higher Culture should have taken root ! On the right of the window, the pretty wooden porch, covered with its creepers ; on the left, a little lawn, with standard roses ; and beyond, the greenery of the orchard. A room whose win- dows should open to the ground, which should be hung with light draperies, and painted in green and grey, and furnished in black, with just a little china. The girl herself, Alan thought ■would set off the picture, were she but dressed to correspond Avith the furniture. " What is it, Mr. Dunlop ?" He recovered himself, and looked at her again with a curious gaze, half of inquiry, half of hesitation, which frightened her. He could not, really, have seen Tom Caledon— no ; that was impossible. And no business of his if he had. It mmt be Harry. " Won't father do as well, Mr. Dunlop ?" " No," he rephed, •' he will not do nearly as well." He sat down, but the treacherous nature of the horsehair 144 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. chair cansecl Iiim lo abandon this attempt in confusion. Then they both remained standing, rather awkwardly, Alan beside the table and Alma by the window. " You know," he went on, " what I am endeavouring to effect in this village — and I hope my work has your sj-mpathy, and that you understand its great aim — to increase the love for Culture and the practices of the Higher Life. Your father lends me his cordial aid " — here Alma turned away her face to hide a smile. " You have seen me at work for a good many months. And you have seen, I dare say, that my efforts, so far, have been a failure." " Well, sir," said Alma, " I always did say that for the Squiro to put on a smock-frock like a common labourer and go a-hay- malcing, and reaping, and hedging with a passel o' village boys was a thing I couldn't hold with. And mother said the same ; said my lady would ha' blushed red to see the day. Father, he only said, ' Let him alone.' That's all father ever said. But he's that deep, is father." "Yes," Alan went on, "we have not succeeded veiy well, he thinks. Your mother and you were right so far as you under- stood. And your father, in his rough way, was also right in saying, ' Let him alone.' It is what I expected of him. How- ever, I have found out at last the main cause of my failure, and it is this. Alma — alone and single-handed I cannot do much in the direction of Culture. I can only set an example which may or may not be followed. If I am married now ; if I am married to a girl who understood the classes among whom I labour — don't you see, Alma? — I should be working double, not single. Do you begin to understand ?" Not at first. She looked wonderingly in his face. Then, all of a sudden, she did understand, and first she turned red and then ashy pale. Could it be ? "Was she in her senses ? And the Squire, too ? And never so miich as a chuck uiider the chin from him to give her warning of what he intended. "I will repeat," he said, "I want to find a girl who under- stands as I never can really understand, the classes among whom I work. I want her to marry me in order that I may work with double my present efficiency. I want her to join with me in learning what is best, teaching what is best, practising what is best, and showing by our own example, plain for all to sec, the life that belongs to the higher civilisation." It could not be. But yet — but yet — things looked like it. If the Squire did not mean that, what could the Squire mean ? " Will you," he added, " will you marry me. Alma ?" There was no possible mistake about that invitation. Five words most unmistakable. As Alma looked at Alan with frightened, wo»der-BU'icken eyeB, so looked Semel^ when Ze"» THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 145 proclaimed his love and told her who he was. So also, but with the sheepishness natural to his sex, young Anchises gazed upon the white-lirabed Thetis when she astonished him by stealing up along the golden sands, dripping wet, resplendent in her beauty and radiant with her newborn love. So looked the beggar maid when she left her barrel organ and received from King Cophetua, not a royal penny with a royal pat upon her fair cheek, but instead a golden wedding-ring, or the offer of one, when the monarch, in robe and crown, stepped from his throne to meet and greet her on her way The age of that monarch is nowhere mentioned, but it must have been very advanced, and his rash act was doubtless speedily followed by deposition and consignment to the County Asylum. Alma did not answer — she could not answer — perhaps think- ing of Harry. But she looked him straight in the face and tried to understand this wonderful proposal. In two minutes you can get through a good deal of thinking. What in the world would Harry saj^ ? Sweet passages — many passages sweet and tender — had gone on between Harry and herself. Would he take it crying, or would he take it swearing ? Then the thought of Weyland Court. Oh— h ! She would be mistress of that beautiful place, where her mother, always full of its glories, had been lady's-maid. She would be the lady — with a carriage to drive in and horses to ride — the equal of ]\Iiss Dalmeny, the superior of Miss Despard. And what would Harry say when she drove by resplendent in Bilk and satin ? Help in his work ? What did Mr. Dunlop mean by that ? " Well, Alma, what do you say ?" " I don't know what to say," she replied ; " I'm struck of a heap." Alan shuddered. " Struck of a heap !" But then the train- ing had not begun. " Miss Dalmeny did not prepare you for this proposal ? I thought that she had spoken to you about it." " Miss Dalmeny !" She opened her blue eyes wider. " Whj', what in the world should Miss Dalmeny want you to marry me for ? And everybody saj-s that you and she are as good as handfasted, a'ready." Really, this young woman vrould require a good deal of training. " Never mmd Miss Dalmeny, then, but consider what I pro- pose. Will you marry me ?" " It caiHt be real," said Alma, scared out of her wita. How different from Tom Caledon, and, indeed, all the gentle- men with whom she was acquainted. A laugh and a compli- 10 146 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. ment : a Idnd word or perhaps, if no one was witliln siglit, s kiss — ■vviiich, in young ladies of Alma's position of life, is neitiicr here nor there, a mere unconsidered trifle. But to stand there cold and quiet, playing with his Vvatch-chain and waiting for an answer ! " It carUt be real," she repeated, turning the corners of her apron in her fingers. This may be objected to as a trick of the stage, but all tricks of the stage come originally from life outside the house, and some old fashions linger ; therefore. Alma being, as she subse- quently described it, in a quandary, the like of which she had never before experienced, turned the corners of her apron in her fingers. " I thought you had received some intimation," Alan went on, feeling a little pity for' the embarrassment of the girl. " I do not come to you, as you see, professing passionate love. That is not at all my motive in offering you marriage. You may, however, depend on receiving all possible kindness and consideration. And I do not invite you to a life of luxpry and ease. By no means. You will go on living just as you do now, only with more attention to externals." She did not understand one single syllable that he said. " Marry her, and go on living as she was accustomed to live?" "What I want in a wife especially is advice, sympathy, help. She will supplement my own deficiencies of knowledge. I want her to be always at my hand, suggesting the one right way and preventing all the wrong ways. I want her, in fact, to be the Lieutenant in my work. Can you do this, Alma ? Can you be this to me V" She gazed at him in mere stupid bewilderment. Give him — Mr. Dunlop — advice? Give him — the Squire — sympathy? She thought sympathy meant pitying people who are unlucky enough to have fevers, rheumatism, or prison fare. What did he want sympathy for ? And then to give him help ? Perhaps he was cracked. People in the village did whisper that the young Squire must have a soft place in his head. To be sure, if he had come like a lover should — ". . . . tho young man, ho comes dancing, With a ' How do you do, my dear P' " — if he had told her that because she was such a very pretty girl, and because her eyes were so blue, her lips so rosy, her cheeks BO soft, and because she had won the golden apple, which vras a clear proof of her superiority, and because she must, being BO beautiful, necessarily be good in proportion, therefore he had fallen madly in love with he?: : then, indeed, she would hava .THE MO.\KS Of THELEMA 14) believed entirely in his sanity. But to march gravely into the house, to look at her as if he was a schoolmaster and she a pupil who had done wrong things, with those solemn eyes of his, and then to say that he wanted to marry her in order to get assistance in his work — why, the man must be gone clean Btark staring mad. Marry her and go on living as she had been living ? Churn- ing butter, perhaps. Oh ! yes, and she IMistress of Weyland Court. Likely ! And milking cov/s— and she with her best frock on every day. Or darning stockings — and she Avith silk ones. Picking red currants — and she with a dozen servants. And perhaps making the beds. Very likely. Work, sha imagined, meant this kind of work, and nothing else. He must be mad, " Come, Alma," said Alan, who had been listening patiently, " what do you say ?" " I don't know," she replied with hesitation, " about help- ing in your work. But I've always been used to house-work, and I suppose I should be able to learn what you wanted me to learn. Only, I don't understand. But you don't really mean it, Mr. Dunlop ? It's only some of your fine gentleman's fun." The idea of Alan Dunlop ever having manifested any fine gentleman's fun in his life ! " You can't mean it," she went on. " Up at the Court, with all those beautiful Sisters to pick and choose from." Alma's notions of Alan's irresistible charms might have pleased a vainer man, but he received the words with a shudder. Fancy " picking and choosing " among such girls as Sisters Miranda, Eosalind, Cecilia, and the rest. " There's Miss Despard, as beautiful as beautiful. Or there's Miss Miranda herself, like a queen. And yet j'ou come to me and tell me you want to marry me." Was then the Droit du Seigneur ever in force in this country? It never once occurred to Alma that she could refuse so won- derful and surprising a proposal. To be sure the position was remarkable. " You do not quite understand as yet. Alma," said Alan, gravely. " With these young ladies there has been no question of marriage. And I propose this — this union — in the hope and belief that by forming new ties — I am afraid, however, that I cannot make you entirely comprehend my views all at once. Trust yourself to me, Alma, and I think you will never have reason to regret your consent." He held out his hand and she took it. The manners of the upper classes are singularly cold. How different from Harry ! Why, only last night, when he took leave after a stealthy and hurried interview at the gardea-gate, had he not, with his arm 10-2 148 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. round her waist, given her kisses twain — fair and honest Inss^ — one on either cheek ? Did gentlefolk never kiss each other ? If Miss Miranda had said yes, would he not have kissed her ? A pang of jealousy crossed the girl's heart. She was not good enough, then, to be kissed ? " Wewill meet again to-morrow, Alma," said her suitor, ''There is a great deal to be talked over. For the present, good-bye." He was gone, and she, though, with the slender power of imagination at her command, she found it difficult to believe, was actually betrothed to Mr. Dunlop, the owner of Weyland Court. Alma sat down on the least slippery of the chairs and tried to realise what it all meant. She would certainly have a car- riage — she would certainly have servants — she would certainly not do a stroke of work herself. She would be a grand lady — ■ she would go about with Miss Dal ; no, she hardly thought she should care to see very much of Miss Dalmeny. And what did Mr. Dunlop mean by asking her whether Miss Dalmeny had prepared her for the proposal ? Then she knew all about it, and not one word of kindness from her the night before, when Mr. Exton gave her the golden apple. She was good enough to marry Mr. Dunlop, but not good enough to be spoken to by Miss Dalmeny. Yery well, then, some day — and here she began to dream of impossible revenge, a safety-valve for small natures. She could not understand it. What would her father say ? What would her mother say ? What would Harry say ? What would all the world say ? Then, for a brief space, imaginary Rapture, Joy, Triumph, while the wedding bells rang, and outside the church the coach- and-four waited, the gallant sjteeds tossing impatient necks, and the tag-rag — including the bold-faced gipsy thing, the black- smith's daughter, who dared contest the golden apple with her — stood and watched and envied. Then, for a longer space, a sinking and sadness of heart. What would Harry say ? She had attracted, during her brief span of nineteen years, as many suitors as, in that short period, a maiden may. Young gentlemen who knew her had not dis- dained to pay her those attentions which please them and hurt nobody. There had been farmers' sons — in fact, there were still farmers' sons, because no one was ever dismissed. But for a permanency, there was Hariy. He was a gamekeeper. One of Mr. Dunlop's gamekeepers. Would he still continue. Alma wondered, to game-keep for the Squire when she was married to him ? He was a tall, stalwart, handsome young fellow of two and twenty, and he loved tho girl with a passion which she could neitlier understand nor return. What maiden of Alma Rostock's nature can return the THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 149 passion of a man who lores her? As well ask the shallow rip- pling lake to reflect in all its strength and glory the splendour of the sun. He believed in her love as an honest man should. His blood would have boiled had he known of these passages to which we have been constrained, sorrowfully, to allude, with Tom Caledon, Mr. Exton, and others. Of them he knew nothing. To him the girl was a pearl among maidens, full of sweet and lofty thoughts, too high for him, who was one of nature's own gentlemen, and as incapable of a meanness as any peer of noble lineage. He made her his idol, his goddess. He saved and economised for her, paring down tobacco to the lowest point compatible with a pipe a day, cutting oft' beer, and living at the lowest, so that he might save money to buy furniture and make his Alma comfortable. He would have Hked nothing better than to wrap her in swan's-down and leave her no work to do but to sit warm and comfortable while he worked for her. And all this Alma knew. That was the gamekeeper's idea of love and marriage : the wife was to be cosseted up and cared for by others. She was to sit warm and comfortable while her husband did what the Americans call the " chores." Her place was to look happy while she was petted and made much of. Well, that is a kind of duty, Alma thought, which most girls find to come pretty easy. On the other hand, the Squire's idea about wedlock seemed to be that his wife was to do great quantities of work — perhaps the washing and the mangling. No doubt he must be cracked. Still, he had the good sense, Alma thought, to come to the prettiest girl in all the country-side. Also, though she was young and artless, the thought did occur to her that when once they were married, marriage being a tie impossible to dissolve, the wife might fairly sit down and refuse to do anything, after which the Squire would have to keep her, as the Squire's wife ought to be kept, in idleness. But what in the world would Harry say ? He was a masterful man, and he was strong. Suppose he and the Squire were to fight about her. Such things had been. Alma's heart glowed within her, as she pictured such a battle as she had read about —all for her — she herself looking on from a safe distance. And yet Mr. Mill tries to persuade us that woman's influence haf always made in the direction of peace. Suddenly she became aware that it was half-past twelve o'clock. Simultaneously with the striking of the clock arrived lier mother. She was hot : she was a little out of temper : she was dig« appointed with her marketing. '• Ahna !" she cri^d. " You hcr§ ?" ISO THE MONKS OF THELEMA. In point of fact. Alma ought to have been in the kitchen, Avhere the potatoes were still waiting to be washed and peeled, and all sorts of culinary operations were already overdue. And to find her daughter actually sitting down in the best room m the morning was revolutionary, simply. " Yes, mother," she replied meekly ; " I am here." " And where are the currants ?" " I haven't picked them." There was something peculiar about the tone of Alma's Toioe. Generally, she was extremely obedient, having been rendered so, like Shagpat, of immortal memorj^, by reason of thwacks. But to-day, without being exactly mutinous, she was calmly superior. " I have not picked them," she said. A bare statement of the fact. " Oh ! and what in the world have you been doing, then ?" " Nothing." Of all replies that Alma could have made, this was the most astounding. Had she been pert, which often happened ; had she been saucy, which was not unusual ; had she been rude, which happened both when she was pert and when she was saucy, an answer would have been found ; but that she should calmly and without excuse state that she had done nothing, was beyond all ]\Irs. Bostock's experience of girls, and she had bad a long and painful experience. She gasped. " And the potatoes ?" " I haven't touched them. I haven't been into the kitchen at all." " And the cabbage ?" " I don't know nothing about the cabbage." " And the beef ?" " I haven't touched the beef. I tell you I haven't been into the kitchen this morning since breakfast." "Alma Bostock," said her mother calmly, but with despair, '■ are you mad ?" " No, mother." " Has father been carrying on ? Have you up and sauced your father, child ?" " No. I haven't seen father ; and I don't want." " Then what's the matter with the girl ? Is she gone out of her senses with last night's tom-foolery ?'' " No, mother. It isn"t that." Just then returned her father. He, too, was out of temper, because things had not gone altogether right in the matter of buying and selling tha*^^ morning. It was nothing connected with Alan's interests. Quue the contrary. Only a coii;ji manqui THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 151 of his owQ, a little transaction in wliich plain honesty for once would have done better than chicanery. " Now what's this ?" he asked abruptly, seeing the elements of a domestic row. " I don't know what ever in the world has come over Alma," said her mother. " Been sitting down, if you please — sitting down — here— here — all the morning, and done nothing ! You'd better come back in an hour's time, father. There can't be no dinner till then. No potatoes peeled, no cabbage washed, and the beef not in the pot ; and my young lady sitting on the sofa, as grand as you please, doing nothing." Bailiff Bostock banged his riding- whip on the table so that the window- frames rattled and every individual keepsake on the table jumped into the air with alarm. " Now, you— go up to your own room," he said. " Hanged if 3'ou were a couple of years younger if I v/ouldn't lay this whip over your shoulders. Get out of my sight, I say, lest I do it now." Alma meekly obeyed. But as she mounted the stairs there was a twinkle in her eye and a dimple at the ends of her lips which showed the anticipation of a little gamiC of table-turning, of quite a supernatural kind, in the immediate future. Her mother saw both twinkle and dimple, and returned to her kitchen deeply marvelling what manner of thing had happened unto her daughter. CHAPTER XXI. " Then a most astomsliing tiling htippcncd." VicTOE Ktroo. The bailiff banged about the room like a bluebottle against a pane of glass, swearing at large. His wife, used to these illus- trations of temper, went on peeling the potatoes. " I can't think," she said quietly, " what ever can have come to Alma. Who ever heard tell of such a thing before ?" " I know what is going to come to her," rephed Alma's father grimly, " if it ever happens again." Then there was a pause, after which, observing that if dinner was not ready in half-an-hour, he would perpetrate mysterious horrors, the bailiff retreated. Alma remained upstairs. Presently her mother called her. There was no answer. Then she ran up and tried the door, which was locked and bolted. '* Oome down this minute, Alma." I5» THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Shan't," the young lady replied. " Come down before your father comes home. Ele won't take any more notice." •' Shan't," Alma replied again. " Come, child. Don't make your father mad." " Father," she said, " may get as mad as he likes. I mean to stay here till he comes upstairs and begs my pardon." " Then, my lady," said Mrs. Bostock, " you'll have to stay pretty long." There was no reply, and Mrs. Bostock returned to her potatoes. The bailiff walked down his garden in angry mood. From the garden-gate, looking down the road, you could see the be- ginning of the village. He leaned over the rail and looked up and down. Things were not going so well as, with his opportunities, ha had a right to expect. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year, and the buying and the selling, meant other possibilities. There was, for instance, a little commission on which he had fully cal- culated. The other party, to the ineffable disgrace of humanity, had that very morning disclaimed the transaction, and refused to part with the ten per cent. Tliis disgusted the bailiff, and predisposed him for wrath. Alma's strange forgetfulness was, therefore, like a spark to a mine. After exploding he left the house, and leaning over his garden-gate, brooded as a deeply- injured man for a few minutes, and then, half mechanically, opened the gate and strolled along the road in the direction of the village. It was a bright and beautiful day in July, the sun lying hot and strong upon the fields, turning the green corn into yellow, and doing all sorts of fancy painting with apples, pears, and peaches. The bailiff, who wanted a great deal more culture before he could get the right grip of nature's beauties, walked, growling to himself, with the intention, I believe, of taking a glass of beer, as a snack before dinner, at the Spotted Lion. But as he passed the Squire's cottage, he was hailed by the tenant. " Come in, Bostock," cried Alan. " You are the very man I wanted to sec." The bailiff growled again, and swore melodiously between his teeth ; but he obeyed the invitation. Alan was writing, but he put aside his pen, and turned his chair from the table, "Now, then," he said. "I was coming up to see you this afternoon, to say what I hav^e to say." He rested his head on his hand, and his elbow on the arm of his chair, looking at the bailiff in his meditative way. Bostock thought he looked at him reproachfully, and began to wonder if anything had come THE MOXKS OF 2'IIELEMA. 153 out. It is always disagreeable to be afraid of something coming out. In the case of gentlemen like IMr. Bostock, too, there are BO many things which one is anxious to keep in obscurity. " Well, sir ?" he said, feeling hot and uncomfortable. " Pray take a chair, Bostock. We will leave the door open for coolness. First of all, about the farm." " What about the farm ?" " Well : we are not doing well with it. You can see that by your own accounts. Can you recommend anything ?" The bailiff thought that accounts are things over which a Christian compiler may rejoice, inasmuch as they may tell a different tale to him who writes them and to him who reads. But he did not say so. " I am disappointed, I confess, with the result. I hoped that there would be a margin of profit ; but we are sinking deeper and deeper." " Well, sir, you see there's all the charges you made on it at first : the machinery, and the rise of wage, and all. And then it is but a small farm.. If you really want to make money — what a gentleman like you would call money — by farming, farm large. Get two or three of your innns, run 'em into one, and make me — there, now, that's the only v/ay — make me bailiff of the whole." Alan allowed this suggestion to fall to the ground. " You may strike one of your labourers off the roll, Bostock. I have decided that I have done all I can by my year's work upon the farm. If I have failed to make myself a friend of the men, which is, I am sorry to say, the case, I have learned what a rough and hard life they have, and how difficult it is to move in the direction of culture men whose days are spent in labour. That is something. Where I am most disappointed is that I cannot get any nearer co them." " You're quite near oumgh," said the bailiff. " The men shun me : they will not work with me if they can help it. Even with the boys I make no headway. They look upon me with some sort of dislike." " That lot," said Mr. Bostock, by way of consolation, " would dislike the Devil himself." " Well, the end of it is that I withdraw from the field-work. There is plenty to do here : I have to arrange my amusements for the winter, get the Art Gallery in order, make anotlier attempt at night-school? — plenty to do. But I am gciug to take a very serious step." Mr. Bostock turned pale. Not going to dismiss the bailiff ? " In order to enter fully into the mind of the people, to sym- pathise with them, to understand my own failure up to tl^e present point, and guard against more and grrater failure, I 154 THE MONKi^ OF THELEMA. must have a wife. She must be herself a daughter of the class, or near to the class, among whom my life is to be spent ; and ehe must be ready to enter into my views, and help me in my ■work." Mr. Bostock stared with all his eyes. What the deuce did all this mean ? " In so important a matter — because I cannot pretend to be actuated by the — the usual motives in seeking a wife — I took the advice of friends. They have pointed out to me the girl who seems to possess most of the requirements for the position. That girl is " '• Not Black Bess, daughter of the blacksmith !" cried the bailiff, in alarm ; for the blacksmith and he were not friends. '' No— not that young woman," Alan replied, with a smile. " In fact, Bostock, it is — your daughter." '' My gal ? Mine ?" This time he jumped out of his chair with excitement. For in a moment that crafty brain saw the boundless possibilities of the position. For himself, ease and comfort assured for life : no more necessity for paltry cheateries : the luxury of virtue attainable without an effort : and even if awkward things did come out, the certainty that they would be smoothed over. " Yours, Bostock." " My gal !" he repeated slowly. " Mine !" He opened his lips and gasped. This was indeed a Providen- tial go. " You are not joking, Mr. Dunlop ?" " You ought to know by this time, Bostock, that I am not in the habit of joking." This was quite true. No one ever knew Alan Dunlop make a joke. He would as soon have stood upon his head. " I have already spoken to Alma about it — in fact, I spoke to her this morning. She has consented to become my wife on the terms I propose, to join in my Avork among the village people, and raise them, with herself, to the higher levels." " Oh !" Bostock became more and more bewildered. The young lady whom he threatened Avith his horsewhip half an- hour before was already, then, the betrothed of Squire Dunlop. " Oh ! You have spoken to my gal," he added, slowly, " and my gal has con-icnted. Ha !" " I hope you have no objection, Bostock." " Well, sir," he replied with dignity, " I don't see any objec- tion, if Alma's willing. That gal was born to raise herself — wa see it in her from the beginning. And she has a feeling 'art. Like her father, she has a feeling 'art." " Very well, Bostock. I will go over aud see her again tO' morrow icoruing." THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 155 " Wlut will Lord Alwyne say, sir ?" " My father never interferes with my scheme of life," said Alan. He nodded his head and returned to his writing, as if that interview was over. Mr. Bostock hastened home with a very different air from that with which he had set out. And when he entered the kitchen, which was at the very moment when his wife was dishing the potatoes and setting-out the dinner, he came in whisthng and singing, like unto a jocund swain of Arcady. " Why, Stephen, what's come over you now ?" His wife thought that he might have had some slight touch of sunstroke, or some sort of fever. But no ; it was not sunstroke, nor fever. Joy, as w^e know, does not kill. " You whistling and singing ! &nd Alma why, all the world's gone mad !" " Where is my little gal ?" he asked, with emphatic affection, rubbing his hands togetlier. " Where is my httle gal ?" " Where should she be, an idle hussy, but where you sent her — in her bedroom sulking ?" " Ah, we are but purblind mortals, wife." He filled and drank a glass of beer. " Only purblind mortals in the day of our wrath " — this was Scriptural — " and no man knovreth what a talk with the Squire may bring forth. My little gal is up- stairs, in her bedroom, is she ? Well, it's a warm day, and she'll be cool and comfortable there. Go and tell her to come down and kiss her daddy. You and me will peel the potatoes ; she shall sit on the sofy in the best room and look pretty." Was the man stark staring mad ? " My gal. Alma!" he sighed sentimentally. "Mind, wife, I always did say that gal •would be a credit to us. And a feeling 'art." " If you did say that, Stephen, you said it behmd my back. Feeling heart ? Yes, after a bit o' ribbon and a ruif. Alma ■VFon't come down, she says, unless you go upstairs and beg her pardon." '•At any other time," said her father, rising with alacrity, "at any other time but this, I'd see Alma d d first, and_ break my stick over her shoulders afterwards. Now, my dear, it's my turn to sing small ; very small we must both sing now." "Why, what has happened, Stephen?" Stephen did not reply, but climbed heavily upstairs. "Alma," she heard him cry in honeyed tones. "Alma, my little girl, come out and kiss your daddy." "Say 'I beg your pardon,'" cried Alma shrilly, from tha safety of her own room. Mrv, Bostock laughed with the incredulity of Sars^j. IS6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " I beg your pardon, Alma," said her father. " I beg youi pardon, my little gal ; come out and kiss your loving dad." The door was instantly opened, and there was a sound as of a paternal embrace, and a kiss upon the forehead. And then they came downstairs together, the father with his arm round his girl's waist. " Lord !" said Mr. Bostock, "if I'd only a-known it. But there, you see, you said nothing. That was your artfulness. Kiss me again, pretty." " Now, Bostock," said his bewildered wife, " when you've done carrying on like a Tom-fool in a show, p'r'aps you'll sit down and eat your dinner." " Dinner !" cried the baiUff, " what's dinner at such a mo- ment ? We ought to be drinking champagne wine. And we shall, too ; only you wait. Alma, tell your mother all about it. No— I will. This gal o' mine," — he laid his broad hand upon her head, and the triumph of the moment was to Alma almost as delightful as the triumph of the golden apple, — " this gal o' mine, who takes after her father for sweetness of disposition, is going to marry no less a nobleman than Mr. Dunlop— there !" Tableau ! But Mrs. Bostock said, when sh« had recovered something of her tranquillity, that it seemed to her an unnatural thing, and one which,_if brought to her late lady's knowledge, would make her turn in her grave. This aristocratic platform was the result of having been a lady's-maid. Beth the bailiff and hia daughter despised it. How Mr. Bostock spent the afternoon in sui-veying the land, which he already re£-arded with the eye of a proprietor ; how he saw himself, not bailiff of the smallest and least productive farm on the estate, but stewai'd of half-a-dozen farms rolled into one ; how he revelled in anticipations of large balances at the bank; how he puiYed himself up with the sense of his newly-born greatness— these things belong to the chapters of Paralipomena. And if every novel had these chapters pub- lished in addition to its own, the world would not be wide enough to contain the literature of fiction. To the same chapter belong the flatness of the afternoon for Alma, and the mixture of pride and disgust which fell upon the soul of her mother. In the evening, after sunset, the girl slipped out unobserved. ITcr father had just lit his pipe and her mother the lamp. One was sitting over needlework, the other over a book of accounts. It was quite usual for her to go out in the evening, and neither made any remark. She slipped down the long garden-path as fast as her feet would carry her. At the gardc*ir-gate she looked up and down the voad. Presently, a tall form came quietly along in the THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 157 twillglit. It was tliat of Harry, the gamekeeper. Slie opened the gate, and he came in, following her across the beds to tho orchard at the side, where they could talk without fear of de- tection. This, in fact, was their trysting-place. " I heard," said Harry, " about the fooling of the gold thing. Don't you turn your head with vanity, Alma. Not but you deserve it better than Black Bess, and if you like it, why — there — it don't matter to me." He has got his arm round her waist, and is a tall young fellow, looking handsome and well-set-up in his rough game- keeper's dress. " No, and nothing will ever matter to you any more, Harry," toid the girl. "Why, what has happened. Alma ?" " Oh *! Harry, you and me can't ever marry now." "Why not? 'Cause of father? Who cares for your father?" " No, not because of father — worse than that — 'cause of tho Squire, Mr. Dunlop." " What's he got to do with you and me. Alma ?" " A good deal, Harry. He pays your wages, which is what he has to do with you. And he has asked me to marry him." " You ! Almn,— you ! To marry the Squire !" Even the bailiff's astonishment was not greater thaa honest Harry Cardew's. " You, Alma ?" " He will have it, Harry. I can't help myself. Besides, though I like you the best, and you knov/ that very well, it is a grand thing to marry the Squire. And if I was to say ' no,' there's all the rest to pick and choose from. For he's determined, be says, to marry in the village, so as to get to understand there — I don't know." Harry was staggered. He was prepared for almost any other kind of blow. That the bailiff would not consent he knew already ; but Alma had promised, with every vow that the girl knew, fidelity to him. She would keep company with no one but him : how, then, about the Vi^alk through the woods with Mr. Exton ? The young man trusted her, as is the way with loyal young men. And now she was asked in marriage by the Squire — of all men in the world. Did Bobckah, Avhen the great sheikh's messengers bore her away, leave behind her some mourning swain of Padan-Aram ? " What did your father say ?" asked Harry. " Father's proud. Been kissing and hugging me all day long," Alma replied. " What would your father say if you told him you liked me best ?" 158 ' THE MOMKS OF THELEMA. " Father 'ud beat me to a mash," said the girl with the Btraightforwardness of conviction. " So he would — so he would. Bostock's handy with his stick, 'cept when a man's about. Well, you ain't married yet, my beauty. You go on easy and quiet. Dou't you fret. When the right time comes, we'll see." " Why, what would you do, Harry ?" " Never you mind, pretty. I've got your promise and the broken sixpence. G-o on fooling round with the Squire a bit longer, if you like — let your father make what he can out of him while the sun lasts, for it won't last long. And when it comes to a wedding, it'll be Harry Cardew and Alma Bostock, not the Squire at all. So there, now." There was an air of strength and certainty about her lover ■which w^as not unpleasing. And the way in "which, putting his arms r )und her, and kissing her at odd intervals, he assumed that she belonged to him, was at once terrifying and delightful. It would never do to miss the chance of Weyland Court, for al- though Mr. Dunlop said something foolish about work in the village, that was nonsense, and she intended to live as the wife of tlie Squire ought to live, in idlesse at the Court. On the other hand there would be the dreadful trouble of a husband of whom she v.'af? afraid. Far better the man who held her in his arms, the handsome, stalwart Harry, as brave as a lion and as strong. " So there. Alma, my gal," he said, "and now, good-night. I've got to think over it, somehow. If I must speak to Mr. Dunlop, I shall tell him everything. But I shall see. Keep up your C<^(irage, my dear." Pie left her, and she returned to the house. Her father was drinking brandy and water. " Where have you been. Alma ?" asked her mother. "Into the garden for my basket," she replied, using a figure of speech common among young women, but not inculcated in any of the copybooks, called the suppressio ve7'i. She had, in fact, brought back a basket. " Your mother," said Mr. Bostock, " says it isn't natural. I suppose flesh and blood isn't natural next, nor a pretty girl isn't natural. To me, now, it only shows what a straight man Mr. Dunlop is. What a man ! As I said the very first day when ho made me his bailiff. ' He is a man,' I said, ' as knows a man when he sees a man.' First, he says to himself, ' I want a bailiff. Where shall I find that bailiff ? Where am I to go for honesty and hard work ? Stephen Bostock,' he says, ' is that man,' Next, he says, ' I want a wife — not a fal-lal fine lady, but a honest wife. Where shall I find that wife ? Alma, daughter of Stephen Bostock, is the girl for me,' he says ; ' my bailiff's gal, She takes after her father and has a feeling 'art.' " THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 159 ITo looked round the room triumphantly, after quoting this doi;ble illustration of his employer's remarkable acuteness. " Going into the garden after your basket," he echoed, after a pause. " Next year youll be sending your footman into the garden after your basket. See how different men are from ■women," he observed. " Mr. Danlop wants a wife. He takes his bailiff's daughter. Now if I had a boy, do you think Miss Miranda would marry Idvif " I am quite sure," said his Vv'ife, " that she wouldn't be such a fool.". " No. she wouldn't. Gar ! it's their cussed pride." They left him alone presently, and he drank more brandy- and-water, considering how this new relationship could be turned to the best advantage. He saw many ways. As he considered each in its turn, his face assumed the varying expression of conceit, selfishness, cunning, and extraordmary satisfaction. He sat up in his chair and slapped his leg, a resonant slap, which woke up Alma l^ing in the room above, and made Harry the gamekeeper, a mile off, think there was a shot in the pre- serves. " It's fine J" bs ejacuiatad. " Dammit — it's fine 1" CHAPTER XXII. " 'th.Cf eay, best men are mculcied out of faults P* So Alan Dunlop became engaged. Events of great magnitude are seldom long before they meet with the trumpet of Fame. It need not be detailed how the intelligence was received at the Spotted Lion : how the thing, whispered at first from ear to ear, was speedily proclaimed upon the housetops : how, finall}', the London pajaers got hold of it, and sent specials down to write sensation columns on the Wey- land Experiment. The members of the Order, for their part, received the newa with unfeigned disgust. There could be no longer any doubt as to Hamlet's madness. A man may give up all that makes life desirable and go to work in a smock-frock, and yet tot be mad. A man may fancy that he will be able to educate the British peasantry into a love for culture, and yet not be mad. Dubious and ill-defined as is the borderland between sanity and its oppo- site — multitudinous as are the men who cannot quite see things *s other men see them — there can be no doubt as to which side he belongs who, being a gentleman, actually proposes to marry % village girl, without the prsteEce of passion, and solely in order i6o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. . to carry out an experiment. The opinions of the fraternity, variously expressed, amounted, therefore, to this, that Alan Duulop must be mad. The spirit of the Order, which requires affection and service to be given by knight to demoiselle, and not to fiUette or chambriere, was infringed. It was lese-majeste — • high treason against Love. And to the Sisters, though none ex- pressed the feeling in words, it seemed a cruel slight towards their Abbess. Naturally it was Miranda who first talked about it. The Sisters, or a good many of them, were collected in Desdemona's cell, which was, as we know, a great place of morning resort ; chiefly because its occupant sat there over what she was pleased to call her work, which was chiefly the devising amusements for the Abbey, and because she never minded interruption. " I have known," said Miranda in her quiet and straight- forward manner, seeming to be aware of the thought that lay in every mind — " I have known for some time what has been in Alan Dunlop's mind ; and it is a great unhappiness to me, because, of course, he has al'.vays been a great deal to me, a part of my life." Desdemona, from the depths of her easy-chair, murmured lightly : " Henceforth, let us acknowledge that Hamlet is really mad. To have been with Miranda all these years, and not to have fallen in love Avith her, is alone enough to prove it. Has he made love to any of you, my dears ?" No : there had been no sign of flirtation, no indication of the slightest tendency in that direction towards any of them. Their pretty heads shook with unanimous sadness — call it rather pity — that one so handsome and so admirable from every other point of view should be so cold. " Confirmatory evidence," said Desdemona. " He has been insensible to the single beauty of Miranda when he was alone with her, and to the collective beauty of the Order. Oh ! he is quite, quite mad. And yet we love our Hamlet." " No," said Miranda, " Alan is not at all mad : he is only an enthusiast : he has chosen a path full of difficulties, and ho does not always see his way plainly. I fear he has made a grave mistake." Said Desdemona : " But he is not married yet." She said it with emphasis. " Unfortunately," Miranda went on, " it was partly my fault. Alan asked me to recommend him the best — or the least objec- tionable — of the village girls. Of course I could not conscien- tiously recommend him any one really, but I undertook the task, in the hope that he would see the dreadful mistake he was going to make. And then, the other day, wlieu Mr. Exton had his THE MONKS OF THELEMA. iCi unfortunate ' Judgment of Paris,' just after he had awarded the prize to Ahna Bostock, and at the very moment when she was standing before us all, looking her very best in the first flush of her triumph, Alan came in, and jumped at once to the con- clusion that there was the girl I had selected for his wife." " And now," said Cecilia, with a sigh, " I suppose we shall have to disperse ourselves. There is an end of the Abbey of Thelema. Where else can the Order find so glorious a home, and so splendid an organ ?" " Where else," sighed another, "shall v/e find so complete a theatre ?" " Where else," asked Nelly, " shall we find such a free and happy life?" " And a Park like Wejland Park ?" " And gardens like those of Weyland Court ?" " And such an owner of all, such an Amphitryon," said Dc.-- demona, " as Alan Dunlop. Hamlet, with all his fancies, is the best of all the Brothers. But, my children, go on enjoying youth and pleasure. The Abbey is not dissolved yet : the Seigneur of Weyland is not yet married." "Desdemona," said Nelly, " j-ou said that before : you mean something : you are raising false hopes. You prophesy what you wish. Wicked woman ! Alan must keep his word of honour." " I am a prophet," replied the actress, " by reason of my age and sex. You will all become prophets in time, especially if you learn the art of foretelling by your own sufferings, which Heaven forbid. I read the future — some futures — like a printed book. Alan will not be married to the Bostock girl. Are yon all satisfied ?" "Not quite," said Nelly, the most superstitious of woman- kind. " Tell us more about him. AVill he ever marry at all ? Will he give up his crotchets ? Will he settle down and be happy like the rest of the world?" Desdemona shook her head. " Do you not know," she said, " that the Oracle would never give more than one reply at a time." " Then, tell me something about myself," said the girl. " Look out of the vrindow," replied the Pythoness, " and see your fate." Nelly looked, and returned blushing. " What have you seen, my child ?" " Tom Caledon lying on the grass ; and he saw me, and waved his hand. And Mr. Exton was walking away into th*? Park." " That is your fate, my dear." 1 62 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. All the other Sisters laughed, and Nelly asl;cd no moro questions. Alan did not appear that night, nor for several nights, at dinner. When he did, his manner was constrained. No one congratulated him : no one asked him any questions. Only Desdemona sought to speak with him secretly. " I think," she said, when she found an opportunity, " I think, for my part, that a man's happiness is the very first considera- tion in life." This was a proposition which could not be allowed to pass un^ challenged by a man who had deliberately throv/n avv^ay his own chance of happiness. " I know what you think, Alan," she went on. " That I am a selfish old woman. Perhaps I am. I see no good, for in- stance, in your self-sacrifice. You were born to set an ex- ample." " And I do set an example, I think," he replied grimlj'. " Yes : the awful example. It was foolish enough to fancy that these clods would begin to long for culture because you went to live among them. You see they do not. But it is far worse to imagine that they will be any the better for your marrjdng among them." " It is my hope," said Alan, a little stiffly, " that they will. It seems to me the only chance of understanding them." " If I wanted to understand farm-labourers," said Desdemona, " which I do not, I should get at their minds by comparison. You drink a glass of wine critically ; they gulp beer greedily. You make dining one of the Fine Arts : they eat where and how they can. You think of other people beside yourself, of great questions and lofty things : they think of themselves and the soil. As you rise in the scale you shake off more and moro of the animal. As you descend, you put on more and more." But Alan shook his head. " Then there is another thing," Desdemona went on with he? pleading. " If yon marry this girl with the view of using her insight and experience to help out your own, v/hat does she marry you for ?" Really, Alan could not say why she was going to marry him. Now he came to face the question, he perceived suddenly that it might be on account of his great possessions. " Is it for love, Alan ?" " No, I suppose not — at least, I have not pretended to any love on my joart." " Is it in the hope of furthering j'our projects ?" " It is on the understariding that my ideas are to be studied and furthered if possible." " The lower you go," Desdemona went on, " the lc;s do THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 163 people care about efforts which are based on ideas. They can understand a pair of blankets or piece of beef. Chai'ity to them means immediate help. What sympathy you expect to find in such a girl I cannot think." He made no answer. She went on relentlessly. " Another thing, again. Alma Bostock does not belong to the rank of labourers." " I see very little distance betv\-een a small tenant-farmer, who is now my bailiff, and one of his labourers." " You do not," she replied, " but Alma does. She sees a great deal. Alan, before the eyes of all English girls of the lower ranks there floats for ever a vision of rapturous splendour. They dream that a prince, a beautiful youth with vast possessions, is coming to marry them, and that they ^rill go away with him to bliss unspeakable. Too often, the prince does actually come, and makes love to them. And they do go av/ay with him — but not to marriage or to bliss, poor things. Alma's eyes are dazzled. No use for you to protest that in marrying her you want her to be your Lieutenant, that you intend to live down in the village among the people. They are not her people ; she has risen a little above them : she will rise to your level, if she can. She will have her eyes fixed upon Weyland Court. As you have made her your wife, you must make her a lady. And then you will bring to your old home, not the worthy successor of your mother, no queenly chatelaine like Miranda, no sweet and beau- tiful girl like Nelly, but a companion who is no companion, a woman miserable because she has got her ambition, and is not satisfied because she is out of her place " " Stop, Desdemona," said Alan. " I have pledged my word. All these things may be as you say. It will be my business to fight against them." He left her, and presently struck gloomily across the Park, homewards. Ever since the day when he offered himself to the village maiden, he had been tormented by a doubt worse than that of Panurge. Said Panurge, " Shall I marry ? Shall I marry not ?" Said Alan, " I must marry. Have I been a fool, or have I not ? And if I have, then what an amazing fool !" For of these late days a vision of quite another kind had crossed his mind. It began with that touch of Alma's hand when it lay in his. She was to be his v/ife : her hand was there in token of her promised word. It was a soft hand, and small, although it did all sorts of household work ; but Alan did not think of its softness. It was, somehow, the wrong hand. It 'ords fell into her mind like li— 2 i64 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. water poured into the vessels of tlie daughters of Danaus, bo- cause it passed away and made no impression. The wrong woman. And if so, Avho was the right woman ? If so, how could there be any other woman to fdi that place but IMiranda ? When it was too late, when he had given his promise to an- other, he found what Miranda had always been to him — the only woman in the world. " A man's ovm happiness the chief thing to look after," Des- demona had said. And his duty to set an example in the con- duct of life. Was it, then, altogether a mistake ? Was his self-imposed mission, his apostleship of culture, v/holly a great mistake ? Was he, instead of a martyr, only an ass ? I think it would be difficult for a preacher, an apostle, or a prophet to propose to one's self a more disquieting question. Suppose Brigham Young in his old age had been troubled with doubts : suppose the Pope were to have misgivings about Pro- testantism : suppose Mr. Spurgeon were to become convinced that the right thing was the Establishment : suppose Mr. Ruskin doubting whether he had not better tear up everything he has written since the " Stones of Venice" : suppose Mohammed at the close of his career wondering whether he had not done infinite mischief : suppose the Archbishop of Canterbury be- coming a Ritualist : suppose Jlr. Gladstone beginning to stone the priests. Such a revolution was going on in poor Alan's brain. Was he a confessor for the faith, was he a young man who had generously sacrificed himself in the pursuit of a noble cause, or was he — alas ! — was he only an ass ? The owls in the trees hooted at him as he passed a oross the silent Park. " To-whoo ! to-whoo ! What an ass you are ! To-whoo !" The wind in his face whispered it in his ears as he passed : " Ass ! ass ! ass !" And a low voice in the distance murmured unceasingly as he vrent along : " lie might have had Miranda — Ass !" He got back to his cottage — how grim and mean it looked, with its stone floor and its pine-wood table ! — and found a letter from Alma. "My dear feend"— (after all, it made very little mattes whether she spelled properly or not. Philanthropy, marriage, harmony, mutual respect, are things beyond the power of bad spelling to touch) — " My dear fkend, — I have read the book which you lent me quite through. I will give it back to you to- morrow. I think I should like a storey-book better, if you will find me one. Father sends his love. " Your affecshunate "Alma." Well : he taught her to call him her friend : she Imd read the THE MONKS OF THELEMA. i6c book— cnc of Ilusldii's shorter works ; it -was natural that sho B>:ould like a story-book better than an essay ; and it was also pleasant that she should add, in her artless way, the love of her lather. Stephen Bostock's love, and yet .... oh ! the wrong hand, the wrong voice, the wrong woman. He went to bed, and lay awake, thinking sadly of the future which stretched before him. He saw himself carrying a burden growing daily heavier. He saw the sweet eyes of Miranda resting upon him with sympathy, but they gradually sank out of sight and disappeared. And then he was left quite alone with his burden, which was a live woman, struggling and fight- ing with him, and crying to go to Weyland Court. iDesdemona, for her part, began to think that in her pro- fessional career she had assisted at the construction of many a good drama of which the plot did not promise to be half so good as this story of Alan and IMiranda. She had suggested many an ingenious situation, striking tableau, and astonishing denouracnt which the author had carried out in the book, and she on the boards. Now she had a plot to work out, the issues of which concerned the happiness of two people at least, not counting Alma. To prophesy is all very well ; but suppose it depends upon the prophet to bring about the fulfilment ? Then it becomes embarrassing. "What move should she take ? Presently a thought occurred to her. It was as yet quite in the rough, but it was worth following up. And she sent for Tom Caledon, because he knew everybody and their history. "iSTow, Tom," she said, " I want to have a confidential talk with you. Sit down, be patient, and tell me the exact truth, or help me to find it." " Is it anything about Nelly and me ?" asked Tom guiltily. " No, egotistical boy — always thinking of yourself —it is not. It is about a much more important couple — about Alan and Miranda." " Why — Alan is engaged to Alma Bostock." " Please do not interrupt. The sagacity of men, when they do sometimes attempt to understand things, is sometimes too dreadful. Listen, I want to know all about Alma Bostock." " All about Alma Bostock," Tom repeated ; " as if anybody could ever know all about a girl." " Do not be cynical, Tom. Men may learn quite as much about girls as is good for them to know. Let women have their little secrets if they like. However, I want to find out as mauy of Miss Alma Bostock's as I can." " That seems an extensive order." " First, what do you know about her ?" '' Well, it's a good many years since I have been knocking l66 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. about this part of the country, and I kno-w most of the people in it " " Dear me ! cannot the man come to the point at once ? Do you know Alma Bostock well ?" " Pretty well." Tom smiled. " Pretty well — I have spoken to her." " Now tell me, Tom, what sort of a girl is she ?" " Ccmely," said Tom, " not to say alarmingly pretty. Alan has got one of the village beauties." "Ah !" said Desdemona. " I suppose the other two are that black-haired young person whom we saw in the tent last Avcek, and the statuesque-looking girl. Beauties of a kind : but, Tom, do you think it right — I ask you — to use the same word to describe Nelly Despard and Alma Bostock ?" " Never mind," said Tom, waiving the question. And indeed it must be owned that the masculine mind is far more catholic and comprehensive as regards beauty than the feminine. We need not be ostentatiously proud, however, of this superiority. " Never mind that," said Tom. " She is a pretty girl." " Is she — I don't say a good girl — of course she is a good girl." Desdemona paused a moment, as if she would receive with resig- nation an assurance to the contrary effect. " Of course she is a good girl," she repeated with emphasis, as such assurance did not come. " But is she a girl with any self-respect or dignity ?" Tom tried to look sei'ious, but broke down and allowed a little smile to play about the corners of his mouth. " Then I am to suppose that she is not," Desdemona said sharply. " Indeed, I said nothing of the kind." " Some girls of that class," his examiner went on with great persistency, " allow young gentlemen to kiss them. At least, I have heard rumours to that effect." Here Tom fairly burst into a laugh. " Oh !" said Desdemona. " Then I suppose that you are one of those who have already kissed this village maiden. Now, don't beat about the bush, Tom, but tell me everything." " You really must not ask everj'thing. I appeal to your generosity, Desdemona." " I have none when the interests of Alan Dunlop are at stake. Tell me all, Tom." " Well, then, if you must know I wonder what Nelly would say " " Nelly shall not know." " If you do meet a pretty girl in a shady lane, and you do take toll as you pass — an innocent toll that really does no harm to anybody " "A country girl is only a toy to amuse a gentleman." said THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 167 Desdcmona a little bitterly. " Go on, Tom Caledon. Has tliig toll been often demanded and paid ?" " Pretty often, I dare say," be replied, with unblushing effrontery, " I suppose whenever you met her. Shameful !" " Well," said Tom, " if you come to that, Desdemona, I should like to know what you would have done if you had met her dancing along the way with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and her curls as gay as the flowers in June ?" "I should have boxed her ears," said the lady calmly. "I should certainly like to box her ears. A girl who lets one man kiss her will, of course, let a dozen. One understands that. But about herself — is she clever ?" " I should say no." " Has she any education ?" " I should say none. Eeads and writes. Reads loTe-stories and writes love-letters, no doubt, to Harry." "What!" shrieked Desdemona. "Writes love-letters? To Harry ?" " She used to, I know, because Harry, who is as good a fellow as ever stepped, has often shown them to me. But, of course, she has left off now, and given Alan the benefit of all her thoughts." " I see." Desdemona relapsed into silence. She was turning things over in her mind. This revelation about Harry was just the thing she wanted. Tom went rambling on : " She is good about the house, I believe : makes butter, looks after the cheese, and the cream, and the eggs— all that sort of thing. I've been in her dairy when her father and mother were away on market-day. It was quite Arcadian, I assure you. Made a fellow feel like a sliepherd." " Thank you, Tom ; you have told me quite enough," said Desdemona. " That is another remarkably stupid thing about men — that they never know when to stop when they do begin confessing. I suppose it comes of the amazing opinion they always have of their own importance. Do you know if she is fond of running about in the evening, or does she stay at home ?" " Why," said Tom, " of course she likes running about in the evening — they all do. She used to get out, on one excuse or the other, and meet Harry at the bottom of the garden every night. I dare say she stays at home now, and listens to Alan. I should like to see him, with his solemn blue eyes, preaching to poor little Alma about the great and glorious mission she has to fulfil, while old Bostock pretends to enjoy the talk, thinking 168 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. how to make something more out of it for himself. Perhaps poor old Harry is crying his eyes out at the bottom of the garden. He's just the sort of man to take things of this sort seriously ; and if you've got nothing more to ask me, Des- demona, I will go and find him out, and see how he doei take it." Tom rose and took his hat. " One moment, Tom," said Desdemona : " who is he, this Harry ?" " Why, Cardew, one of Alan's gamekeepers, of course. Every- body calls him Hariy, and there can't be two Harrys about the place." " What sort of man is he ?" " A tall, handsome man, about my height, but better-looking, and stronger. Just the sort of fellow to catch a girl's fancy." " Yes ; and is she the girl to keep a fancy in her head when once she has got one ?" " That I can hardly say. You see, Dcsdemona, my acquaint- ance with Alma Bostock is limited to the — the — little trifles I have communicated to you. Need I express a hope that they will not be mentioned before certain ears polite ? I mean that perhaps Nelly, not to say Miranda, might not think the better of me. Now you, I know, will forgive these little trespasses, the knowledge of which lias been, so to speak, wrung from mo by a pressure equal to wild horses." " I shall not talk about them, Tom. Of course, it is of no use asking you to abstain in future from — taking toll ?" " On the contrary, as regards Alma," said Tom lightly, " all the use in the world ; she belongs to Alan now." " And before, she belonged to Harry the gamekeeper. Poor Harry !" " \Vell, but Harry did not know ; and what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve for." " Poor Harry ! — again. But nov/, Tom, we come to the really serious part of the business. Do you like the idea of this marriage ?" " Like it ! No ! bat I am not Alan's keeper." " Then will you help me to prevent it ?" " I would help you if I could, Desdemona." Tom became serious, and sat down again. " 1' course Alma is quite unworthy of him." " We must look about us then, and invent something." " Shall we take Nelly into confidence ?" " Tom, your weakness as regards that young lady is unworthy of you. The fewer in our confidence the better. You and I are the only two to begin Avith. Later on, perhaps, wo may let gamekeeper Harry join us." THE MONKS QF THELEMA. 169 " Harry ? Well, I leave it all to you. Only Nelly would have enjoj'ecl it so much." "Nelly is charming as she is pretty. But Nelly might enjoy it so much as to share her pleasure in the plan with somebody else. You must confine your confidence to me, if you please." "Very well," said Tom, "though how you are going to manage things I cannot understand." Desdemona rose from her chair, and began to walk about the room. " I never thought you would understand," she replied, at one of the turns upon the stage. She still preserved her stage manner — right to left, left to riglit— and swept her skirts behind her with a touch of the hand, as she turned in her old familiar stage style. " You see— stand up, sir, before the footlights, and face the audience — we are noAv at the end of Act the First, and this is the situation. Alan Dunlop is engaged to x\lmaBostock, being himself in love with Miranda." " In love with Miranda ? How do you know that ?" " Because I am a prophetess — before the audience — and when the curtain is down I am a dramatist. But it is true, Tom ; and Miranda, though she will not confess it to herself, is in love with Alan. Your friend Harry is already engaged to this village maiden, who may be represented on the stage as artless and in- nocent. In real life she is vain, foolish and designing, and Harry would be well rid of her. The girl herself, afraid of her stalwart rustic, afraid of her greedy and grasping father, afraid of her gentleman suitor, does not know what to do. The curtain falls upon the situation. Even the critics, who have left off applauding since poor old Jolm Oxenford retired, are pleased with the tableau which ends the First Act, and the people are mad for what follows." " And what does follow ?" " That we must devise for ourselves — you and I." " But I am not a dramatist, Desdemona. I don't believe I could write a play to save my life." " You miglit, my dear Tom ; but it would be a shocking bad one. All you have to do is to follow my instructions. It is a very strong comedy. The first act is, beyond everything, effec- tive. It remains with us to improve upon it in the second and third. Up to the present I only half see my way to the second. And as to the third, all I see as yet is a wedding. There will be bells, bat not for Alan and the village beauty ; and a pro- cession, but Alma will not occupy the leading place in it — at least, not the place she contemplates " " You are such a clever Avoman, Desdemona," said Tom, " that I should think you might construct another drama out of Nelly I70 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. and me, and make it end, like the first, in a procession "witb bells in which that fellow Ex ton shall not occupy the position he ap- parently contemplates." " The old-fashioned plan was the best, Tom. The lover ran away with the girl, and made it up with her father after- wards." Tom sighed and withdrew. Desdemona sat down and reflectetl CHAPTER XXIII. "We look before and after. And pine for what is not." The keeper, yonng Harry Cardew, was spending a warm after- noon in the congenial gloom of his own cottage, where, with his chin in his hand, and his elbow on the arm of his chair, he meditated in great bitterness. The rich man with exceeding many flocks and herds had come and stolen the one thing which was his, the little ewe-lamb. And he did not see how he should be able to get her back out of the hands of the spoiler. Harry Cardew lives in this cottage alone. It was his father's before him, and his grandfather's before that— for he comes of a race of keepers. There is a floor of brick : the low ceiling, black with smoke and age, is crossed with a square beam of oak : his gun stands beside him as if ready for immediate use — you may notice that the shoulder of his coat shows the rubbing of the gun : the furniture is like the ceiling for blackness, but it is strong and good. There are evidences everywhere of the keeper's trade : skins, dressed and prepared, of cats, foxes, squirrels, and even otters : there are feathers of birds : a box of handy tools : there is a new iron mole-trap : and if you look out of the open window you will see nailed against the wall of the kennel rows of slaughtered vermin and carrion — weasel, stoat, and polecat, kite and crow. Harry's dog, a sympathetic creature, albeit young and longing to be out in the fields, sits before him, Avatching his master with anxious eyes. Presently the lovesick swain looked up as he heard a footstep and saw Mr. Caledon leaping over the little streamlet which raa twenty yards in front of his door. Tom looked about, and presently poked his head into th9 door and peered round in the dark. " You there, Harry ?" " Yes, Mr. Tom. Come i!i~I'm hero." THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 171 Tom sat down in silence, and pulled out liis cigar-case and began to smoke for company. " You've heard the news, Harry ?" he asked presently. " Yes, Mr. Tom," the keeper replied with a sigh. " I've heard as much news as will do me for a long time." Then there was silence again. " We broke the sixpence together ; see, Mr. Tom." He pulled out a black ribbon with the token suspended from it. " Here's my half, I wonder what she's done with hers." " Have you seen her since Mr. Dunlop first spoke to her ?" " Yes ;' I seen her the very night he done it. She came out and met me. Well, you know, Mr. Tom, as a man will, I bounced ; swore Mr. Dnnlop should never marrj' her, nor no man but me should have her. But when I came away it was tairable hard on me. For bounce as I may, I can't see no way out of it." Again Tom found the best course to be silence. ■' For suppose," Harry continued — " suppose I was to up and tell the Squire everything. How would that be ? Either he'd send Alma away in a rage for deceiving of him — which deceit it is — or he'd maybe half believe, and then it would be bad for her and worse for me ever after, because of that half belief." " That seems true enough," said Tom. " Besides, there's another thing. Alma, she's kept on with me secret for a year and more. Nobody guessed it ; nobody suspected it. Do you think it would be fair on the gal to split upon her, and ruin her beautiful chances ?" " Well, no," said Tom. " From your point of view it would not ; and that seems a gentleman's point of view. But you don't want the marriage to come off ?" " Of course I don't, sir." " And you don't see your way to preventing it by telling the Squire ? Certainly some one else ought to tell him. You are not the only one, Harry, who would like to see the thing stopped. Lord Ahvyne is one, I am another, the ladies at the Court would all rejoice to see it broken off. We shall do what we can. Keep up a good heart." " I know Mr. Dunlop," said Harry. "When his word is once passed, there he abides. No, sir, it's no good. He has said he would marry Alma, and he will — even if he knew that on the very first night of her engagement she came out to meet and kiss an old lover in the orchard ; even if he were to find out her father in his tricks ; even if he knew that all the village laughs at him and his carryings on for their good. Nothing Avould turn Mr. Alan from his word. Lord help you, Mr. Tom, I know him better than you. He's only a year younger than me. Many'a the time we've been out in this wood looking for eggs — ah 1 little 172 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. did we think then. Listen, Mr. Tom ; 1 11 tell yon what happened last night, because I must tell some one. I was down there coming up from the village under the trees, where the path leads from the Park. It was twelve o'clock. I'd got my gun. There was no one about, and I heard footsteps on the gravel. It was pretty dark under the trees, but light enough beyond, and I saw the Squire walking fast over the gravel. Presently ho came under the trees, and then he sat down en a log, quite still, thinking. He was within a couple of yards of me, and the devil came into my head. One shot and Alma would be free. No one to see me, no one to suspect nie ; because my place last night was on t'other side in these preserves. One shot. Lord ! it looked for a minute as if it was nothing — just nothing — to put the piece to your shoulder and pull the trigger." Harry paused and wiped his brow. " Lord forbid I should ever be so near murder again ! And while I might have done it — while the fit was on me, like — Mr. Alan got up, and went on his way home." Tom laid his hand on his shoulder kindly. " Don't have any more whisperings with the devil, Harry. They are dangerous things. Thank God no mischief came of that colloquy. Tell me, Harry, do you think she Avas fond of you?" " What do we know, Mr. Tom ? They say they are fond of us, and we believe them. It is all we have to go upon. If they tell lies, we can't help ourselves. If they carry on with gentlemen, we don't know." Tom blushed, thinking guiltily of that little innccent toll we know of. " If they say one thing to our faces and another behind our backs, what can we do ? She said she was fond of me. There ! I don't think gals know what a man's fondness means. They like to be made much of ; and if one man isn't there, another '11 do just as Avell. I don"t blame 'em, poor things. Tliey don't know no better, and they can't understand a man's feelings." " Perhaps," said Tom bitterly, thinking how most likely Nelly at this very moment was accepting the attentions of Mr. Exton. " I believe you are quite right, Harry — they don't understand. You are not the only man who can't marry "he girl he loves." " I suppose not," said Harry. "Why, there's yourself, Mr Tom. Lord ! I could never say a word about it to you before, but now it seems as if we were both in a boat together." " Ay, Harry. I'm too poor, you know." " What I shall do," said Harry, " is this. I shall wait on hero till they're married ; then I shall get out of the way. Alma lets me see her nov/, when it doesn't do much harm. But she's that hold upon me. Mr. Tom, that if she was to lift up her finger tc THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 173 me when she was a married woman I should ron after, her whe- ther it was to the orchard of the farm or the garden of the Court. And think what a scandal and a wickedness that would be." " Yes," said Tom, " that v/ould be throwing more fat in the fire with a vengeance. You had better get out of the place, Harry, if you can make up your mind to go. And if Nelly becomes Mrs. Exton, I believe I will go to America with you. We can smoke pipes together, and swear at things in compan3^" So they sat enjoying the luxury of gh^om all the afternoon, till Harry, looking at his watch, said he must go see after his young birds, and Tom lounged slowly away through the fir plantations that bordered Weyland Park on the east, in which lay the keeper's solitary cottage. He was gloomy enough about himself, for there could be no doubt now of Exton's intentions concerning Nelly. He haunted her : he followed her about : he seemed to claim some sort of possession of her which made Tom grind his teeth with rage. And he was sorry about his honest friend the keeper. He knev/ better than poor Harry what a shallow and frivolous young person this girl was on whom such a strength of atfection and trust was lavislicd : he knew, too, what a dead failure her marriage with Alan would be, how utterly incapable she would prove of understanding or drying to understand the nobleness of his plans. So that in any case the outlook was dark. Just then, however, he was ready to view everything with foreboding eyes. He told Desdemona something of Harry's trouble, and let out accidentally, because this intriguing dame pumped him as cleverly as a cross-examining counsel, that Alma had gone out to meet her lover on the very day of her engagement with Alan. " The Second Act," said Desdemona, triumphant, " I consider to be as good as finished. And it ends well. However, there is the Third, which is always the most dinicult." CHAPTER XXIV. "EHo aiina tnieux pour s'en faire conteP Pietcr I'oi-cille aus fleurcttes da dinble Que d'etre femmo et non pas coquetcr." And it was then that the awful row occurred between Tom and Nelly which led to that Court of Love, the history of which has never till now been properly narrated. It was in the morning, after breakfast ; in fact, in the morn- ing-room. No one was there but themselves. " It makes me look ridiculous, Tom," she said, " to have you following me round with that doleful face." 174 THE MONKS OF THELRMA. " Whose fault is it if I am doleful ?" he asked. " Nobodj^'s, except your own. You promised when I cain^ that there should be no foolishness, and yet " She stopped, with a look half of fun, half of vexation : " and yet, if I so much as go out for a ride with Mr. Exton — and he rides very well " " Learned to ride of an acrobat, I believe," said Tom. " You think only acrobats can ride better than j'ou. Oh, Tom ! what a very conceited thing to say ! I believe too," she added thoughtfully, " that it is unchristian. But it is not only riding. Whatever I do, if Mr. Exton is with me, you come t^^o with your gloomy face, and spoil the sport." " I dare say. I am not very jolly." " i'he Sisters called you wrongly. They called you Brothei Lancelot. It should have been Brother Killjoy. Yv^hat harm does Mr. Exton do to you ?" " Every harm." " Because he does his best to please me ?' " No : not that." " Because he is a pleasant and amusing compamon »" " No ; nor that." "Then what, Tom?" " As if you did not know, Nelly. Because it all means that he is ready to fall in love with you." " Indeed, sir. Pray cannot a man " " Don't, Nell ! What is sport to you is death to me !" " I knew a Tom Caledon once," she said, picldng a rose to pieces, " who did not grow sulky whenever I — chose — to — flirt a little v,'ith another man." " And I knew a Nelly Despard once," he replied, " who when I asked her not to flirt with that other man, desisted, and kept her hand in by flirting with me. That was a great deal pleasantcr, Nelly." " So it was, Tom, I confess," she said, " much pleasanter for both of us ; but then we were boy and girl." " Two years ago." "Now I am one and twenty and you are six ana twenty, and we must think seriously about things." " That means that Exton has got ten thousand a year." " Mamma says so," said Nelly, demurely. " Oh ! mamma has been writing about him again, has she ?" " Do you actually suppose," asked the girl, with big eyes, " that mamma would let me stay here v/ith no chaperon but Desdemona, without so much as finding out v/ho was here ? She knows everyhodij^ and she has learned from some one hov/ things are going on. I do not know who that some one is, but she is a true friend, Tom, to you as well as to me " . " IIow do you know that ?" THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 175 " Because, Tom, mamma -writes me as follovrs." She took out the letter and read a portion of it — " ' braided with point- lace,' — no, that is not it — here it is — ' Ai:d I am very glad, my dear child, truly glad to find that you have given up your foolish partiality for that penniless boy' — you, Tom— 'and are now making good use of time which, though once wickedly thrown away upon an adventurer' — you, Tom — ' may now be employed to the very best advantage. Mr. Exton, who is at the Abbey, and who, I rejoice to hear, quite appreciates my dear child, is said to have at least ten thousand a year. This may be exag- geration, but it points in the right direction. No doubt the other young man ' — you, Tom — ' has consoled himself with some other girl.' There, Tom, what do you think of that ?" Tom laughed. " But it is barren comfort, Nelly," he said. " You soothe me and stroke me down, and then you go oif to carry on with Exton." " ' Go ofE to carry on,' " she repeated. " What very remark- able English ! Do you think the old Tom would have said such a thing?" " Perhaps not, Nelly. The old Tom was a fool. He thought that when a girl said she loved him " _ " It was on Ryde Pier ; it was ten o'clock and a moonlight night, and the band was playing ; and the waters were smooth, and there w^ere the lights on the yachts — and — and it was a new thing ; and it was an unfair advantage to take." " But you meant it then, Nell ?" She could not help it : she had that way with her. She lifted her soft heavy eyes, and met his. " Yes, Tom, I meant it." " And you mean it still ?" he caught her hand. " Oh ! Nelly, Bay you mean it still." " i can't say it ; not as you mean it, Tom, for oh ! I am so much— so very much wiser. Two years ago I was only nineteen. I had been out for four or five months. I believed that mutton and beef grew on trees, I think. 1 had some lingering notion, though mamma did her best to eradicate it, that every well- dressed, handsome, pleasant man — like you, Tom — had plenty of money. Ah me ! what a pleasant dream ! Why could it not last ?" She paused and collected herself. " And then came along a pleasant man— you, Tom — and stole away my heart. When it was gone I found out that it was sheer robbery on your part, and not exchange, as it ought to have been " " Exchange ! Could you not take mine for yours ?" " Ah ! Tom, that is the masculine error. The true exchange is — for a girl's heart, or hand, which is generally the same thing —an establishmei^t. And that you could not give me." 176 THE MONKS OF THRLEMA. " I've said over and over again that if eeven hundred a year " " No, Tom, it won't do. Mamma is quite right. For the first year, while the wedding presents are fresh, and the unpaid- f or furniture new, no doubt we might get along. But, oh ! the misery of being in perpetual debt." " And so I am thrown over, and that fellow Exton, with a face crinkled like a savoy cabbage, is chosen instead." "Not chosen, Tom. lie chooses me, perhaps. I do not choose him. I take him ; I say yes to him, Avhen j-ou know I would rather say yes to some one else." " Go on, Nelly,'' he replied sullenly. " Drive mo half mad by confessing one thing and doing another. Tell me plainly, do you love him ?" " Whom ?" " Why, Exton, of course." " No — of course." " And yet— what are girls made of ?" " Sugar and spice, Tom, and all that's nice. // faut vivrt. When mamma dies there will be next to nothing for this poor child ; while mamma lives there is not too much. This young lady has been brought up in ideas of what is comme il faut. She likes riding, she likes amusements, she likes balls and dinners, garden-parties and dances. She would like, if she married, to see a steady prospect of making the most out of life. Now you can't make much, as a general rule, with seven hundred a year.'' Tom groaned. He was bound to admit that j-ou cannot. What thirty years ago would have been considered a fair younger son's portion, is now a miserable pittance, regarded from a matrimonial point of view. Tom was a younger son's only son, and seven hundred a year was considered in the family as a plentiful allowance for such a position. " Could I have believed two years ago that Nelly would have been so worldly-minded ?" " Could I have believed two years ago that Tom would have been so Quixotic ?" After this double question there was silence — Tom walking backwards and forwarcls, Nelly sitting on a couch pulling flowers to pieces with an angry flush in her cheek. Woman-like, she was ready to give in and own that she v,"as wrong ; and woman- like, she could not forbear from the strife of words, the contest for the last word. '' You take his presents," said Tom, like an accusing angel. "I have taken yours," replied Nelly ; as much as to say that the two cases wer« equal. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 177 "Yea; but j-ou let me tell you that I lovcQ you," Tom plendcJ. " What has that got to do with it ? Perhaps Mr. Exton has told me the same thing." " And you have listened ? You let him make love to you after all that has passed between us ?" " Two years ago, Tom. And, as I said before, a moonlight evening on Ryde Pier in August is hardly the time for a young maiden of nineteen to make any violent resistance. And, do you know, I think you have hardly any right, have you, to ob- ject to what Mr. Exton says to me ?" As a matter of fact, Mr. Exton had not declared love to her at all, and it was a very strange thing, considering the oppor- tunities he ha-i, that he did not. Nelly, more than half afraid, expected some sort of declai-ation every day. Eight ? Tom had no right. Nelly knew that this was her trump card, her dagger which stabbed Tom to the heart. He had no right ! " Poor Tom !" she said, timidly looking up at him. " Poor Tom ! It is a shame to say such things." " Say what you like," he cried. " Henceforth there is an end. Flirt, coquette as much as you please. Be all smiles to one man and honey-sweet to another, and mean nothing to either. That is the way of all womankind, I suppose. I've done with you, Miss Despai'd." He hurried away with the step of desperation. Nelly shook her head with a smile, and as she performed this act of incredulity, a tear dropped from her eyes upon her cheek, and glittered in the warm light. And then the hated rival appeared — no other than Mr. Roger Exton himself. " They are going to have a meeting of their Madrigal Union in the garden. Will you come ? I met Tom Caledon going away in a hurry. Have you quarrelled ?" " I never quarrel with Tom," said Nelly proudly. " He looked agitated. Poor Brother Lancelot ! I felt for him. What, I thought, if she were to treat me in the same cruel fashion ?" She went with him to the garden, and he spread a cloth on the grass, and laid himself leisurely at her feet, just about a yard from them, in fact. He wore a straw hat and a complete suit of white, and looked absolutely cool. " They've got iced-cup indoors somewhere," he said ; " but I remembered that you like the garden in the morning, so I left the cup, and got the madrigal people to come here. What a perfectly charming old garden it is ! Reminds me ot a place I once saw in Nepaul. It wants half-an-hour to the meeting. 12 178 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. Half-an-honr to ourselves in this delicious atmosphere, "witli that mignonette bed within easy hail, Tom Caledou gone off in disgrace, and the opportunity of telling you, Nelly, what a per- fectly charming girl you are." That was all he told her. What an extraordinary thing that he did not propose ! Tom blundered in his flight upon Desdemona, who stopped him and made him give her his arm. He was furious, and she saw it, guessing the cause ; but she let him alone, waiting till he should speak. This was not until he reached her room, when he sat down, and ejaculated reproaches upon womankind in general. " That means," said Desdemona, " that you have quarrelled with Nelly." Tom declared that nothing, nothing in the world, would in- duce him ever to speak to Nelly again ; that she was heartlesa and worldly ; that she took presents from two men at the same time ; and so on. Desdemona heard him to the end. " This seems to me," she said, " to come under one of the leading cases and precedents of the Assises d' Amour. I ehall refer it to Miranda, and we will have a Court of Love." CHAPTER XXV. " The Sheplierds and tlie Nymplis were soeu Pleading before the Cyprian Queen." The Court of Love was summoned by order of the Abbess, As this, curiously enough, was the first of such Courts which had been held in England since the days of the lamented Queen Eleanour of Provence, Desdemona was extremely anxious that it should be held with as much external splendour as the resources of the Abbey would admit, and that its procedure should show no diminution in the knowledge, practices, and authority of the Golden Code. It might not, she said, become a leading case : there had been other causes tried at which points of more' vital interest were at stake ; but the case of Lancelot v. Rosalind would, she was sure, prove one of no small importance. And its externals, she promised, should be in every way worthy of the issue to be decided. As no one except the plaintiff, the defendant, and Desdemona herself, kncAV the least in the world what this issue was : as most people, outside the Abbey at least, regarded the impending trial as a sort of amateur breach of promise case, and wondered how Nelly Despard or any other girl could— 2i most meamog THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 179 phrase, full of all insinuation, accusation, envy, and jealousy : and as it was rapidly spread abroad that the preparations were on a scale of unusual magnificence : as no one was old enough to remember the Courts of Queen Eleanour : as even in the Abbey the performers had very little idea what the show would be like — there was great, even extraordinary excitement over tlio impending Court. It was called for five o'clock in the afternoon, and v;as to bo held in the ancient garden of the Abbey, which, as has already been stated, consisted of an oblong lawn, planted with roses and flower-beds, and surrounded on all sides by two terraces. It was also protected from north and east winds by a high and extremely thick hedge, lying open to the more genial influences of south'^ and Avest. There Avas no great elm in the garden, beneath which, as was de rigueur in the old gieux sous Vorme, the grandes dames de-par le ??io?zo'e might shelter themselves, while they heard the pleadings, from the scorching sun of July ; but there was over the northern end a great walnut, as stately as any of those which adorn the shaven lawns of Cambridge. In front of the walnut stood a fountain, and beyond the fountain was the old sun-dial. The garden itself was kept apart for the Court, but on the terraces a long awning had been rigged up, under which were ranged roAvs of chairs for the spectators, because in the Abbey of Thelema there Avas nothing done which was not open to all the world. No hiding of lights behind bushels in that monastery, if you please. So far it is very, very unlike the cages of the He Sonnante, the birds in which, as the good cure of Meudon tells us, began life by being mourners at funerals. If the doings of Sister Rosalind, or any other Sister, were to be dragged into the open light of a Court of Law, that Sister would like the Court to be as numerously attended as possible. On this ground the fair defendant had no cause for complaint. As regards the ceremonies, they were imreservedly entrusted to the care of Desdemona ; the Brethren who were to take part were content with learning each his own role and place, and to leave the rest to their stage manager. There was not even a dress rehearsal : there was not even a full undress rehearsal : there were only a few interviews between the dictatress and her company. She had the working up of all the details : she had to contrive the costumes, the properties, the tableaux, and the grouping. This, indeed, was her great delight. She drcAV little pictures of her Court Avhile yet it had no existence outside her brain ; she sat in the quaint old garden and peopled it Avith the puppets of her imagination : AA'hen everything and everybody had their proper place on the lawn and she had draAvn her plan of the whole, she began by instructing the servants and ushers of iiie Court ; then she took the boys, who helped in the choir and l?-2 i8o THE MONKS OF THELEMA. acted as pages for the Functions, into the garden, and with the aid of a few chairs taught them exactly where they were to stand, and how they were to pose : then she drew up a pLan of the action of her piece, with full stage directions for every- body ; and had this copied, recopied, and corrected till sho was perfectly satisfied. Then sho distributed the parts. And then she sat down and heaved a great sigh and thanked the fates that an excellent piece was set afoot. The principal part of a play may seem to an outsider to be the words. Not at all : the actor knows very well that the words are only introduced to set off the situations ; and that many most excellent plays, especially those written for the Mediteval stage, consisted of nothing but situations when they left the dramatist's hand the words being left entirely to the mother- wit of the players. In fact, they were all " gag ;" and, as every- body knows, the situation is the only difficult thing to find. " You have to plead your cause in person," Desdemona said to Tom Caledon, concluding her instructions. " Very well : plead it eloquently. On your pleading as you open the case will greatly depend the success of the piece — of course, I mean the success of your cause." " Desdemona, I am too stupid. I carUt write a speech. You must write it for me," said Tom. " And it seems such a shame accusing Nelly." Sister Rosalind's advocate was Brother Peregrine. He asked for no help except access to the ancient constitutions and code of Love, which Desdemona readily gave him. As for the costumes, they were, out of respect to the memory of Queen Eleanour, deceased, those of the twelfth century, and were designed by Desdemona in consultation with certain ex- perienced persons, lent by Mr. Hollingshead, from the Gaiety Theatre. Those of the ladies were made out of what appeared to them the best imitation possible of the favourite materials of the period, which, as everybody knows, were samite, siglaton, and sandal. A full description of the dresses appeared in the Qmcn the following week. It was written by a lady for ladies, and those who wish for precise details may refer to that paper. (Speaking from a masculine, but not, it is hoped, an unobservant point of view, I should say in general terms that the dresses fitted tightly to the figure, after the present graceful fashion j but were not drawn in at the feet, so as to make the wearers appear unable to walk with freedom. The hair was worn in long and flowing tresses or else gathered up in a net, but not the ugly net which we remember to have teen in youth and sometimes yet see on ladies of a certain rank of life, "those who dwell around the New Cut, Leather Lane, or the High Street, VVhitechapel. On the head v.'as worn a square coronet of gold, THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 181 and the Sisters were wrapped in crimson mantles, falling over the soft grey dress beneath. Their shoes were long and pointed, looped up with chains, and with low heels : their gloves were gauntlets, with any number of buttons, were grey like the dresses, and covered more than half the arm. As for the men, the colours of their tunics were more various, because each chose what liked him best ; they, too, wore long mantles or cloaks, which had capuchons ; they carried daggers in their belts, and their shoes, like those of the Sisters, were long, with points looped up to the knee. They wore no swords, things which six hundred years ago belonged to the heavy armour, and were only put on for outdoor use. Within doors, if you wanted to stick anything into a friend over a bottle, or a game of chess, the dagger was much handier. As regards both Brothers and Sisters, they were so practised in hals mas(?if/s, theatricals, and frivolities of such kinds, that they had arrived at the singular and enviable power of moving about in any costume with the air of belonging to it. It was acting without effort. An hour before five all the chairs on the terraces were occu- pied. There was a party from the Vicarage ; a few men brought down from town by Lord Alwyne ; a party from the city of Athelston, and people from the country houses round, who all came by invitation. And about half-past four the Thelemites began one by one to drop in, till the garden space in the centre was crowded with them, with the ushers, the servants of the Court, and the page-boys. " I should like," said Lucy Corringtoa to Lord Alwyne, " to Lave lived in the twelfth century." He shook his head. " Best enjoy the present, Lucy. It would have been all over Bix hundred years ago — think of that !" It was, however, a very pretty and novel spectacle. Beneath the umbrageous foliage of the walnut-tree stood the Throne, a canopied seat on a platform, covered with crimson velvet. Chairs, also crimson covered, stood at either side of the Throne on the platform, for the Sisters who were to act as jury or assessors. The Sisters themselves were among the Brothers in vrhat may be called the body of the Court. Below the Throne was the table of the Clerk to the Court, Sister Desdemona, and in front of her table two stools for the Assistant-Clerks. A table, covered witii parchments, great inkstands and quill pens, was placed between the fountain and the throne ; and at the right hand and the left stood two small desks or pulpits for tlio counsel in the case, while the fair defendant was to be placed in a low chair of red velvet beside her advocate. All the Abbey servants were there, dressed for the part — both those who regu- 1 82 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. larly performed in the festivals and others, of -whom it was suspected that Desdemona imported them for the occasion aa trained supers. The band was at the lower end of the garden discoursing sweet music, and with them stood, or lounged, the boys, whom Desdemona had attired daintil}' in tiglit tunics. They were so well trained that they could look at each other Avithout grinning, and could stand or lie about upon the grass in perfect unconsciousness that they were not assisting, in the heart of the twelfth century, at a serious and solemn trial before the High Court of Love. And the fountain sparkled in the sunshine ; and the summer air was heavy with the perfume of flowers ; and the Brethren were young ; and the Sisters fair. Not all the members of the Order were there. Brothers Lancelot and Peregrine ; Sisters Miranda, Desdemona, and Eosalind were absent ; that was natural, as they were the principal actors in the case to be tried. Also, Alan Dunlop was absent. He, poor man, was engaged in the village, giving his usual afternoon lesson in social economy to xllma Bostock. While he talked, she, who would much rather have been milking the cows, or making the butter, or gathering ripe gooseberries, or stealing a surreptitious talk with Harry, or even granting an interview to Tom Caledon, listened with "lack- lustre eye and lips that ever and anon drooped v/ith the sem- blance of a yawn, to a cascade of words which had no meaning, not the shadow of a meaning, to her. They had, however, to be endured to gratify this extraordinary lover, who, somehoAv, seemed to take pleasure in pouring them out. And while the girl's thoughts wandered av/ay from the discourse, it must be owned that her fiancee himself was thinking hov/ very, very much pleasanter it would have been to s^Dend the day assisting at the Court of Love. Another Brother of the Order was absent. It was Mr. Paul Rondelet. He said, on being invited by Desdemona, that he should have liked much to take his part, but that it had already been decided by the greatest German authority that there never were such things as Courts of Love ; that all the contemporary poets and painters were in a league to mystify people and to make a pretence for posterity about a code of laws which did not exist ; and that— here he laid his head plaintively on one side — he must consider the Common Room of Lothian and hia own reputation. There might be Oxford men present. It is a special mark of the great and illustrious school of Prigs, that, in virtue of being so much in advance of other people, they always know exactly how much has been discovered and de^ cided in history, literature, and art. For them the dernier mot has always been said, and generally by one whom the Priga THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 183 have consented to honour. So Mr. Eondelet remained aloof, and stayed at home in the Abbey, shaping a new poem, in -which a young man — it might have been himself — laments his exceed- ing great wisdom, which shuts him out from love, friendship, and the ordinary ambitions of life, deprives him of the consola- tions of religion, and leaves him alone, save perhaps for the Common Room of Lothian. He sent this poem to his friends, a.nd they still carry it about with them, for it is as yet unpub- lished, cuddled up tight to their hearts. The show proceeded in spite of these two absent Brothers. At a quarter to five the band stopped playing, and s?iut their books. Then there was a little movement, and a rustle, and an expectant whisper. Only fifteen minutes to wait. And it seemed quite natural and in keeping with the character of the piece when Sister Cecilia, taking a zither, as good a substitute for a lute as can be devised, sang, sitting on the grass-bank, while the long branches of the walnut made -a greenery above her head, the " Ballad of Blinded Love " : "Love goes singing along tlie way : ' Men have blinded and covered my eyes; J liave no nifrht and I linve no day, Dark is the road and black the skies.' Then Love laughs and fleers as he flies : ' See the maidens who've looked on me, Sitting in sorrow with tears and sighs ; Better have let Love's eyes go free.' " Still, he has ears : and where the gay Songs and laughter of girls arise (Music as sweet as flowers in May) Straight to their hearts Love's arrow flies J Then the music of laughter dies : Farewell song and innocent glee. ' Not my lauit,' the archer cries, ' Better have let Love's eyes go free." " I^ot Love's fault : and who shall sny, Could we but leave him his pretty cyoa, Whom he would spare of the maidens gay. Whom he would leave in llio girlish guise P Yet 'twere pity should beauty's sighs Cause hev flowers ungatliered be : With silken bandage cover his eyeSj Never let that hoy's sight go free. ENVOI. " Prince, the shaft of his arrow flies Straight to the heart of her and thee. Take no pity, although he cries, ' Better have let Love's eyes go free.' " Hardly had she finished the last bars of the ballad, when five struck from the Abbey clock, and, at the moment, the trumpets i84 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. blared a note of warning, and every one eprang to his feet. " Oyez, oyez !" cried the usher ; " silence for the Court.'' First came the javelin-men, armed with long pikes and dressed in leathern jerkins, with straw round their legs instead of stockings. _ Desdemona afterwards prided herself on her fidelity in the detail of the straw, but Miranda thought it looked un- tidy. After the javelin men came the clerks and people of the long robe, bearing papers. These wore the square cap of office, and the black gown with full sleeves. After the lawyers came, similarly attired in black, Tom Caledon, the Brother who waa to act as plaintiff. Two clerks came after him, bearing the yieces tie conviction on a cushion — gloves, flowers, ribbons, and perfume. And then, leading Ja helle accusce by the hand, came Brother Peregrine, also disguised as an advocate. He had as- sumed an air of the greatest sympathy, as if so much unmerited misfortune called forth the tenderest pity ; he seemed to watch every step of his client, and to be ready at any moment to catch her in hia arms if she should faint away. Xelly, who thus came to answer the charge of Icse-majcste against Love, was wrapped from head to foot in a long cloak of grey silk, the hood of v/hich fell over her face, so that nothing was visible save when, now and again, she half lifted it to snatch a hasty glance at the Court and perhaps to see what people thought of the effect. That, indeed, produced by her grey robe, her drooping head, and her slender graceful figure, was entirely one of innocence wrongfully defamed, and conscious of virtue. After the ac- cused came the secretaries of the Court, and these were fol- lowed by Desdemona, who vrore, for the occasion, such an expression as she had once imparted in her youthful and lovely days to the advocate Portia, and such a robe as the one which had in that representation enwrapped her charms. She was the Clerk of the Court. Lastly, her train borne by two pages, and led by Brother Bayard, the most courtly of the Brethren, came Miranda herself, supreme Judge and President of the Court of Love. She mounted the platform, and then, standing erect and statuesque, her clear and noble fea- tures touched with the soft reflection from the crimson canopy, and her tall figure standing out against the setting of greenery behind her, like Diana among her maidens, she looked round for a moment, smiled, and took her seat. All were now in their places. In the chairs round the Throne sat the Sisters expectant ; at their feet lay the page-boys, who were the messengers of the Court ; at the tables sat the clerks, secretaries, and the lawyers, turning over the pages of the great volumes bound in vellum, and making industrious notes. Sister Rosalind, the defendant, was in her place, beside her counsel ; and Brother Lancelot, who wore, to tell the truth, a shame- THE MONKS OF TIIELEMA. iSs faood and even a downcast look, as if he was in a false position and f(.>lt it, was at his desk opposite laer. When the Court was seated, there was another blare of trum- pets, and the usher cried again, " Ojez, oyez ! silence for the Court." Then Desdemona rose solemnly, a parchment in her hand. " Let the defendant stand," ordered the Judge. Brother Peregrine, in a mere ecstasy of sympathy, offered his Land to the victim ; at sight of which Tom forgot that he was plaintiff, and rushed from his post too to offer assistance. The Court, except Desdemona, who thought this very irregular, and Miranda, who would not lower the dignity of her position by so much as a smile, laughed aloud at this accident. But Sister Ivosalind, pulling her hood lower over her face, took the hand of her own counsel without the least recognition of the plaintiff's proffered aid. And Tom retreated to his place in confusion. Desdemona read the charge. " Sister Bcsalind," she began in deep and sonorous tones, and ■with that clear accent which only long practice on the stage seems able to give — "Sister Rosalind, you stand before the Lady Miranda, President of this most venerable Court of Love, charged by the honourable and worthy Brother Lancelot, Monk of the Order of Thelema, with liaving wantonly, maliciously, ■wilfully, and perversely infringed the code of laws which governs the hearts of the young and the courteous, in that you have both openly and secretly, before the eyes of the Brothers and Sisters, or in the retreat of garden or conservatory, accepted and received those presents, tokens of affection and attentions, both those ordinary — such as every knight, damoiseau, and Bro- ther of Thelema is bound to bestow upon every damoiselle and Sister of the Order — and those extraordinary, such as with loj^al Buit, service and devotion, one alone should render unto one. Do you, Sister Rosalind, plead guilty to this charge, or not guilty?" Sister Rosalind, for answer, threw back her hood, and stood bareheaded before them all. "With her soft eyes, which lifted for a moment to look round upon the Court and the audience on the terrace, her fair and delicate cheek and the half-parted lips which seemed as if they could plead more eloquently than any advo- cate, she cari-ied away the sympathies of all. Phryne obtained a verdict by her beauty, without a word. So Sister Rosalind, by the mere unveiling of her face, would at once, but for the stern exigencies of the law, have been unanimously acquitted. There was a murmur of admiration from the audience on the terrace, and then. Lord Alwyne leading the way, a rapturous burst of applause, which was instantly checked hy the Court, who threatened to hear the case with closed doors, so to speak, on the repetition of such unseemly interruption. 1 86 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. "My client," said Peregrine, "my calumniated client," tere his voice broke down as if with a sob, " pleads not guilty, ac- cording to the Code of Love. And she desires also to set up a counter charge against the plaintiff in the case. Brother Lance- lot, in that, being attached to her and an aspirant for her favours, he has shown himself of late days of melancholy and morose disposition, and while he was formerly gay, cheerful, and of a hght heart, so that it was pleasant to accept his suit and service, he has now become sad and desponding, an offence contrary to all known and recognised devoirs of a lover. And she begs that the two charges may be tried together." This startling charge, accompanied as it was by a reproachful look from the defendant, disconcerted Brother Lancelot exceed- ingly, insomuch that his eyes remained staring wide open, and his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. The Court smiled, and Sister Desdemona, recognising in this stroke a touch of real genius, nodded approvingly to Brother Peregrine. Then Miranda spoke. " It is within my learned brother's right," she said, _ " to set up a counter-charge, and the Court will not fail to insist upon giving the charge full weight. Meantime, we will proceed with the original case as it stands set forth upon the roll. Brother Lancelot, you will call your witnesses." But the counsel for the defence again spr?,ng to his feet. " I am instructed by my client— my most deeply injured client —to admit the truth of the facts alleged. She has accepted the presents and the service of more than one Brother of this illustrious Order. ~\y Lady and Sisters-assistant, we admit, not as a fault, but rather as a virtue, that the facts are such as my learned Brother Lancelot has alleged in his plaint. I myself, my Lady, if for one moment I may be allov/ed to forget — no, not to forget my most needlessly persecuted client, which would be impossible—but to associate my poor personality w'ith t«hia admission, own before you all that "l myself, humble as I stand, have been allowed to offer a faint tribute to this incomparable shrine of beauty and of grace. She has worn flowers in her hair Avhich these unworthy fingers have gathered in this garden of Thelema and in its conservatories ; she has honoured me and conferred a new beauty on those flowers by wearing them in lier hair ; she has accepted gloves of me, gloves " here the speaker clasped his hands and gazed heavenward, " gloves— sixes — and honoured the giver by wearing these sixes— small si^ces — at our dances. My client has nothing to conceal, nothing that need not be told openly. We may, therefore, my Lady and Sisters-assistant of this honourable Court, enable my learned Brother to do without witnesses and to proceed at once with hia THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 1S7 vain and impotent attempt to substantiate his cbai'ge by appeal to ancient cand prescriptive law." Brother Peregrine yat down after this fling at his opponent. Sister Rosalind pulled the hood lower over her face and resumed her seat. There was a silence of great expectation when Brother Lancelot rose to his feet, and after fumbling among his papers began, in a voice of great trepidation and hesitancy, Avhich gradually disappeared as he warmed to his work, his speech for the prosecution. " My Lady and worshipful Sisters-assistant of this illustrious Court, it has been the laudable practice among all loyal followers of honourable Love to discuss among themselves whatever points of difficulty may arise in the relations of lovers to one another. Thus we find in the Reports, meagre as these documents are, of the jeux 2'>arlis lines of conduct laid down to meet almost every conceivable case, however knotty. These friendly discussions served to supplement and emphasise the Golden Code much as precedents in English law do grace, garnish, and sometimes obscure the mere letter of the law which lies behind them. Of such a nature was that famous discussion on the question whether, if a knight loves a lady, he ought rather to see her dead than married to another ? Such, again, w^as the case argued before a noble company of knights, dames, and demoi- selles, whether a certain knight was justified in accepting an offer made to him by a lady that she would belong wholly to him provided first she might be allowed a clear twelvemonth of flirtation. And such, to quote a third case, was the memorable inquiry into the reason Avhy the eld, and therefore the experi- enced, are generally neglected ; while the young, and therefore the inexperienced, are preferred. Had the present case before the Court been of such a nature as to admit of its decision by a jeu x>cirti or by formal committee of arbitration, I should have preferred that course. But that is not so, and I am therefore prepared, most unwillingly, to prove that a Sister of our Order, a Sister to whom my own devotion has been ofi'ercd and freely given, has infringed the miraculous Code which has been, and will ever continue to be, the foundation of constitutional Love." He paused, while one of his clerks handed him a prodigious roil of parchment. " I now, my Lady, proceed to refer to the articles Vvrhich I maintain to have been infringed by our Sister the defendant in this suit. I shall be happy to furnish my learned Brother " — Tom was pluckinsr up his courage — " with a copy of these Btatutes and ordinances, so that he may correct me if I quote tliem wrongly, and at the same time lead him to reflect whethef 1 88 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. CYon at the last moment he may not feel it his duty to ad'V'ist his fair client to throw herself upon the mercy of the Court." Here Brother Peregrine sprang to his feet and bowed courte- ously. " I thank my learned Brother. I need, however, no copy of the Code. It is implanted here." He smote the place where he supposed his heart to be and sa t down. " I will then," continued the counsel for the prosecution, " I will at once refer the Court and the Laflies-assistant to the very third Law — of such vital importance did this great principle seem to the supernatural framers of the Code. In the very third Law we have it enunciated m the clearest terms ' Nemo dvplici amore ligari j'otcst.' That is to say, no one, either knight or dame, damoiscau or damoisellc, can be bound by the chains of a two- fold alYection. The object of a lady's preference may perhaps be changed ; one can imagine the case of a damoiselle after being attracted by supposed virtues in a new friend — reverting with pleasure to the proved and tried chevalier who has obeyed her behests, it may be, for years " — here there was a murmur cf sympathj', every one present being perfectly acquainted with Tom's sad history. Brother Peregrine looked round sharply, as much as to say. " Let no one be led astray by any feeling of sentiment. I will make mincemeat of him directly." " This, I say, one can comprehend, and in such a case the de- votion of the previously favoured lover would be declined with such courtesy as becomes a gentlewoman. But let this Court picture to themselves a case in which a lady shall look with equal favour on the prayers of one and the sighs of another, shall smile on one with the same kindness as on the other, and ask whether both in letter and in spirit the third article of the Code would not be flagrantly contravened ? And such a case it is vv'hich my sense of duty now obliges me to bring before your attention. I am aware — that is, I can anticipate, that my learned Brother for the defence will attempt to rely upon the Thirty- first Article — imam fceminam nihil profdhet d duohus amari — nothing prevents the lady from having two lovers at once. No one, I am sure, would be surprised to hear that the Sister Rosalind had as many lovera as there are men who have seen her." Here the defendant lifted up a corner of her veil and be. Btowed a smile upon the counaol. The audience laughed, and Desdcmona was about to call attention to this breach of official etiquette, when Tom pi'oceeded with his speech. " That clause, I contend, has nothing to do with the charga THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 189 The facts, as the Court hfvs been infcrmed, are not denied, but, admitted. My learned Brother Las confessed " Here Brother Peregrine sprang to his feet. " I cannot allow the word confessed to pass unchallenged. My Lady, I have confessed nothing. Confession implies guilt. Where there has been no sin there can be no confession. We accept statements, but Ave do not confess." " Let us say, tlien," continued Tom, " that he has accepted my statements. He has, in fact, accepted the statement that Sister Rosalind received the service and the presents of two aspirants. He has informed the Court that he has himself offered gloves — small sixes — which were graciously received. I too have offered gloves — also small sixes. It has been my pride, as well as his, to see those sixes worn at our dances and in our drives and rides, I too have offered the flowers of Thelema to her who is to me the choicest and fairest flower in this our garden of all delights. My incense has been burnt at that shrine, my vows have been laid before that altar, as well as his. If my learned Brother accepts statements, he must accept them in their fulness : they are not to be glossed over, cleared away, or pared down to a mere nothing at all. The Court must give these facts their full significance. It amounts to this, that the defendant in this action has received with equal favour the pretensions of those who follow her with an equal — no, that cannot be — not an equal affection. No personal feel- ing of rancour or jealousy, no unworthy desire for notoriety, fame, or revenge, has prompted me in bringing about this im- portant trial. It has been appointed by yourself, my Lady, acting on the counsels of the experienced Clerk of this Court. You will, with your Sisters-assistant, give the case a calm and impartial consideration ; you will remember the dangers which lurk behind the infringement of these Laws ; you will act so as to preserve intact the Republic of Thelema ; you will give no encouragement to conduct which might implant in the midst of this happy retreat the seeds of jealousies, envies, and distrac- tions, such as would make our Abbey no better than the outer world ; you will prevent this generation of false hopes, this building up of delusive confidences, with the unhappiness of the final destruction of a faith built upon the sand. These things are not unreal. You will, my Lady, call upon your Sisters- assistant to ask their own hearts as well as the Code of Love. No Code, indeed, ever yet was invented which could meet the exigencies of every case. As regards the counter-charge, I confess I was not prepared for it. I may, perhaps, set an ex- ample to my learned Brother, by at once throwing myself upon the mercies of the Court. I confess, and do not deny, that there have been times when disappointment or grief at th<3 X90 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. conduct of my mistress lias prevented the possibility o£ that cheerful demeanour and gaiety of heart which are the duty of every aspirant to Love. To this charge I plead guilty, and urge in extenuation the grievous provocation which I have re- ceived. " Ladies of this most honourable Court " — the advocate raised his head, v;hich he had dropped in shame during the last few sentences, and looked ai'ound with a proud and confident bear- ing — " I leave my case fearlessly in your hands, confident that justice will be done, and, although I am sare that it is unneces- sary, I venture beforehand to recommend the defendant to your favourable merciful consideration. She is young, as you all know ; she is beautiful, as you all know ; she is charming, as you will all agree ; she is gracious and winning, even among the gracious and winning ladies of this illustrious House of The- lema. On these grounds, ladies, and on these alone, I pray that her offence may be condoned, and that she escape with, such an admonition as our Lady Abbess may think fit to besto-w upon her." Brother Lancelot, who acquitted himself at the end of his speech far better than at the beginning, sat down. There was just that touch of real personal feeling in his peroration which gave the trial, even for those among the spectators who had small sympathy Avith the Code of Love, a genuine interest. It was clear that poor Tom, who, indeed, never disguised the fact, was in real love with Nelly, whatever might be the feeling of the other man. There was a murmur among the people in the terrace which broke into loud applause. " Si — lence !" cried the usher. " Silence in the Court." Miranda here remarked that it was the second time this un- seemly manifestation of feeling had been repressed ; that if it occurred again, she should commit the whole of the visitor's for contempt of Court, without the power of appeal. She re- minded the offenders that such a sentence entailed their exclu- sion from the Abbey, and their confinement in the large prison of the outer world, among quite disagreeable and even vulgar people, until they should be purged of their contempt. A shudder, visible to the naked eye, ran through the crowded chairs at this dreadful threat. Miranda then invited the counsel for the defence to say what he had to say. Brother Peregrine rose immediately, and after pulling his gown well over his shoulders, adjusting his square cap, and clear- ing his throat, assumed a pose which was rather one of defiance than of appeal, and began his oration without notes of any kind, with a rapid volubility in strong contrast to the hesitation and difficulty with which hia opponent began his speech. I am THE MONKS OF THELEMA. if)i inclined to believe that Tom's speech was written for him by Desdemona, but tJjat lie altered and amended the close. On the other hand, Brother Peregrine's address was undoubtedly all his own. There was a cold glitter about it which held the atten- tion, but it was forensic to the last degree, and lacked the personality and feeling which characterised the speech for tho prosecution. " I stand here," he said, in an easy rapid way which showed how little the responsibility of the position weighed upon him — " I stand here engaged in the most arduous, because the most responsible, of all tasks. I defend a lady from a charge which, in this illustrious Abbey of Thelema, might almost be construed into an imputation — my learned Brother need not rush into denials — I say almost an imputation upon a reijutation as de- servedly spotless as the white evening dress in which my client wins all hearts. My learned Brother, whoso conscience, I re- joiced to observe, overcame the recklessness with which he started, so that from an accuser he became an advocate, rightly mentioned one or two leading cases decided long ago in the Courts of our ancestors. It is interesting and, indeed, instruc- tive, to be reminded of these leading cases, even although they have no bearing upon the case before the Court. Still, it is well to know that those who plead in these Courts are learned in the law. But my learned Brother omitted to mention those cases which actually bear upon the question before us. Ladies and most honourable Sisters, we must not for a moment allow our- selves to lose sight of the fact that the point raised touches every one of you. Nothing can be more important, no cases have been more frequent, than those v.diich concern the conduct of a lady towai'ds her lover or lovers. It has been asked, for instance, whether the lover should prefer that the lady should first kiss him, or that he should first kiss the lady. The question is one on which much discussion could even now be raised, and doubtless there would be differences of opinion. It has been asked — and this is a question which ac- tually touches the present case" — here Brother Peregrine looked at his papers and picked one out from the handful which he held — " It has been asked whether, if a lady has to listen to a tale of love which she is about to refuse, she is justified in hearing her lover to an end, or whether, in justice, she should cut him short in the beginning ? I need not i-emind your Lady- bhip and the Court that the decision in this case was in favour tf hearing the poor man to an end. And I humbly submit that the decision was guided partly out of respect to that instinct of kindness in woman's heart which naturally prompts to the hearing of all that could bo urged, and partly, if one may veu- 192 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. turft to say so in such a presence, from a natural desire to know hov/ this man in particular would put his points." Here the Court smiled, as if both the President and the Sisters-assistant had large experience in such matters. " First, tlicn. Ladies and Sisters of the Honourable Order of Thelema, ought a demoiselle to have two lovers ? Surely ; that is granted by the very first laws in our Code. But, my learned friend may say, she ought to show favour to one only. In the end, I grant. That is the real point at issue between us. In the end. Up to the present, my client, my fair, my beautiful, my much-injured client, has only granted the simple favour of receiving such slight attentions, such little presents of flowers or ribbons or gloves as belong to the general usages of society and the broader and less conventional customs of Thelema. In the end, I say. But at present we are only be- ginning. My learned Brother, like myself, is, as one may say, in the humility of early love. What says the trouveresse .* " ' Humbly that lover oiiglit to spoalc. Who favour from his love doth seek.' My contention " " Do you," interrupted Miranda — "Do you confine yourcelf to the Code ?" " I do," replied the learned counsel. " But the Code is illustrated, explained and annotated by the jeux-jiartis, as my learned Brother has already explained. Still, if one must abandon precedents and fall back upon the letter of the law, I will, if you please, take the Code itself, and prove, clause by clause, if necessary, that my injured, my deeply injured client, has confined her operations, if I may so use the word, strictly within the limits of the Code " Here he received, from one of his clerks, a document in official writing. " I was about to remark," he went on, " when I was inter- rupted by my clerk, that the Code itself will triumphantlj' bear out my client, and prove that she has been no traitor to those glorious laws of love which must, to the crack of doom, rule every lover in gentlehood. Let me take the second — Qui non celat amare nonpotest. ' He — or she — who cannot keep secret cannot love.' Why, here is, in itself , sufficient ground to acquit my client honourably. We will grant, if you please, that my client has a secret preference for one — not necessarily the one whom she has known longest — of the two aspirants. What better justification for accepting the service of both, than the fact that she has a secret preference for one ?" Here the orator paused while one of his clerks poured him out a glass of water, and while he looked round, expectant of THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 193 applause. There was a murmur, which mi^^ht have meant ap])lanse an>»l might have meant astonishment. Tom, at his desk, looked disgusted. It seemed as if the wind was being taken out of his sails altogether. "The third clause," the counsel continued, " is ' Nemoduplici potest amoro ligari ' — ' No one can be bound by a twofold love.' Well, my Lady and Sisters of this Honourable House, although my learned Brother based his whole ai-gument upon this one clause, the force of which I readily concede to him, as a matter of fact, it has no bearing whatever upon the question. For, if you will consider, the charge is that the lady has accepted presents and service from two aspirants at the sam.e time. That is so. We grant it. Does it follow that she is bound by a two- fold love — that she has professed to entertain a preference for both ? Ladies of Thclema, as one of the two men, I empha- tically deny it." Here Brother Lancelot arose with flushing cheeks, and asked whether his learned Brother vras to be understood as speaking from his own knowledge, and as conveying to the Court the information that he himself. Brother Peregrine, was "egarded by Sister Rosalind with no preference whatever ? The defendant was here observed to smile. The counsel for the defence made reply, softly : " I speak from information given by the defendant herself. I do not dare to go beyond that information. It may be, un- happily for me, that Sister Rosalind has a preference for my learned Brother, or had before this case came on. That may be so, although there is not a tittle of evidence to submit before the Court for or against that supposition. It is only when the lady has accepted a lover in title as well as his simple offerings, that she can be said at all amove ligari, to be bound in love. But as yet the Sister Rosalind has bestowed that title on no one; therefore, I maintain, she can in no sense be said m be dujylici amore ligari, bound by a double love. " This point established, I pass on to another clause which, tis I shall show clearly and distinctly, makes in my favour. It is written in the fourth Article : ' Semper amorem minui vel cresci constat ' — ' Always must love increase or be diminished,' What more rational course for my fair client to adopt than, before pronouncing finally in his favour or against him, to allow his passion to increase, or if it will not bear the test of patience, to see it diminish, and meanwhile to gratify him, or both of them, or any number of them, not one Brother only, but saving the duty and devotion owed to you, most honourable Ladies of the Court and Sisters of Thelema, not one Brother only, I say, but all the Brothers together ? " Let me pass over a few clauses which, without anyingenuity. 13 194 THE MONKS OF THELEAfA. could be shov/n to be so many fair and just arguments for my client, whose cause, however, is so simple that she wants no clause of the Code except those which at once commend them- selves to all. I refer you, therefore, at once to the twelfth Law : ' Amor semper consuevit ab avaritite doraiciliis exulari ' — ' Love is banished from the abodes of avarice.' " Here Brother Lancelot sprang to his feet. " I protest," he cried hotly, "I protest against this attempt to introduce an unworthy motive. Notliing, I am convinced " The Lady President leaned forward, and interrupted him. " Nothing of the kind, Brother Lancelot," she said, " could be imputed to you, and no one could believe that you had or could impute unworthy motives to the defendant. The Court, indeed, is astonished that the counsel for the defence could think it necessary even to allude to this clause in connection with the case." " If my learned Brother," said Brother Peregrine gently, " had heard me to the end, he would have been spared the necessity for his protest. Nothing was farther from my intentions than to connect the vulgar vice of avarice with him or with my client. It was in another sense : the avarice which would grudge the smallest favours bestowed on others, the avarice which is akin to jealousy, the avarice which belongs to a too sensitive organisation, and which Avould make of love an absolute servitude, the avarice which is a sentiment contrary to the .spirit of this illustrious House of Thelema ; it is concerning that avarice that I would have spoken, but I refrain. Better omit some things which might be said than incur the chance of misconception or misrepresentation." The advocate shook his head and sighed sadly, as if tho stupidity of the other counsel was the subject of grave pity. Then he went on again. All this time the defendant, sitting Avrapped in her long robe of grey, wore her hood drawn entirely over her head, so that no parb of her face could be seen. " Let us proceed, and now I shall be brief. It is written again in the thii-teenth Article : ' Amor raro consuevit durare vulgatis' — ' Love seldom lingers when 'tis told.' Ladies, what more cogent reason for my client to disguise her preference, to procrastinate, to keep all aspirants in doubt while secretly in- clining to one ? In this case there are two, both Brothers of this noble House of Thelema, both ready to devote themselves assiduously to this one damoi.-elle. Why should she wish her choice to be divulgated, if indeed she has already chosen ? " I will, however, leave this point, and call your attention to the twenty-fourth clause of the Code, which in a very remark- able manner bears upon the case before the Court. " Verua araaus nihil beatum credit nisi quod cogitct amanti placrre'— THE MONKS Of THELEMA. 195 ' The true lover believes nothing but what he believes will plciiso the lady.' The true lover ! Mark those words. Has it, I ask. pleased my deeply-injured client to be the subject of this im- portant trial, to have it even insinuated that she has infringed the Code of Love ? The true lover !" Here Brother Lancelot sprang to his feet, and was about to protest, when the Court ordered him to have patience. " I will now only call your attention to two more clauses," continued tlie counsel for the defence. " In the twenty-sixth Article we read: ' Amor nihil posset leviter amore denegari '— ' Love cannot lightly be denied of love.' My Lady Abbess and Sisters of this Honourable House, what are we to think of a Brother v.'ho is so lightly turned away from Love " " I AM NOT !'" shouted Tom, springing to his feet in a real rage. This time there was irresistible applause ; and even Sister Rosalind half raised her veil as if to give her opponent one look of gratitude. " Si — lence in the Court !" cried the usher. Miranda did not reprove this manifestation, and Brother Peregrine, whose myriad crows'-feet seemed to twinkle all over, and whose eyes lightened up at the interruption as if in hope of a good battle of words, threw his gown behind him and stood defiant. But Tom sat down, and the applause ceased, and the Court awaited the continuation of the speech, " What shall we say," he asked, " of one who, because his mis- tress accepts the service of others, thinks there is nothing left for him but to go away and weep ? Lastly, ladies, I adduce, without a word of cominent — because my learned Brother has already dwelt too long upon this clause, from his own erroneous point of view — I adduce, and beg you most carefully to re- member, the thirty-first Article, in which it is asserted that ' Unam foeminam nihil prohibet a duobus amari' — 'Nothing prevents a damoiselle from being loved by two men.' What, indeed ! — or by fifty ? And what is this case before us but an exact and literal illustration of the commandment ? In acting, as she has wisely chosen to act, my client, I maintain, has proved herself as learned in the constitution of Love as she is, by her nature and her loveliness, one of Love's fairest priestesses. " My Lady Abbess and Sisters of this Honourable House, I have said what seemed to my poor understanding the best to ba said. If I have failed, which I cannot believe, in conveying to you, not only the legal aspect of the case, which is clear, but also "what may be called the moral aspect — I have failed if I have not convinced you of the innocence of my client, even in thought. My learned Brother has invited you to find against her, and to mitigate the penalty. I, for my part, invito you to find for her, 196 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. and to allow her all the honours of a triumphant success. To his eulogium I have nothing to add. You, who value the free- dom of your sex — you, who estimate rightly the value of the Code by which your conduct is guided, will accord to my client a fair, an honourable, and a complete acquittal." Brother Peregrine sat down amid dead silence. There was no applause at all. His speech vras brilliant, eloquent, and bril- liantly delivered. But it lacked, what characterised Tom's less ambitious effort, reality of feeling. It was theatrical, therefore the effect was cold. Miranda asked if the counsel for the prosecution had any- thing to say in reply. Brother Lancelot said that a great deal might be spoken in answer to his learned Brother, but that he should not inflict a second speech needlessly upon the Court. He contended only that his original argum.ents remained untouched ; that the adroit attempt of the counsel for the defence to turn a legal argument into a personal attack had clearly failed ; that the clauses which he ingeniously twisted and turned to suit his case had nothing really to do with it ; that in the interests of order, and in the maintenance of that true freedom which was the pride and glory of Thelema, he prayed a conviction, but asked for mitigation of penalty. Then he sat down, and the Court proceeded to dehberate. The case, which had been begun almost as a burlesque, or at least as an unreal revival of an ancient custom, was now, owing to the pleadings on either side, assuming a very real interest to the spectators. It was clear that the feelings of one of the speakers were very real indeed. Of that there could be no doubt ; and as everybody knew perfectly well that poor Tom was only unsuc- cessful on account of his poverty, and as it was suspected that the fair defendant was as ready to make her open choice of Tom as he was to offer his suit and service, and as there appeared in the speech of Brother Peregrine a ring of flippancy, as if he was only showing his cleverness, the sympathies of the audience were entirely with the prosecution. Meantime, the Sisters crowded round the Throne, conferred with the President in whispers, and then there was an awful paxise. The colloquy lasted a quarter of an hour, during which every- body on the terrace talked in whispers. And then there was a general rustle of dresses and movement among the chairs, because the conference of the Sisters was over, and they were I'cturning to their chairs. But the pages who had been lying at their feet were standing now behind them, and the javelin-men were gathered behind the Throne, and the trumpeters were on either side of the President, and vhe clerks were collecting all the papers. THE MONKS OF TilELEMA. 197 Miranda rose, and all the Court ■vrith her. Sister Kosaiind advanced a step and stood before the coun-crB desk. At tha first words of the President she tlirevv back her hood and stood as before, pale, beautiful, and resigned. " Sister Rosalind," said the Judge, in the clear full tones of her fine contralto. " Sister Rosalind, the Court has considered the case, with the assistance of the Ladies of Thelema ; we are xmanimously of opinion that the continuous acceptance of flowers, gloves, or ribbons from more than one aspirant is a thing contrary to the Code of Love. We, therefore, find that you have been guilty of an infringement of the law. At the same time, the Court is equally unanimous in finding that you have been led into this infringement by no unworthy motive, and that your fair reputation remains unsullied. The penalty inflicted by the Court is that you receive an admonition, in such terms as his courtesy will allow, from the prosecutor in the case. Brother Lancelot himself. And it is the pleasure of this Court that the admonition be privately administered in this gai'den. Before the Court rises, I have to invite our friends" (Miranda looked round the terrace, full of spectators) " to the Refectory of the Abbey. Hospitality has ever been the duty of monastic orders, and here there is no jour maif] re.'^ She stepped down from her Throne. The trumpets blew : the band struck up a march : the pages lifted her train : Brother Bayard gave her his hand, and similarly escorted, the Sisters followed. After them marched Desdemona herself, her brow knitted with legal problems. Then came clerks, javelin- men, and the usher of the Court. The spectators left the terrace and crowded after the proccs- fiion, which made straight for the great hall. Nobody was left but Brother Lancelot and Sister Rosalind, ■who was waiting for her admonition. The garden was quite empty : not a servant, not a page, was there to see. " Oh ! Tom," she cried, throwing ofE the cloak and clapping her hands. " It was lovely ; it was something to live for. What can I do for you for your beautiful speech ? It was ten times as good as Mr. Exton's — and because you meant it all," she added softly. " Nelly," said the admonitor, taking her hands, " you know what I want you to give me." She shook her head. "It cannot be . . . Poor old Tom . . . Poor Nelly." " Then you do love me — Nell— just a little ?" It wanted but this last touch. " Ask me no more, for at a breath I jield," lie had her two hands iu hiSj and, as he spoke, he dr^w hei iqS the monks of thelema. gently, so that, without suspecting, her cheek met his cheek, and her lips met his lips. "Tom! Tom!" she cried. " Do you love me, then ; do you love me, Noll ?" he per. eisted. " Tom — you know I do." " And not that other fellow at all ?" " No, Tom ; not at all. Only you." This was a pretty kind of admonition to bestow upon a peni- tent which followed this declaration. All that need be said, so far as details go, is that the admoni- tion lasted but a moment — fleeting indeed are all the joys of life — and then she forced her hands from his grasp, and drew back with a cry and a start. " Oh ! Tom. And it can never be. Because I have got to marry the other man. No ; it is no use. Mamma says so. She writes to me to-day; she says that nothing else would per- suade her to let me remain in this place, where one of the Brothers, a gentleman by birth, wears a smock-frock, and has set the irreligious and unchristian example of marrying a dairy- maid. ' No one,' she says, ' can tell whose principles may not be subverted by this awful act of wickedness.' And I am only to wait until Mr. Exton proposes, and then to go home at once." " Oh ! And you think, Nell, that he looks like«^like pro- posing ■?" " I am sure of it, Tom, I am sorry to say." " And you think you will marry him ?" "Yes. i must." " Oh !" He dug his heel in the turf, and said savagely, " You must. We shall see." When Tom led Nelly to her place in the Refectory, five minutes later, she had thrown off the grey mantle and hood, as he had discarded the black gown and square cap ; and she was dressed, like the other Sisters, in complete twelfth century cos- tume — armour. Brother Peregrine called it. She looked bright and pleased ; but some of the guests, including Lord Alwyne, thought there was the trace of a tear upon her cheek. How- ever, the music was playing, and the feast was going on merrily, and the champagne was flowing, and there were so many de- lightful girls round him, that Lord Alwyne had no time to look more closely. " This is delightful," he said to Desdemona, next to whom he was sitting. " This brings back one's youth : this reminds one of the past. It is like a dream to see so many lovely girls all together in the same place. There is no place like this Abbey of yours : 7 HE MONKS OF THELEMA. 199 " ' Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit, The power of beauty I remember yet.' I am lilfe La Fontaine. I bask in their smiles when I can no longer win their hearts. "Where are my glasses ? Ah ! glasses — hon jour, lunettes, adieu, fillettes, as the Frenchman said. A man's day is done when he v/ants glasses to see fair eyes." " And your son ?" " Graveairs is teaching political economy to his dairymaid. I think, Desdemona, that I should have iiked myself to ad- minister that admonition to Nelly all alone in the garden. But no doubt Tom did it with more solemnity. And the rogue looks as if it had not been an unpleasant task. I shall ask Xelly, presently, to tell me in what terms he bestowed the ad- monition. What would her mother have said ?" CHAPTER XXVI. " ' Awav,' she ciicd, ' grave beart and solemn sighs I Kiss and be merry : preacb tbe sermon after. Give me tbe careless dance and twinkling eyes : Let me be wooed ■with kisses, songs, and laughter.' " Alma's delirium of triumph reached its climax on the Sunday morning when, in self-conscious grandeur, she ambled up the aisle behind her mother. Alan was not in the church, being, as his fiancee presently reflected with a jealous pang, most likely with Miss Dalmeny. This circumstance, however, was perhaps fortunate, because even Alan's loyalty might hardly have stood the test of that triumphal march up the aisle, that tossing of the head which made his betrothed an object of envy to a few, and of sniggering contempt to many. Those who most envied, longed, and bitterly reproached the partiality of fate, were especially the tAvo young ladies who just missed the golden apple. What had they done that Alma alone should be singled out for this special good fortune ? As for those Sisters of the Order who were attending the service, feelings of quite peculiar wonder and pity for their unfortunate Brother passed across their minds and hindered their devotions. Harry was not at church either, a fact which Alma speedily ascertained by looking for him in his visual place. _ She was sorry for that, too. She felt that she could have enjoyed fur- tively contemplating his black looks. The girl was dressed in a simple stuff, which Alan asked her mother, whose taste he could trust, to buy for her. She resented the simplicity of the costume, which she would have preferred, I think, made up in red velvet) the splendiour of which would have increased the 200 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. envy of otlicr maidens, and she resented certain enforced re- strictions as to ribbons, of which she would have liked an assortment in various colours. But she had the sense to give way, on the hint from her mother that Mr. Dunlop would prefet a quiet dress. " You've got," said her mother severely, " to try and be a lady — to look at, I mean — if you can. I've never intfcrfered with your bits of finery, though raany's the time it's gone to my heart to see a gell of mine go about for all the world like a gipsy wench round a may-pole. But I know what Mr. Dunlop is used to, and you've got to take my advice now. Lord ! Lord ! What an unnatural thing it is, to be sure !" " As if I was the only girl in the world that a gentleman has fallen in love with." " Fallen in love !" echoed her mother. " Fallen in love, indeed ! And with you ! Why, what's your good looks com- pared to Miss Miranda or Miss JSTelly or any of the young ladies at the Court ? And what's your silly saucy ways compared with their beautiful talk ? And what sort of manners have you got, I should like to know, compared with theirs ? Fallen in love ! It's all a part of the poor young gentleman's craziness." She Avent about her work, this unnatural mother, with lips that moved in silent talk, because she was greatly disturbed iu her mind. It seemed to her honest soul like treachery towards the memory of her dead mistress. And, as she told Alma, sho knew ladies, and she knew the waj^s that gentlemen are used to. '* Your manners !" she went on, piling it up— this sort of truth-hearing is really very painful. " Whatever in the world Irlr. Dunlop will say rdien he sees you sit at your dinner, I don't know. You take your victuals — well, you take 'em like your father. And I can't say wor?e for you." " You had better tell father so," returned Alma. " But, mother, now," she put on her coaxing way, " if you'll tell me, little by little, you know, because I can't learn it all at onco, what I'll have to alter, 111 try. I really will. And you should like to see me a real lady, shouldn't you ?" But Mrs. Bostock shook her head. " I shall never see that," she said. " Ladies are born and bred, not ma'ie to order. Lord bless you, child, you'll never make more tlian a tin-kettle lady." This was not the opinion of her father, who accepted the position as one due to the singular merit of his daughter and the fact of his own training. The Bailiff, in fact, spent hia time, now, chiefly in self-la,udation. He assumed the importance which seemed to befit the post of the Squire's father-in-law. He went to market and talked loudly of his son-in-law : he more than hinted at important changes about to be made in the THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 20: management of the estates : and he patronised those large tenants to whom he had before been servile. Needless to say that the voice of popular opinion, as expressed by the tenan'-3, was that the Squire, of Avhose sanity there had long been grievous doubt, was now gone stark-staring mad. Some among them wanted to get up a deputation to Lord Alwyne asking for advice and assistance ; but this fell through. Alma's hours of triumph were fewer than those which her father enjoyed. To sit in church and feel that the eyes of Weyland maidenhood were on you, with looks of envy and longing, was grand. But during the long week, the six days of labour, there was no such soul-ennobling solace to be got. All day long, the future mistress of Weyland Court went on Avith her accustomed labour : milked the cows and fed the fowls ; made the butter and peeled the potatoes. " I thought," she said to her mother, " that you wanted me to be a lady. Ladies don't scour milk-pans." " If ladies don't scour milk-pans,'' replied the woman of experience, " they do something else. If you didn't do the housework, you'd sit with your hands in your lap, or you'd go out and get into mischief. That's not the way to be a lady. Talk o' you gells ! You think that a lady's got nothing to do but lazy away her idle time. I haven't patience with you. And you to marry a gentleman !'' Before this unlucky engagement Mrs. Bostock had got on fairly well with her daughter. There were skirmishes, dexterous exchanges of rapier-thrusts between tongues as sharp as steel, in which one gave and the other took, or the reverse, with equal readiness. And neither bore malice. Also, both stood side by side against the common enemy. Stephen Bostock, as parent and husband, was alternately morose and ferocious. In the former mood he had to be met with silence or short answers ; in the latter he had to be stood up to. When he was meditating schemes of plunder he was morose : when his schemes failed, which generally happened, because success in roguery requires as much acuteness as success in honest undertakings, he became ferocious. And on those occasions it would have been delightful for the bystander, were there any, to witness hov/, by full facers from his wife and half-aside " cheek " from his daughter, the unhappy man would be goaded into rages which left nothing to be desired except a victim. " Very handy," as Harry Cardew observed — " Very handy he was, 'cept when there was a man about." But of late years he had abstained, probably from fear of the consequences, from actually carrying his threats into execution and beating his offspring into a mash. Things had gone badly with the Bostocks until the head of the house was appointed Baililf, Then, things went better. 202 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. As it was easy to cheat the Squire, and operations of quite an extensive character be§an with the very commencement, gloomy moroseness became the silence of thoughtful reflection, and habitual ferocity was softened into the occasional " damn." But, in this sudden and unexpected access of good fortune, the chances of Harry Cardew sank lower and lower. The honest gamekeeper found himself more and more unwelcome at the farmhouse, until one day, a few months before Alma's engage- ment, he was informed in no measured terms by the Bailiff, that a young man of like calling and social position with him- self could by no means be accepted as a candidate for his daughter's hand. The Bailiii put his point in coarse but vigorous English. It made a short sentence, and it left no possible room for doubt or mistake. He weakened it by a threat of personal violence which, addressed to the young giant before him from one so puffy and out of condition as himself, was ludicrous ; but the rule, as lawyers say, was absolute. Harry must cease his visits. And presently came this rosy, this sapphire-and-amaranth- tinted position of things ; when the Bailiffs daughter, not of Islington but of Weyland, was actually engaged to be married to the Squire and the son of the Squire. Then it was that Stephen Bostock assumed the airs of superiority which so riled and offended the farmers. Then it was that he became all at once the loving, even the doating, father. Then it was that he walked the fields in the evening revolving gi'eat dreams of agri- cultural rule. Then it was that he looked through the veil which generally hides the misty ways of futurity, and saw him- self, Stephen Bostock, living in great splendour, held in much honour of all men, drinking quantities of brandy and water among a circle of worshippers, and smoking a pipe among other pipes, r.U of which were myrrh and frankincense offered to him- self, the wise, the crafty, the successful Bostock. Then it was that he began to fondle, to caress, and to cuddle his only child, until his endearments became painful, even insuft'erable, to the young lady ; and she would run away and hide herself to got out of his way. And then it was that he discovered that his M'ife, whom he had hitherto reverenced as a person intimately acquainted, through her experience as lady's-maid, with the habits, customs, and predilections of the aristocracy, v/as really nothing better than a shallow pretender to this kind of know- ledge, because she objected, from the very beginning, to bar daughter's engagement with the Squire. " You may swear, Stephen," she would say, what time Alma was in bed and her husband was contemplating things through the rosy light which comes of the third or fourth tumbler of grog — " You may swear, Stephen, as much as you like. And THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 203 what a man would do without swearing, smoking, and drinking, the Lord only knows. Swearing can't make things different ; and it's unnatural. It's unnatural, I say." Vv^lien Stephen first found his appropriate adjective for the situation, he slapped his leg in rejoicing. When Mrs. Bostock found hers, she cut the thread with which she was working — being a woman who was perpetually sewing — with a sharper snap than usual. Stephen swore again, but with a murmurous tone of satis- faction, because the light upon the future was growing more roseate, more beautiful. " A son-in-law," he said, " as is the Squire of this great state ; a son-in-law worth — ah ! — his twenty thousand a year ; a son-in-law as is, between you and me, wife, a little loose in the upper story ; that kind o' son-in-law doesn't grow on every bush, and is to be encouraged when he does come. Encouraged he shall be. Fooled he shall be, if I can fool him. And hen- pecked he will be, for sure and certain, when our Alma once gets her tongue free, and her tail well up, and lier claws out. And as regards wild cats, I will say that, for a wild cat, once you wake her up, there's no gell in all Weyland like my gell." " Yes," said her mother, " she's the Bostock temper. As for my family, we're that meek " '' You are," replied the husband, finishing his tumbler : " you're as meek as the Irish pig " He did not explain this allusion, which remains obscure. It will be seen that these influences were not the highest or the most promising which could be brought to bear on the mind of a young woman about to marry a young man oppressed with great possessions. But Alma had been brought up under them, and knew no other. It will also be seen that the outlook to Alan, in search of a helpm.eet, would have seemed to him, had he known as much as we know, sufficiently dark. All day long spent in household and dairy labour : and then, alas ! all the evening to be got throutrh with her unintellisiible lover. Poor Alma ! Poor bride-elect ! They talked and walked, these fine July evenings, chiefly in the garden of the farm, that long strip of ground planted with raspberry-canes and goose- berry-bushes, and walled on either hand by an apple orchard. In the dusk and sweet summer twilight tliey walked up and down the narrow walk, arm in arm, while Alan discoursed and Alma tried to listen, failed to understand, and let her thoughts run off on Harry. More than once she saw the unlucky game- keeper at the garden gate, looking wistfully into the garden like the Peri into Paradise, and her heart leaped up, and it wanted but a word, a beckoning, a gesture from her humble lover to make her dare all, throw down the ring of King Cophetua, and 204 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. rush to the place whet'e she would fain be, the arms of the mas who knew her for what she was, and did not beheve her to be a saint. For really, poor Mr. Dunlop was too unbearable. Does any girl, could any girl, like being improved after hot engagement or her marriage ? I once knew a man who was very, very intellectual. He was quite familiar with everything that is lofty, abstruse, and unintelligible ; he read his Fort- nightly with more regularity than he read his Bible ; he lived, so to speak, and found his nourishment entirely in the Higher Criticism ; Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer were far, far be- hind him ; and yet he used to clasp his two hands across his massive brow, and say that what we want — meaning mankind at large, including himsrelf— is More Brain Power. This man married a wife, and resolved, as he told all his friends, upon moulding her. Many men have resolved upon moulding their wives, and have not discovered until too late that their wives have moulded them. My friend began very much as Alan Dunlop began, only mutatis mutandis. He did not lecture her, or teach her. He got her a ticket for the British Museum Library, took her there, and looked out useful books for her to I'ead— Mill, Bain, and Spencer, the elementary prophets. No one, of course, will be surprised to hear the end of this mourn- ful reminiscence. The young wife made the acquaintance of a young man who sat next to her, and was engaged at a low wage in the Translation Department of the eminent publishers, Messrs. Roguepogue, Gulchit, and Co. I believe he Avas weak in French, and used to ask his fair neighbour for help in diffi- cult passages. One day they went out at luncheon-time together. Neither of them returned their books, and neither of them ever came back again. And there was great unpleasantness after- wards. Similarly, there is the well-known case of the aesthetic man — one is almost ashamed to quote it — who Manted to train his wife in true principles of Art, and used to carry her about to Picture Galleries and make her sit for hours in front of Martyrs and Saints going to be tortured, till she grew at last to take a savage and unchristian pleasure in thinking that those heads with the golden halos held on one side and those figures stuck out ecclesiastically stilt', v/ould shortly be roasting at the stake. She revenged herself by dressing one night, when they were dining with quite awfully festhetic people in a costume of red, green, and yellow. Her husband caught sight of it in the middle of dinner. They carried him away, and his wife went with him. Just as he rallied and came round, he saw it again. In his weak condition, it was too much. She is a widow now, with no taste at all for Ai't. Alan Dunlop, rapidly discoverin/j that his future wife was THE MONKS OB THELEMA. 205 not as yet quite the young person he had dreamed of, resolved, hke our friends, the Intellectual and the Artistic Prigs, to " mould " his wife. He moulded her in two waj-s. First, he lent her books to read. The books he chose were those to which he owed, he thought, the ideas which most governed his own life. Among these were Ruskin's Ti\-o Paths, the Sesame and Lilies, and a selection from the Fors Clarigera. He forgot that what a man takes away from a book is precisely what he brings to it, only that much developed, that his mind is like the soil already planted, digged about for air and light, and weeded of fahe notions. Alma, poor girl, brought nothing to the study of the Fers but a blank mind. She understood no single word. First, she did try to read the books : read on, page after page, although the words had no meaning, and, when she put the volumes down, left nothing behind them but a sort of blurr, haze, and bad dream of meaningless sentences which seemed to follow her, to whisper their gibberish in her ear, and to haunt her dreams at night like devils and ghosts. That plan would clearly never do. Then she hit upon another. She would learn a bit and try to repeat it, to show that she really had read the v/hole. This succeeded tolerably the first evening, but on the second she broke down suddenly and horribly, collapsed, went off into non- sense, and finally foundered altogether. The second method adopted by Alaa was to lecture his fiancee. He spent hours every day in expounding the elementary principles of Lis philosophy, and he hoped that she would readily grasp the science in which women are supposed to have done so much — social and political economy. He hoped that she would become a second Harriet Martineau. As a matter of fact, I believe that the success of women in Political Economy is due to their acceptance of unproved theories as if they were truths demonstrated beyond all doubt. By this method they have built up a structure which spiteful people say will go to nieces in the first gale of wind. However, Alma listened, and understood nothing. The lecturer went on, but his words poured into her ears while her thoughts were far away. And then there followed a very curious state of things. While Alan talked. Alma allov/ed her thoughts to w^ande^ away. She listened mechanically, prepared to smile and mur- mur when his voice ceased for a moment. Now, after the first preamble with which Alan opened up the subject of his engage- ment and exposed his reasons, he took it for granted that Alma understood exactly why he wanted to marry her and how they were to live. Alma, who bad forgotten all about the preamble, 2o6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. w'.iich she never understood, looked on her marriage as elevation to the rank of a lady, dreamed continually of Weyland Court, a-nd let Alan go on talking of their future in his obscure man- ner without interruption. That she was to go on living in the village would have seemed too absurd. Far better brave all and marry Harry Cardew. But what a lover ! And what an engagement ! And never a kiss, never a hand-squeeze, never the least sigh ; only a grave " How do you do, Alma ?" or " Good-night, Alma," with a cold shake of the hand and a look of those deep, grave, blue eyes, which always when they met her own made the country girl tremble and shake to think of long days and nights to be spent always beneath their solemn, almost reproachful gaze. What a lover ! What an engagement ! And, oh ! bliss — to run out for five minutes only, when Mr. Dunlop was gone, to meet Harry in the orchard, and he with his arm round her waist like a man, and ready with his hone&t old lips upon her cheek. And, ah ! Heaven ! if her father, or her mother, or Mr. Dunlop himself should ever know ! After the political economy Alan proceeded to the difficulties which more immediately occupied him, connected with the re- form of the lower classes. He gave her a lecture on temper- ance, which was not needed because her father, no doubt from the higherst of motives, had frequently enacted the Helot before her ; and, like all women of her class, she regarded drink with the loathing that comes of experience. Then he spoke of woman's influence over other women. Alma regarded this as a question of authority. Had she been placed over half a hundred maids, she would have ruled them ail, or known the reason why ; and she failed to compre- hend what Alan meant when he talked beautifully about the common bond of womanhood, and the sweetness of woman's sympathy with other women. Alma thought of Black Bess, and regretted that she was not strong enough to shake her, be- cause she knew that young person to be harbouring thoughts of malice and revenge against herself. Alan went on to talk of the sympathies of class with class, of the natural tendency of human nature to form itself into Btrata, of the difficulties of passing from one to the other. Alma thought that she herself would pass with the greatest ease from the lower to the higher — and of the helpful nature of alliances formed between members of one and another. " He is really quite mad," thought the girl. And he tried to draw a picture of a pair living together, devoted like any Comtist to the enthusiasm of Humanity : working out problems in civilisa- tion, leading upwards to the Higher Culture whole droves oi emock-frocks, navvies, roughs, 'whose principal delights thereto THE MONKS OF l^HELEMA. 207 fore had been beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, leaning against poshs, and kicking their wives. " Harry," cried Alma one evening, after nearly a week of this_ " he most drives me mad, he does ! Either he talks like a schoolmaster, or else he talks like a parson in a pulpit. He's not like a man. Preach ? Every day and all day. And goodness gracious only knows what he says. What does he take me for ?" "Heart up, pretty," said Harry. "Heart up. He shan't have you. Never you fear." " Ah !" she sighed sentimentally. " I should like to be mis- tress of Weyland Court. That would be grand, if he wasn't there too. A.nd yet to have him always looking at me with these solemn eyes of his, as if — well — as if he was going to begin another sermon ; it's hardly worth it, Harry. And after all, everybody must like a man better than a preaching doll. And true love — oh ! Harry — what a thing that is to read about in the story-books !" " Ay — Alma — it is. True Love will wash, as the song says !" " And then — " she burst into a low laugh — " only think, Harry, what a rage father would be in. He'd go round — how he would go round ! And he couldn't beat me to a mash, as he used to say he would, because — " " Because," said Harry, huskily, " I'd beat any man to a hun- dred mashes as offered to raise his hand again my little girl." CHAPTER XXYII. ""We may lire so happy tlicra That the spirits of the air, Envying lis, may even entice To our healing paradise The polluting multitude." Miranda allowed a fortnight to pass after Alan's engagement before she drove over to make a closer acquaintance with the young lady, her future sister-in-law, as she began to say to her- self. Mrs. Bostock was a friend of many years' standing, but with her daughter Miranda had but little intercourse, and with the great Stephen Bostock, her husband, none at all. It was therefore lucky that when she drove over to the farm, the Bailiff, whose approaching connection with the Great caused him to assume overwhelming airs, graces, and ease of familiarity, was out on the farm, bullying the labourers. Alma, too, was down in the village on some quest of her own, and Mrs. Bostock alone Was in the place to receive her visitor. Bhe was ashamed aud confused, this es-ladj's maid. It 2o8 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. seemed a dreadful thing to her that Miss IMiranda, of all peopU in the world, should come to her house under the circumstances. For, like everybody else, she regarded her daughter as one about to step into the place long reserved for Miss Dalmeny. " Oh ! dear, Miss Miranda," she cried. " Is it you ? Come in, do. And I more than half ashamed to look you in the face. Let him walk the pony into the shade. And where will you sit ? In the porch ? Well, it is fresh and airy here, with the flowers and all. And how well you are looking, and what a lovely frock you've got on ! But you always were as beautiful as flowers in May." " Perhaps the fine feathers make a fine bird, Mrs. Bostock." But Mrs. Bostock shook her head. " No," she said. " That's what they say, but it's nonsense. 'Tis but a jay in peacock's plumes, all done and ended. That's what I say to Alma : ' Trick yourself out,' I say, 'just as you like,' It's what I say to Bostock, and it makes him mad. ' Put what you like on the gell,' I say, ' and she's Alma Bostock still.' Lady ? Not a bit of a lady. You might " her eyes wandered from the flower to the vegetable garden. " You might as well plant a onion in the flower-bed and think you'll get a tulip." " I came to see you on purpose about Alma." Mrs. Bostock, a little relieved by the declaration of sentiments which, she felt, did her credit in Miranda's eyes, sat down in the porch opposite her visitor with folded hands. It was a pretty little rustic porch, with roses and honeysuckle climbing about the sides, like a cottage-porch on the stage. " Yes," Miranda repeated ; " I came to see you about Alma, now that she is going to be a kind of sister-in-law." " No, Miss Miranda, I won't have that said. There's shame and foolishness ah'eady in letting her marry Master Alan to gratify a whim. Don't let her never say that she's your sister-in-law. Sister, indeed ! I'd sister her. And nothing but misery before him." This way of looking at things disconcerted Miranda, who had expected a sort of apologetic triumph. " Why misery ?" she asked. " For every reason. Miss Miranda," said Mrs. Bostock. " First, Mr. Dunlop don't care for the gell, not as a gell should be cared for ; and second, the gell don't care for him. And if that wasn't enough, I ask you what pleasure in life can he have Avith a gell who isn't a lady ? And nothing will make her a lady neither." Mrs. Bostock spoke from her experience of gentlefolk, and what she said was true enough, as JMiranda very well knew. "But the case is unusual," she pleaded. "Alan wants to marry a girl v/ho "will help him in his plans of life. Surely. THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 209 Mrs. Bost3ck, you must own that be is the most disinterested and the noblest of men." " StufP an' nonsense !" replied the Bailiff's wife. " Let poor people alona to worry through in their own way. And as for Alma helping him, if ever she is his wife, which I can't believe will ever be, so unnatural it is, she won't stir her little finger for anybody but herself. And as for joining in this, that, and the other, all she thinks about now, day and night, is to be mistress of Weyland Court. And if it wasn't for that I don't believe even her father would make her marry him." " Oh ! but, Mrs. Bostock. Your own daughter !" " If a mother don't know her ovv'n child, no one knows her. Alma's growed up at my a[)ron- strings, and I know her ways There's only one thing for har, and that's a strong man whom slie will be afraid of. She's afraid of Mr. Dunlop, in a wa«7 ; but not the way I mean ; and when she's got over her shyness v/ith him, she'll begin her tricks. Why, already, she's deceived him at every turn." "How?" " He gives her books to read. She pretends to read them. She learns little bits and says them by heart, so as to make him think that she has read them all. Deep ? There's no telling how deep the gell is. After all, we were all gells once, and many's the time I've told a fib to my lady when I ran out for a minute, to meet my Stephen in the stable-yard. But then I was not going to stick myself up for a lady." There was a certain amount of personal jealousy in Mrs. Bostock's feelings. She had hitherto prided herself in her lady's-maid's position and the knowledge it gave her of gentle- folks' ways. Now, this superiority, as soon as her daughter was promoted to the actual position of a lady, would be reft from her. Also, she had a genuine feeling that the honour of the Dunlop family was impugned by this mesalliance. Keedless to repeat that her husband sympathised with neither of these feelings, but, on the contrary, used violent language on what he was pleased to consider the unnatural attitude of a mother. It was not pleasant for JMiranda to hear that the girl on whom Alan built such hopes was beginning with little deceptions. " But, Mrs. Bostock," she said, trying to make an excuse, " Alma is very young, and we must make allowances. She docs not understand that it would be better to tell him clearly that the books are at present too hard for her. She will find out, presently, that it is best to have no concealment from him." Mrs. Bostock sniffed, and tossed her head. " You young ladies," she said, " little know. What with shifts and straits, and bad temper, and violent ways, most gells go ou 14 210 THE MONKS OF THELEMA, for ever with some deception or anotlier. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever so sly. And they think that no one sees through them." " It is because they do not know," said Miranda, " how much better it always is to be perfectly and entirely open with every- body." " It's their nature to," said Mrs. Bostock. " But you must let me do what I can," Miranda continued. " If Alma will let me be her friend, one may do a great deal more by talking, and — and by example, than by finding fault. I want to help her for the sake of Alan, you knoAv, entirely." " Yes, Miss Mira.nda, I do know. And after being with him for so many years like— like -" " Like brother and sister." " Like brother and sister together, it must be nothing short of dreadful to see him take up with our Alma." " Not quite dreadful," said Miranda kindly. " Of course we should all have preferred to see him marry in his own rank." " And Lord Alwyne, too ! Poor dear gentleman !" sighed Mrs. Bostock with real sympathy. " But there — here's Alma coming home with the fal-lals she went out to buy." Alma pushed open the garden-gate and tripped up the walk with her light elastic step. " She is a pretty girl," Miranda said, watching her from the porch. Pretty she certainly was. And this afternoon she looked animated, happy, and bright, with a flush in her cheek and a light in her eye. She had, indeed, succeeded in squeezing a sovereign out of her mother — part of certain money entrusted to Mrs. Bostock by Alan for her behalf — and had gone to the village shop to get the fal-lals imported especially for her from Athel- ston. On the way she had met Black Bess and interchanged a few compliments, in which she felt herself to have the supe- riority. Had Alan heard these remarks, he would not have felt happier. She wore the grey stuff dress with blue ribbons which her mother had made for her ; she had a light straw hat upon her head, and her long bright hair lay in curls and waves over her shoulders. I regret to say that at sight of Miranda the light went out of Alma's eyes, the smiles from her lips, the brightness from her forehead. She turned quite pale, save for an angry red spot in either cheek. This was the real lady, the lady whom she could ape but never imitate, the lady whoni her mother held up to her as the impossible standard, and Mr. Dunlop as the standard to which he would have her attain. She was sick of Miss Dalmeny's name. " Miranda," said Mr. Dunlop, " thinks 60 and so ;" or, " Miranda wouid. I believe., advise you in such THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 211 a •way ;" or, " Miranda would like you to act in this ov the other W'.ay." Always at school, always engaged upon a hopeless copy, of which Miss Dalmeny was the model. And only five minutes before Black Bess had taunted her with the accusation that, though engaged to marry Mr. Dunlop, everybody knew that ]\Iiss Dalmeny was the only woman he truly loved, as she, poor Alma, would surely find out to her cost, when it was too late. And she added, this kind and friendly maiden, that she sincerely pitied her, and had done, ever since she persuaded Mr. Exton, by promising she only knew what, to give her the golden apple. Therefore it is quite comprehensible that Alma was not delighted to see Miranda, or desirous of forming a close alliance with her. " How do you do. Alma ?" said Miranda, keeping her hand for a little. " I would not come for a few days after I heard of your engagement, because I wanted you to feel a little settled first. I hope we shall be very good friends." " Alma should be proud and grateful," said her mother. Alma said nothing. Miranda saw by the gleam of her eyes that she Vfas neither proud nor grateful, only, for some reason of her own, resentful. But Miranda was not to be beaten. What reason had the girl to be resentful ? " I am going into the village to the library, Alma," she said. " Will you turn back and come with me ? Unless you are tired. We shall find Alan there, very likely." " I am not at all tired," said Alma reluctantly, because she neither wanted to see Alan herself, nor did she want Miranda to see him alone. " I will go back with you." She tossed her paper package on the bench and turned to walk down the garden path, leading the way in a sullen and defiant manner, not pretty at all, nor significant of the Higher Culture. Mrs. Bostock shook her head. " Jealousy, that is," she said. "Alma's jealous of you. Miss Miranda. Well— to think that I should live to see my daughter ealous of Miss Dalmeny !" It was not pride, but in sorrow that she spoke. Alma volunteered no remark on the way to the library, but she was glad to see in the distance Black Bess herself at an open window, watching her as she walked side by side with Miss Dalmeny. There were, then, compensations. It was something to walk side by side with the only woman — and she a lady — whom Mr. Dunlop truly loved, and to feel that she would not let him. Miranda tried to set the girl at her ease, but in vain, Alma was sulky and awkward. 14-2 212 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " Will you come to Dalmeny Hall, and stay with me, Alma ?'^ she asked. " Stay with you, Miss Miranda ?" Alma opened her eyes wide. •' Yes ; we are very quiet at the Hall, if you do not mind that. I must make your acquaintance now, and we must be very good friends for the future." Alma murmured something in reply, she hardly knew what. She was walking with Miss Dalmeny. Black Bess was watch- ing her with envy and all uncharitableness, which was like blackberry jam to her heart, and Miss Dalmeny was inviting her to stay at the Hall. To stay at the Hall ! To be sure, there would be something truly awful in the way of perpetual good manners to put up with, and how ladies and gentlemen can endure to be always on tiptoe was beyond poor Alma's comprehension. But then the grandeur : to think how her father would go round like a turkeycock in the farmyard, with swelling breast and head erect, proclaiming that his girl was at Dalmeny Hall ! Perhaps she had been wrong to be so full of jealousy and sulkiness. Perhaps Miss Dalmeny meant well after all ; very likely she ■thought that, as she could not have Alan for herself, it would be well to make friends with those who could. Perhaps, too, she had not grasped the whole possibilities of the situation. As she walked demurely by the side of the young lady she became conscious of the extraordinary difference between her own frock and Miss Dalmeny 's costume. And without realising that to wear such a costume required an education, she at once began to build dreams in her own mind of how such a dress, with such a hat and such gloves, should be her own. No doubt at sight of them Black Bess would fairly burst with spite. In the midst of this pleasing dream they arrived at the Library. Of course it was not to be expected that anybody would be there on this hot July afternoon, when the boys and girls were sleepily droning to the master in the school, the schoolmaster was sleepily droning to the boys and girls, the cobbler was falling asleep over his work and his latest work on Atheism, the very labourers in the fields — it was just before the harvest — were sleepily contemplating the golden grain about to fall beneath their sickles, and even the Bailiff was sleepily musing on the greatness of the future. All the world was sleepy, all the world was at rest, and the white walls of the Library — the ex-Dissenting Chapel — looked thirsty, hot, and unin\-iting. Two habitues, however, were within it, the usual two — Alan Dunlop, reading and making notes &,t the table, which, by THE MONKS UF THELEMA. 213 constant use, he had made his own ; and Prudence Driver, tho librarian. She, poor thinj, was en^a^cd in a statistical return — Alan Dunlop was as exigcant in the matter of statistical returns as the Education Department. She was carefully extracting from her book the solid crumbs of comfort : such afj that an inquirer had taken Euclid from the shelves once during the year — she omitted to mention tliat he brought the philosopher back in five minutes with an apology : she noted down the gratifying fact that Mill's Works had been twice taken from the shelves, once knocked down by accident, and once asked for by mistake ; she found, to her joy, that inquiries had been made (by the Squire, but she did not say so) after Darwin, Carlyle, Tennyson, Froudc, Huxley, Freeman, Swinburne, IMorris, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer, and ' Alexander Bain ; that Robert Browning's latest poems had been taken down — by the Vicarage girls, though this did not appear ; and that works not in the librarj', such as Volney, Toland, Voltaire's Dictionnaire Pldlosophique, Clarke's Critical Review, and such, had been asked after more than once. In fact, it was the cobbler, who, whenever he was a little drunk, used to drop in and terrify the girl by demanding these and other atheistical productions. As for the remaining books in request, they were vain and frivolous things, novels, story- books, travel books, anything but such as inform the intellect and advance knowledge. And yet, when Prudence Driver's sheet of returns was complete, it was such as a statistical IMember of Parliament would have contemplated with the keenest satisfaction. " Can we," he might have asked, " can we any longer speak of the backward state of our village education, when in a small place of five hundred inhabitants such a return is possible? What do we see? Euclid, Mill, Bain, Spencer, Carlyle, Huxley, DaL-win, Arnold, and Tennyson iu eager request ; Volney, Toland, and Voltaire asked for— what would honourable members wish for more, even in the Bodleian or the University Library of Cambridge ?" The quiet, pale-faced girl, who alone, with Miranda, believed in the young Reformer, looked up eagerly as the visitors entered the library. Perhaps it might be some new convert to the glories of self -culture, somebody really wanting to read Mill. No. It was ]Mi-s Miranda, and with her— Alma. At sight of her Pru- «ience Driver resumed her task, a set gloom suddenly developing on her, face. Alma Bostock represented the one false, the fatally Vc o move taken by Mr. Dunlop. Her instinct told her that there Tould be nothing in common between her Prophet and a girl whose character and conduct were of the most frivolous. And here was IMiss Miranda r.ctuslly walking about with her ! Did they not know, then ? 214 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. " You, Miranda, and Alma ! And together ! This is vei*y kind, Miranda," cried Alan, starting from his chair. " What brings you here ?" " I was calling on Alma, and we thought we would come down here and find you out," Miranda replied, speaking for Alma as well as herself. " We wanted to know how you are getting on?" " I am getting on badly," said Alan. " There is no possible doubt on that point. But we shall do better presently, shall we not. Alma ?" Alma looked up and smiled, but not with her eyes. Prudence Driver noticed, w.th a pang of wrath, that there was no sympa- thy in her look. How could a man be fooled by such a girl ! She dug her pen into the ink, and went on with her statistics. " ' Swiss Family Robinson,' six times taken out ; ' Robinson Crusoe,' eight times ; ' Pilgrim's Progress/ twenty times ;" and BO on. " I have quite decided on giving up the field-work," said Alan, " After nearly a year of it, I think I may claim to have tried by actual experience all that a farm labourer has to do." " And about the eighteen shillings a week, Alan ?" asked Miranda, smiling. "Well" — he smiled too; it was the one of his failures of which he was least ashamed — " there is a great deficit in the ac- counts. Look, I have actually spent five and twenty shillings a week." He drew a paper from his pocket-book, which he handed to Miranda, who looked at it and passed it to Alma. *' And yet, you see, the item of beer does not enter into tho account at all." " They have cheated you," said Alma, rather grimly. Pru- dence Driver started. How could Alma know what she had long suspected ? She forgot that she was a little stay-at- home, while Alma went about and beard the truth. " Who has cheated me ?" asked Alan. " Everybody has cheated you. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the milkman, the boj-s at the store. They all charge you double what they charge us, and they give you bad weight. Why, we have all known that ever since you came here. What did you expect, Mr. Dunlop ?" " Is it possible ? I have always trusted what they say." Ha spoke in a helpless way. "Do you mean. Alma, that everybody in the village is dishonest ?" " Everybody," she replied, calmly. She would have added, " And my father the worst of all ;" but she dreaded the paternal wrath. " Everybody," said Alma. " This, Miranda," observed the Reformer, "only shows ons practical and very useful side of our engagement. Alma can THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 215 begin her career of usefulness by putting a stop to thesa wretched little rogueries. She will make them feel how utterly degrading are their cheating ways. What can be done with people who steal ? The Higher Culture necessitates, as a mere foundation, the possession, not only of simple honesty, but also that of Honour— the Principle which in the Modern School re- places or supplements Religion." " But, Alan," said Miranda, " it is dreadful to think that you have been cheated all these months, and have been starving yourself to keep within an impossible allowance." He shook his head. " I have not been starving, because I have exceeded my allowance by something like six and twenty pounds, which means ten shillings a week," "What is the Village Parliament doing all the time, Alan ?'' asked Miranda. " We have closed it. Nobody came after the supper was sup- pressed, and so we were obliged to dissolve sine die. Do not ask me about anything, Miranda. All has been one great failure, even the Co-operative Store and the Good Liquor Bar. Would you believe that the people prefer to buy their groceries at the village shop, v/here they are dearer and adulterated, and their beer at the Spotted Lion, where it is mixed with sugar and treacle and all sorts of stuff, instead of the pure Allsopp we sell at the Good Liquor Bar ?" " It seems stupid beyond all belief," said Miranda. "No it isn't," interposed Alma, in her half-sullen way. "It isn't stupid at all." " What do you mean, Alma ?" asked Alan. " I mean that just as you are cheated by the butcher and the baker, so you are cheated by your shopmen." " HoAV do you know that. Alma ?" " I know it — because I know it." It was not her business to tell Mr. Dunlop that she had heard the character of the tv»fo young men in Athelston, that she knew how they carried on be- tween Saturday and Monday, and that her father made an open scoff, every day, of the shameless way in whi«h those noble twin institutions v/ere conducted. " But in vvdiatway — how can they cheat 3'OU?"Alan asked, " They have orders to put every order dov/n in a book. The profits are to be divided among those who purchase in propor- tion to their purchases." " Profits !" Alma laughed derisively. " Please explain. Alma." " One of them sands the sugar, mixes the tea with sloe-leaves, and waters the tobacco. The other waters the beer, and makes a sort of mess — T don't know how — with the porter. And then they don't put down what is bought. Bless you, do you think 2i6 THE MONKS OF THELEMA. our people are going to be so particular as to see tlieir orders entered in a book ? So it isn't a bit cheaper, and nothing is a bit better than at the shop over the way. There, Misa Miranda !" ■ She hurled her shot as if it was a matter of deep personal concern with Miss Dalmeny that the shop should go well. "And every Saturday," she continued, "both those precious boys go off to Athelston together." " To see their relations ?" said Alan. " I know." " No, to get drunk and smoke at a harmonic meeting. Blcsg you, everybody knows it. They've been seen there, times and times." This ■Was pleasant intelligenco. Prudence Driver, meantime, had left her work, and creeping round in her noiseless way, stood behind Alan's chair. " No, Alma Bostock," she said, " everybody does not know it. / do not. None of my own people know it. If it is true, hew do you know it ?"' " That doesn't signify," she replied. " Let Mr. Dunlop look into the books, and he will see." The fact was, of course, that Bailiff Bostock, having to deal officially with the store, very early discovered the wrong-doing, set a trap, caught the offenders, used them for his own purpose, and made no secret of what he had done at home. " It feels," said Alan, stretching out his hands helplessly, " as if one was surrounded by inextricable meshes. Ignorance and habit is expected, Miranda. But I hadn't, I confess, bargained for dishonesty." " Then," said Alma, " you bought a pig in a poke." It is, to be sure, a homely proverb, but perhaps there was no absolute necessity for Alan to shudder, or for Miranda to con- template steadily the point of her parasol. ^Vorse things might be — have been — said by young ladies of country education. Yet it did seem, even to Prudence Driver, as if there was a certain incongruity in Mr. Dunlop's bride talking of pigs in a poke. Then Alma, feeling really as if there was no longer any reason to be afraid either of her betrothed, or of Miss Dalmeny, so long as she could communicate these startling items of in- telligence, sat boldly on the table, with her feet dangling, and her hands on either side clasping the table-edge, and, all uncon- scious that she was, even to Prudence Driver, a very personifi- cation of ungracefulness — to be sure, Prudence read books and had opinions — went on wdth those startling revelations, which gave her so great a superiority to Miss Dalmeny, who knew nothing. " What did you expect ?" she said. " Lord 1 -what could you THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 217 expect ? You get a lot of farm labourers -^ these common farm labourers — and you give them supper and beer, as mucli supper and beer as they bleed, and you told them to discuss and become a Parliament. AVhat did they do ? What could you expect them to do ? They drank all the beer, and when theie was no more, they went away home. You went to work among them in a smock-frock, which is a thing no gentleman ever dreamed of doing before. They only lauglied at you. I've stood in a corner of the field a dozen times and watched them lauc'hin!' O O at 3'ou. Here's your Library. Who comes to it ? Nobody. There's your Bath-room and Laundry. Who uses it ? Nobodj-. Catch iltmi washing themselves. They never did such a thing in all their lives. There's your Art Gallery. Does anybody ever go to see the pictures ? Ask Prudence Driver." The curator held down her head. The charge was too true. " You had a theatre here, and a circus. They went to them, so long as you paid. When they had to pay for themselves, they went to the Spotted Lion. And as for your village festi- vals, they went to get the drink." All this was hard to bear. And yet Alan felt that it was all literal fact, and he tried to find comfort in the thought that his future wife knew exactly what had happened. "Is it all true, Prudence '?" asked Miranda. " Do you, also, know all these things '?" " All, except about the cheating," the librarian replied. " And how Alma Bostock knows that, if it is true, I cant say." ■' And it doesn't signify, if you could say," retorted Alma, in her least amiable tone. " One thing I can do at once," said Alan, rising. " I can go and get the accounts of the store and the bar, and have them investigated. Good-bye, Miranda. Go home, Alma, and don't tell any one else what you have told me. Does not this, too, Miranda, show that I was justified ? You see, at the very be- ginning, Alma puts her finger on the weak places of my system." What he meant was, that the fact of Alma being up to all the wickedness which had been flourishing at his expense showed his own prudence in choosing a wife from her class, and her fitness in thus being able to read the ways of the people. He left the Library and strode ofL' quickly to the store, which, with the bar, weie quite at the other end of the village. Observe how custom makes people careless. It was a very hot afternoon ; there seemed not the least chance that any one would want to buy anything, and the young men in charge of the two departments, after their one o'clock meal, fell both fast 2i8 The Monks gf thelema, asleep, one on each side of the table in the back office. But the safe, in which the account-books were kept, was Avide open, Alan, seeing the boys asleep, and the safe open, hesitated a little. Then, reflecting that the account-books were his own, he seized them all, four in number, and carried them back with him to the Library. There was no one there at all, now, except the librarian. " Prudence," he said, " do you know book-keeping ?" " A little," she rephcd. " Then let us shut up the Library for the day and go into :he books, as well as we can, together." It was five o'clock T,'hen the two young men awoke, yawned, stretched themselves, and complained of being athirst. One of them proceeded to take such steps as might result in tea ; the other strolled lazily into the shop. The next minute he rushed back with a pallid face and shaking hands. " Good Lord, 'Arry ! the safe's open, and the books are gone !" That was the dreadful fact. . They looked at each other in mute horror for a brief space. Tea, sleepiness, and thirst were all alike forgotten in that su- preme moment, when they suddenly realised that they were found out. " What shall we do, Jeremiah ?" asked Harry. He was pot- boy, and the gentleman with the Scriptural name, who was, as we have before explained, a Particular Baptist, was clerk to the store. " Step it," said Jeremiah curtly. " It don't matter who's got the books. Whoeve.v it is, v.e're done for. Step it." " Where ?" asked Harry. " Anywhei'es," said Jeremiah, " except Athelston way." He went to the till and extracted such small sums as were in it. These he put in his own pocket, leaving nothing for his friend. •' Now," he said, " I'm a-going for a few minutes' walk, I am. Good-bye." He went out of the door, stood a moment in the brilliant sunshine, and then, turning to the left, disappeared. Harry, I'cmaining alone, was seized with so great a trembling, that he Avas fain to draw himself a pint and a half of beer and take that straight down. Then he felt in his pockets. Eighteen- pence. Then he realised the selfishness of Jeremiah in taking all the contents of the till. Truly, they were not much. And then, putting on his hat, he too wont out into the sunshine and look a turn across the fields. I^. is sufficient hero to say of these two young men that THE MONKS OF THELEMA. 219 neither has yet returned to Woyland ; that one of them, Harry, ■\vho realxy was not sncb a bad sort to begin with, has repented, and now wears the Queen's scarlet with credit. Of Jeremiah, I only learned the other day by accident that he has recently been seen at certain suburban meetings, laying the odds with free- dom. I hope he will succeed. As for Prudence, it was not very long before she was enabled to point out that there were two sets of books kept ; that the purchases set down in one varied from one- half to one-fifth of those set down in the other ; and that, latterly, save in the case of the Squire himself, or Miss Dalmeny, nothing at all v.'as set down in either book. The conclusion was obvious. Alan went into Athelston and saw the police inspector. But when the civil power arrived, the birds were flown, and it only remained to put up the shutters. This, alas ! was the end of the AVeyland Co-operation Store, and the Weyland Good Liquor League. •*o' CHAPTER XXVIIL " You speak of the people As if jou were a fjod to punish, noS A man of their iuiiruiity. " Mr. Paul Roxdelet, Fellow of Lothian, was growing daily more and more ill at ease. It was borne in upon him with an ever-increasing persistency, as the voice of a warning which would not be silenced, that in a brief three months, unless he took orders in the interval, he would be— it cost him agonies to put the situation into words — actually without an incom.e ! He would be absolutely penniless. He would have to work for the daily bread which had, hitherto, always come to him without his even asking for it, unless, as an unclergraduate, at perfunc- tory College Chapel ; he, to whom the light bondage of a College Lectureship was too great a burden, whose haughty soul dis- dained the fetters of stipulated work, however slight, v/ould positively have to descend into the arena and do his utmost, like