been destroyed. There were large
square pews, lined with green baize, with the names of the families
of the most flourishing ship-owners painted white on the doors;
there were pews, not so large, and not lined at all, for the farmers
and shopkeepers of the parish; and numerous heavy oaken benches
which, by the united efforts of several men, might be brought within
earshot of the pulpit. These were being removed into the most
convenient situations when Molly and Sylvia entered the church, and
after two or three whispered sentences they took their seats on one
of these.

The vicar of Monkshaven was a kindly, peaceable old man, hating
strife and troubled waters above everything. He was a vehement Tory
in theory, as became his cloth in those days. He had two bugbears to
fear--the French and the Dissenters. It was difficult to say of
which he had the worst opinion and the most intense dread. Perhaps
he hated the Dissenters most, because they came nearer in contact
with him than the French; besides, the French had the excuse of
being Papists, while the Dissenters might have belonged to the
Church of England if they had not been utterly depraved. Yet in
practice Dr Wilson did not object to dine with Mr. Fishburn, who was
a personal friend and follower of Wesley, but then, as the doctor
would say, 'Wesley was an Oxford man, and that makes him a
gentleman; and he was an ordained minister of the Church of England,
so that grace can never depart from him.' But I do not know what
excuse he would have alleged for sending broth and vegetables to old
Ralph Thompson, a rabid Independent, who had been given to abusing
the Church and the vicar, from a Dissenting pulpit, as long as ever
he could mount the stairs. However, that inconsistency between Dr
Wilson's theories and practice was not generally known in
Monkshaven, so we have nothing to do with it.

Dr Wilson had had a very difficult part to play, and a still more
difficult sermon to write, during this last week. The Darley who had
been killed was the son of the vicar's gardener, and Dr Wilson's
sympathies as a man had been all on the bereaved father's side. But
then he had received, as the oldest magistrate in the neighbourhood,
a letter from the captain of the _Aurora_, explanatory and
exculpatory. Darley had been resisting the orders of an officer in
his Majesty's service. What would become of due subordination and
loyalty, and the interests of the service, and the chances of