us; but the Major declared that his weather-glass had
turned, which proved that the gale was breaking. The top of the tide
would be at one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he
was rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his
patent concrete.

"My dear, I scarcely like such talk," Mrs. Hockin gently interposed.
"To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the Lord. Remember what
happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his name was Smeaton, or
Stanley, was it? But I dare say you know best. He defied the strength
of the Lord, like the people at the mouth of their tent, and he was
swallowed up."

"Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book. Rasper's fly is waiting for us,
and the parson has no manners. When he drops off, I present to the
living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have it. He
is fond of processions, and all that stuff. The only procession in the
Church of England is that of the lord of the manor to his pew. I will be
the master in my own church."

"Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be. It always was so in my
father's parish. But you must not speak so of our poor George. He may be
'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows what is due to his family,
and he has a large one coming."

We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and buffets of
wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the seaward window
was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth, and the drift of
sea-scud. I tried to look out, but the blur and the dash obscured the
sight of every thing. And though in this lower road we were partly
sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver was several times obliged to
pull his poor horse up and face the wind, for fear of our being blown
over.

That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in the
good old town, at the head of a street whose principal object now
certainly is to lead to it. Three hundred years ago that street had
business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps with fine men and
maids at the time of the Spanish Armada. Its only bravery now was the
good old church, and some queer gables, and a crypt (which was true
to itself by being buried up to the spandrels), and one or two corners
where saints used to stand, until they were pelted out of them, and
where fisher-like men, in the lodging season, stand selling fish caught
at Billingsgate. But to Bruntsea itself the great glory of t