n dry in
the porch, and led her to the organ-loft. Now the organ was one of great
power; seldom indeed, large as the church was, did they venture its full
force: he requested her to pull out every stop, and send the voice of
the church, in full blast, into every corner of Glaston. He would come
back for her in half an hour and take her home. He desired the sexton to
leave all the doors open, and remember that the instrument would want
every breath of wind he and his boy could raise.

He had just laid hold of his oars, when out of the porch rushed a roar
of harmony that seemed to seize his boat and blow it away upon its
mission like a feather--for in the delight of the music the curate never
felt the arms that urged it swiftly along. After him it came pursuing,
and wafted him mightily on. Over the brown waters it went rolling, a
grand billow of innumerable involving and involved waves. He thought of
the spirit of God that moved on the face of the primeval waters, and out
of a chaos wrought a cosmos. "Would," he said to himself, "that ever
from the church door went forth such a spirit of harmony and healing of
peace and life! But the church's foes are they of her own household, who
with the axes and hammers of pride and exclusiveness and vulgar
priestliness, break the carved work of her numberless chapels, yea,
build doorless screens from floor to roof, dividing nave and choir and
chancel and transepts and aisles into sections numberless, and, with the
evil dust they raise, darken for ages the windows of her clerestory!"

The curate was thinking of no party, but of individual spirit. Of the
priestliness I have encountered, I can not determine whether the worse
belonged to the Church of England or a certain body of Dissenters.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE GATE-LODGE.

Mr Bevis had his horses put to, then taken away again, and an old hunter
saddled. But half-way from home he came to a burst bridge, and had to
return, much to the relief of his wife, who, when she had him in the
house again, could enjoy the rain, she said: it was so cosey and
comfortable to feel you could not go out, or any body call. I presume
she therein seemed to take a bond of fate, and doubly assure the
every-day dullness of her existence. Well, she was a good creature, and
doubtless a corner would be found for her up above, where a little more
work would probably be required of her.

Polwarth and his niece Ruth rose late, for neither had slept wel