ss;" and
from beginning to end you might have heard a pin drop, particularly
during one or two of the quotations. When it was ended the buttered-roll
expression had faded from the Canon's face, and his "our young friend"
expression was ready for the chairman's remarks. Londonderry's sitting
down awakened a few sad echoes that were no doubt hand-clappings, but
seemed like the napping of the wings of night-birds frightened by a
light. But the Lit-and-Phils were not frightened; they were entirely
bewildered and rather indignant, that was all. It was characteristic of
their incapacity to grasp the humanity of any subject, even when it was
dangerous, that the criticism which followed was directed almost
entirely against Whitman's metrical vagaries. This was not poetry! Had
not their revered founder, the learned Dr. Ambrose ...

The Canon kindly said, showing his pastoral interest in the local
newspaper, that the verses which their young friend Mr. Rob Clitheroe,
who was present with them that evening, occasionally contributed to the
Coalchester "Argus" were in his opinion better poetry than anything Walt
Whitman had written, though he confessed that his acquaintance with
Walt Whitman was of the slightest. This disastrous compliment sent the
blood to young Clitheroe's cheeks, and he felt surer than ever that he
would never be a real poet,--though, as a matter of fact, he had written
some quite pretty lines.

It was an occasion that of course only the Lit-and-Phils could take
seriously, and the way home to New Zion was a laughter of four beneath
the stars,--Mr. Moggridge's deep guffaws coming every now and again,
like the bay of some distant watch-dog, at the young minister's
brilliant mimicry of the ancient men they had left behind.

Then the gentle voice of little James Whalley took advantage of a
silence: "Isn't it high time that we brought the Renaissance to
Coalchester?"

"Capital!" cried Londonderry; "come in for a bit of supper, all of you,
and let us talk over the plan of campaign."

CHAPTER VIII

THE PLOT AGAINST COALCHESTER

Old Mrs. Talbot had been prepared for some such invasion, and had an
excellent rabbit-pie awaiting them. There was a delightful trait of old
Mrs. Talbot's which I would like to record, a curious chronological
method of remembering great occasions and startling events by the food
of the day. Thus, for example, when with eyes that would still fill with
tears, though it was ten year