a Popish yoke
That bravest men came forth
To part wi' life and dearest ties,
And a' that life was worth."

JACOBITE BALLAD.

"Ephraim Hebblethwaite!" I cried out.

"I believe so," he said, laughing.

"Where did you come from?"

"From a certain place in the North, called Brocklebank."

"But what brought you to London?" I cried.

"What brought me to London?" he repeated, in quite a different tone,--so
much softer. "Well, Cary, I wanted to see something."

"Have you been to see it?" I asked, more to give myself time to cool
down than because I cared to know.

"Yes, I have been to see it," he said, and smiled.

"And did you find it as agreeable as you expected?"

"Quite. I had seen it before, and I wanted to know if it were spoiled."

"Oh, I hope it is not spoiled!" said I.

"Not at all," said he, his voice growing softer and softer. "No, it is
not spoiled yet, Cary."

"Do you expect it will be?" I was getting cooler now.

"I don't know," he answered, very gravely for him, for Ephraim is not at
all given to moroseness and long faces. "God grant it never may!"

I could not think what he meant, and I did not like to ask him. Indeed,
I had not much opportunity, for he began talking about our journey, and
Brocklebank, and all the people there, and I was so interested that we
did not get back to what Ephraim came to see.

There is a new Vicar, he says, whose name is Mr Liversedge, and he has
quite changed things in the parish. The people are divided about him;
some like him, and some do not. He does not read his sermons, which is
very strange, but speaks them out just as if he were talking to you; and
he has begun to catechise the children in an afternoon, and to visit
everybody in the parish; and he neither shoots, hunts, nor fishes. His
sermons have a ring in them, says Ephraim; they wake you up, Old John
Oakley complains that he can't nap nigh so comfortable as when th' old
Vicar were there; and Mally Crosthwaite says she never heard such goings
on--why, th' parson asked her if she were a Christian!--she that had
always kept to her church, rain and shine, and never missed once! and it
was hard if she were to miss the Christmas dole this year, along o' not
being a Christian. She'd always thought being Church was plenty good
enough--none o' your low Dissenting work: but, mercy on us, she didn't
know what to say to this here parson, that she didn't! A Christian,
indeed! The parson wa