o not think you will do that, papa, after your promise to
Camilla."

She had conquered. No further objection was made to her being as
much as she pleased with the Charnocks as long as they remained at
Rockpier, nor to her correspondence with Frank when he went away,
not to solitary lodgings as before, but to the London house, which
Miles and Anne only consented to keep on upon condition of their
mother sharing it with them.

CHAPTER XXXVII
The Third Autumn

A good man ther was of religion,
That was a poure Persone of a toune;
But rich he was of holy thought and work,
He also was a learned man a clerk.--CHAUCER

Autumn came round again, and brought with it a very different
September from the last.

Willansborough was in a state of commotion. That new Vicar had not
only filled the place with curates, multiplied services in the iron
church, and carried on the building of St. Nicholas in a style of
beauty that was quite affronting to those who were never asked to
contribute to it, but he gave people no peace in their easy
conventional sins, pricked them in their hearts with personal
individual stings, and, worse than all, protested against the races,
as conducted at Wil'sbro'.

And their Member was just as bad! Captain Charnock Poynsett,
instead of subscribing, as part of his duty to his constituents, had
replied by sending his brother Raymond's half-finished letter to the
club, with an equally strong and resolute one of his own, and had
published both in all the local papers.

Great was the fury and indignation of Wil'sbro', Backsworth, and all
the squires around. Of course it was a delirious fancy of poor
Raymond Poynsett, and Miles had been worked upon by his puritanical
wife and ritualistic brother to publish it. Newspapers teemed with
abuse of superstition and pharisaism, and praise of this wholesome,
moral, and 'truly English' sport. Gentlemen, and ladies too, took
the remonstrance as a personal offence, and threatened to visit no
more at Compton; the electors bade him look to his seat, and held
meetings to invite 'Mr. Simmonds Proudfoot,' as he now called
himself, to represent them; and the last week, before the races, the
roughs mobbed him in Water Lane. He rode quietly through them, with
his sailor face set as if against a storm, but when he was out of
the place, he stopped his horse at Herbert Bowater's lodgings, that
his black eye might be washed, and the streams of rotten egg removed