time should come? Ought I not so to
have arranged matters that I myself should have been the first,--to
have postponed the use of the college till such time as I might
myself have been deposited? This had occurred to me often throughout
the whole agitation; but then it had occurred also that none might
perhaps follow me, when under such circumstances I should have
departed!

But in my heart I could forgive Crasweller. For Grundle I felt
nothing but personal dislike. He was anxious to hurry on the
deposition of his father-in-law, in order that the entire possession
of Little Christchurch might come into his own hands just one year
the earlier! No doubt he knew the exact age of the man as well as
I did, but it was not for him to have hastened his deposition. And
then I could not but think, even in this moment of public misery, how
willing Jack would have been to have assisted old Crasweller in his
little fraud, so that Eva might have been the reward. My belief is
that he would have sworn against his own father, perjured himself
in the very teeth of truth, to have obtained from Eva that little
privilege which I had once seen Grundle enjoying.

I was sitting there silent in Crasweller's verandah as all this
passed through my mind. But before I spoke again I was enabled to see
clearly what duty required of me. Eva and Little Christchurch, with
Jack's feelings and interests, and all my wife's longings, must be
laid on one side, and my whole energy must be devoted to the literal
carrying out of the law. It was a great world's movement that had
been projected, and if it were to fail now, just at its commencement,
when everything had been arranged for the work, when again would
there be hope? It was a matter which required legislative sanction in
whatever country might adopt it. No despot could attempt it, let his
power be ever so confirmed. The whole country would rise against him
when informed, in its ignorance, of the contemplated intention. Nor
could it be effected by any congress of which the large majority were
not at any rate under forty years of age. I had seen enough of human
nature to understand its weakness in this respect. All circumstances
had combined to make it practicable in Britannula, but all these
circumstances might never be combined again. And it seemed to me to
depend now entirely on the power which I might exert in creating
courage in the heart of the poor timid creature who sat before me.
I did know t