"Oh!" was Lovell's rejoinder, and with that he reclosed the little door he had just opened, and with a countenance exhibiting a slight shade of disappointment, tempered by amusement, he sat down opposite to Nugent and waited patiently for the latter to open his mind more fully.

It was some time before that reserved nature unwound itself completely, and enabled Lovell to comprehend the rights of the case, and the causes of his uneasiness. Lovell's first impulse was to adjourn the interview, and confer with. the Rev. Augustine Smithers, late of Oriel, in the meantime. But there was no room for delay, and Lovell was thrown upon his own unaided resources. He took Nugent's hand with a sudden friendliness and said "I tell you what, my dear fellow; I don't see what you can do but go to the young lady's parents, and put yourself entirely in their hands. Miss Usherwood-I beg a thousand pardons-I mean the person to whom you are attached, is so very young, that they should certainly be the arbiters, and decide for or against a marriage."

"But I fear," said Nugent, "I fear we are not suited to each other! I fear there is too much discrepancy of tastes, not to say inequality of age!"

"Excuse me," said Lovell, "but you ought to have thought of that before."

"True enough," rejoined Nugent; "but you see I never thought she would care for me. However, I will take your advice, and put myself in her parents' hands;" and he rose to depart.

"By the by," interrupted Lovell, "how came it you were not at the vestry meeting yesterday?"

"Why, to tell the truth," said Nugent, "I was afraid I should be forced to take part against you, and so, as you had plenty of adversaries without me, I stayed away."

"I had, indeed," rejoined Lovell. "There was a sad exhibition of insubordinate, not to say unchristian, feeling!

"Your proposal was to do away with some of the pews, was it not?" asked Nugent.

"With all! I wished to destroy them all! I wish I could sweep them from the face of the earth. They are blots and ulcers on the fair face of our beloved mother the Church."

"Well, and how did you get on?"

"Oh! I concisely explained how offensive and unsightly those huge deal boxes without lids must be in the eyes of

'every man of enlightened judgment, enlarged religious sympathies, and correct architectural taste.' I thought this rather neat, but it made no impression beyond eliciting a laugh from your brother churchwarden, who, notwithstanding his imbecile condition, was brought into the vestry for form's sake. Then I urged upon the rate-payers the impropriety of thrusting Christ's poor into the worst places in the church, where they bitterly felt the cold and could scarce hear their clergyman's voice-still no impression! At last I touched upon the sin of making distinctions between rich and poor, and advocated complete equality in the house of prayer. Immediately the whole place was alive. There was positively a row. Everybody found a voice. I had fairly excited them at last. Farmer Gorse shouted out that there ought-ought,' he said, with a thump on the table-there ought to be a dif ference between rich and poor in church. That I wished to turn the world upside down. That my opinions were contrairy to human nature.' As for Mr. Salter, the thin, smooth-tongued grocer, he leant across the table and began to prove the scriptural propriety of pews by the text in St. Matthew's gospel, directing us to go into our closets when we pray, and shut the door,' winding up by the quotation, The poor shall never cease out of the land.' On which Farmer Gorse cried, Hear, hear,' till he was nearly choked! As if that had anything to do with it! Is it not deeply distressing? Is not this ignorance, this moral obliquity, almost appalling? Now don't you think so, Mr. Churchwarden? Come, now!" and Lovell put his hand appealingly on Nugent's shoulder.

clean

"You tried for too much," said Nugent; "I don't particularly like those large pews, and think the poor are somewhat hardly used; but I don't like free seats; they are so uncomfortable, not to say Popish."

"Why, the members of the Roman communion," replied Lovell, "have no free seats. They usually hire chairs for the occasion. Fixed benches are Anglican, but not Roman." Nugent looked as if he thought Anglican' and 'Roman' were convertible terms, but said he liked to be sure of his place at church."

6

"Smithers says," observed Lovell, "that at Sweetborough they suffer no inconvenience whatever. The congregation, generally upwards of thirty, all know their seats, and there is

no confusion at all!

"I tell you what," exclaimed Nugent, "I do not mind your

"In

lowering the sides of my old family pew"-this he said with the air of having made up his mind to a great sacrifice. fact, to show you I really do not like pews, I don't mind if you remove it altogether! It is not the original family pew, because that, you know, my father pulled down, thinking it too grand for a man who was earning his bread, and I don't care if you raze it to the ground. But mind, Lovell, you must put me a door to my open bench."

"I will—I will!" cried Lovell, much elated, “and then there's the strangers' pew?"

"Pull that down, and fix some open seats for the old people, the poor and sickly; there will be room for twenty, at least, if you manage

well."

The strangers' pew was a huge square enclosure, opposite to Nugent's pew, occupying considerable space. It was intended for occasional visitors to the parish; but, as visitors were rare, it was usually invaded and occupied by all the idle young men and women in the neighbourhood, who, beneath the shadow of its wooden walls, eat nuts, carved their names on the seats, and wrote love-letters to one another. Lovell accepted the offer with joy, and, rushing to his bookcase, began to hunt for sketches of poppy-heads, panels, and mouldings for Nugent to choose from. That gentleman, however, felt his thoughts wandering elsewhere, and begged to take leave.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE YEOMANRY AT RENTWORTII.

NUGENT pursued his way homewards, and, mounting his bay mare, galloped off in the direction of Beaumont House. No sooner, however, had he crossed the field, and entered the main road, than he began to slacken speed until the bay mare dropped into a walk.

His line of policy was not so clearly defined as to render him very impatient for the interview with Lady Maud. The animal he rode soon began to evince unmistakeable sympathy with her master's deliberative mood. Occasionally she would halt in the middle of the road, occasionally diverge to one side, and browse calmly on the leafy hedge, turning back an in

quiring ear as if to ascertain what Nugent thought of it. When her master shook the loose reins with admonitory impatience, she would step out with cheerful alacrity, as if it was what she was just wishing to do, but would again begin to stray and saunter along the road as soon as Nugent relapsed once more into a musing reverie.

The bay mare had thrust her head over a gate into a field, and was endeavouring to make acquaintance with a spindle-legged colt performing various idiotic capers a few yards off, when the sound of a horse galloping towards them at full speed along the road, roused both Nugent and his horse from their respective trains of thought.

The next moment a man, booted and spurred, approached at a gallop, but diminished his pace as he came near, finally pulling up short as soon as he was face to face with Nugent. He held out a packet of letters to Nugent, exclaiming

"The yeomanry are called out, sir! There are riots on the Rentworth Grand Junction. The navvies have torn up the rails, and half killed the superintendent and the clerk of the works. The police seized the ringleaders, and carried them prisoners to the inn at Rentworth; but the navvies have been joined by a body of miners, and the town is in danger of being attacked. Colonel Plover hopes you'll get your troop together in time to meet him at Rentworth by sunset. You are not to

go by the moor, but bear away to the right to Downbury Hill and take up some of Captain Pinkie's troop on your road. He has had some trouble with the farmers because it's harvest time, but they are coming together at last."

Nugent instantly turned his horse homewards, but at a steady pace, for there was plenty of work for the animal between that time and sunset. He read his written instructions as he went along, occasionally questioning the messenger who accompanied him.

For some weeks past, great discontent had prevailed amongst the navigators and labourers along the Rentworth Grand Junction Line. The company had reduced their rates of payment both by day-work and by the piece, and shown increasing irregularity in the weekly advances of cash to the contractors, and to the labourers immediately in their employ. The last dividend declared had been at the rate of four per cent., but it was paid, as the initiated well knew, in great measure out of capital, and not out of the receipts on the completed portion of the line. A committee had been appointed at the

meeting of the shareholders to audit the accounts of the company, and thoroughly investigate the proceedings of the directors. That committee sat daily, and daily broke up with black looks and ill-suppressed indignation. All this added to the impatience and excitement prevailing amongst the gangs of labourers along the unfinished portion of the line. Provisions were dear, and a strike in the neighbouring coal-pits had let loose upon society a number of men, full of bitterness of spirit and ripe for mischief. At this juncture came the great smash and exposure of the Rentworth Railway. It was discovered, through the haze intentionally flung over its affairs, that the company was plainly and undeniably insolvent. One or two directors absconded to Boulogne. A secretary bolted to America, having previously left his hat and stick by the bank of a river, to make the public suppose he had drowned himself. Several subordinate employés thought this a bright idea, and did the same thing; so that for two or three days there were picked up on the brink of the river hats rather the worse for wear, whose owners had vanished from the

scene.

It was Thursday when the worst was known, and the men working on the line were paid on a Friday. The committee of shareholders, of which the directors were ex-officio members, decided on appealing, as they termed it, to the good sense of the labourers, and paying them a respectable percentage on wages due, that is to say, two-and-sixpence each, with the promise of more next week. The sub-secretary, deputed to address the men, was received with shouts of execration. A navvy, more impetuous than his comrades, seized a lump of coal from a heap near the station, and flung it at his head. It was the signal for a general outbreak.

The railway terminus at Rentworth was attacked by a mob of about two hundred men, women, and boys. The cash-box, fortunately not heavily laden, was seized, the contents scattered in all directions, and snatched up by the strongest or most active. Much the same scene took place at two or three other stations where the men were in the habit of receiving their money. One station-house was partly burnt and partly

torn down.

After the station-house was destroyed, and the mob for the most part scattered, two or three policemen and a body of special constables arrived on the scene, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in capturing the most obnoxious and most