HOW ANDREW MADE ONE ENEMY, AND WAS LIKE TO HAVE ANOTHER.

And now my happy time was over; its story is all told so far; and I must write of darker days that came after.

The living of West Fazeby, left vacant because of Mr. Truelocke’s sturdiness in his opinion, did not wait long for an incumbent, but was quickly bestowed on a Mr. Lambert; a man not troubled with awkward scruples, for he had been a strong Presbyterian under the Commonwealth, and now was become as strong a Churchman; but an honest man as the world goes now, and not hard-hearted.  He had another better living where he resided; so our parish was served by his curate, a Mr. Poole, a young man of shallow capacity and but little learning.  Mr. Truelocke, however, went to hear him preach;—­a strange sight it was to see so reverend, saintly, and able a minister sitting humbly as a listener, while that weak-headed lad spoke from the pulpit;—­and he said the youth preached true doctrine; so he continued going to hear him, and encouraged our household to do the like, which they all did, except Andrew.  That Mr. Truelocke himself did not join in the new formal prayers was not noticed, his presence at sermon-time seeming to give mighty satisfaction to Mr. Poole, who would often walk up to the Grange of a Lord’s Day evening, to ask Mr. Truelocke’s opinion of his handling of a text, and would even beg to hear his exposition of the same; when several of our neighbours would also come in and listen thankfully to their old pastor’s words; neither we nor they dreaming that such practices could be deemed unlawful, as they soon were, being stigmatized as conventicles, and heavily punished.  But this did not happen in Mr. Poole’s time.

There were other things much less agreeable to us under the new order of things.  A monstrous new Maypole was set up on the village green, by command of a gentleman very powerful in the parish, whom I shall soon have to name, and we were told the old heathen May-games would be observed at the right season,—­as indeed they were when the time came; meantime the one or two taverns in West Fazeby began to stand open on a Sunday, and were much more frequented than they used to be, men who had formerly been very careful to shun them now going to them boldly in open day; which plainly discovered their former decent carriage to have been a hollow show.  Althea and I chanced one day to be passing the Royal Oak, as the chief inn of the village had been new christened, just as there reeled out of it a young gentleman whom every one had deemed a most hopeful pious youth, Mr. Truelocke in particular having a great opinion of him, though I never liked his demure looks for my part, nor his stiff way of dressing himself.  He was called Ralph Lacy, and was son and heir to old Mr. Lacy of Lacy Manor, a worthy old gentleman, though somewhat austere, who was lately dead; which I suppose partly accounted for the mighty change in his son, who was now clad in silk and velvet, scarlet and gold; and, as I have said, could not walk too straight at that moment.