out of a chaos wrought a cosmos.  “Would,” he said to himself, “that ever from the church door went forth such a spirit of harmony and healing of peace and life!  But the church’s foes are they of her own household, who with the axes and hammers of pride and exclusiveness and vulgar priestliness, break the carved work of her numberless chapels, yea, build doorless screens from floor to roof, dividing nave and choir and chancel and transepts and aisles into sections numberless, and, with the evil dust they raise, darken for ages the windows of her clerestory!”

The curate was thinking of no party, but of individual spirit.  Of the priestliness I have encountered, I can not determine whether the worse belonged to the Church of England or a certain body of Dissenters.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE GATE-LODGE.

Mr Bevis had his horses put to, then taken away again, and an old hunter saddled.  But half-way from home he came to a burst bridge, and had to return, much to the relief of his wife, who, when she had him in the house again, could enjoy the rain, she said:  it was so cosey and comfortable to feel you could not go out, or any body call.  I presume she therein seemed to take a bond of fate, and doubly assure the every-day dullness of her existence.  Well, she was a good creature, and doubtless a corner would be found for her up above, where a little more work would probably be required of her.

Polwarth and his niece Ruth rose late, for neither had slept well.  When they had breakfasted, they read together from the Bible:  first the uncle read the passage he had last got light upon—­he was always getting light upon passages, and then the niece the passage she had last been gladdened by; after which they sat and chatted a long time by the kitchen fire.

“I am afraid your asthma was bad last night, uncle dear,” said Ruth.  “I heard your breathing every time I woke.”

“It was, rather,” answered the little man, “but I took my revenge, and had a good crow over it.”

“I know what you mean, uncle:  do let me hear the crow.”

He rose, and slowly climbing the stair to his chamber, returned with a half sheet of paper in his hand, resumed his seat, and read the following lines, which he had written in pencil when the light came: 

  Satan, avaunt! 
    Nay, take thine hour;
  Thou canst not daunt,
    Thou hast no power;
  Be welcome to thy nest,
  Though it be in my breast.

  Burrow amain;
    Dig like a mole;
  Fill every vein
    With half-burned coal;
  Puff the keen dust about,
  And all to choke me out.

  Fill music’s ways
    With creaking cries,
  That no loud praise
    May climb the skies;
  And on my laboring chest
  Lay mountains of unrest.

  My slumber steep
    In dreams of haste,
  That only sleep,
    No rest I taste—­
  With stiflings, rimes of rote,
  And fingers on the throat.