“Dost thou not know my nephew Hubert?  Art thou not his friend Martin?”

“I am, indeed.  Tell me, hast thou yet heard aught of my brother Hubert?”

“Nought!  I might say naught, so sad are the tidings a wandering palmer brought us,” and she told him the story of Charybdis.

“Lady,” he said, ’I hope better things.  Nay, I am persuaded his race is not yet run, and that I shall yet see him again in the flesh; weaned by much affliction from some earthly dross which yet encrusts his loving nature.”

“What reason hast thou to give?”

“Only a conviction borne upon me.”

“Wilt thou not return with me?”

“I may not.  I have a mission at Mayfield, whither I am bound.”

“But thou wilt come soon?”

“On Sunday, if I may, I will preach in the chapel of thy castle.”

Need we add how eagerly the offer was accepted?  So they parted for the time.

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It was a day of wondrous beauty, the first Sunday in July that year.

Sweet day, so calm, so fine, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky.

The little chapel was full at the usual hour for the Sunday morning service, which, with our forefathers, was nine o’clock, the hour hallowed by the descent of the Comforter on the day of Pentecost.  The chaplain said mass.  After the creed Martin preached, and his discourse was from the epistle for the day, which was the fourth Sunday after Trinity.

“Ah,” he said, “this day is indeed beauteous, as were the days in Eden.  It is a delight to live and move.  There is joy in the very air; yet beneath all lies the mystery of pain and suffering.

“Gaze forth from the height, beside the mill at Cross-in-Hand, upon God’s beauteous world.  See the graceful downs beyond the forest, stretching away as far as eye can reach, like a fairy scene.  How lovely it all is; but let us penetrate beneath the canopy of leaves and the cottage roof.  Ah, what suffering of man or beast they hide, where on the one hand the wolf, the fox, the wild cat, the hawk, the stoat, and all the birds and beasts of prey tear their victims, and nature’s hand is like a claw, red with blood—­and on the other, beneath the cottage roofs, many a bed-ridden sufferer lies groaning with painful disease, many children mourn their sires, many widows and orphans feel that the light is withdrawn from the world, so far as they are concerned.

“And yet is not God good?  Doth He not love man and beast?  Ah, yes; but sin hath brought death and pain into the world, and the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in bondage until now.

“But meanwhile He hath made suffering the path to glory, and our light affliction, which is but for a moment, shall be rewarded with an eternity of joy, if we but put our whole trust in Him who was made perfect by sufferings, and but calls His weary servants to tread the road He trod before them.”