mother taught them to suckle, are perpetually pulling us backward on the march.  Slaves of custom, forms, shows and superstitions, they are slaves of the priests.  ’They are so in gratitude perchance, as the matter works,’ Dr. Shrapnel admitted.  For at one period the priests did cherish and protect the weak from animal man.  But we have entered a broader daylight now, when the sun of high heaven has crowned our structure with the flower of brain, like him to scatter mists, and penetrate darkness, and shoot from end to end of earth; and must we still be grinning subserviently to ancient usages and stale forms, because of a baggage that it is, woe to us! too true, we cannot cut ourselves loose from?  Lydiard might say we are compelling the priests to fight, and that they are compact foemen, not always passive.  Battle, then!—­The cry was valiant.  Nevertheless, Jenny would certainly insist upon the presence of a parson, in spite of her bridegroom’s ‘natural repugnance.’  Dr. Shrapnel offered to argue it with her, being of opinion that a British consul could satisfactorily perform the ceremony.  Beauchamp knew her too well.  Moreover, though tongue-tied as to love-making, he was in a hurry to be married.  Jenny’s eyes were lovely, her smiles were soft; the fair promise of her was in bloom on her face and figure.  He could not wait; he must off to the parson.

Then came the question as to whether honesty and honour did not impose it on them to deal openly with that gentle, and on such occasions unobtrusive official, by means of a candid statement to him overnight, to the effect that they were the avowed antagonists of his Church, which would put him on his defence, and lead to an argument that would accomplish his overthrow.  You parsons, whose cause is good, marshal out the poor of the land, that we may see the sort of army your stewardship has gained for you.  What! no army? only women and hoary men?  And in the rear rank, to support you as an institution, none but fanatics, cowards, white-eyeballed dogmatists, timeservers, money-changers, mockers in their sleeves?  What is this?

But the prospect of so completely confounding the unfortunate parson warned Beauchamp that he might have a shot in his locker:  the parson heavily trodden on will turn.  ‘I suppose we must be hypocrites,’ he said in dejection.  Dr. Shrapnel was even more melancholy.  He again offered to try his persuasiveness upon Jenny.  Beauchamp declined to let her be disturbed.

She did not yield so very lightly to the invitation to go before a parson.  She had to be wooed after all; a Harry Hotspur’s wooing.  Three clergymen of the Established Church were on the island:  ’And where won’t they be, where there’s fine scenery and comforts abound?’ Beauchamp said to the doctor ungratefully.

’Whether a celibate clergy ruins the Faith faster than a non-celibate, I won’t dispute,’ replied the doctor; ’but a non-celibate interwinds with us, and is likely to keep up a one-storied edifice longer.’