The Cathedral

on S

ear '97--when I first read Stevenson's story of Treasure Island. It is the fashion, I beli

re realistic than Pew or Long John Silver. Realism may depend as truly on a b

it that overtook our town just at this time was very like the spirit that seized upon Dr. Livesey, young Hawkins and the rest when they discovered the dead Buccaneer's map. This is no forced paralle

ng that had been going on for generations was astonishing. Every servant- maid, every errand-boy, every gardener and coachman in Polchester was

life and we could not help but exclaim with little gasps and cries at the wonderful excitement of the history that we saw. Our treasure-hunting was simply for the fun of the thrill of the chase, not at all that we wished harm to a soul in the world. If, on occasion, a slight hin

test stir of the colours in his picture was immediately noticeable. From the mo

situation suddenly fixes itself and stands forward, set full square to the world, as a definite concrete fact. There was a certain Sunday in the April of this year that becam

came into its full glory on that day. Every one gathered there, every one talked to every one else before parting, and the long spaces and silences and pauses of the day allow

le who came to have tea with him after the Sunday Evensong, to reflect lazily, after Sunday supper, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a pipe in his mouth, upon the goodness a

ut a quarter past seven, nearly dressed, he returned into the bedroom, to find Mrs. Brandon also nearly dressed. On this particular day while he drank his tea his wife appeared to be sleeping; that did not make him bound out of bed any the less noisily-after twenty years of married life you do not worry about such things; moreover it was quite time that his wife bestirred herself. At a quarter past

cried. "Aren

fixed stare. The tone in which she said these words was quite new

l. He came clo

"Twenty minutes past seven. I'm sur

y she must be ill. There was so

"You look ill. Why didn't you

ot a headache, and I'm no

" he stammered in his amazement. "You've

r, but turned on her

to the bed, frown

ill, and yet you're not coming to Cele

aid n

e had tried now for many years

d quietly: "What is the matter with

said in a voice so low that

r. I am not ill, and I'm no

hy

I don't w

down and lift her bodily out of bed. His limbs fel

r scattered on the pillow, at her closed eyes, then he went away into his dressing-room. When he had finished dressing he came back into the bedroom, looked ac

t down

, he had seemed to share in the Bishop's spirit, to be dust of his dust, and bone of his bone. That had been the very day, he remembered, of Falk's return from Oxford. Since that day everything had gone wrong for him--Falk, the Elephant, Ronder, Foster, the Chapter. And now his wife! Never in all the years of his married life had she spoken to him as she had done that morning. She must be on the edge of a serious illne

ions submissively, patiently, "as the wife of an Archdeacon should." He tried to show her by his manner that he had been deeply shocked, but, unfortunately, he had bee

edral, walked, with startling clatter, up the whole length of the shining nave and endeavoured to penetrate one of these sacred defences! Majestically--staff in hand, he came forward, shook his snow-white head, looking down upon the intrusive one more in sorrow than in anger, spoke no word, but motioned the audacity back down the nave again to the place where Cobbett officiated. Back, clatter, clatter, blushing and confused, the stranger retreated, watched, as it seemed to him, by a thousand sarcastic and cynical eyes. The bells slipped from the

l boys in their surplices could be seen settling

opened out of the Cloisters. For some of them--for a very few--Lawrence had his confidential

her husband. She was nothing very much--"a mean little woman," he

Hetty. Lawrence hurried forward, disregarding Mrs. Brandon, who was compelled to undo her cord for herself. He led Lady St. Leath forward with a ceremony, a dignity, that was marvellous to see. She moved behind him as though she owned the Cathedral, or rather could have owne

Dobell--smile, smile. Joan saw Cynthia Ryle--smile, smile. Lawrence, with the expression of the Angel Gabriel waiting to admit into heaven a new tro

gh the Cathedral as the congregation rose; then the choir filed through, the boys, the men, the Precentor, old Canon Morphew and older Canon Batholomew, Canon Rogers, his face bitter

and the faint musty smell that always seemed to rise from the Cathedral hassocks and the woodwork upon which she leant. Until Ryle's voice roused her she had been swimming in space and eternity; behind her, like a little boat bobbing distressfully

o had said it, and why had he been so quiet? It was not his way.

n," began the Precentor

are of was that she was on the very edge of something; it was a quite physical sensation, as though she had been walking over mist-soaked downs and had

he psalms, hurling verses at one another with breathless speed,

f Amy Brandon's consciousness two v

or, the foolish woman! She's no

or it! So it's no use warning her any long

"It never pays! It nev

: "No, but nothing can

rt's most elaborate "Te Deums," with clenched hands and litt

d. We acknowledge The

raise Thee...." A boy's voice rose, "Tho

expecting him to be at her side, although she well knew that he had long ago abandoned the Cathedral services. Ah, it

Brandon behind him. Now, as always, a little giggle of appreciation ran down the nave as the Archdeacon marched forward to the Lectern. The tourists whispered and asked one another who that

me, but in reality she was not seeing him as he was now, but rather as he had been that morning bending over her

carried out right away from one's body into an atmosphere of fire and heat and sudden cold. They had no more been able to avoid that look that they had exchanged than they had been able to escape being born. Let it then stay at that. She wanted nothing more than that. Only that look must be exchanged again. She was hungry, starving for it. She

her body, and her hands, clenched t

ords of the Anthem, "Little

gnificently in her seat and looked about her as though she

Who could say that she was wrong to wa

far away at the back of the nave, and nobody need look at them; but on Foster's preaching days certain of the aristocracy also retired, and this was disconcerting because their seats were prominent ones

er door as it closed behind them, and then silence once mo

un flooded the square of grass that lay in the middle of th

ooking very gay and very hideous in a large hat stifled with flowers, set sideways on her head, and a bright purple silk d

rst of her nervous headaches and that she could not have endured

thing, and it simply goes on for days and days, getting worse and worse. And the really terrible part of them is that, with you,

n gave a li

foot seems to be very

is work. That's one comfort about this place. If any one's

yr's Passage out into the fu

for a walk. By the way, Ellen," she turned round to her friend,

don't think Miss Burnett knew who any one was. Not that she had much time to think

d Mrs. Combermere

-Major and Mrs. Brandon and--O

randon

ouldn't have thought he'd have had time--

d you t

time. I tried to cheer her up. No one

s to me," Mrs. Sampson murmured. "Bu

sn't an idea in her head. I don't believe t

y around Miss Stiles' large

hensively at Mrs. Combermere. "I know you don't like scanda

Out with it," sai

r. Morris. I caught the o

ere sharply. Mrs. Sampson stood still, her m

ndow saying something, looking at one another, well, positively as th

e nastiest. I've told you so before. People can't even look at one another now. Why, you

ould be a delightful story to spread. Seriously, why

. Combermere grimly. "Now, Ellen, come along. No

repeated Mrs. Sampson, her eyes

incts was abandoned for a time to