The Revolution in Tanner's Lane

rizon

during the whole day. But occasionally Nature resumed her rights, and it was possible to feel that sky, stars, sun, and moon still existed, and were not blotted out by the obscurations of what is called civilised life. There came, occasionally, wild nights in October or November, with a gale from the south-west and then, when almost everybody had gone to bed and the fires were out, the clouds, illuminated by the moon, rushed across the heavens, and the Great Bear hung over the dismal waste of smutty tiles with the same solemnity with which it hangs over the mountains, the sea, or the desert. Early in the morning, too, in summer, between three and four o'clock in June, there were sights to be seen worth seeing. The distance was clear for miles, and the heights of Highgate were visible, proclaiming the gospel of a beyond and beyond even to Kent's Court, and that its immediate surroundings were mercifully not infinite. The light made even the nearest bit of soot-grimed, twisted, rotten brickwork beautiful, and occasionally, but at very rare intervals, the odour of London was vanquished, and a genuine breath from the Brixton fields was able to find its way uncontaminated across the river. Jean and Pauline were, on the whole, fond of the court. They often thought they would prefer the country, and talked about it; but it is very much to be doubted, if they had been placed in Devonshire, whether they would not have turned back uneasily after a time to their garret. They both liked the excitement of the city, and the feeling that they were so near to everything that was stirring in men's minds. The long stretch of lonely sea-shore is all very well, very beautiful, and, maybe, very instructive to many people; but to most persons half-an-hour's rational conversation is much more profitable. Pauline was not a particularly beautiful girl. Her hair was black, and, although there was a great deal of it, it was coarse and untidy. Her complexion was sallow-not as clear as it might be-and underneath the cheek-bones there were slight depressions. She had grown up without an attachment, so far as her father knew, and indeed so far as she knew. She had one redeeming virtue-redeeming especially to Jean, who was with her alone so much. She had an intellect, and it was one which sought for constant expression; consequently she was never dull. If she was dull, she was ill. She had none of that horrible mental constriction which makes some English women so insupp

ents and unfinished jobs lay here and there without being "put away." An old sofa served as a seat, and on it were a pair of lasts, a bit of a French newspaper, and a plateful of small onions and lettuce, which could not find a place on the little table. Zachariah, upstairs in Rosoman Street, had often felt just as if he were in his Sunday clothes and new boots. He never could make out what was the reason for it. There are some houses in which we are always uncomfortable. Our freedom is fettered, and we can no more take our ease in them than in a glass and china shop. We breathe with a sense of oppression, and the s

o Mr. Coleman; if the good God did give us Louis back again, I wouldn't bless Him for it

led, a little shocked, and

e gone to see the proces

ide by, I am humiliated and miserable. As for the music, I hate that too. It is all alike, and might as well

spirators? Not we. The conspirators are t

in the sky, shouldn't I laugh at them. How comical

country of its money to keep themselves comfortable, but what is the meaning of their Te Deums? I tell you again,"-and he repeated the words wi

score or so of them. I wonder if they would have thanked Providence for their escape? O father, such a joke! The Major told me the other day of an old gentleman he knew who

more, Pauline was not an open enemy, and notwithstanding her little blasphemies, she was attractive. But then he remembered with shame that he was ordered to testify to the truth

ness: I make peace and create evi

?" said Jean.

o add to it something which might satisfy his c

s that?"

ive me one and I w

uced a French version, and Jean read the passage-"Qui forme la lumière, et qui crée les ténèbres

er her father a

ité," she said. "D

ere I do," s

, I d

He made hell-fire, why not adversit

nd don't mean to bot

nything when-bothering will not benefit. There is so much in the world which will-bear a botherati

obtained. Pauline began dancing, her father accompanying her with an oboe. It was a very curious performance. It was nothing like ordinary opera-dancing, and equally unlike any movement ever seen at a ball. It was a series of graceful evolutions with the shawl which was flung, now on one shoulder and now on the other, each movement exquisitely resolving itself, with the most perfect ease, into the one following, and designed apparently to show the capacity of a beautiful figure for poetic expression. Wave fell into wave along every line of her body, and occasionally a posture was arrested, to pass away in an instant into some new comb

nd curtsey, and retired; but in five minutes she was back again in her ordinary clot

t the old Adam was still so strong within him that he detected a secret pleasure in what he had seen. He would have liked to have got up and

perform in pub

oung; but I have never danced excep

a theatre every night in the week. He expected that Jean would offer some further explanation of the unusual accomplishment which his daughter had acquired; but he was silent

you think

o the rescue. "Father, what a shame! Do

ered Zachariah, "but we are no

father isn't the devil. Even you wouldn't say that, Mr. Coleman. Ah, I have no business to joke, you look so solemn; you think my tricks are satanic; but what was it in your bo

n. In his own Calvinistic Dissenting society the pious women who were members of the church took little or no interest in the mental life of their husband. They read no books, knew nothing of politics, were

he might, her image was for ever before his eyes, and reconstructed itself after every attempt to abolish it, just as a reflected image in a pool slowly but inevitably gathers itself together again after each disturbance of the water. When he got home, he found, to his surprise, that his wife was still sit

w it was that Mr. Coleman could let me go home alone. She of

y of her Pike Street friends were so distinguished; and Mrs. Coleman not only felt it dee

hat evening was part of the 26th chapter: "And these are they that were numbered of the Levites after their families: of Gershon, the family of the Gershonites: of Kohath, the family of the

nt, and even talkative-talkative, that is

breakfast, "what a pity it is that th

uld not but

our chapel. Who knows?-some word might go to his he

ed to convert

don't think that wo

and then, looking down at her knee

n us. Poor Christiana, left alone, says, as you will remember, 'O neighbour

Besides, you know," she added suddenly, "there were no public means of

N

hat they were, barring the use of profane language. What had he done for his master with the Major, with Jean, and with Pauline?-and the awful figure of the Crucified seemed to rise before him and r

e to ask the Major here on Sunday after

e proposition. He would be able to bear wi

Would to God"-his wife started-"would to God," he exclaimed ferv

sk Mr. Caillau

s daughter also; he would

a daughter. You never to

her till the

he is a foreigner too. I hope sh

ign. Jean has been here a good many years, and she cam

" And so it

e and ask if he was ashamed of Him. The text ran in his ears: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of My words in this adulte