The Revolution in Tanner's Lane

n on th

il, but by one which went through Barnet and stopped to take up passengers at the "Angel." He climbed upon the roof, and presently was travelling rapidly through Holloway and Highgate. He found, to his relief, that nobody had heard of the murder, and he was left pretty much to his own reflections. His first thoughts were an attempt to unravel the mystery. Why was it so sudden? Why had no word not hint of what was intended reached him? He could not guess. In those days the clubs were so beset with spies that frequently the most important resolutions were taken by one man, who confided in nobody. It was winter, but fortunately Zachariah was well wrapped up. He journeyed on, hour after hour, in a state of mazed bewilderment, one thought tumbling over another, and when morning broke over the flats he had not advanced a single step in the determination of his future path. Nothing is more painful to a man of any energy than the inability to put things in order in himself-to place before himself what he has to do, and arrange the means for doing it. To be the passive victim of a rushing stream of disconnected impressions is torture, especially if the emergency be urgent. So when the sun came up Zachariah began to be ashamed of himself that the night had passed in these idiotic moonings, which had left him just where he was, and he trie

, and thought it best to begin with hi

ppened, who sent you here, and wha

iends of the People; that you did not know it; that I must go to Manchester; that you would com

Did he tell you

d be pursued, and that he would send our t

heard anythi

N

rd that the Secr

achariah, what wi

he knew, she listening with g

will become of us?"

e my innocence. It is better for us, however, to stay here for a time. The Gover

nd the others are let alone? I

nnot

ond what I have on. I haven't got any clean things; a nice sort of cr

ot to help other people, but sit at home and enjoy ourselves? B

do. One thing I do know is that we shall starve and I suppose I shall have to

something very different; but at last he rose, went up

ill have your clothes next week. Com

erself free-not violently, but s

ook for a lodging! That's just like you!

on any positive evidence; but he concluded, somewhat absurdly, that her coldness meant common sense and capacity for facing trouble courageously and with deliberation. He had now to find out his mistake, and

amiliar controversy with himself, and it was curiously characteristic of him, that, as he paced those dismal Manchester pavements, all their gloom disappeared as he re-argued the universal problem of which his case was an example. He admitted the unquestionable right of the Almighty to damn three parts of creation to eternal hell if so He willed; why not, then, one sinner like Zachariah Coleman to a weary pilgrimage for thirty or forty years? He rebuked himself when he found that he had all his life assented so easily to the doctrine of God's absolute authority in the election and disposal of the creatures He had made, and yet that he revolted when God touched him, and awarded him a punishment which, in comparison with the eternal loss of His presence, was as nothing. At las

prosecution, he thought fit to adopt a feigned name, with which we need not trouble ourselves. In the afternoon he sallied out to seek employment. The weather had cleared, but Mrs. Coleman still refused to accompany him, and she occupied herself moodily with setting the place to rights, as she called it, although, as it happ

thing to do here. If, as you say, there is

it, my dear; we we

h a hurry? Why didn'

e were only a few minutes in which to decide

the last part of this remark, which, of cour

arve-I am convinced we shall. Oh! I wish my poor dear mother

s patience

r. Bradshaw's sermon upon the passage through the Red Sea. When the Israelites were brought down to the very shore with nothing but destruction before them, a way was opened. What did Mr. Bradshaw bid us observe? The Egyptians were close behind-so close that the Israelites saw them; the sea was in front. The

ou were a minister." Her voice rose and became shriller as she went on. "I will not stand it. Who are you that you should talk to me so?-bad enough to bring me down he

g worse than emptiness. He found lurking in the obscure darkness a reptile with cruel fangs which at any moment might turn upon him when he was at his weakest and least able to defend himself. He had that in him by nature which would have prompted him to desperate deeds. He could have flung himself from her with a curse, or even h

he chair, and he repeated the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." But will it be believed t

prung-she clung

heaved beneath

ation, at least on her side. She was not capable of reconciliation. Her temper exhausted itself gradually. With her the storm never broke up nobly and with magnificent forgetfulness into clear spaces of azure, with the

to be sent to the inn where they had first stayed, and he would have to pay for the carriage. His landlord had insisted on a week's rent beforehand, so that, putting aside the

people all intent upon their own occupation, whilst he has none! At noon, when business is at its height, he, with nothing to do, sits down on a seat in an open place, or, may be, on the doorstep of an empty house, unties the little parcel he has brought with him, and eats his dry bread. He casts up in his mind the shops he has visited; he reflects that he has taken all the more promising first, and that not more than two or three are left. He thinks of the vast waste of the city all round him; its miles of houses; and he has a more vivid sense of abandonment than if he were on a plank in the middle of the Atlantic. Towards the end of the afternoon the pressure in the offices and banks increases; the clerks hurry hither and thither; he has no share whatever in the excitement; he is an intrusion. He lingers about aimlessly, and presently the great tide turns outwards and flows towards the suburbs. Every vehicle which passes him is crowded with happy folk who have earned their living and are going home. He has earned nothing. Let anybody who wants to test the strength of the stalk of carle hemp in him try it by the wringing strain of a day thus spent! How humiliating are the repulses he encounters! Most employers to whom a request is made for something to do prefer to treat it as a petition for aims, and answer accordingl

to the grey sky, "Is it true, then? Does God really know anything about me? Are we not born by the million every week, like spawn, and crushed out of existence like spawn? Is not humanity the commonest and cheapest thing in the world?" But as yet his faith was unshaken, and he repelled the doubt as a temptation of Satan. Blessed is the man who can assign promptly everything which is not in harmony with himse

Zachariah had his advantage over others. He had his precedent. He remembered that quagmire in the immortal Progress into which, if even a good man falls, he can find no bottom; he remembered that gloom so profound "that ofttimes, when he lifted up his foot to set forward, he knew not where or upon what he should set it next;" he remembered the flame and smoke, the sparks and hideous noises, the things that cared not for Christian's sword, so that he was forced to betake himself to another weapon called All-prayer; he remembered how

rning, and had persuaded his wife to accompany him. They entered the first place of worship they saw. It was a Methodist chapel, and the preacher was Arminian in the extreme. It was the first time Zachariah had ever been p

r those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Zachariah knew that text well. Round it had raged the polemics of ages. Mr. Bradshaw had never referred to it but once, and all the elder members of his congregation were eager in the extreme to hear what he had to say about it. He boldly declared that it had nothing to do with the elect. He was compelled to do so. Following his master Calvin, he made it apply to outsiders. The elect, says Calvin, are beyond the risk of fatal

what are yo

. With the murder he was, of course, acquainted. Ogden was a letterpress printer, and when he heard that Zachariah was in such straits, he said that he thought he might perhaps find him a job for the present, and told him to come to his office on the following morning. Za

not yet sure you will get anything.

o take off your

need not wait; but I am sure it will be more becoming, and it will

of the sacred Book, however, always acted as a spell, and when its heavy lids fell down on either side the room cleared itself of all haunting, intrusive evil spirits. He read the seventeenth chapter of Exodus, the story of the water brought out of the rock;