Talisman_. Come and
inspect us, unless you're a purist about your Scott! None other of the
immortals have such _longueurs_ as he, and we cut him freely.'

'By all means,' said Langham; 'lead on.' And he followed his companion
without repugnance. After all, there was something contagious in so much
youth and hopefulness.

The story-telling was held in the Institute.

A group of men and boys were hanging round the door when they reached
it. The two friends made their way through, greeted in the dumb friendly
English fashion on all sides, and Langham found himself in a room
half-filled with boys and youths, a few grown men, who had just put
their pipes out, lounging at the back.

Langham not only endured, but enjoyed the first part of the hour that
followed. Robert was an admirable reader, as most enthusiastic
imaginative people are. He was a master of all those arts of look and
gesture which make a spoken story telling and dramatic, and Langham
marvelled with what energy, after his hard day's work and with another
service before him, he was able to throw himself into such a _hors
d'oeuvre_ as this. He was reading to-night one of the most perfect
scenes that even the Wizard of the North has ever conjured; the scene in
the tent of Richard Lion-Heart, when the disguised slave saves the life
of the king, and Richard first suspects his identity. As he read on, his
arms resting on the high desk in front of him, and his eyes, full of
infectious enjoyment, travelling from the book to his audience,
surrounded by human beings whose confidence he had won, and whose lives
he was brightening from day to day, he seemed to Langham the very type
and model of a man who had found his _metier_, found his niche in the
world, and the best means of filling it. If to attain to an 'adequate
and masterly expression of one's self' be the aim of life, Robert was
fast achieving it. This parish of twelve hundred souls gave him now all
the scope he asked. It was evident that he felt his work to be rather
above than below his deserts. He was content--more than content--to
spend ability which would have distinguished him in public life, or
carried him far to the front in literature, on the civilising of a few
hundred of England's rural poor. The future might bring him worldly
success--Langham thought it must and would. Clergymen of Robert's stamp
are rare among us. But if so, it would be in response to no conscious
effort of his. Here, in the countr