Jos! [Greek text]. To have endured the
cross, despising the shame--there lay greatness! But now I often feel
that I should like to put an end to trouble here in this self-same spot.'

'I have thought of it myself,' said Joshua.

'Perhaps we shall, some day,' murmured his brother. 'Perhaps,' said
Joshua moodily.

With that contingency to consider in the silence of their nights and days
they bent their steps homewards.

_December_ 1888.

ON THE WESTERN CIRCUIT

CHAPTER I

The man who played the disturbing part in the two quiet lives hereafter
depicted--no great man, in any sense, by the way--first had knowledge of
them on an October evening, in the city of Melchester. He had been
standing in the Close, vainly endeavouring to gain amid the darkness a
glimpse of the most homogeneous pile of mediaeval architecture in
England, which towered and tapered from the damp and level sward in front
of him. While he stood the presence of the Cathedral walls was revealed
rather by the ear than by the eyes; he could not see them, but they
reflected sharply a roar of sound which entered the Close by a street
leading from the city square, and, falling upon the building, was flung
back upon him.

He postponed till the morrow his attempt to examine the deserted edifice,
and turned his attention to the noise. It was compounded of steam barrel-
organs, the clanging of gongs, the ringing of hand-bells, the clack of
rattles, and the undistinguishable shouts of men. A lurid light hung in
the air in the direction of the tumult. Thitherward he went, passing
under the arched gateway, along a straight street, and into the square.

He might have searched Europe over for a greater contrast between
juxtaposed scenes. The spectacle was that of the eighth chasm of the
Inferno as to colour and flame, and, as to mirth, a development of the
Homeric heaven. A smoky glare, of the complexion of brass-filings,
ascended from the fiery tongues of innumerable naphtha lamps affixed to
booths, stalls, and other temporary erections which crowded the spacious
market-square. In front of this irradiation scores of human figures,
more or less in profile, were darting athwart and across, up, down, and
around, like gnats against a sunset.

Their motions were so rhythmical that they seemed to be moved by
machinery. And it presently appeared that they were moved by machinery
indeed; the figures being those of the patrons of swings, see-saws