he was at. A great bound Prayer-Book, it was known, rested
before him on the book-board, and he was observed to turn the pages more
than once.

It was, indeed, a heavy task that Mr. Barton had to do. For first there
was the morning prayer, with its psalms, its lessons and its prayers;
next the Litany, and last the communion, in the course of which was
delivered one of the homilies set forth by authority, especially
designed for the support of those who were no preachers--preceded and
followed by a psalm. But all was easy to-day to a man who had such cause
for exultation; his voice boomed heartily out; his face radiated his
pleasure; and he delivered his homily when the time came, with excellent
emphasis and power--all from the reading-desk, except the communion.

Yet it is to be doubted whether the attention of those that heard him
was where their pastor would have desired it to be; since even to these
country-folk the drama of the whole was evident. There, seen full when
he sat down, and in part when he kneeled and stood, was the man who
hitherto had stood to them for the old order, the old faith, the old
tradition--the man whose horse's footsteps had been heard, times and
again, before dawn, in the village street, bearing him to the mystery of
the mass; through whose gate strangers had ridden, perhaps three or four
times in the year, to find harbourage--strangers dressed indeed as plain
gentlemen or yeomen, yet known, every one of them, to be under her
Grace's ban, and to ride in peril of liberty if not of life.

Yet here he sat--a man feared and even loved by some--the first of his
line to yield to circumstance, and to make peace with his times. Not a
man of all who looked on him believed him certainly to be that which his
actions professed him to be; some doubted, especially those who
themselves inclined to the old ways or secretly followed them; and the
hearts of these grew sick as they watched.

But the crown and climax was yet to come.

* * * * *

The minister finished at last the homily--it was one which inveighed
more than once against the popish superstitions; and he had chosen it
for that reason, to clench the bargain, so to say--all in due order; for
he was a careful man and observed his instructions, unlike some of his
brethren who did as they pleased; and came back again to the long north
side of the linen-covered table to finish the service.

He had no man to help him