scorn and merriment; her eyes were worn with grief and watching, and she
was following her beloved friend and pastor to the grave.

Chapter 10

History, we know, is apt to repeat herself, and to foist very old
incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume. From the time of
Xerxes downwards, we have seen generals playing the braggadocio at the
outset of their campaigns, and conquering the enemy with the greatest
ease in after-dinner speeches. But events are apt to be in disgusting
discrepancy with the anticipations of the most ingenious tacticians; the
difficulties of the expedition are ridiculously at variance with able
calculations; the enemy has the impudence not to fall into confusion as
had been reasonably expected of him; the mind of the gallant general
begins to be distracted by news of intrigues against him at home, and,
notwithstanding the handsome compliments he paid to Providence as his
undoubted patron before setting out, there seems every probability that
the _Te Deums_ will be all on the other side.

So it fell out with Mr. Dempster in his memorable campaign against the
Tryanites. After all the premature triumph of the return from Elmstoke,
the battle of the Evening Lecture had been lost; the enemy was in
possession of the field; and the utmost hope remaining was, that by a
harassing guerilla warfare he might be driven to evacuate the country.

For some time this sort of warfare was kept up with considerable spirit.
The shafts of Milby ridicule were made more formidable by being poisoned
with calumny; and very ugly stories, narrated with circumstantial
minuteness, were soon in circulation concerning Mr. Tryan and his
hearers, from which stories it was plainly deducible that Evangelicalism
led by a necessary consequence to hypocritical indulgence in vice. Some
old friendships were broken asunder, and there were near relations who
felt that religious differences, unmitigated by any prospect of a legacy,
were a sufficient ground for exhibiting their family antipathy. Mr. Budd
harangued his workmen, and threatened them with dismissal if they or
their families were known to attend the evening lecture; and Mr.
Tomlinson, on discovering that his foreman was a rank Tryanite, blustered
to a great extent, and would have cashiered that valuable functionary on
the spot, if such a retributive procedure had not been inconvenient.

On the whole, however, at the end of a few months, the balance of
sub