ed the antidote.
He hath little knowledge and less pity for sin who has never sinned.
The day came when all these things which other men did in my sight I
did--openly. I drank with them in the taverns--twice I drank. I met a
lass in the way. I kissed her. I sat beside her at the roadside and she
told me her brief, sad, evil story. One she had loved had left her. She
was going to London. I gave her what money I had--"

"And thy watch," said a whispering voice from the Elders' bench.

"Even so. And at the cross-roads I bade her goodbye with sorrow."

"There were those who saw," said the shrill voice from the bench.

"They saw what I have said--no more. I had never tasted spirits in my
life. I had never kissed a woman's lips. Till then I had never struck my
fellow-man; but before the sun went down I fought the man who drove the
lass in sorrow into the homeless world. I did not choose to fight; but
when I begged the man Jasper Kimber for the girl's sake to follow and
bring her back, and he railed at me and made to fight me, I took off my
hat, and there I laid him in the dust."

"No thanks to thee that he did not lie in his grave," observed the
shrill Elder.

"In truth I hit hard," was the quiet reply.

"How came thee expert with thy fists?" asked Elder Fairley, with the
shadow of a smile.

"A book I bought from London, a sack of corn, a hollow leather ball, and
an hour betimes with the drunken chair-maker in the hut by the lime-kiln
on the hill. He was once a sailor and a fighting man."

A look of blank surprise ran slowly along the faces of the Elders. They
were in a fog of misunderstanding and reprobation.

"While yet my father"--he looked at Luke Claridge, whom he had ever been
taught to call his father--"shared the great business at Heddington, and
the ships came from Smyrna and Alexandria, I had some small duties, as
is well known. But that ceased, and there was little to do. Sports are
forbidden among us here, and my body grew sick, because the mind had no
labour. The world of work has thickened round us beyond the hills. The
great chimneys rise in a circle as far as eye can see on yonder crests;
but we slumber and sleep."

"Enough, enough," said a voice from among the women. "Thee has a friend
gone to London--thee knows the way. It leads from the cross-roads!"

Faith Claridge, who had listened to David's speech, her heart panting,
her clear grey eyes--she had her mother's eyes--fixed benignly on him,
tu