with his vittles.'"

"All the same, when a man has convictions--"

"Convictions are well enough when you can afford 'em," Brother
Clerihew grunted again. "But up against Colt--what's the use?
And where's his backing? Ibbetson, with a wife hanging on to his
coat-tails; and old Bonaday, that wouldn't hurt a fly; and Copas,
standing off and sneering."

"A man might have all the pains of Golgotha upon him before ever
_you_ turned a hair," grumbled Brother Dasent, a few yards away.

He writhed in his chair, for the rheumatism was really troublesome;
but he over-acted his suffering somewhat, having learnt in forty-five
years of married life that his spouse was not over-ready with
sympathy.

"T'cht!" answered she. "I ought to know what they're like by this
time, and I wonder, for my part, you don't try to get accustomed to
'em. Dying one can understand: but to be worrited with a man's
ailments, noon and night, it gets on the nerves. . . ."

"You're _sure_?" resumed Mrs. Royle eagerly, but sinking her voice--
for she could hardly wait until the Master had passed out of earshot.

"Did you ever know me spread tales?" asked the comfortable-looking
Nurse. "Only, mind you, I mentioned it in the strictest secrecy.
This is such a scandalous hole, one can't be too careful. . . . But
down by the river they were, consorting and God knows what else."

"At his age, too! Disgusting, I call it."

"Oh, _she's_ not particular! My comfort is I always suspected that
woman from the first moment I set eyes on her. Instinct, I s'pose.
'Well, my lady,' says I, 'if you're any better than you should be,
then I've lived all these years for nothing.'"

"And him--that looked such a broken-down old innocent!"

"They get taken that way sometimes, late in life."

Nurse Turner sank her voice and said something salacious, which
caused Mrs. Royle to draw a long breath and exclaim that she could
never have credited such things--not in a Christian land. Her old
husband, too, overheard it, and took snuff with a senile chuckle.

"Gad, that's spicy!" he crooned.

The Master, at the gateway leading to the home-park, turned for a
look back on the quadrangle and the seated figures. Yes, they made
an exquisite picture. Here--

"Here where the world is quiet"--

Here, indeed, his ancestor had built a haven of rest.

"From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving