Copas reeled in a fathom of line with a contemplative,
judicial air.

"Upon my word, Warboise, I'm inclined to agree with you. I
don't pretend to share your Protestant fervour: but hang it!
I'm an Englishman with a sense of history, and that is what no single
one among your present-day High Anglicans would appear to possess.
If a man wants to understand England he has to start with one or two
simple propositions, of which the first--or about the first--is that
England once had a reformation, and is not going to forget it.
But that is just what these fellows would make-believe to ignore.
A fool like Colt--for at bottom, between ourselves, Colt is a fool--
says 'Reformation? There was no such thing: we don't acknowledge
it.' As the American said of some divine who didn't believe in
eternal punishment, 'By gosh, he'd better not!'"

"But England _is_ forgetting it!" insisted Brother Warboise.
"Look at the streams of Papist monks she has allowed to pour in
ever since France took a strong line with her monastic orders.
Look at those fellows--College of St. John Lateran, as they call
themselves--who took lodgings only at the far end of this village.
In the inside of six months they had made friends with everybody."

"They employ local tradesmen, and are particular in paying their
debts, I'm told."

"Oh," said Brother Warboise, "They're cunning!"

Brother Copas gazed at him admiringly, and shot a glance at Brother
Bonaday. But Brother Bonaday's eyes had wandered off again to the
skimming swallows.

"Confessed Romans and their ways," said Brother Warboise, "one is
prepared for, but not for these wolves in sheep's clothing.
Why, only last Sunday-week you must have heard Colt openly preaching
the confessional!"

"I slept," said Brother Copas. "But I will take your word for it."

"He did, I assure you; and what's more--you may know it or not--Royle
and Biscoe confess to him regularly."

"They probably tell him nothing worse than their suspicions of you
and me. Colt is a vain person walking in a vain show."

"You don't realise the hold they are getting. Look at the money they
squeeze out of the public; the churches they restore, and the new
ones they build. And among these younger Anglicans, I tell you, Colt
is a force."

"My good Warboise, you have described him exactly. He is a force--
and nothing else. He will bully and beat you down to get his way,
but in the end you can always have the consolation of pr