esenting him
with the shadow, which he will unerringly mistake for the substance.
I grant you that to be bullied and beaten down is damnably unpleasant
discipline, even when set off against the pleasure of fooling such a
fellow as Colt. But when a man has to desist from pursuit of
pleasure he develops a fine taste for consolations: and this is going
to be mine for turning Protestant and backing you in this business."

"_You?_"

"Your accent is so little flattering, Warboise, that I hardly dare to
add the condition. Yet I will. If I stand in with you in resisting
Colt, you must release Bonaday here. Henceforth he's out of the
quarrel."

"But I do not understand." Brother Warboise regarded Brother Copas
from under his stiff grey eyebrows. "Why should Bonaday back out?"

"That is his affair," answered Brother Copas smoothly, almost before
Brother Bonaday was aware of being appealed to.

"But--you don't mind my saying it--I've never considered you as a
Protestant, quite; not, at least, as an earnest one."

"That," said Brother Copas, "I may be glad to remember, later on.
But come; I offer you a bargain. Strike off Bonaday and enlist me.
A volunteer is proverbially worth two pressed men; and as a
Protestant I promise you to shine. If you must have my reason, or
reasons, say that I am playing for safety."

Here Brother Copas laid down his rod on the grassy bank and felt for
his snuff-box. As he helped himself to a pinch he slyly regarded the
faces of his companions; and his own, contracting its muscles to take
the dose, seemed to twist itself in a sardonic smile.

"Unlike Colt," he explained, "I read history sometimes, and observe
its omens. You say that our clergy are active just now in building
and restoring churches. Has it occurred to you that they were never
so phenomenally active in building and rebuilding as on the very eve
of the Reformation crash? Ask and inquire, my friend, what
proportion of our English churches are Perpendicular; get from any
handbook the date of that style of architecture; and apply the omen
if you will."

"That sounds reassuring," said Brother Warboise. "And so you really
think we Protestants are going to win?"

"God forbid! What I say is, that the High Anglicans will probably
lose."

"One never knows when you are joking or when serious." Brother
Warboise, leaning on his staff, pondered Brother Copas's face.
It was a fine face; it even resembled the conventional port