nt of all the North Aston events which had taken place
during the last four years. Soon after madame's death and Leam's
transfer from home to school Alick had a strange and sudden illness.
No one knew what to make of it, nor how it came, nor what it was, but
the doctor called it cerebral fever, and when the families got hold
of the word they were content. Cerebral fever does as well as anything
else for an illness of which no one knows and no one seeks to know the
cause, and to the origin of which the patient himself gives no clew.
It was a peg, and a peg was all that was wanted.

On his recovery he announced his intention of going to Oxford to read
for holy orders. His mother was piteously distressed, as might be
expected. She feared all sorts of evil for her boy, from damp sheets
and unmended linen to over-study, wine-parties and bold-faced minxes
weaving subtle webs of fascination. But for the first time in his life
Alick stood out against her insistance, and his will conquered hers.
The sequel of the struggle was, that he went to Oxford, took his
degree, read for orders, passed, and that Mr. Birkett gave him his
title as his curate.

It could hardly be said that the relations were entirely harmonious
between the military-minded rector, who held to the righteousness of
helotry and the value of ignorance in the class beneath him, and the
young curate burning with zeal and oppressed with the desire to put
all the crooked things of life straight. The one pooh-poohed the
enthusiasm of the other, derided his belief in humanity and assured
him of failure: the other felt as if he had been taken behind the
scenes and shown the blue fire of which the awful lightning of his
youth was made. Mr. Birkett could not quite forbid the greater
faith, the more loving endeavor which the young man threw into his
ministrations, but he was the Sadducee who scoffed and made the
work heavy and uphill throughout. He gave a grudging assent to the
Bible-classes, the Wednesday evening services at the Sunday-school,
the lectures on great men on the first Monday in the month, which
Alick proposed and established. He thought it all weariness to the
flesh and a waste of time and energy; but the traditions of his order
were strong, if he himself did not share them, and he had to give way
in the end. He consoled himself with the reflection that the boy would
find out his mistake before long, and that then he would know who had
been right throughout.