and step, and voice were better known than that of the watchman, and, what was of far more solid interest to the wretched inhabitants, the colour of his money was no longer a secret in any direction. For a considerable time he had no allies but Simpson and the miller, and they could help him little except on Sunday. But he felt that he was not alonethat ever on his right and on his left the unseen hand was shielding him or guiding him by a way he knew not, to ultimate success. He was confident that he had engaged in the cause of one who can afford to suspend the result, in order that the result may be astounding and glorious. Occasionally he had turned aside from his original course, to experiment on the class above the poorer workman, but he had such an insight into their selfishness, and such slight hopes of ever gaining an inch against their wilful and made-up minds, that he turned into the old paths with sensible relief, and the comparison awakened in his mind a more cheerful hope for the poor. When some few families had been rescued through his agency from the curse, and had begun to show the solid value, the easily calculated advantages of the new doctrine, that doctrine asserted itself with an unction which even Mr. Barton lacked. The half-asleep drones at the public-house doors were sufficiently mystified when they saw, Sunday after Sunday, more finery, more food, more gaiety, or more church-going in their own quarter. They thought trade must have all gone to the mills or weaving sheds where these neighbours happened to work; or if they were in the same shop, they muttered jealous misgivings as to the master's impartiality, or the labourer's honesty; and it was only by a slow and unconscious train of reasoning that they were at last persuaded to try the Total Dodge themselves. Then they in their turn became the cynosure of heavy bloodshot eyes at tavern doors. The masses were thus slowly but surely stirred-and the leaven found its way through the lump. Now we know that however tall, and golden, and brazen, and heavy the image of a people's idolatry may beif once you can get fairly at the clay feet, and crumble or smash them as opportunity favours, the upper god will soon be nodding to its fall. And it came to pass that in this very town of Arlton, the image to which all of high and low degree did homage gave some shaky symptoms of a fate like Dagon's. The shopkeepers felt the electric shock of a new life in trade -they knew it could not be "a large foreign order," for the mills were hardly at work at all—they did not know-they did not like to press their little hints about times mending into formal enquiries-but their minds were suddenly enlightened by an event which burst like a bomb in the enemy's very magazine. This event was nothing less than the sudden conversion of the popular and prosperous young Mr. Puncheon, who had given up the bar on the death of his father, that he might look after the £20,000 that father had bequeathed, and the still more valuable wine trade which had by its extent, doubtless, and attendant anxieties, hastened the elder Mr. Puncheon's decease from brain fever. This man, as Jarvis of the " Nag's Head" in the market-place swore, had turned frightened and spooney-had fallen into the old parson's clutches who had blazed away at him till he was daft and persuaded him to give up the accursed trade and start in the penance line, with a capital of £20,000. Whatever was really the fortunate cause of this surprising resolution there could be no doubt of the fact-the public had lost an important minister to their vitiated appetites, and the "Friends of Home" had gained a most amiable secretary. The extent of the sacrifice which Mr. Alfred P. (he did not like the old name now) had made, was an argument that came home to men's businesses and bosoms. What must be the gain and the intrinsic value of a principle that lead a man to sluice his own vaults, and deliberately throw away above a thousand a year. They, the tradespeople, hoped they were as religious as their neighbours, or as there was any occasion to be in this world. They were quite as hot and spicy in their political sentiments as they well could afford to be, but it passed their utmost imagination that there ever could be anything to compensate for the loss of a thousand a year, while not a few would have undertaken to burn the parish church down, and get transported for life, for a third part of the income of their spirit-dealing neighbour, even though it never could be of any use to them. Although, then, the unguided reasonings of the respectable middle-class folks did not lead to a fully satisfactory conclusion on the one mysterious question, they were not without a beneficial effect-as we gather from the records of the vigilant Mr. Alfred P., who makes a note very early in his Teetotal semi-official diary of the interesting fact that more than one hundred tradesmen had adopted the plan of paying discounts in copper instead of in gin. Something worthy of the name of a society was very speedily knocked up by the genius for method which had been from childhood the distinguishing glory of Mr. Puncheon's eldest son. His preparation for the bar had only brought out his methodising talents into fuller play. He, and everything about him was always in the right place and doing the right thing-that is, the best thing in the circumstances- as for instance-when he rose with his first brief, and found he could not, after several attempts, get further then the striking exordium, My Lud! his method required that he should sit down, which he did, and henceforth he systematically held his tongue. It was not merely the zeal of a new convert that animated him; it was a general ambition which having encountered a check in one direction, speedily found vent in another, thus affording a censorious world an opportunity of judging what a hard-working, devoted, and triumphant barrister had been lost to mankind and his country, through a slight tendency to wool in his mental constitution, and a slight stutter in the articulation of his otherwise burning eloquence. Mr. Barton was delighted and stimulated by this valuable accession. He felt that he had got the key of the position, and he knew it could be only a question of time; but he relaxed no effort, he withdrew none of his cordial and devout interest,—he even increased his former generous gifts, -nor did his personal labours ever slacken, till the chills of death were creeping over him. BOOK V. THE CURSE WORKING. "Be advised; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot HENRY THE EIGHTH. "Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing Than blind reason stumbling without fear; to fear The worst oft cures the worst." TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. "Sometimes we are devils to ourselves, When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Ibid. "They that mean virtuously and yet do so, The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven." OTHELLO. Р |