‘Hear Martin!—hear him!’ cried Mr. Yorke. ‘I must see and have this lad of mine brought up to the Bar; Nature meant him to live by his tongue. Hester, your third son must certainly be a lawyer; he has the stock in trade: brass, self-conceit, and words—words—words.’

‘Some bread, Rose, if you please,’ requested Martin, with intense gravity, serenity, phlegm.

The boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice, which, in his ‘dour moods,’ rose scarcely above a lady’s whisper; the more inflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking shoes.

‘But, Martin,’ urged his sire, ‘there is drift all the way; a man could hardly wade through it. However, lad,’ he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church-bell began to toll, ‘this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm fireside.’

Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberately went out.

‘My father has more sense than my mother,’ he pronounced. ‘How women miss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammering away at insensate stone.’

He reached church early.

‘Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest), or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss her after all, it will vex me; but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she ought to come, and if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and features, she will come: she will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am here for the chance of seeing her; she will want to get a word respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavour of what I think the essence of life—a taste of existence, with the spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation what champagne is to flat porter.’

He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old woman. As the chimes subsided, and the single bell tolled slowly, another and another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took a humble station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and the poorest that brave the worst weather to prove and maintain their constancy to dear old mother Church. This wild morning not one affluent family attended, not one carriage party appeared—all the lined and cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the gray-haired elders and feeble paupers.

‘I’ll scorn her if she doesn’t come,’ muttered Martin shortly and savagely to himself.

The Rector’s shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr. Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.

The bells ceased—the reading desk was filled—the doors were closed—the service commenced; void stood the Rectory pew; she was not there. Martin scorned her.

‘Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug! Like all other girls—weakly, selfish shallow!’

Such was Martin’s liturgy.

‘She is not like our picture: her eyes are not large and expressive; her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm I thought it had—which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy—a girl, in short.’

So absorbed was the young cynic, he forgot to rise from his knees at the proper place, and was still in an exemplary attitude of devotion when, the litany over, the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did not contribute to soothe him; he started up red (for he was as sensitive to ridicule as any girl). To