narrow our round of inquiry to two," said Langler: "our Gregor will doubtless now be found to be a Strass or a Dirnbach."

I made no answer, and we sat there some time silent, looking where some moor-hen or wild-fowl breasted the streaming of a surface agitated by the inrush of the cascade, stationary, yet seeming to move forward, like the moon ranging through flights of cloud.

CHAPTER VI

THE MEETING

The next day we were at Goodford. The mansion is Queen Anne, square and grave, standing on grounds which slope towards the exterior of the domain into oak-dotted swards that droop down to a wooded valley.

That first day at dinner I was able to point out to Langler the sneer of Baron Kolár at the part of the table where he droned amid the silence of his neighbours; and the next afternoon, when some men who had been shooting were standing in a group on a terrace, Baron Kolár, who was among them, left them to lower himself upon a bench close to that on which Langler and I were sitting.

It was just then that I heard someone in the standing group remark: "here comes our eloquent divine." And I heard Mr Edwards, who had looked round, say in his characteristic way: "what, he still on that same temperance job, I wonder?"

This remarkable man (who started life as a puddler's-boy in South Wales, then became a typewriter in a London newspaper-office, then editor of a boys' paper, then of a financial paper, then speculator and millionaire, then—without eloquence, stateliness, "brilliance" of any sort—Prime Minister of his country at the age of thirty-seven)—this remarkable man, I say, gave by his mere manners and appearance some hint of the reasons which underlay his elevation; he himself always accounted for it by declaring that "he alone knew how to run the Empire on purely business lines"; and, in truth, he looked like a man who could do this.

His face at this period was still fresh and pink, and assuredly he did not look older than a youth of four or five and twenty. His hair swept from the parting across his forehead quite down to the right eyebrow; and against this he waged an old war, ever dashing it back, but down it came again. His eyes darted from side to side, and he appeared ever on the point of pitching at something, and having it over and accomplished. He was not large in stature, and by the side of big Mrs Edwards (who was some ten years his senior) looked rather insignificant. It was suggested by his walk that one of his legs was somewhat shorter than the other.

He started out at once to meet Dr Burton, who came toiling up the terraces swinging a copy of, I fancy, Paradisus Animæ. I saw them shake hands, and then lay their heads together, Edwards hearkening, Burton talking. Their walk led them towards Langler and me. Edwards began half to laugh, deprecatingly I thought; his shoulders shrugged; his arms opened; Dr Burton's brogue swelled; he waxed wroth.

The first words which I heard were these: "and are these poor sheep, then, to be so lost and ruined, Mr Edwards? Always, always the body, and never the soul? And is the protest of the Church no longer of avail with the great ones of the earth, sir? I tell you, sir——!"

Mr Edwards said: "but, Dr Burton, if you would only listen to common reason! My good sir, what can I do? If I were a parish councillor, now—or a magistrate—but I am only a Prime Minister, after all."

Edwards, by the way, was never averse from references to this fact, with some mirth tacked on. But now he was interrupted by a deep, a bitter word: the doctor looked ireful, and in the very voice of reproof he said: "the matter is not one for jest, sir. I have laid this question before the Bishop, before the Suffragan of Southampton, before the Bishop of Guildford, the Dean, the Residential Canons; I have appealed to the Licensing Magistrates; again and again I have appealed to you; I have turned right, I have turned left: and everywhere I have fallen in with evasions, with infidel shrugs, with dull delay. Now hear what I say as to this grievance: I say that I should not suffer it, no, I should not bear it at all. I don't wish to see this new bugbear in my parish: I will not see it: and if the heavens should rain for a harvest-moon a rain of atheist archbishops and rebellious ministers-of-State and blatant councils, all bound together to impose it upon me, still I say I would not suffer it, no, I would not bear it at all, at all, for God's sake I would not. In the spirit of the blessed St Ambrose, with my own sacred hand I shall abolish it from my sight if it confront me; and afterwards, but not before, will I give up the government that I hold, not of men, but of God."

And as this torrent ceased I just heard snuffled with a drawl near my ear these words:

"Oh, well, he is not so bad, though; he does it very well—very well...."

They came from Baron Kolár, who was gazing through sleepy lids at Dr Burton with (it seemed to me) the fondness of a father contemplating the feats of his boy in the presence of friends.

As for Mr Edwards, I saw him fling his hand at Dr Burton's words. He was a being who gave heed to one thing only—effective force. Pride, high words were so far wide of his interest that they failed even to win a smile from him; he heard them like wind, regarded only facts, results.

"Well, Dr Burton," he said, "I am always glad to lend a helping hand to a parson like yourself, interested in your work, go-a-head, and so on, and so on; I am the same kind of man myself, and there's the fellow-feeling, and so on, and so on. But I can do nothing in this matter—candidly, it would be going too far out of my way; you must approach the proper authorities, mentioning, of course, that you have my sympathies, and so on, and so on——"

Here I lost his words. Meantime the baron's eyes were dreamily following the priest and the minister-of-State, while Langler's gaze was fastened upon the baron's face, and I glanced from one to the other, seeking to fathom how much was inherent in what I saw about me.

Presently the Baron's eyes wandered round, as if looking for someone to talk to, and when they lighted upon me quite close he droned in his happy manner: "Well, he seems a worthy fellow, a nice fellow: a little too zealous, like a torrid sun, but he's not so bad. Have you heard him preach?"

"Dr Burton? No. Have you?"

"I went to hear him last Sunday. He does it very well—very well. You should hear him."

"Yes, I have been told...."

"But you could not conceive; he does not do it badly. He is a man who really is master of his business. He preaches with the progression of a great river. He is destined to become the greatest priest in Europe...."

"Ah? You think that?"

"Wait, you will see. If a man is master of his business, and has self-assertion to make the world cringe before his force, that is all that is necessary. A man is either like leaven or like meal: he leavens or is leavened. The chief thing about any animal is its amount of available vigour. How much of Sun-fire has the man in him?—that is the question. If he has only enough, he can wash the world in his flush, and also if he is taught in what fashion to use it. But this Dr Burton, I assure you, he is not a paltry man. I want you to present me—now."

"I?" I said, taken rather aback, "I don't know him."

But at once Langler said at my ear: "I do."

"Mr Langler, however," I added, "probably knows him."

At this the baron said, half rising: "Ah, then——," and Langler stood up quickly, saying: "with pleasure...."

Dr Burton had now parted from Mr Edwards, and was passing close by us, wrapped in gloom, his frock brabbling at every stalk with the breeze; so Langler hurried out to get at him, and Baron Kolár goaded after Langler his rolling gait.

At this Dr Burton, as when a bull stops in its career to stare at some new object, stood still, and at once Langler said