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“Thai's just * hat 1 wanted to know. Sir/' said Mat Dekker— *V>nIv I mustn't keep jou now: and my son. if he has come in, will wonder ^vhere I am. hut I did want to know what your real inmost purpose ws*. Of course, if you don't care to speak of such things. I would not press you: but Fd be happier if I knew what was really in your mind. But won't you come in for a minute. Mr. Geardl' Please do! We can talk quietly in my little museum—if m\ son is at home, I know hell be delighted to see you: for he has heard so -«^ch about you. Indeed, he told me he had been to tea with y&e Your second daughter . . . she is your second, isn't she? . . . has been a great help to us, quite often, in so many ways. Do come in, Mr. Geard. I've got to go out later to see that woman with cancer: but I told her nurse not to come for me till late, so that she would know if the poor thing was going to get any sleep tonight. Please come in now anyway.”

The ex-preacher of the gospel hesitated for a moment.

“I don't want to intrude.” he murmured: but Mat Dekker swept this aside.

“It is really important Sir.” he said emphatically, taking the other by the arm. “that I should hear everything about your scheme. I may be of use to you: more use to you than you realise.”

Bloody Johnny permitted himself to* be persuaded; and soon found himself seated in a comfortable wicker chair by a warm rire in what the father and son called their “museum.” The door of this chamber having been left ajar, the legatee of Canon Crow was enabled to listen to a rather singular conversation in the kitchen-passage.

“Master Sam ain't come in,'* he heard the voice of Penny Pitches saving, fc*and Weatherwax were in kitchen just now with a tale of having talked wf gamekeeper's young man from West Femmrd, come in for pheasant-feed, or aummai o” thai, and Weatherwax said *a told un that *a f^eed our Sam walking acio.*? Hearty Moor like as the Deil were arter he. “Twas Tomm\ Blake, the young man were, what used to live down Bere Lane, so he know'd our Sam as 'twere his own kin; and ye do know, thee wone self, Master, what be beyond Hearty! Whitelake River be beyond Hearty; where thik Missy Zoyland do live. And so. I reckon our Sam be gone to see she; gone to see she while she's old man be out to Wookey Hole.”

“He may have been walking in that direction. Penny, without going to that house.”

Mr. Geard uncrossed his legs and purposely made his chair creak by shifting his position in it. One of the grand secrets of the man's magnetic powrer was that he forced himself to see nothing, to hear nothing, to think nothing of other people's affairs. “Direction be shot!” cried the old woman. “Young men will do it, an5 they come to 't! Direction, say ye? He'll direction her, and direct her too; don't 'ee make no mistake, Master.”

“Well, I hope she'll give him a good supper anyway, Penny,” threw out Mat Dekker, with a forced smile.

“Don't lock the front door, Penny, when you go to bed,” he went on, “and will you bring me some brandy into the museum, the very best, you know, one of those bottles you hid from Weatherwax last Christmas?”

He returned to his guest and sat down opposite him. He too had a very creaky wicker chair; and for a little time, while Penny waited on them, in sulky silence, there was nothing audible in that ramshackle room but the creaking of those two chairs under their heavy bodies.

Mat Dekker's mind wa§ away at Whitelake Cottage. A spasm of unreasoning anger against his son kept surging up in the depths of his being and a wild imaginary dialogue between himself and Nell Zoyland began incoherently to shape itself on the tongue of his hidden soul—“She turned to me,” he kept thinking, “she turned to me in her trouble. She looked at me more than at either of them. She would do exactly what I told her. She said as much as that with her eyes.” The dangerous hidden waters in this man's rock-rooted Quantock nature began now to

* ¦>- ¦ ' d : .. “ A:... a* :.• i: vJ.I jj1 chu:i .”.nd his sweet

Yui i .a^c: .?.?.>-a* ¦.I I }.,..- h - (». what his old flame, fhl/.i. ri.u C ; . hud -a: h «- u- h><*ktd ut Mr. Grard's greenish-hhi \ !; ,><¦:-—“! * • 11' v ; u ,ue ;u **>\e with that girl \our-.-i if/” \ d ;-jv\ h *-b • ; ui u r .u^c into hi? ruddy cheeks as he i i“ ulicd {hi-. JVut it' h '\^ all u '..cerise, why did the thought w*Saru wiii pr . .h h» *''-]' r,,hh h?r tonight” cause him such »i:;-'»'uir ; ^-rl;t; i ^1 * :.: \> ! h<~ _i;;se of ar.y moral distress about Sum i<» luu. iuu i-.dh«. ^L had absolutely nothing in him of the . ^u^cuhul PuriUuu a;i: his long association with birds and IvuV.s uuJ ;vrUiIe> had gher. him a very natural and earthy altitude t^uui is «/:*>:;„ emotion—nor had he any particular con-o-ru ab..mi Wiiliaui Z-Aland's feelings! He had always regarded L»i*i IVs ! asiard as som-thing of a ruffian and a hull}. Secretly hi hi- heart he was rather p:\cd of Sain for having been able *•; Aval d\\d\ i rlrl"s heart fruin a handaome rogue like that.

ft mu> be ueii imagined that with all these stirrings and upheaving- ndt.u on in his mind it was very hard for Mat to give ur;\ , orjcer.irated aUtfiUi3ii to Mr. Geard and what the bar-rooms of the ioiui called Bh

Mr. Geard was nut one to miss the preoccupation of his host; but j-ueh wa* his mature that it caused him no particular annoy-diiir', He e:ijv»\ed the \ icar's brandy: and kept re-filling his glass and sipping its contents with a quiet relish, while he talked on and on, apparent!} quite as much for his own edification as for that of his abstracted hearer. His eyes, as he talked, kept wandering about the rooin, which was more like the play-room of a whole family of }oung naturalists than a theologian's study, though on one side of the apartment there was a large gloomy bookcase full of standard Anglican works.

^hat arrested Mr. GeanTs attention most was an enormous aquarium standing on a bench in the middle of the room. There was a lamp* not far from this object on a table littered with magazines, and the light from this* falling on one side of the aquarium, made an illuminated segment of bright water through which some \ery energetic and very large minnows kept darting and hovering. These lively fish, circumscribed in a luminous void, ociated themselves very vividly with what Bloody Johnny was ling as he rambled on. “Someone must make the start,” he w7as

ing, "and why should not I? Life advances by leaps and mds, and so does Religion. There's no doubt that this is the ment for something drastic . . . for something*'—he hesitated

a word, while a soft-mottled loach, lifting its white belly m the gravel at the bottom of the aquarium, pressed an open uth against the illuminated glass side of the vessel and fixed m this singular Prophet a cold fish-eye—"for something . . .

aculous* There are only about half a dozen reservoirs of world-gic on the whole surface of the globe—Jerusalem . • . Rome

. Mecca . . . Lhassa—and of these Glastonbury has the ^est residue of unused power. Generations of mankind, aeons of it races, have—by their concentrated will—made Glastonbury •aculous. But since the time of that incredible fool, Henry the ;hth, the magic of Glastonbury has been unused/* Jloody Johnny permitted his host to re-fill his glass. The bottle 5 two-thirds empty already. Here was an unexpected rival for >r Mr. Weatherwax! The lower the liquor sank in the bottle,

less wTater did the visitor mix with it. And the more he drank

more metaphysical he became. Mat Dekker kept replenishing

own pipe from an earthenware jar of Craven Mixture which :>d between the lamp and the aquarium. There were no other rces of light in this study-museum beyond the fire and this \ lamp, and the two men's massive physiognomies were lit up this two-fold radiation in a manner that would have delighted r connoisseur in the mystery of lines and contours, of plane faces and carved-out hollows. Bloody Johnny did not, ap-ently, make use of tobacco in any form. This was one of those riconformist traits in his curious character that a little discon-ted his host. The brandy-drinking, however, carried to such a prising length, and producing no sign of tipsiness, was a con-srable comfort to the priest's Quantock-bred mind. If only the !ow had smoked too! But with these queer chaps one couldn't ^ everything. If the man had neither smoked nor drank the est-naturalist would have experienced a positive physical dis-te for this alien presence in his museum. He would have snuffed the air suspiciously. like a hound who smells a weasel in place of a fox.

“Whv shouldn't the Lord have chosen me.” Mr. Geard was now &ayinff. as he leaned forward in his wicker chair, hugging his lerrs and wagons his hydrocephalic head, “to bring back an •Age of Faith to our Western World? The way I am doing it will seem heresy to some, blasphemy to others, pure hocus-pocus to most. But that's exactly, my dear, what all new out-spurts of the Real Presence have seemed. Do 'ee think anyone can put a stopper on me?”

Mat Dekker had never, since Sam's mother's death, been called “mv dear” by any living soul: but it was such a quaint word for the man to use just then, at such a moment, this word “stopper/” that he looked at him with something like real respect. The chap could not be a humbug! No humbug would say “put a stopper on me.*”

Mat Dekker now began scrutinising his guest's great bowed head as Bloody Johnny grew somnolent, and the way his huge, plump, clenched fist lay on the rough little garden-table by the edje of his bottle and glass. “There's the head of a heretic,” he thought. “No doubt the great Marcion. with his skull full of spiritual errors, had a head like that. But it's all wrong! Christ has chosen to reveal Himself through the traditions of His Church, and in no other way. When the Church's authority is undermined life falls back into chaos . . . into the blind grop-ings of Matter or at least of Nature.”

“The Lord . . . has . . . filled me . , .” rumbled Bloody Johnny again in his hoarse voice, “with the power of His spirit, my dear, and nothing can stop me from doing His will! I feel His will pouring through me, my dear, by night and by day. Let the glory go to whom He pleases! I am but a reed, a miserable pipe, a wretched conduit a contemptible sluice. But never mind what I am! Through me, at this moment of time, the Eternal is breaking through. Yes, dear, dear Sir, for I admire 'ee and respect >e. ifs breaking through! I”m going to make Glas-tonbury the centre of the Religion of all the West. I feel it in me, this power; I feel it dear, dear Mr. Dekker, and nothing can stop me. nothing!" He lifted his heavy fist and emptied the remainder of the bottle into his glass, and tossed it. this time without one drop of water, down his capacious throat. After this, the man's chin sank down again upon his chest and his host had time to abandon himself in peace once more to his troubled thoughts.

Mat Dekker, noticing at last that his guests eyes had actually closed, brought out his great old-fashioned watch with its blue enamelled back and looked at it with puckered brows. A deep sigh came from his heart as he replaced this timepiece, for he had seen the little hand approaching eleven and the big hand approaching ten. Ten minutes to eleven—and Sam not back. He must be staying with her, sleeping with her. His hands, old clumsy Sam's rough hands, the hands that had hammered together the little garden-table on which that empty bottle rested, must be now caressing her naked satiny limbs. Mat Dekker's face positively contorted itself with suffering as this image or rather as this imaginative projection of his own feelings into those of his son's, went on dominating his senses. . . . Suddenly there was a loud ring at the front-door bell. Mat Dekker started up upon his feet. John Geard jerked up his head, and pushing away the empty bottle with the back of his knuckles, gathered himself together to face whatever new incursion into the museum this sound portended. The clatter of Penny Pitches' heavy shoes came echoing down the passage.

“Is it your son?” broke in Mr. Geard, but the priest shook his head.

“He'd never ring,” he murmured. “The door's always------”

His voice was lost in the noisy opening of the front door while an alarming colloquy, overheard by both of the men, began to take place on the doorstep. “She can't abide the pain one hour longer, and Doctor said she couldn't 'ave no more morphia till he comes tomorrow. I've run near all the way, for I can't bear leaving the pore thing like as she is. She be crazy with pain, and that's the truth.”

Mat Dekker was out into the hah now; and Mr. Geard, his deserted chair creaking like an anxious goblin, was in the museum doorway. “This is Nurse Robinson. She is a niece of our Mrs. Robinson whom I expect you know. Nancy, I call her,” said Mr-

snuffed the air suspiciously, like a hound who smells a weasel in place of a fox.

“”Why shouldn't the Lord have chosen me.“ Mr. Geard was now saying, as he leaned forward in his wicker chair, hugging his legrs and wagging his hvdrocephalie head. ”to bring back an -Age of Faith to our Western World? The way I am doing it will seem heresy to some, blasphemy to others, pure hocus-pocus to most. But that's exactly, my dear, what all new out-spurts of the Real Presence have seemed. Do “ee think anyone can put a stopper on me?”

Mat Dekker had never, since Sam's mother's death, been called **my dear“ by any living soul: but it was such a quaint word for the man to use just then, at such a moment this word ”stopper/' that he looked at him with something like real respect. The chap could not be a humbug! Xo humbug would say "put a stopper on me/'

Mat Dekker now began scrutinising his guesfs great bowTed head as Bloody Johnny grew somnolent, and the way his huge, plump, clenched fist lay on the rough little garden-table by the edge of his bottle and glass. “There's the head of a heretic/' he thought. ”Xo doubt the great Marcion, with his skull full of spiritual errors, had a head like that. But it's all wrong! Christ has chosen to reveal Himself through the traditions of His Church, and in no other way. When the Church's authority is undermined life falls back into chaos . . . into the blind grop-ings of Matter or at least of Nature."

“The Lord . . . has . . . filled me . . /' rumbled Bloody Johnny again in his hoarse voice, ”with the power of His spirit, my dear, and nothing can stop me from doing His will! I feel His will pouring through me, my dear, by night and by day. Let the glory go to wThom He pleases! I am but a reed, a miserable pipe, a wretched conduit, a contemptible sluice. But never mind what I am! Through me, at this moment of time, the Eternal is breaking through. Yes, dear, dear Sir. for I admire 'ee and respect >e, it's breaking through! I'm going to make Glas-tonbury the centre of the Religion of all the West. I feel it in me, this powTer; I feel it, dear, dear Mr. Dekker, and nothing can stop me, nothing!“ He lifted his heavy fist and emptied the Dekker; and, as Penny Pitches retreated down the passage to her own domain, the nurse and Mr. Geard shook hands. The newcomer was certainly more like a ”Nancy“ than like a nurse. A red-faced lusty creature she appeared, when she threw back her hood, but her face betrayed a natural agitation at this moment that was more humane than it was professional. '”But this is outrageous!“ cried Mr. Dekker: and by the light of the hall-lamp, hanging from the ceiling, Geard could see a vein in the priest's forehead swell and swell, till it resembled a little thin snake beneath his skin. ”This is unbearable! Have you called the doctor up? Have you talked to him?"