"Poor darling!" said his mother with tears in her eyes, while Nicie was sobbing quietly; "by this time he may be aware of it perhaps, though not of the dreadful thing that happened since. It will not be for his happiness that he should ever know. Remember that, Inez. He is of so much vigour and high blood of the best Andalusian, that he would become insane, and perhaps do himself deep injury. He would cast away his office—what you call the Commission,—and come back to this country, and be put in prison for not accepting quietly the sacrilegious laws."
"Mother, you have promised never to speak of that subject. If it is too much for poor Tom, what is it likely to be for us? All we can do is to leave it to God."
"There is not the same God in this Country as we have. If there was, He would never endure it."
CHAPTER XXIV. A WAGER.
It was true enough that Mr. Penniloe was gone to London, as Gronow said. But it was not true that otherwise he would have held a prayer-meeting every day in Lady Waldron's room, for the benefit of her case. He would have been a great support and strength to Inez in her anxiety, and doubtless would have joined his prayers with hers; that would have been enough for him. Dr. Gronow was a man who meant well upon the whole, but not in every crick and cranny, as a really fine individual does. But the Parson was even less likely than the Doctor, to lift a latch plugged by a lady against him.
"Thyatira, do you think that you could manage to see to the children, and the butcher's bill, during the course of next week," he enquired, when the pupils were off for their holiday, with accordions, and pan-pipes and pea-shooters; "I have particular business in London. Only Betty Cork, and old Job Tapscott, have come to my readings of Solomon's Song, and both of them are as deaf as milestones. Master Harry will be home again in three days' time, and when he is in the house you have no fear; though your confidence should be placed much higher. Master Michael is stronger of late, and if we can keep shocking stories from him, his poor little head may be right again. There really has been no proof at all of the existence of any Spring-heeled Jack; and he would never come here to earn his money. He may have been mentioned in Prophecy, as the Wesleyan Minister declared, but I have failed to come across the passage. Our Church does not deal in those exciting views, and does not recognise dark lanterns."
"No sir, we are much soberer like; but still there remains the Seven Vials."
The Parson was up to snuff—if the matter may be put upon so low a footing. Mrs. Muggridge had placed her arms akimbo, in challenge Theological. He knew that her views were still the lowest of the low, and could not be hoisted by any petard to the High Church level. And the worst of it is that such people are pat with awkward points of Holy Writ, as hard to parry as the stroke of Jarnac. In truth he must himself confess that partly thus had Thyatira, at an early and impressible age, been induced to join the Church, when there chanced to be a vacancy for a housemaid at the Parsonage. It was in his father's parish, where her father, Stephen Muggridge, occupied a farm belonging to the Rev. Isaac Penniloe. Philip, as a zealous Churchman, urged that the Parson's chief tenant should come to church, but the Rev. Isaac took a larger view, preferring his tangible cornland to his spiritual Vineyard.