Brother Copas

ng, let us talk. Or rather, you can tell me all about it

e some time to-morrow. I

glancing back over his shoulder a

stood letting his gentle, tired eyes follow the flight of the swallow

mpted Brothe

me will go dow

the

let her have my spare room,"

one of these, differing only from the rest in that it contained a small spare room, had chanced to be allotted to Brother Bonaday. He had not applied for it, and it had grieved him to find his promotion res

to the Master?" a

is to say,

f he re

ow what to do.... Find her some lodging in

applied to the

sidered this, while

re the letter reached me. She was already on h

s, you have lost four days in which you might have found

a, it

ee

t, glanced back over his shoulder, but Brother Bonaday's eyes were on the swallows. "In 1902 it was, the year of King Edward's coronation: yes, that will be why my wife chos

old Nurse

d to be told. The chil

was yet a chance of my being useful; being, as you may or may no

more than ordinary care. The fly dropped close under the far bank, and by a bare six inc

pretty goo

, whom preoccupation with trouble had long ago made uno

money for a good lodging, I have a pound or two laid by. We must do what we

w his attention, so that he seemed to address his speech to it. "It is very kind, and I thank you. But I hope the Master w

What

, of course, not so strongly as he does-and I promised to support him. Which makes it very awkward, you see, to go and ask a favour of the Master just when you are (so to say

only this morning I was promising myself much disinterested sport in the quarrelling of you Christian brethren

iven him my w

boise, who came along the river path with eyes fastened on the ground, and staff vicio

oak of Blanchminster, with the silver cross patté at the breast, and looked-so Copas murmured to himself-"like Caiaphas in a Miracle Play." His mouth was square and firm, h

" he echoed slowl

ther Copas, but by habit

ood Protestants! 'Bloody e

a Gallio, and always will be: you care nothing for what is heaven and earth to us others. But you have no right to infect Bonaday, h

," put in Brother Copas. "H

o opinions. If England is to be saved from coming a second time under the yoke of Papacy

fathom of line with a co

. If a man wants to understand England he has to start with one or two simple propositions, of which the first-or about the first-is that England once had a reformation, and is not going to forget it. But that is just what these fellows would make-believe

since France took a strong line with her monastic orders. Look at those fellows-College of St. John Lateran, as they call them

n, and are particular in pa

her Warboise, "

glance at Brother Bonaday. But Brother Bonaday's e

red for, but not for these wolves in sheep's clothing. Why, only last S

r Copas. "But I will t

ore-you may know it or not-Royle an

an their suspicions of you and me. Colt

eeze out of the public; the churches they restore, and the new ones they

ith the shadow, which he will unerringly mistake for the substance. I grant you that to be bullied and beaten down is damnably unpleasant discipline, even when set off against the pleasure of fooling su

ou

add the condition. Yet I will. If I stand in with you in resisting Col

regarded Brother Copas from under his stiff

Copas smoothly, almost before Brother

ever considered you as a Protestant, qu

trike off Bonaday and enlist me. A volunteer is proverbially worth two pressed men; and as a Protest

he helped himself to a pinch he slyly regarded the faces of his companions; and his own

Has it occurred to you that they were never so phenomenally active in building and rebuilding as on the very eve of the Reformation crash? Ask and inquire, my

her Warboise. "And so you really th

is, that the High Anglic

portrait of Dante, but-I am asking the reader to tax his imagination-with humorous wrinkles set about the eyes, their high austerity clean taken away and replaced by a look of ver

of speech.... But I am quite serious this time, and I ask you again to

e when it behoved all defenders of the reformed religion to stan

ll, those are my terms... and, excuse me, but was not t

that he would think it o

e enough. And now

wo Brother Copas brok

time to be lost, I tell you! Why, if he consent, there are a score of small things to be bought to make

other Bonaday helplessly. "I never, so

ng is, she'll be hungry. That necessitates a small knife and fork. Knife, fork and spoon; regular godfather's gif

ey look after these

ith a fine smile. "Heavens! if as a Protestant I

a font in

e often won

der stump by a few inches, and fell delicately on the dark water below it. There was a splash-a soft gurgling sound dear to the ang

r Bonaday's slow blood caught the pulse of it. He watched,

, twitching too, in the grasses by the Mere bank, Brother Copas, afte

tant!... Saint Peter-Kin