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CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD: THE PERPETUAL CURATE.

PART X.-CHAPTER XXXI.

"I WILL do what I can for you," said Mr Morgan; "yours is a very hard case, as you say. Of course, it would not do for me to give any opinion-but such a thing shall not occur in Carlingford, while I am here, without being looked into," said the Rector, with dignity; "of that you may be sure."

"I don't want no more nor justice," said Elsworthy-"no more nor justice. I'm a man as has always been respected, and never interfered with nobody as didn't interfere with me. The things I've stood from my clergyman, I wouldn't have stood from no man living. The way as he'd talk, sir, of them as was a deal better than himself! We was a happy family afore Mr Wentworth came nigh of us. Most folks in Carlingford knows me. There wasn't a more industrious family in Carlingford, though I say it as shouldn't, nor one as was more content, or took things more agreeable, afore Mr Wentworth come to put all wrong."

"Mr Wentworth has been here for five years," said the Rector's wife, who was present at this interview; "have things been going wrong for all that time?"

"I couldn't describe to nobody what I've put up with," said the clerk of St Roque's, evading the question. "He hadn't the ways of such clergymen as I've been used to. Twice the pay wouldn't have made up for what I've suffered in my feelins; and I ask you, sir, is this how it's all to end? My little girl's gone," cried Elsworthy, rising into hoarse earnestness-" my little girl as was so sweet, and as everybody took notice on. She's gone, and I don't know as I'll ever see her again; and I can't get no satisfaction one way or another; and I ask you, sir, is a villain as could do such a thing to hold up his

head in the town, and go on the same as ever? I ain't a man as is contrairy, or as goes again' my superiors; but it's driving me mad, that's what it's doing," said Elsworthy, wiping the moisture from his forehead. The man was trembling and haggard, changed even in his looks -his eyes were red with passion and watching, and looked like the eyes of a wild beast lying in wait for its prey. "I can't say as I've ever slept an hour since it happened," he cried ;" and as for my missis, its a-killing of her. We ain't shut up, because we've got to live all the same; and because, if the poor thing come back, there's always an open door. But I'll have justice, if I was to die for it!" cried Elsworthy. "I don't ask no more than justice. If it ain't to be had one way, I'll have it another. I'll set the police on him-I will. When a man's drove wild, he ain't answerable for what he's a-doing; and to see him a-walking about Carlingford, and a-holding up his head, is a thing as I won't stand no longer, not if it was to be my ruin. I'm as good as ruined now, and I don't care." He broke off short with these words, and sat down abruptly on the chair Thomas had placed for him in front of the Rector's table. Up to this moment he had been standing, in his vehemence and agitation, without taking advantage of the courtesy accorded to his misfortune; now the poor man sat down by way of emphasis, and began to polish his hat round and round with his trembling hands.

As for Mr Morgan, he, on the contrary, got up and walked instinctively to the fireplace, and stood there with his back to the empty grate, contemplating the world in general with a troubled countenance, as was natural. Not to speak of his prejudice against

Mr Wentworth, the Rector was moved by the sight of Elsworthy's distress; but then his wife, who unluckily had brought her needlework into the library on this particular morning, and who was in the interest of the Curate of St Roque's, was seated watchful by the window, occasionally looking up, and entirely cognisant, as Mr Morgan was aware, of everything that happened. The Rector was much embarrassed to feel himself thus standing between the two parties. "Yours is a very hard case-but it is necessary to proceed with caution, for, after all, there is not much proof," he said, faltering a little. My dear, it is a pity to detain you from your walk," Mr Morgan continued, after a momentary pause, and looked with a flush of consciousness at his wife, whose absence would have been such a relief to him. Mrs Morgan looked up with a gracious smile.

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A man as conducts himself like that, didn't ought to be a clergyman, sir," cried Elsworthy. "I'm one as listened to him preaching on Sunday, and could have jumped up and dragged him out of the pulpit, to hear him a-discoursing as if he wasn't a bigger sinner nor any there. I ain't safe to stand it another Sunday. I'd do something as I should be sorry for after. I'm asking justice, and no more." With these words Elsworthy got up again,

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still turning round in his hands the unlucky hat, and turned his person, though not his eyes, towards Mrs Morgan. "No man could be more partial to his clergyman nor I was," he said, hoarsely. "There was never a time as I wasn't glad to see him. He came in and out as if it belonged to him, and I had no more thought as he was meaning any harm than the babe unborn; but a man as meddles with an innocent girl ain't nothing but a black-hearted villain !" cried Elsworthy, with a gleam out of his red eyes; and I don't believe as anybody would take his part as knew all. I put my confidence in the Rector, as is responsible for the parish," he went on, facing round again: "not to say but what it's natural for them as are Mr Wentworth's friends to take his part-but I'll have justice, wherever it comes from. It's hard work to go again' any lady as I've a great respect for, and wouldn't cross for the world; but it ain't in reason that I should be asked to bear it and not say nothing; and I'll have justice, if I should die for it," said Elsworthy. He turned from one to another as he spoke, but kept his eyes upon his hat, which he smoothed and smoothed as if his life depended on it. for the reality of his excitement, his red eyes, and hoarse voice, he would have been a ludicrous figure, standing as he did in the middle of Mr Morgan's library, veering round, first to one side and then to the other, with his stooping head and ungainly person. As for the Rector, he too kept looking at his wife with a very troubled face.

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if you got up an inquiry and found no proof against Mr Wentworth. Is it likely he would do such a thing all at once without showing any signs of wickedness beforehand -is it possible? To be sorry is quite a different thing, but I don't

see

"Ladies don't understand such matters," said the Rector, who had been kept at bay so long that he began to get desperate. "I beg your pardon, my dear, but it is not a matter for you to discuss. We shall take good care that there is plenty of evidence," said the perplexed man-"I mean, before we proceed to do anything," he added, growing very red and confused. When Mr Morgan caught his wife's acute eye, he got as nearly into a passion as was possible for so good a man. "You know what I mean,' he said, in his peremptory way; "and, my dear, you will forgive me for saying this is not a matter to be discussed before a lady." When he had uttered this bold speech, the Rector took a few little walks up and down the room, not caring, however, to look at his wife. He was ashamed of the feeling he had that her absence would set him much more at his ease with Elsworthy, but still could not help being conscious that it was so. He did not say anything more, but he walked up and down the room with sharp short steps, and betrayed his impatience very manifestly. As for Mrs Morgan, who was a sensible woman, she saw that the time had come for her to retire from the field.

"I think the first thing to be done is to try every possible means of finding the girl," she said, getting up from her seat; "but I have no doubt what you decide upon will be the best. You will find me in the drawing-room when you want me, William." Perhaps her absence for the first moment was not such a relief to her husband as he had expected. The mildness of her parting words made it very apparent that she did not mean to take of

fence; and he perceived suddenly, at a glance, that he would have to tell her all he was going to do, and encounter her criticism single-handed, which was rather an appalling prospect to the Rector. Mrs Morgan, for her part, went up-stairs not without a little vexation, certainly, but with a comforting sense of the opportunity which awaited her. She felt that, in his unprotected position, as soon as she left him, the Rector would conduct himself rashly, and that her time was still to

come.

The Rector went back to the hearthrug when his wife left the room, but in the heat of his own personal reflections he did not say anything to Elsworthy, who still stood smoothing his hat in his hand. On the whole, Mr Morgan was rather aggravated for the moment by the unlucky cause of this little encounter, and was not half so well disposed towards Mr Wentworth's enemy as half an hour before, when he recognised his wife as the champion of the Curate, and felt controlled by her presence; for the human and even the clerical mind has its impulses of perversity. He began to get very impatient of Elsworthy's hat, and the persistent way in which he worked at it with his hands.

"I suppose you would not be so certain about it, if you had not satisfactory evidence?" he said, turning abruptly, and even a little angrily, upon the supplicant; for Mr Morgan naturally resented his own temper and the little semiquarrel he had got into upon the third person who was the cause of all.

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said the Rector, hastily. "Don't think you had better put down your hat? I think you said it was on Friday it occurred. It will be necessary to take down the facts in a business-like way," said Mr Morgan, drawing his chair towards the table and taking up his pen. This was how the Rector was occupied when Thomas announced the most unexpected of all possible visitors, Mr Proctor, who had been Mr Morgan's predecessor in Carlingford. Thomas announced his old master with great solemnity as "the late Rector"-a title which struck the present incumbent with a sense of awe not unnatural in the circumstances. He jumped up from his chair and let his pen fall out of his startled fingers when his old friend came in. They had eaten many a good dinner together in the revered hall of All-Souls, and as the familiar countenance met his eyes, perhaps a regretful thought of that Elysium stole across the mind of the late Fellow, who had been so glad to leave the sacred brotherhood, and marry, and become as other men. He gave but a few hurried words of surprise and welcome to his visitor, and then, with a curious counterpoise of sentiment, sent him up-stairs to see "my wife," feeling, even while half envious of him, a kind of superiority and half contempt for the man who was not a Rector and married, but had given up both these possibilities. When he sent him upstairs to see "my wife," Mr Morgan looked after the elderly celibate with a certain pity. One always feels more inclined to take the simple view of any matter—to stand up for injured innocence, and to right the wronged-when one feels one's self better off than one's neighbours. A reverse position is apt to detract from the simplicity of one's conceptions, and to suggest two sides to the picture. When Mr Proctor was gone, the Rector addressed himself with great devotion to Elsworthy and his evidence. It could not be doubted that the man

was in earnest for his own part, and believed what he said; and things unquestionably looked rather ugly for Mr Wentworth. Mr Morgan took down all about the Curate's untimely visit to Elsworthy on the night when he took Rosa home; and when he came to the evidence of the Miss Hemmings, who had seen the Curate talking to the unfortunate little girl at his own door the last time she was seen in Carlingford, the Rector shook his head with a prolonged movement, half of satisfaction, half of regret; for, to be sure, he had made up his mind beforehand who the culprit was, and it was to a certain extent satisfactory to have his opinion confirmed.

"This looks very bad, very bad, I am sorry to say," said Mr Morgan; "for the unhappy young man's own sake, an investigation is absolutely necessary. As for you, Elsworthy, everybody must be sorry for you. Have you no idea where he could have taken the poor girl?— that is," said the incautious Rector, "supposing that he is guilty-of which, I am afraid, there does not seem much doubt."

"There ain't no doubt," said Elsworthy; "there ain't nobody else as could have done it. Just afore my little girl was took away, sir, Mr Wentworth went off of a sudden, and it was said as he was a-going home to the Hall. I was a-thinking of sending a letter anonymous, to ask if it was known what he was after. I read in the papers the other day as his brother was a-going over to Rome. There don't seem to be none o' them the right sort; which it's terrible for two clergymen. I was thinking of dropping a bit of a note anonymous

"No-no-no," said the Rector, "that would never do; nothing of that sort, Elsworthy. If you thought it likely she was there, the proper thing would be to go and inquire; nothing anonymous-no, no; that is a thing I could not possibly countenance," said Mr Morgan. He pushed away his pen and paper,

and got very red and uncomfortable. If either of the critics up-stairs, his wife, or his predecessor in the Rectory, could but know that he was having an anonymous letter suggested to him-that anybody ventured to think him capable of being an accomplice in such a proceeding! The presence of these two in the house, though they were most probably at the moment engaged in the calmest abstract conversation, and totally unaware of what was going on in the library, had a great effect upon the Rector. He felt insulted that any man could venture to confide such an intention to him almost within the hearing of his wife. "If I am to take up your case, everything must be open and straightforward," said Mr Morgan; while Elsworthy, who saw he had said something amiss, without precisely understanding what, took up his hat as a resource, and once more began to polish it round and round in his hands.

"I didn't mean no harm, sir, I'm sure," he said; "I don't seem to see no other way o' finding out; for I ain't like a rich man as can go and come as he pleases; but I won't say no more, since it's displeasing to you. If you'd give me the list of names, sir, as you have decided on to be the committee, I wouldn't trouble you no longer, seeing as you've got visitors. Perhaps, if the late Rector ain't going away directly, he would take it kind to be put on the committee; and he's a gentleman as I've a great respect for, though he wasn't not to say the man for Carlingford," said Elsworthy, with a sidelong look. He began to feel the importance of his own position as the originator of a committee, and at the head of the most exciting movement which had been for a long time in Carlingford, and could not help being sensible, notwithstanding his affliction, that he had a distinction to offer which even the late Rector might be pleased to accept.

"I don't think Mr Proctor will

stay," said Mr Morgan; "and if he does stay, I believe he is a friend of Mr Wentworth's." It was only after he had said this that the Rector perceived the meaning of the words he had uttered; then, in his confusion and vexation, he got up hastily from the table, and upset the inkstand in the embarrassment of the moment. "Of course that is all the greater reason for having his assistance," said Mr Morgan in his perplexity; we are all friends of Mr Wentworth. Will you have the goodness to ring the bell? There are few things more painful than to take steps against a brother clergyman, if one did not hope it would be for his benefit in the end. Oh, never mind the table. Be so good as to ring the bell again— louder, please.'

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"There ain't nothing equal to blotting-paper, sir," said Elsworthy eagerly. "With a bit o' blottingpaper I'd undertake to rub out inkstains out o' the finest carpet-if you'll permit me. small speck, and it'll be gone afore you could look round. It's twenty times better nor lemon-juice, or them poisonous salts as you're always nervous of leaving about. Look you here, sir, if it ain't a-sopping up beautiful. There ain't no harm done as your respected lady could be put out about; and I'll take the list with me, if you please, to show to my wife, as is a-breaking her heart at home, and can't believe as we'll ever get justice. She says as how the quality always takes a gentleman's part against us poor folks, but that ain't been my experience. Don't you touch the carpet, Thomas-there ain't a speck to be seen when the blotting-paper's cleared away. I'll go home, not to detain you no more, sir, and cheer up the poor heart as is abreaking," said Elsworthy, getting up from his knees where he had been operating upon the carpet. He had got in his hand the list of names which Mr Morgan had put down as referees in this painful business, and it dawned faintly

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