“Sorrow carried him weeping home to his mother. His mother came out and took him in her arms. Sorrow bowed and went away. The boy clung to his mother’s neck and said he was sorry. In the midst of her joy his mother wept bitterly, for he had nearly broken her heart. She could not get the wolves out of her mind.

“But alas! the boy soon forgot all and was worse than ever. He grew more and more cruel to his mother, and mocked every word she said to him, so that—”

Suddenly a cry came from the gallery. The congregation started in terror to their feet. The curate stopped, and turning to the right, stood gazing. In the front of the squire’s pew stood Mrs. Wylder, white and speechless with rage. For a moment she stood shaking her fist at the preacher. Then in a hoarse, broken voice came the words:

“It’s a lie! My boy was never cruel to me. It’s a wicked lie!”

She could say no more, but stood and glared, hate in her fierce eyes, and torture in her colourless face.

“Madam, you have betrayed yourself,” said Wingfold solemnly. “If your son behaved well to you, it makes it all the worse that you now behave so badly to your Father. From Sunday to Sunday you insult him with rude behaviour. Till now I have held my tongue—not from fear of the rich, from no desire to spare them, but because I shrank from making the house of God a place of contention. But, Madam, you have behaved shamefully, and I do my duty in rebuking you.”

The whole congregation were on their feet staring at her. A moment longer she stood and would have brazened out the stare. But she felt the eyes of the motionless hundreds blazing away upon her, and the culprit grew naked in the presence of judging souls. Her nerve gave way. She turned her back, left the pew, and fled from the church.

Happily, Barbara was not in the church that morning.

The next Sunday the squire’s pew was empty.

Wingfold felt his well-intentioned plot had failed. But though he had rough-hewed its ending, the divine hand would yet accomplish its work through it.

When the squire came to know what had taken place, he made his first call on the curate. He said nothing about his wife, but plainly wished it understood that he bore him no ill will for what he had done.

— Twelve —

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The rector had often wished his wife could in some natural way get hold of Miss Wylder. He suspected something exceptionally fine in her—how else could she, with such a father and such a mother, have such a countenance?

She was not yet up to his teaching. She had to have other water to drink first. But a shepherd is none the less a true shepherd that he leaves plenty of liberty to the lamb to pick its own food. That its best instincts may not be to the taste either of its natural guardians or the public, is nothing against those instincts. Without appearing to their guardians both strange and headstrong, some sheep would never get near the food necessary to keep them alive.