“The real test of a man is not what he knows but what he is in himself, and in his relation to others. For instance, can he battle against his own bad inherited instincts, or brave public opinion in the cause of truth?”

—Tennyson.

On this bright, mild Tuesday morning, Mrs. Durdle was bustling about in the sitting-room at the Vicarage, armed with a goose-wing and a duster, weapons wherewith she waged a daily battle with the dust. Spite of her unwieldy proportions, she was a most active person, but even the energetic are not sorry to pause a little in their work on a balmy spring day, and when Zachary crossed the little lawn and approached the open casement, she willingly went to the window, nominally to shake her duster, but in reality to enjoy a gossip.

“Mornin’, Mrs. Durdle!” said Zachary. “A fine growin’ day this!”

Zachary was somewhat bent and old, yet his face, though wrinkled, had still a youthful ruddiness, and bore that benevolent expression which comes when the grinders cease because they are few, and the lips take an infantine and gentle smile as a recompense.

“Well, for me, I say, ’tis a day when workin’ is none so easy,” said Durdle. “Folk talk a deal about the peace and quiet of a country life, but I had a heap more quiet at Hereford before I came to keep house for the Vicar. Look you there!” and she pointed with fine scorn to an untidy table, “he’s been and got out them nasty bones again! If they wasn’t as dry as an empty cider-press I’d give them all to the dog!”

With laugh Zachary suddenly held up and brandished in the air a long bone which he had hitherto concealed.

Mrs. Dundle gave a horrified exclamation.

“My patience, man! Don’t bring that here! Vicar would never take bones from the churchyard. ’Tis animals’ bones he’s all agog for, and then only when they be as old as Noah’s ark.”

“I’ll put it back in the mould when parson’s seen it; but I tell you, Mrs. Durdle, ’tis a marvel. That’s a giant’s shank bone, and he must ha’ stood nine feet high—poor chap, think o’ that! I’m glad there’s not so much o’ me. Think o’ nine feet o’ rheumatics!”

“Well, rheumatics or no rheumatics, I’m sorry for his wife,” said Durdle, laughing. “She must have needed to be a rare good knitter to keep him in hose! If you must leave the thing for the Vicar, let me give it a good dustin’ out o’ window first. Ah! Zachary, after all, ’tis ill work jesting over bones when England’s strewn with the bones o’ them as has been killed in this weary war.”

“You’re right, Mrs. Durdle—you’re right. ’Twill be three years come Lammastide since the King set up his standard at Nottingham, and ever since naught but battles and sieges, plunderings and threatenings. And now there’s this plaguey garrison hard by at Canon Frome, with a Governor that sticks at nothing.”

“What! Colonel Norton?” said the housekeeper, raising her eyebrows. “Why, he be always comin’ to see Vicar. But between you and me, Zachary, ’tis Mistress Hilary’s pretty face, I take it, that draws him.”

“Then, Mrs. Durdle, for pity’s sake have a care o’ your young lady, for I hear little enough to his credit. But I thought Mistress Hilary had been courted by a young spark at Hereford?”

“Eh, to be sure, so she was. She and young Mr. Gabriel Harford were like lovers since they were no higher than this table. But the war put a stop to that, and from being fast friends they became foes, the more’s the pity.”

“Well, like master, like man, as the proverb hath it,” said the sexton, stooping to root up a plantain from the turf. “Vicar he says, he’ll have nought to do with wars and fightings, for he be a man o’ peace. And so be I, Mrs. Durdle, so be I. But beware of yon Governor o’ Canon Frome, for there’s many a wench will have cause to rue the day when he came to Herefordshire.”

“For my part, I like the gentleman well enough. He’s a fine, handsome officer, and the Vicar always enjoys his visits,” said Durdle, pouncing like a bird of prey on the laboriously-woven spider’s web which she just then saw in a corner of the window.

“Ah, you women! you women! ’Tis always the same. A handsome spark will ever find you ready to give him a good word,” said Zachary, shaking his head.

“And are you so sure, Zachary, that a pretty wench can’t turn you round her fingers?” retorted the housekeeper, with a smile.

“Handsome is as handsome does,” quoted the sexton, shrewdly. “Give me the woman who knows how to brew good cider; grave-diggin’ all among bones and dust is terribly dry work, Mrs. Durdle.”

“Well, well, come round to the kitchen, man, though ’tis over early for your noonings,” said Durdle, with a laugh, “but, by-the-bye, what was the tale I heard in the village last night about the doings at Drybrook?”

“’Tis o’er true,” said Zachary, “though ’twas not the Canon Frome men that plundered there, but a troop of Colonel Lunsford’s horse that were serving in Prince Rupert’s forces. At Drybrook, when a poor fellow refused to give up a flitch o’ bacon to the foraging party, they struck him down and knocked out his eyes.”

“Good gracious, Zachary; now don’t you be telling that gruesome tale to Mistress Hilary, for she can’t abide hearing tell o’ such doings, though she do pretend to be so fond o’ war and fighting and glory and the rest. There’s not much glory in havin’ your eyes put out, I’ll warrant!”

Zachary lounged off towards the back premises, and Durdle was about to retire to the kitchen, and resume her gossip there, when she heard a knock at the front door.

“Now I do believe that’s Colonel Norton’s knock,” she muttered, bustling out in reply to the summons.

Her surmise was right enough; there he stood, booted and spurred, in all the glory of his gay attire, and with a sparkle in his dark eyes, which instantly banished from Durdle’s mind all Zachary’s warnings. She ushered him into the room she had just quitted, and though he had only asked for the Vicar his glance had so plainly bade her tell her mistress as well of his arrival, that she promptly sought Hilary, who had just finished making apple pasties in the kitchen.

“I’ll clap those in the oven, dearie,” said the housekeeper, “and do you doff your apron and tell the Vicar Colonel Norton is waiting to see him.”

Hilary departed on the errand, unable to determine whether she wished to see her admirer or not.

“I will leave you to have your chat with the colonel,” she said when she had with some difficulty roused the Vicar from a treatise on ancient coins which Mr. Silas Taylor had lent him.

“Nay, nay, child,” said the Vicar, retaining her hand in his. “I have scarce clapped eyes on you this morning; come in too, and hear the news.”

And to Norton’s satisfaction the uncle and niece entered the room together. The Vicar’s greeting was always cordial, yet this morning Norton fancied that there was a certain depression about his host which he could not fathom.

“Do you bring us any news, sir?” asked the antiquary wistfully.

“No news, sir, and no treasures for the collection, unluckily,” said Norton. “I called mainly on business. You have not been disturbed here, I hope, by Governor Massey? I hear he is hovering about again near Ledbury.”

“Nay, we have heard naught of him here,” said the Vicar. “I have been up this morning seeing the owner of the Hill Farm. There is sore trouble there, sir, and I wish you would consider the people more than you do. These foraging parties are growing unbearable.”

“Believe me, I do what I can, sir,” said Norton in his most winning tone. “I dislike the work of plundering as much as you would, but how else are we to keep the army alive?”

The Vicar sighed heavily.

“May God send us the blessing of peace!” he said. “I tell you, sir, it fairly breaks my heart to go about among the people of Bosbury. There is scarce a family but has lost a man in this cruel war, or else hath been well-nigh ruined by marauders.”

“Well, Vicar, we must all take the fortune of war. Of course, the rustics grumble when hungry soldiers seize their goods—but how are the officers to check starving men? That is what I was last night urging on old Sir Richard Hopton, who does naught but complain of the Canon Frame garrison. ‘Good Sir,’ I said to him, ‘What would you have me do? If the King gave me money I would pay for what we consume. But we are fighting for the divine right of Kings, and have surely a divine right to feed on something more satisfying than air.’”

“’Tis not alone the taking of gear that I complain of,” said the Vicar gravely, “but of cruelties perpetrated by the soldiers—abominable cruelties which did not spare even women and children.”

“Such things will happen in time of war, sir,” replied

Norton. “What can you expect? Soldiers are but human. ’Tis only the Roundheads that set up for being saints. However, we must not scare Mistress Hilary with talk of cruelties. Believe me,” he said, turning to her, “these tales of the village folk never lose in the telling, and we are not so black as we’re painted. Prince Rupert——”

“Prince Rupert is one of a thousand!” said Hilary, enthusiastically. “How I should like to see him! Do you think there is a chance that he may come this way?”

“You are of a more martial spirit than the Vicar. That is generally the way. We poor soldiers mostly find favour with the fair sex—’tis one of our few............