Mr. Mowledy replied that there was a gentleman there upon the bench, namely, Mr. Sharpe, who could testify to his sacred character.

"Ah!" said Mr. Rushout, somewhat put out and yet raising his voice more angrily from being compelled to go on a new tack. “Well, Mr. Mowledy, I ask you to declare that you know no one single act in the prisoner's life which could warrant the inference that she is now guilty. Remember, sir, that if mercy is a fine thing, truth is a better, and that you are here to speak the whole truth, without reticence or equivocation."

To the wonder of poor Madge, who had been attending to all the proceedings without understanding them, and to the utter consternation of Tom Brown, who stood ruefully near the dock, the Curate hesitated at the roar of Mr. Rushout's voice, and the glare of his fierce eyes. He had eyes like those of a ferret, had Mr. Rushout, and they looked red as if on fire in certain lights. Though but fresh in practice, he had already made thieves and murderers quail beneath their baneful glance, and he now confounded the high and gentle soul of Mr. Mowledy.

"I ask you to state on your oath as a Christian minister, sir, that you know nothing against the character of this woman, who has been delivered over to justice by a public-spirited and highly-respected tradesman, my client, Mr. Slopgood?"

Mr. Mowledy looked sadly down; he remembered the address which he had written to a letter, at Madge's request, for John Giles; but of which he afterwards discovered by accident (for there is no such thing as a secret) that John Giles had no knowledge. He recollected the sad scene by the mill-stream that night eighteen years ago, and a horrible doubt passed across his mind that Madge might be guilty.

"Can't you speak ?" cried Mr. Krorl, looking surprised.

"No, no, sir; just you stand back there," bellowed Mr. Rushout violently to Mr. Wissle, whom he caught making signals. "We don't want you to prompt the witness; he is quite old enough to speak for himself. Now Mr. Mowledy, sir, am I to wait here till next Long Vacation ?" Still Mr. Mowledy was silent, and Mr. Rushout appealed to the bench to insist upon an answer.

"I cannot reply to a question which I have no means of answering with complete truth," said Mr. Mowledy with quiet self-respect. "Still," added he, with some solemnity, "I am convinced the prisoner is innocent."

"Stand down, sir," laughed Mr. Rushout: "if that was all you had to say, Mr. Wissle need scarcely have troubled himself to bring you up from Wakefield. You have evidently something on your mind, and your face tells a tale against the prisoner as damaging as any I could urge. You may go, sir!" And, thus contemptuously dismissed, Mr. Mowledy went, nor did Mr. Wissle try to stop him, conceiving that there must be some awkward passage in his client's history which might come out if this over-conscientious priest were allowed to tarry longer. So Mr. Mowledy

slowly left the court, feeling that he had done Madge harm instead of good, and yet not perceiving what else he could have said or done consistently with his duty. He was so confused that he did not notice a hobbledehoy clerk who brushed by him, holding a folio ledger clasped to his breast as if it were a baby.

This ledger was Mr. Sharpe's, and was handed up to that gentleman in his place on the bench beside Lord Kinsgear. He opened it at once, turned down a leaf and uttered something like a whistle. "Whew, what a singular coincidence-why, I paid this note to his Grace, your lordship's father, at Newmarket eighteen years ago!" Then beckoning to the magistrate, and speaking in a whisper: "This is a mistake, Krorl," he said. "The note was probably given to the woman when she was still a girl by the Dook of Courthope, and it won't do to let his name appear in the case. Besides, it ain't the note that was stolen; it's number 00012321-here; see the entry and the marks corresponding." The magistrate thus enlightened brought down the book which he then held in his right hand with a loud thump on the desk.

"This torns out to be a mistake," he exclaimed. "Mr. Sharpe here proves that this note is not the one that was stolen, and Mr. Rushout, sir, I should just advise your clients to be more careful how they prefer charges another time, or maybe there'll be an action for false imprisonment lying against them some of these days. The charge of theft is dismissed."

There then remained the case of assault to be disposed of, but the complexion of this was altered by the fact that Madge was an innocent woman who had resisted an unjustified aggression. Nevertheless, as she had positively struck Policeman X-1000, who, as representing the majesty of the law, should have been sacred to her in his person and proceedings, she found herself in the same box as the Northamptonshire farmer, who had declined going patiently to the lock-up and was fined forty shillings with costs.

On this sentence being pronounced, the Marquis of Kinsgear tugged Mr. Sharpe gently by the cuff and said, "I feel much sympathy for that poor woman, Mr. Sharpe, and should like to pay her fine, as well as indemnify her relatives for the expense they have incurred in coming up to town and getting her defended. I consider myself in some way indebted to her, for it was through a note given her by my father that she fell into this trouble. At the same time," added this young nobleman, with his grave good sense, "it is not right the policeman should suffer, so perhaps you will kindly give him five pounds without saying from whom ;" and, fumbling for his pocket-book, Lord Kinsgear handed Mr. Sharpe three five-pound notes.

CHAPTER XIII.

A GRAND CONNECTION.

It is a very small world we live in; and those who have once met upon it are nearly certain to meet again. They generally find that in some mysterious way their lives run in parallel grooves; and even what are called chance-meetings do not appear to be the result of accident when examined by the light which subsequent events and experience reflect upon them. On the contrary, they are almost invariably shown to be but a part of the great and awful design which formed our being and our fortunes. For three successive generations, perhaps for thirty, these Wyldwyls and Browns had always met, and there had been peril in the meeting, for the latter, and the peril had always passed away. If the Wyldwyls were the evil genii of the Browns, some more powerful influence than theirs must have been always at work to counteract and render them harmless. They always appeared in the shape of riches and pleasure; the Browns always appeared in the guise of poverty and shame. The riches and pleasure both vanished like the unsubstantial visions of a dream, so did the shame, though not the poverty: that remained. The Wyldwyls were perhaps but the eternal type of the nobles; the Browns of the people. It is always ill for the reaping-hook to cross blades with the sword, and how shall the field-flower stand up against the courser's hoof?

When Mr. Mowledy left the police court in Skinpole Street, which was presided over by Mr. Krorl, the position of the Browns seemed to his grieving mind quite desperate. He had not been in court when Mr. Sharpe gave his evidence as to the note, and called attention to the doubtfulness of its number, so there seemed to him the strongest probability that Madge would be committed for trial; and considering the effect which imprisonment might have upon her, in the ailing state of her health, this committal might be tantamount to a sentence of death. Mr. Mowledy saw no hope for her, for she had-or would make-no clear defence. She did not know the name of the person who had given her the ten-pound note, and declined stating any of the circumstances connected with her possession of it. It seemed to Mr. Mowledy, when he listened to her, that there was some secret shame attached to the money. She blushed when it was mentioned to her, and though Mr. Mowledy, thoughtfully weighing her case, did not think her guilty, yet there was a mystery in the matter which he could not fathom. Had Madge's explanations, however, been satisfactory to him, they might not have seemed so to a jury; and she had no funds to provide for a legal defence of the best sort. It is a queer truth, but it nevertheless is a truth, that if Madge had been committed on this false charge, no firm of attorneys who meant to deal fairly by her could have undertaken to see her safe through her troubles unless a sum of about one hundred guineas had been paid them for preliminary expenses, and a counsel fit to cope with Mr. Rushout might then

have required fifty guineas more to tackle the jury in real earnest. This, with other expenses, such as bringing up witnesses, would have raised the total very soon to two hundred guineas; and if all that Madge and her friends possessed had been sold, it would not have realised such a sum, after long delays and wearisome endeavours to dispose of it.

Mr. Mowledy mused very anxiously upon this aspect of his parishioner's predicament. He knew something about law costs, for his elder brother had been ruined by claiming an estate as heir-at-law. He was unquestionably entitled to it, but a richer claimant having started up to contest his claim, and he not having at once yielded all points at issue, because convinced that his claim was founded on right and equity, why the richer claimant had ruined him by appeals in the usual way. After this Mr. Mowledy and his family had felt their faith in the law as an instrument of justice very much shaken, and although Mr. Mowledy did not for his part publish his dissent for Scriptural reasons set forth in the fifth chapter and the eighth verse of the book of Ecclesiastes, still he acted silently on his experience, which is more than most men do. So when he saw how utterly hopeless Madge's case would be from the legal point of view, he considered whether there was no friend to whom he could appeal on behalf of his parishioner, in order to save her, if, as he still hoped, she was innocent.

Mr. Mowledy had, like most of us, a grand connection. Sir MowledyBagge-Dowdeswell-Mowledy was his cousin by his mother's side, and the good man had reverently preserved the genealogy of his family inscribed upon the tablets of his heart. The Right Honourable Baronet was a member of Parliament, a Cabinet Minister, and a gentleman of good estate in Cheshire. He had married a daughter of Earl Lobby, the Lady Selina Welbore, whose family, having inherited considerable parliamentary influence, had opened the doors of office to him, and he lived in Hanover Square, which is a sort of border-land between rank and fashion on the one hand, and professional, not to say commercial life, upon the other. Noblemen still live there, but so do dentists, and a few of the higher-class shopkeepers.

Mr. Mowledy easily found out the address of his relative by consulting the Court Guide, for it was printed there as in some twenty other books. Yes, there it was; not indeed under the letter "M," as Mr. Mowledy with not unnatural pride expected, but under the letter "D," Mr. Mowledy's grand connection having taken the additional surname of Dowdeswell by royal licence, and registered the Dowdeswell coat of arms, duly quartered, on his own at some expense in the Heralds' College. His name therefore stood in the Court Guide and similar works of reference as "Dowdeswell, Mowledy, Right Honourable Sir Mowledy-Bagge, Bart., P.C., LL.D., F.R.S., 131, Hanover Square; Mowledy Court, Cheshire; Dowdeswell Castle, Suffolk; Bagge Hall, Cumberland. Secretary of State for Mundane Affairs, &c. &c. &c. (5,000l.)."

The Curate wended his way rather sadly to the town mansion of his

grand connection, and rang at the bell, because there was no knocker, a knocker being a noisy thing which might disturb ministerial reflections or repose. The door was opened by a servant of grave and decorous aspect, who gave a civil answer, not precisely because he was paid a fair wage and well kept for doing so, but because he was just then expecting a place as messenger at the Mundane Office, a sinecure much desired by persons of his class in life, and he was therefore especially anxious to give no cause of offence to his master or the public till he had got what he wanted, and would have no reason to be civil to either of them any longer.

The reply which the Minister's servant gave to the Curate was briefly this: "Sir Mowledy is not at home, sir." Indeed, the Right Honourable Baronet never was at home at three o'clock in the afternoon, as the Curate would have known had he been a beneficed clergyman residing in London and on the look-out for a deanery.

the

"When is Sir Mowledy expected home?" asked the poor Curate of grave and reverent servant.

"I can't say, sir," replied the man, considering it well to practise official reserve at times.

"When am I most likely to find him at home?" the Curate then inquired.

"Sir Mowledy never sees hennywun without a hinderfew, sir. You must rite for a hinderfew," replied the Minister's man authoritatively.

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"If you will allow me to step into the hall for a moment, I will write for an interview now," replied the Curate. My business is of a pressing nature, and I—I" (the good man blushed and paused)—"I am a connection -a distant, a very distant relative of Sir Mowledy." The Curate did not look like a begging-letter writer, or an impostor, or a person who desired to obtain admittance to the ministerial baronet's house for any felonious or improper purpose; but the dignified servant evinced no signs of letting him pass the door. The last poor relation he had seen was a distant connection of Lady Selina. He had called for a Government appointment, and had made a riot in the hall because it had not been given to him there and then. The grave and reverent servant had seen several poor relations in the families which he had served, and their visits had never been welcome to his masters or mistresses. Mr. Mowledy did not appear rich. There was very little nap upon his hat, and his well-brushed black coat looked whitish at the seams. So the grave and reverent servant was about to put on a severe aspect, when the Curate remembered his Oxford experience, and putting his hand into his pocket drew out half-a-crown, which he handed to his grand connection's porter with a short and plain order for pen and ink, which were at once brought, for the half-crown now has replaced the shilling. It is the British Talisman, and sacred in the eyes of every Englishman as is the Almighty Dollar beyond the seas.