almost, in a flight of fancy, have supposed that
an immense glass case had been kept over the
building for centuries, and had only just been
removed.

The same almost Dutch spirit of neatness that
pervaded the cathedral and its circumjacent lawn,
pervaded also the canons' residences that hemmed
in the close. No future martyrs, or confessors,
or anchorites, or St. Jeromes, or St. Anthonys,
lived there, but the snug, portly, high feeding,
well-intentioned, not too over-zealous clergy of
the early part of George the Third's reign. The
dean's house, that larger one on the extreme
right of the close, just where the verger stood,
was a special and crowning instance of this
luxurious neatness. The old red brick gleamed
of a pleasant colour in the sun, heightened as
beauty spots heighten a complexion by the
dazzling yellow and brown shadows of the
budding vine-leaves that clustered over them. The
brass knockers and ornaments of the door shone
in the sun like gold. The door-steps and the
stones leading up the walk from the door to the
garden gate were white as milk, and untarnished
by a footstep. The very blackbirds seemed to
sing softer in the dean's garden.

To any but the heart of a crabbed and soured
verger, hurried from his ale at the Blue
Dragon, in Bishop-street, such a calm scene
would have brought peace and awoke pleasant
memories. But the verger was inexorably hard
and soured, so he spent twenty minutes bitterly
ruminating over the disgraceful injustice of
Providence in teaching a wealthy dean how to
make gold, when he (Fulham) had been verger
of Salisbury Cathedral eighteen years, man and
boy, at a paltry salary of only five-and-twenty
shillings per week. Fulham was one of those
untoward natures that cannot enjoy even venison
at his own table if the man at the next table is
taking turtle.

The dean was in London, and in the absence
of that dreaded disciplinarian the verger has
been more than usually neglectful of the
hours of the daily services, and more than
usually punctual at the Blue Dragon. No
wonder, therefore, that on the present occasion,
though it only wanted ten minutes to three, and
the bell ought by this time to have begun
sounding to call together the scattered choristers
from different parts of the town, to warn
the precentor from his studies, and to summon
the old half-pay captain, the dean's daughter, and
the three old maiden sisters who formed the
habitual congregation, the unfaithful verger, who
knew that no one but the dean cared much for
punctuality, stopped at the dean's door, and rang
the servants' bell, just to hear from Bessy, his
pretty little daughter, when the dean was
expected.

A moment after he pulled the shining bell
knob, the door opened, and pretty Bessy
appeared, nervous, hurried, and alarmed.

"I thought it was you, father," she said, in
answer to his question; "but don't stop, for
Heaven's sake; we expect master directly. He
wrote yesterday to say he should post back, and
be here, if possible, by the afternoon service, and
Miss Bertha has been complaining of your never
ringing the bell at the proper time. Come
tonight; don't stop now, there's a dear father."

The verger turned sulkily away, and scuttled
sulkily across the gravel walk leading to the west
door. He was just turning the huge key in the
lock, when he felt a hand placed on his shoulder.
Had it been the guardian genius of the cathedral,
or the dean's ghost, or a more terrible and
or the dean's ghost, or a more terrible and
less respectable spirit than either of these, the
old verger could not have been more startled
when he looked round. A resurrection-man
disturbed prizing open a coffin, or a robber of
churches detected at the very moment of beating
flat a sacramental cup, could scarcely have looked
whiter or more alarmed.

Yet it was only a spare tall man, in a
mahogany-coloured coat, and an unpowdered
scratch wig, a hard, dry-fleshed looking man, with
cold keen eyes, heavy grey eyebrows, and a
close pinched biting kind of mouth. With his
hands behind him, and his severe detective glance
fixed on the verger, he looked at that moment for
all the world like a lawyer bent on untangling
the knots of a puzzling and difficult case. Indeed,
but for his rather massive silver shoe-buckles,
and a heavy gold ring on one of his fingers, the
stranger might have passed for a well-to-do
London apothecary travelling on business.

The conversation that followed took almost
the shape of a legal examination, and ran thus:

"You are a verger of this cathedral?"

"I am. Yes, sir, I am."

"You have a daughter, maid-servant at the
dean's yonder?"

"I have."

"Are you rich?"

"Who can be rich on twenty-five shillings a
week, and a sick wife to find for besides?"

"You are therefore, I presume, not unwilling
to earn a guinea or two with no great trouble?'

"You need scarcely ask it."

"Does the dean rise early?"

"No, sir, he sits up too late for that; he's
down about nine."

"Very well; to-morrow morning, at six
o'clock, when your daughter is cleaning the
house, induce her to let me in for five minutes.
I mean no harm. I am simply a great but
unknown admirer of the dean, who would have one
look before I leave Salisbury at his celebrated
laboratory. For that moment's look I will pay
you two guineas."

"I daren't."

"Three."

"I don't think I could."

"Five."

"I will try; be at this west door to-morrow,
at six. I can see by your face you're a
gentleman. It's nothing to me what you want, so
you don't do no harm."

"I will be there," said the stranger; and
passing into the cathedral as the door creaked
open, took his seat in one of the stalls the most
hidden from the dean's seat.

A moment or two more, and the bell, in a