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hour that gives me cold feet. The vicar won’t have the sermon read. He says that a rustic congregation does not like it, and I think it most likely that he is right. In spite of all the reasons, however, why it was essential that I should go into the pulpit well prepared, I rejoice to state that I put them aside, and closing the study door behind us, I took Daphne in my arms.
    Whether I did rightly or wrongly, my luck held, and, having taken a deep breath and a last look at Daphne’s face, I plunged into my discourse that evening, and for nearly thirty-five minutes I held forth on the text, “They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
    Even the choirboys listened. I think they thought I was going to give them some tips for the sports on the morrow. So I did, as a matter of fact, for I talked, among other things, of the virtues of abstemiousness of all kinds. In fact, I preached the very sermon, in view of the Bank Holiday fête, that Mrs. Coutts would have given her ears to have the vicar preach. Both of them congratulated me afterwards, and Daphne held the lapels of my coat and told me that it was a lovely sermon, and that I was to ask her uncle, that night, for his consent to our engagement.
    â€œWhat if he doesn’t give it?” I said. She replied:
    â€œI wouldn’t marry you without it, old thing.”
    This was a blow, as I considered it extremely unlikely that, with Daphne not yet nineteen, the vicar would consent to her binding herself. However, my luck was in. He listened until I had finished and then asked me about my prospects. Well, out of the thirty thousand, my mother and sisters had had twenty, of course, and I had retained the other ten. He seemed satisfied, and told me I was destined for a bishopric.
    â€œYou’ve a worldly outlook,” he said. He hesitated a moment, and then added, “Of course, I don’t want you two to marry yet. She isn’t old enough. But you may have an understanding, if you choose.”
    I said to Daphne:
    â€œDid you mean it when you said you wouldn’t do it without your uncle’s consent?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “So I’m glad he consented, Noel.”
    So was I, by the end of the next day. There was a row at the Mornington Arms that evening. (The vicar had done his best to get the magistrate to refusea license to Lowry if he insisted upon opening on Sundays, but as Lowry undertook not to open until eight o’clock, when the service was over, he got his licence.) Curiously enough, the dust-up was between Lowry himself and his barman, Bob Candy. It seems that Candy had tried to get up to see Meg Tosstick and make her name the father of her baby, and had tried to shove Mrs. Lowry out of the way. She called out for Mr. Lowry, and Mr. Lowry came running up and ordered Bob out of the house. Bob thereupon turned round upon both the Lowrys and accused them roundly, in the presence of several witnesses, of terrorising the girl into keeping her mouth shut. The Lowrys were very indignant at this, and both tried to shout Bob Candy down, and five of the customers took him and locked him in the woodshed in case he should get violent. They don’t seem to have been at all gentle with him; probably, as he was the official chucker-out to the pub, they had some old scores to settle. Bob soon seems to have cooled off in the woodshed—owing, probably, to his unfortunate ancestry, he was terrified of the darkness—and he apologised to Mr. Lowry and begged to be set free, and they told him that Meg Tosstick, far from being terrorised at the inn, was being treated like their own daughter, and that the dear good vicar—old Coutts, of course—had asked that she should have every comfort and attention. All this was also said in front of several witnesses. Interesting evening at the Morning-ton Arms, I should imagine. Still, only one thing happened to mar the day, as far as I was concerned.