mother was serving them with brandy when we came in. She was astonished when she saw the rector make his appearance in our house. There was no love between his reverence and our family.

He made a very grand obeisance to the Roman Catholic clergymen. "Gentlemen," said he, " as rector of this parish, and magistrate of the county, I have come to keep the peace: and if there is any danger, to share it with you. The lady will be buried in the old churchyard, I hear. Mr. Tréstles, are you ready to move?"

The men said they would be prepared immediately, and went to bring down their melancholy burden. "Open the door, you!" says the Doctor. The people within shrank back. "I will do it," says mother.

"Et moi, parbleu!" says the Chevalier advancing, his hand on his hilt.

"I think, sir, I shall be more serviceable than you," says the Doctor, very coldly. "If these gentlemen my confrères are ready, we will go out; I will go first, as rector of this parish." And mother drew the bolts, and he walked out and took off his hat.

A Babel roar of yells, shouts, curses, came pouring into the hall as the door opened, and the Doctor remained on the steps, bareheaded and undaunted.

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How many of my parishioners are here?

Stand aside all who come to my church!" he called out very bold.

At this arose immense roars of "No Popery! down with the priests! down with them! drown them!" and I know not what more words of hatred and menace.

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“You men of the French church," shouted out the Doctor, are you here?"

"We are here! Down with Popery!" roar the Frenchmen. Because you were persecuted a hundred years ago, you want to persecute in your turn. Is that what your Bible teaches you? Mine doesn't. When your church wanted repair, I gave you my nave where you had your service, and were welcome. Is this the way you repay kindness which has been shown to you, you who ought to know better? For shame on you! I say for shame! Don't try and frighten me. Roger Hooker, I know you, you poaching vagabond;

who kept your wife and children when you were at Lewes Gaol ? How dare you be persecuting anybody, Thomas Flint? As sure as my name is Barnard, if you stop this procession, I will commit you to-morrow."

Here was a cry of " Huzzay for the Doctor! huzzay for the Rector! which I am afraid came from the mackerels, who were assembled by this time, and were not mum, as fish generally are.

"Now, gentlemen, advance, if you please!" This he said to the two foreign clergymen, who came forward courageously enough, the Chevalier de la Motte walking behind them. "Listen, you friends and parishioners, Churchmen and Dissenters! These two foreign dissenting clergymen are going to bury, in a neighbouring churchyard, a departed sister, as you foreign dissenters have buried your own dead without harm or hindrance; and I will accompany these gentlemen to the grave prepared for the deceased lady, and I will see her laid in peace there, as surely as I hope myself to lie in peace."

Here the people shouted; but it was with admiration for the rector. There was no outcry any more. The little procession fell into an orderly rank, passed through the streets, and round the Protestant church to the old burying-ground behind the house of the Priory. The rector walked between the two Roman Catholic clergymen. I imagine the scene before me now-the tramp of the people, the flicker of a torch or two; and then we go in at the gate of the Priory ground into the old graveyard of the monastery, where a grave had been dug, on which the stone still tells that Clarissa, born de Viomesnil, and widow of Francis Stanislas Count of Saverne and Barr in Lorraine, lies buried beneath.

When the service was ended, the Chevalier de la Motte (by whose side I stood, holding by his cloak) came up to the Doctor. "Monsieur le Docteur," says he, "you have acted like a gallant man; you have prevented bloodshed"

I am fortunate, sir," says the Doctor.

"You have saved the lives of these two worthy ecclesiastics, and rescued from insult the remains of one

"Of whom I know the sad history," says the Doctor, very gravely.

I am not rich, but will you permit me to give this purse for your poor?"

"Sir, it is my duty to accept it," replied the Doctor. The purse contained a hundred louis, as he afterwards told me. "And may I ask to take your hand, sir?" cries the poor Chevalier, clasping his own together.

"No, sir!" said the Doctor, putting his own hands behind his back. "Your hands have that on them which the gift of a few guineas cannot wash away." The Doctor spoke very good French. "My child, good-night; and the best thing I can wish thee is to wish thee out of the hands of that

"Monsieur !" says the Chevalier, laying his hand on his sword mechanically.

"I think, sir, the last time it was with the pistol you showed your skill!" says Doctor Barnard, and went in at his own wicket as he spoke, leaving poor La Motte like a man who has just been struck with a blow; and then he fell to weeping and crying that the curse-the curse of Cain was upon him.

"My good boy," the old rector said to me in after days, while talking over these adventures, "thy friend the Chevalier was the most infernal scoundrel I ever set eyes on, and I never looked at his foot without expecting to see it was cloven."

"And could he tell me anything about the poor Countess?" I asked. He knew nothing. He saw her but once, he thought. "And faith," says he, with an arch look, "it so happened that I was not too intimate with your own worthy family."

CHAPTER V.

I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS.

WHATEVER may have been the rector's dislike to my parents, in respect of us juniors and my dear little Agnes de Saverne he had no such prejudices, and both of us were great favourites with him. He considered himself to be a man entirely without prejudices; and towards Roman Catholics he certainly was most liberal. He sent his wife to see Mrs.

Weston, and an acquaintance was made between the families, who had scarcely known each other before. Little Agnes was constantly with these Westons, with whom the Chevalier de la Motte also became intimate. Indeed, we have seen that he must have known them already, when he sent me on the famous "mackerel" message which brought together a score at least of townspeople. I remember Mrs. Weston as a frightened-looking woman, who seemed as if she had a ghost constantly before her. Frightened, however, or not, she was always kind to my little Agnes.

The younger of the Weston brothers (he who swore at me the night of the burial) was a red-eyed, pimple-faced, cockfighting gentleman for ever on the trot, and known, I daresay not very favourably, all the country round. They were said to be gentlemen of good private means. They lived in a pretty genteel way, with a postchaise for the lady, and excellent nags to ride. They saw very little company; but this may have been because they were Roman Catholics, of whom there were not many in the county, except at Arundel and Slindon, where the lords and ladies were of too great quality to associate with a pair of mere fox-hunting, horse-dealing squires. M. de la Motte, who was quite the fine gentleman, as I have said, associated with these people freely enough: but then he had interests in common with them, which I began to understand when I was some ten or a dozen years old, and used to go to see my little Agnes at the Priory. She was growing apace to be a fine lady. She had dancingmasters, music masters, language - masters (those foreign tonsured gentry who were always about the Priory), and was so tall that mother talked of putting powder in her hair. Ah, belle dame! another hand hath since whitened it, though I love it, ebony or silver !

I continued at Rye School, boarding with Mr. Rudge and his dram-drinking daughter, and got a pretty fair smattering of such learning as was to be had at the school. I had a fancy to go to sea, but Doctor Barnard was strong against that wish of mine: unless indeed I should go out of Rye and Winchelsea altogether get into a King's ship, and perhaps on the quarter-deck, under the patronage of my friend Sir ter Denis, who ever continued to be kind to me.

Every Saturday night I trudged home from Rye, as gay as school-boy could be. After Madame de Saverne's death the Chevalier de la Motte took our lodgings on the first floor. He was of an active disposition, and found business in plenty to occupy him. He would be absent from his lodgings for weeks and months. He made journeys on horseback into the interior of the country; went to London often; and sometimes abroad with our fishermen's boats. As I have said, he learned our language well, and taught me his. Mother's German was better than her French, and my book for reading the German was Doctor Luther's Bible; indeed, that very volume in which poor M. de Saverne wrote down his prayer for the child whom he was to see only twice in this world.

Though Agnes's little chamber was always ready at our house, where she was treated like a little lady, having a servant specially attached to her, and all the world to spoil her, she passed a great deal of time with Mrs. Weston, of the Priory, who took a great affection for the child even before she lost her own daughter. I have said that good masters were here found for her. She learned to speak English as a native, of course, and French and music from the fathers who always were about the house. Whatever the child's expenses or wants were, M. de la Motte generously defrayed them. After his journeys he would bring her back toys, sweetmeats, knicknacks fit for a little duchess. She lorded it over great and small in the Priory, in the Perruquery, as we may call my mother's house, ay, and in the Rectory too, where Dr. and Mrs. Barnard were her very humble servants, like all the rest of us.

And here I may as well tell you that I was made to become a member of the Church of England, because mother took huff at our French Protestants, who would continue persecuting her for harbouring the Papists, and insisted that between the late poor Countess and the Chevalier there had been an unlawful intimacy. M. Borel, our pastor, preached at poor mother several times, she said. I did not understand his innuendoes, being a simple child, I fear not caring much for sermons in those days. For grandpapa's I know I did not; he used to give us half an hour at morning, and half an