None Other Gods | Page 7

up off the roads on his own estate. Wasn't she
trespassing, or something?"
Jack nodded again.
"Yes," he said, "and he was a magistrate and ought to have committed
her: And he married her instead. She was a girl, traveling with her
parents."

Frank sat smiling genially.
"That's it," he said. "Then I'm bound to make a success of it."
And he took another cigarette.
Then one more thought came to Jack: he had determined already to
make use of it if necessary, and somehow this seemed to be the
moment.
"And Jenny Launton," he said "I suppose you've thought of her?"
A curious look came into Frank's eyes--a look of great gravity and
tenderness--and the humor died out. He said nothing for an instant.
Then he drew out of his breast-pocket a letter in an envelope, and
tossed it gently over to Jack.
"I'm telling her in that," he said. "I'm going to post it to-night, after I've
seen the Dean."
Jack glanced down at it.
"MISS LAUNTON, "The Rectory, "Merefield, Yorks."
ran the inscription. He turned it over; it was fastened and sealed.
"I've told her we must wait a bit," said Frank, "and that I'll write again
in a few weeks."
Jack was silent.
"And you think it's fair on her?" he asked deliberately.
Frank's face broke up into humor.
"That's for her to say," he observed. "And, to tell the truth, I'm not at all
afraid."
"But a gamekeeper's wife! And you a Catholic!"

"Ah! you don't know Jenny," smiled Frank. "Jenny and I quite
understand one another, thank you very much."
"But is it quite fair?"
"Good Lord!" shouted Frank, suddenly roused. "Fair! What the devil
does it matter? Don't you know that all's fair--under certain
circumstances? I do bar that rotten conventionalism. We're all
rotten--rotten, I tell you; and I'm going to start fresh. So's Jenny. Kindly
don't talk of what you don't understand."
He stood up, stretching. Then he threw the end of his cigarette away.
"I must go to the Dean," he said. "It's close on the half-hour."
(III)
The Reverend James Mackintosh was an excellent official of his
college, and performed his duties with care and punctilium. He rose
about half-past seven o'clock every morning, drank a cup of tea and
went to chapel. After chapel he breakfasted, on Tuesdays and
Thursdays with two undergraduates in their first year, selected in
alphabetical order, seated at his table; on the other days of the week in
solitude. At ten o'clock he lectured, usually on one of St. Paul's Epistles,
on which subjects he possessed note-books filled with every
conceivable piece of information that could be gathered
together--grammatical, philological, topographical, industrial, social,
biographical--with a few remarks on the fauna, flora, imports,
characteristics and geological features of those countries to which those
epistles were written, and in which they were composed. These notes,
guaranteed to guide any student who really mastered them to success,
and even distinction, in his examinations, were the result of a lifetime
of loving labor, and some day, no doubt, will be issued in the neat blue
covers of the "Cambridge Bible for Schools." From eleven to twelve he
lectured on Church history of the first five centuries--after which period,
it will be remembered by all historical students, Church history
practically ceased. At one he lunched; from two to four he walked
rapidly (sometimes again in company with a serious theological

student), along the course known as the Grantchester Grind, or to
Coton and back. At four he had tea; at five he settled down to
administer discipline to the college, by summoning and remonstrating
with such undergraduates as had failed to comply with the various
regulations; at half-past seven he dined in hall--a meek figure, clean
shaven and spectacled, seated between an infidel philosopher and a
socialist: he drank a single glass of wine afterwards in the Combination
Room, smoked one cigarette, and retired again to his rooms to write
letters to parents (if necessary), and to run over his notes for next day.
And he did this, with the usual mild variations of a University life,
every weekday, for two-thirds of the year. Of the other third, he spent
part in Switzerland, dressed in a neat gray Norfolk suit with
knickerbockers, and the rest with clerical friends of the scholastic type.
It was a very solemn thought to him how great were his responsibilities,
and what a privilege it was to live in the whirl and stir of one of the
intellectual centers of England!
* * * * *
Frank Guiseley was to Mr. Mackintosh a very great puzzle. He had
certainly been insubordinate in his first year (Mr. Mackintosh gravely
suspected him of the Bread-and-Butter affair, which had so annoyed his
colleague), but he certainly had been very steady