A bell began to ring. "There's evensong," said Blantyre, "I must be off. It's my turn to say it to-night." "I will come, too," Carr answered. "Do, do! and take some food with us all afterwards, and we'll have a longer talk. You can't think how happy I am that we have come together. What? You've never seen our church? Why, then, you've a treat in front of ye! Every one says it's beautiful. We all love it, we're all proud of it!" He took him by the arm and led him away. Not a word of the differences that separated them, no suspicion, or distrust, nothing but welcome and brotherhood! The tall, bearded man and the quick, shaven Celt in his cassock went into the church together to pray-- "Give peace in our time, O Lord." CHAPTER X LOW WATER AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS In a couple of months after the meeting between Carr and Blantyre, public opinion had spoken in no uncertain way about the "Luther League." Public opinion in these days is very easily led in this or that direction--but only for a time. There is a vast stratum of common-sense, of love of justice, of wholesome sanity, in England, and it can always be reached by a little boring. In the end, especially upon any question which is in its essence sociological, a proper balance is found and the truth of a matter firmly established. And Hamlyn's agitation was treated as a social question rather than a religious one, at any rate by a secular press. Whether the doings of the High Church party were legal or illegal according to the prayer-book (such was the line the papers took) was a question to be decided by experts in history and the authorities of the Church; a question, in fact, that ought to be decided in a legitimate way. What was, however, quite certain, was that the proceedings of Hamlyn and his party were improper, vulgar, and indecent. It was simply misleading nonsense to cover the Ritualistic party, a body of high-minded and earnest men, with the noisy and venomous vituperation of the streets. Freedom of thought was the heritage of every Englishman, and Hamlyn had simply elected himself a grand inquisitor of matters that did not concern him and which he was unable to understand. No dishonesty on the man's part was alleged. But his history was unearthed by one or two enterprising journalists, following the popular lead. It was shown that while nothing had ever been said against his personal character--and nothing was said now--he had risen from the position of a struggling local newspaper man to comparative affluence and the control of a large and costly organisation. The cash accounts of the League were scrutinised, and unkind remarks were made upon the constant advertisements of the League, with their cry for increased income and fresh subscribers. It was pointed out that people who supported a crusade made without authority by a self-constituted Peter the Hermit, over whom no proper control could be exercised and whose methods of prosecuting it were a mixture of