Young, generous, he had come to this nook of the West full of enthusiasm for his task, eager to advance education, to lift the children out of the slough of ignorance and prejudice in which their fathers and forefathers had been content to live. That his efforts would meet with ready and enthusiastic support, would be gratefully hailed by parents and children alike, by rich and by poor, he had not doubted. “There is no darkness but ignorance,” said the fool in “Twelfth Night”; and who would not rejoice to be himself lifted out of shadows into light, and to see his children advanced to a higher and better walk than had been possible for himself? But his hopes were suddenly and at once damped. He was a fish out of water. A youth with a certain amount of culture, and with a mind thirsting after knowledge, he was pitchforked into a village where culture was not valued, where the only books seen were, “The Norwood Gipsy’s Dream-Book” and “The Forty Thieves,” exposed in the grocer’s window. He had been accustomed to associate with friends who had an interest in history, travels, politics, scenery, poetry, and art; and here in this backwater no one, so far as he could see, had interest in anything save what would fill his pocket or his paunch. Sad and temporarily discouraged, he took his violin and began to play. This instrument was to be to him in exile companion, friend, and confidant. Presently he heard a male voice downstairs talking loudly to his landlady. He stayed his bow, and in another moment a stout and florid man stumbled up the staircase. “How do’y, schoolmaister?” said this visitor, extending a big and moist hand. “I’m Jonas Southcott, landlord of the Lamb and Flag. As I was passing, I heard your fiddle squeak. You’re just the chap us wants. Peter Adams as played first fiddle at church is dead; he was the man for you--he could turn you off a country dance, a hornpipe, or a reel.” “What, in church?” “No, not exact-_ly_ that. At our little hops at the Lamb and Flag; and on Sunday he was wonderful at an anthem or a psalm. We want someone who can take his place. You please to come and be sociable when the young folks want a dance. What can you play--‘Moll in the Wad,’ ‘The Devil among the Tailors,’ ‘Oil of Barley,’ ‘Johnny, come tie my cravat’? These were some of Peter Adams’s tunes. And on Sunday you should have heard him in Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum,’ or at Christmas in ‘While shepherds watched.’ It was something worth going to church for.” “I hardly know what to say,” gasped Walter Bramber. “I am but newly arrived, and have not as yet shaken into my place.” “This is practising night. The instruments will all be in my parlour this evening at half-past six. If you like to come and be sociable, and have a glass of spirits and water, and try your hand at Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum,’ I reckon the orchestra will be uncommon gratified.” “You are very good, but”--