‘Anyone coming in, and not knowing the circumstances,’ thought Somerville; ‘knowing only that this is a Jesuit seminary, and that over there the students sit, would inevitably say, “What a thoroughly Roman Catholic-looking trio—especially that eldest one in the middle!”’ He watched with more intentness still. Father Somerville was zealous for his faith—he was ambitious too; he knew that in his Church services of a tangible kind met with tangible rewards. To say that he then and there formed a scheme, which he decided at all hazards to carry out, would be to do a clever man egregious injustice. Simply, he had a subtle brain and a natural turn for intrigue, which of course his education and career had fostered. He saw possibilities—possibilities which excited his active brain, and kindled his ambition and imagination. ‘They were Catholics before—till not more than a hundred years ago,’ he thought. ‘His mother was Catholic of the Catholic. Why not Catholics again, if anything? Who knows? Time will show.’ The service over, there was a sermon, and presently the congregation broke up, and streamed out into the open air. The students marched off in procession, and departed by a side-door. Somerville just paused as he passed, to whisper to Jerome: ‘If you will wait in the garden or on the playground, I will join you in a few moments.’ And following this direction, Wellfield went out by the west-door, and took his way to the broad space on the brow of the hill, which seemed to form quite a little tableland in itself, and which was the playground of Brentwood College. He paced about there, and watched the crimson and purple pomp of the August sunset. It was a scene such as one rarely beholds, rendered remarkable, too, by ancient historical associations, and by the present fact, that, though within twenty or thirty miles of all the great manufacturing towns and most powerful radical centres of Lancashire, it was a Roman Catholic strong-hold; in matters of religion a conservative nook, where change crept on leaden foot. From this elevated vantage-ground Wellfield saw many things associated with his own family and its history. There was the ancient grey manor-house and church of Millholm; in which church was a ‘Wellfield chapel,’ where ancestors of his had their marble tombs, including that of the boy, the last direct heir male to Brentwood, who had come to his death by eating poisonous berries in a wood. It was after his death that Brentwood had passed into the hands of the Jesuits. From his present standpoint he could see the three rivers, each more beautiful than the other, which came very near to meeting, and which had given rise to the old rhyme which Nita had repeated to him yesterday: ‘Hodder and Calder, and Ribble and rain, All meet together in Millholm demesne.’