“He came to himself in the arms of a strange woman, who had taken him up, and was carrying him home. “The name of the woman was Sorrow--a wandering woman, a kind of gypsy, always going about the world, and picking up lost things. Nobody likes her, hardly anybody is civil to her; but when she has set anybody down and is gone, there is often a look of affection and wonder and gratitude sent after her. For all that, however, very few are glad to be found by her again. “Sorrow carried him weeping home to his mother. His mother came out, and took him in her arms. Sorrow made her courtesy, and went away. The boy clung to his mother's neck, and said he was sorry. In the midst of her joy his mother wept bitterly, for he had nearly broken her heart. She could not get the wolves out of her mind. “But, alas! the boy forgot all, and was worse than ever. He grew more and more cruel to his mother, and mocked at every word she said to him; so that--” There came a cry from the gallery. The congregation started in sudden terror to their feet. The rector stopped, and turning to the right, stood gazing. In the front of the squire's pew stood Mrs. Wylder, white, and speechless with rage. For a moment she stood shaking her fist at the preacher. Then, in a hoarse broken voice, came the words-- “It's a lie. My boy was never cruel to me. It's a wicked lie.” She could say no more, but stood and glared, hate in her fierce eyes, and torture in her colourless face. “Madam, you have betrayed yourself,” said the rector solemnly. “If your son behaved well to you, it makes it the worse in you to behave ill to your Father. From Sunday to Sunday you insult him with rude behaviour. I tell you so in the face of this congregation, which knows it as well as I. Hitherto I have held my tongue--from no fear of the rich, from no desire to spare them deserved disgrace in the eyes of the poor, but because I shrank from making the house of God a place of contention. Madam, you have behaved shamefully, and I do my duty in rebuking you.” The whole congregation were on their feet, staring at her. A moment she stood, and would have brazened out the stare. But she felt the eyes of the motionless hundreds blazing upon her, and the culprit soul grew naked in the presence of judging souls. Her nerve gave way; she turned her back, left the pew, and fled from the church by the squire's door, into the grounds of Wylder Hall. Happily Barbara was not in the church that morning. The next Sunday the squire's pew was empty. The red volume lay open on its face upon the floor of it. Wingfold's dear plot had palled. He had rough-hewed his end, but the divinity had shaped it. When the squire came to know what had taken place, he made his first call on the rector. He said nothing about his wife, but plainly wished it understood that he bore him no ill will for what he had done. CHAPTER XXII. _THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER._