ZIKE MOULDOV.

CHAPTER IV.

perly), lass.

For many weeks after Zike's life may be summed up in a phrase that was often on his lips, “Aw dunna know misel gradely (pro

Aw seem a diffrunt mon, somehow,' he told her once, as if Aw were someb'dy else. The energy with which te laboured before marriage was no mere spurt; he maintained it day after day and week after week, till the manager was lost i admiration, and spoke of him as the best worker the Company had. He came home every morning or evening to a dings cottage, mean and sordid to all outward observers, where he and his wife lived the dull, tedious life of thousands of English poor. We have yet to realise that the greyness of English life bears the seed of fearful revolution in it.

But to Zike there was no grey environment. He was not given to analysis, and all he understood was that the glory of s brilliant sun was over all, and unimagined splendours were round about him. 'Aw dunna know,' he said one day to Kate, “bur th’weather seems nicer and Cudnow seems nicer than it used it were.' The cabbage and bacon which often made his dinner was not mere cabbage and bacon to him, but the daintiest food of the Immortals. The almanacs on the walls were the finest triumphs of art; house place and bedroom were the enchanted rooms of a palace. Kate was radiantly happy, and saw many of these things, but less vividly. Zike's nature was more profound, and his love a stronger passion, transforming every molecule of the Ego.

Zike was a different man to his fellows. Since he had levelled Torkington and Thatcher no one, except in confidential conversation, dared speak of him and his wife save in tones of respect. And it was not altogether fear that ruled them. The dullest head in Cudnow could not fail to see that there was a change in him ; that something had lifted the brute into a man. He was the cheeriest and most good-humoured fellow at his work that ever went under ground. He had as keen a sense of humour as ever, but he spoke and laughed with an indefinable sense of restraint, as if he had found the wine of life elsewhere of which jest and quip and crank were but the empty froth.

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Cudnow was not gifted with very delicate perceptions, and it was some time before it understood the new Zike. But the time came when those who had prophesied evil and foredoomed him to a felon’s end had, reluctantly enough, to admit that they might be fallible. It was quite two months after his home-coming that the new Zike was formally recognised. Torkington, who had a heart underneath the ruffian, saluted him with Good day.'

Good day,' said Zike, a little drily. Torkington put him in mind of the insults that had been heaped upon Kate.

* Sithee here, lad,' said Torkington, vigorously scratching the back of his head, and moving restlessly from one foot to the other as if the ground were a furnace floor. 'Sithee, let bygones be bygones. Aw were a damned foo', and tha’rt fust and only mon as ever—' (the word was too painful, and he slipped it by). Here's mi hond if tha'll tek it, and be damned to it!'

Zike spared him further humiliation. “Here's mi hond, Jack. It werena fer misel', tha knows. Aw didna care fer misel-it were fer her,' pointing in the direction of his cottage. “If ever Aw con do owt fer thee, tha knows wheer't look fer me.'

By Gum, chaps !' said Torkington suddenly that day at noon, as he sat smoking with his fellows, Owd Mouldom would ha' bin one too many fer Owd Nick two-three months sin', but he'll sing "Glory Hallelujah" wi' a crown on his yed when he dees.'

No one laughed at the incongruity, but as they knocked the ashes out of their pipes another said shamefacedly, and perhaps with a twinge of conscience as he thought of his wife's black eye,

, • Damn it, it wouldna be hawf a bad thing if he teached some o' th'rest ous a bit.'

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It was not until he had been married for some weeks that
Zike could bring his mind to keepin' Sunday.' He made pro-
mises in the week that he excused himself for keeping when
Sunday came.

* Aw'd rayther stop a’ whoam or go a walk wi' thee, lass,' he said.

· Aw daresay,' Kate would answer, “bur we mun goo. We've bin very happy, tha knows, and we owt t'go and thank the Lord fer it, and pray to be kept happy. Besides, tha knows, it's moor respectable. We'll goo next Sunday, lad. Tha munna deny me.'

Well, if tha'rt set on it, we will. We'll goo to th’Methody chapel. Two or three on 'em, owd Kaye and Legge, ha' bin friendly-like wi' me sin' Aw changed.'

• Nay, lad, let's goo to th’church. Yo're better thowt on when yo're church folk, and beside, Aw were allus reckoned church misel and went theer when Aw dared to goo.'

' Aw'd rayther goo to th’Methody place, lass.'
"And Aw'd rayther goo to th'church.'

* A’reet, tha shall ha' thi own road, lass,' said Zike goodhumouredly. 'Aw dunna care which it is so lung as it pleases thee.'

Kate gave him a hug and a kiss—he would have yielded in greater things for those. He was blissfully content to do anything or to be anything if he could see a smile on Kate's face and happiness in her eye. As yet he had no higher religion.

And so it came to pass that they attended church regularly. and the Vicar took notice of them, and at the Bishop's visitation a short time afterwards they were both confirmed, and vowed to keep what godfathers and godmothers had never promised for them. For Kate was anxious that they should partake of the Communion together. Zike knew nothing of it until Kate had explained it to him. To her it was largely the putting of the Church stamp upon them, but to Zike, when he had grasped it, it meant much more.

• They tek bread an' wine, does't say, becos Christ guy it to His disciples ? Aw've heared summat o' it afore, now Aw come to think, when Aw went to th’day-schoo'. Done th’Methodies ha' it?'

Yea, ev'ry religi'n; bur Cath’lics mek a lot moor o' it than t'other religi'ns, Aw'm towd. Has't read what it says in th’Prayer Book about it?'

Now; read it out to me.'
Kate read the Rubrics, and Zike pondered over it for some time.
It winna do, lass,' he said at last. “Aw feel a lung way fro
'

' that yet. Aw'm mun wait till Aw'm a bit better, Aw reckon.'

Nay, lad; it means as tha mun try to feel like that. Nob'dy's ever good enoo if it comes to that, bur what it means is that ev'rybody should try.'

At last the difficulty was referred to Mrs. Lester, the Curate's wife, who visited them now and again. She confirmed Kate's view, and at the first opportunity they partook of the Sacrament together.

Zike looked upon it as the act that marked the definite change him. He had been loth to undergo the rite, for it meant much

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to him. He was Catholic of Catholic in his inner belief; the bread
and wine to him were truly flesh and blood. He only vaguely
hinted his feelings to his wife, but he felt that henceforth all
uncleanness must be impossible to him. He became guarded in
his speech, and had a half-formed idea that vulgar language and
vulgar tastes were a breaking of the spirit of the Sacrament.

Nothing in those happy days did Zike do by halves. His
nature was strong; he had sinned with bold recklessness, he loved
and served as boldly. Love had transformed him, and those who
knew him were surprised at his rough tenderness. To children is
given the power of seeing into the heart of man, and the little ones
around no longer dreaded him, who had aforetime been made a
bogey of by their mothers. Nothing touched him so much as the
fearlessness of the kids,'as he called them. Aw'm changed, Kate,'
he said with glad solemnity; "even thʼkids about con see it. They
used to run out o' mi road, bur they come playin' round me naw.'

"Ah, tha knows what th’Bible ses as how childer understand
moor than

grown-up folk.'
· Yea, Aw know, and Aw know as them chaps as wrote th'Bible
knowed a thing er two about other things as weel as religi'n.'

He began carrying sweets in his pocket to reward the confi-
dence of the little ones, until a new nickname was given him by
the elders, and, half in pity half in contempt, he was known as
* Daddy Mouldom.'

In those days Zike pondered over many things; he could not understand men and women in love who were not overflowing with the milk of human kindness, nor the Christian whose life is not polarised by the mystery of God.

Among the colliers were several Methodist local preachers, who commanded the respect of fellow-workmen the most dissolute and masters the most cynical. They were ridiculed, they were jeered at, but they were father confessors to every drunken brute who worked beside them or lived near them when the man was in trouble. Their mates mocked them in fine weather, and had little commendatory to say in days of storm, but they paid practical tribute to their principles nevertheless.

These Methodists, amongst whom were Joshua Kaye, a sage counsellor, whom fifty years of self-sacrifice had mellowed and broadened, and Sam Legge, a man of Zike's own age and a disciple of fiery zeal, had rejoiced greatly to see the old Zike die, and, with matchless tact often to be met with amongst those who have drawn

in a rural district to some urchins who were playing marbles against the church door. “I'll let passon know how ye dessicate the holy place. This word forms a common stumbling-block. A grocer once informed us that people from quite the respectable classes not infrequently asked him for desecrated soup.

Lawyers, as well as doctors and the clergy, frequently have amusing tales to tell. A Canadian barrister is responsible for the following :-One day a farmer came into his office, and requested that a holograph will should be prepared for his signature. The lawyer began at once to explain terms, but the tiller of the prairie, who prided himself not a little upon his legal knowledge, only grew angry. 'I want a holograph will,' he declared ; and I'm going to have it,' he added in parenthesis. When the impossibility of his request was still pointed out, he angrily stumped from the office, shouting out, 'D— it! If I can't have a holograph will, I'll blamed well die intestine!' Almost as funny was the tradesman who had recently been left some land. He came to the lawyer with instructions for a deed of transfer to be prepared in favour of himself. On being asked his reasons, he gave them thus: 'Don't feel sort of comfortable about that bit of country. I know how particular you lawyer gents are, and I thought, maybe, that if I signed a deed making over the property to myself no one would be able to touch it. When his application was refused, he went away in a rage, and subsequently tried to bring an action against the lawyer, who, he imagined, was trying to defraud him.

On the occasion of a visit to his native town by a member of Parliament, one citizen, who had been prevented from going to listen to the speech in the Town Hall, asked another who had been present how the distinguished man had been received. Did they cheer him?' he asked. Cheer him?' said the other; I should

• ' think they did. Why, they gave him a perfect jobation! This man must surely have been related to the long-suffering landlady who was compelled to put up with some very noisy and unruly lodgers, who were accustomed to make the night hideous with their unseemly revellings. She confided her woes to a sympathetic friend : ‘There's no putting a stop to it, drat 'em, and I shall be 'aving the police down on my 'ouse soon, I know I shall. It's the same thing every night. As soon as I gets into bed, they're up to all their augeries!' But as a good example of a thorough and hopeless perversion of words the following would be difficult to