Shirley - A Tale (Paperback)

S H I R L E Y -- 1807 -- CONTENTS. I.-LEVITICAL . 11.-THE WAQGONB, 2 ILL-MR Y o m I a 1V.- fa YORKE continued . S 4 V.-EIOLLOWs COTTAGE . . 1 VI.-COBIOLABUS . S VI1.-THE CURATE A S T TEA . 42IL-NOAH AND MOSES S - TPE.--BRURMAIN . a I m X-OLD MAIDS . I XL-FIELDIIEAD . . a XU.-SLIIRLCY AND CAROLINE . XIIL-FURTHER COXMUNICATI O O N N BBU SINESS . XW.-SHIIILEY GEEHS TO BE SAVED BY MORBQ . XV.-MR DONNEEBX ODUB . XV.-- H TSUNTIDE XVI1.-THE SCHOOL-FEAST . XV1LI.-WHICH THX GENTEERLE ADE I R S RECONMENDED TO SKIP, LOW PERSOB B S E ING IIERE INTXO DUCED . .-A SUMD NEIRG HT . a . XX-To-RIORROW . X-MR PRYOX . XXII.- h0 LIVES . . XXIIL-Ax EVENIHQ O UT XX1V.-THE VALLEY O F THE SHADOW OF Dsara V.-Tm WEST WIND BLOWS . . CEAPTER xxvI.-OLD COPP- OES S XXVI1.-THE FIRSTB LUE-STOCKINQ . VIII.-PIIEBE ., XXIX.-LOUIS hIooalp S 9 X-RUSHEDGE, A CONFESSIONAL . I.--UNCLE AND NIECE . XXXII.-THE SCHOOLB A O N Y D THE OOD- Y H XXX1II.-MARTINB TACTICB . XXXIV.-CAS or DOMESTIPCE RSECUTION.-REHARK ABLE STANCE OF PIOUP E RSEVERAN I C N E HE DISCHARG OF E RELI IODUUST IEB . XXXV.-WIIEREIN MATTER M S A KE SOME PROGRES B S U . T NOT MUCH X-WRITTEN IN TIIE SCHOOLRO . M --THE WIN INQ-m . S H I R L E Y -- CHAPTER I. LEYITICAL. OF laSR years, an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon die north of England they lie very thick on the hills every parish has one oi. more of them they are young enough to be very active, and ought to be doing a great deal of good. But not of late years are we about to spealr we are going back to the beginning of this century late years-present years are dusty, sun-burnt, hot, arid we will evade the nooil, forget it in siesta, pass the mid-day in slumber, and dream ot dawn. If you think, from thispreInde, that anything Iike a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie 1 Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama Calm your expectations rcdnce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool, and colid, lies before you something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work - walce with the consciousness that they must rise and betalco themselves thereto. It ici not positively afirmerl that you shall not have a taste of the exciting, perhaps towards thc middle and close of the meal, h t it is resolved that the first dish set upon the table shall be me that a Catholic-ay, even an Anglo-Catholic-might eat on Good Friday in Passion Week it shall be cold Ientils and vinegar without oil it shaU be unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb. Of late ycars, I say, an abundant shower of curates haa fallen upon t e north of England but in eighteen-hunclredeleven-twelve that affluent rain had not descended curatwere scarce then there was no Pastoral Aid-no Additional Curates Society to stretch a helping hand to worn-ont old rectors and incumbents, and give them the nhe rvitM to pay B vigorous young colleague from Oxford cr Cambridge. The preseub pucceesors of the apostles, disciples of Dr Pil y al ld 1 tools of the Propngmda, were at tlot time being hatched under cradle-blankets, or undergoing regeneration by nursery-baptism in wash-hand-basins. You could not have guessed by looking at any one of them that the It. an-ironed double frills of its net-cap surrounded the brows of a pre-ordained, specially sanctified successor of St Paul, St Peter, or St John nor could you have foreseen in thefolds of its long night-gown the white surplice in which it was hereafier cruelly to exercise the souls of its parishioners, and strangely to nonplus its oldfashioned vicar by flourishing aloft in a pulpit the shirt-like raiment which had never bef rew aved higher than the read ing . desk...