Ben suddenly broke into speech. It was his habit, now and then, after musing some time in silence, to continue the soliloquy aloud. "Ah well," said he, "this here life of ours is a funny thing! It appears to me that it's just like this

'ere. The first part of it we're doin' nothin' but rammin' our head agen a stone wall-a-chafin', an' a-frettin' for this an' that, an' never satisfied when we gets it. A few years later we are glad enough to sit contented and peaceful on the very stone wall agen which we rammed our heads. Every man has got to learn for himself. That's just where it is! It takes a long time for the sores and smarts to heal up, but, thank God! they do heal up at last, an' a man can go on his way quiet and restful. Well, Trot, it's time for me to get ready!"

In his high-crowned Sunday hat of hard felt; in his well-brushed suit of black, in his stand-up collar and his dark-blue tie with the old-fashioned pin in it, Ben was half-an-hour later trudging along through the beech-wood on his way to the chapel. A walk of twenty minutes brought him out upon the mountain top, from which stretched downwards on the other side a smiling expanse of corn and pasture-land, rising again with a great sweep to the far horizon. Before him was the small weather-beaten sanctuary that had stood there for a century, surrounded by its grass-grown graveyard, and beaten upon alternately by every wind that blew. The congregation was coming in twos and threes from every direction, small farmers from the country-side below, humble cottagers from the quiet valleys to the north, mountaineers, and woodmen, and shepherds, most of them with their wives and children, and all dressed neatly and quietly, as befitted the day.

Ben, after his usual chat with sundry people who were standing around the wicket-gate, went straight to the square, high-backed pew in which he had sat since boyhood. He never once turned round during the homely service, and thus he did not see what every one else had mentally noted. There was a stranger amongst the congregation. It was an occurrence rare and eventful, and everyone looked and wondered. Even the minister could not help speculating as he peered over his glasses. This unexpected member of the congregation sat back against the lobby in John Martin's pew, and John Martin's wife drew herself up with an air of gratified pride as she saw furtive glances shooting in her direction from every portion of the building. It was not every day that Mrs. Martin had the opportunity of showing off as her guest a lady friend in a "Lunnon-made dress and bonnet. Meanwhile, under her veil the eyes of Mrs. Martin's guest were wet with tears. What memories, glad and sad, set a-ringing little bells of recollection as the old scenes and the old days were brought back to her afresh by this visit to the mountain chapel! How altered were all the well-remembered friends, and yet how much the same! How many years older in face, and yet as steady-going and faithful and regular in their lives as they had ever been! It seemed to her that this return from the roar and turmoil of the fierce world to the rest and quiet of the old

home laid a sweet peace upon her heart that somehow had its pain as well as its pleasure, and caused the tears to well upwards and blind her. After eighteen years! How cruel and selfish had she found the world! How cordial and kindly had been the welcome of the old friends, out of whose lives she had passed for eighteen years! And in a day or two she must return once more to the toil and moil and struggle of the selfish Babylon !

Thus she mused with swimming eyes as the simple service drew to a close, and it was with a start that she realised the announcement of the closing hymn.

"Don't you remember Mary Howard?" Mrs. Martin said with proud excitement to half-a-dozen people at once, as they stood a few minutes later in the porch. "Why, bless me, you can't have forgotten Mary of the Mountain View Farm! That's right, I knew you'd remember her! Here, Mrs. Thomas, now who do you think this is? Here, Ben Mallock, now I wonder can you bear in mind an old friend?"

She stopped, for Ben's face was white, and his lips trembled as he put out an unsteady hand towards Mary Howard. She too was pale, as

she looked into his face.

"Well, Mary!"
"Well, Ben!"

There was silence for a moment as they confronted each other. Then he said :"It's many a long year since you paid us a visit, Mary."

They were simple words, and they came from a simple heart, which had not a shadow of vindictiveness in the whole of its nature. But somehow, to her, there was an implied reproach in the mild tones which caused her to colour slightly as she replied:

"Yes, eighteen years is a long time, Ben, but not long enough to make one forget old friends."

Then the minister came, and Ben passed on. His lips were still trembling as he walked rapidly, almost fiercely, down the mountain-road, hardly knowing where he was or what he was doing. His brain was in a whirl, and his heart seemed to be hursting. The old sore had been torn open and was bleeding afresh with an aching indescribable. We all know how a strong man can suffer when forced to look once more into the grave of a buried trouble. All the wild agony comes back, all the unutterable poignancy of grief, as keenly as though it were but yesterday that it all happened. A small thing may do it. A simple piece of ribbon or old lace has before now caused a sweet dead face to appear before the mental vision, and the hand to go quickly to the heart. Ben had suddenly, after many years, looked upon the face of the woman he had loved. So long had his faithful heart been locked with bolt and bar upon the old love and the old pain, and now, in one moment, it had burst its barriers with a passion uncontrollable. Oh, why had she come here to stab him as with daggers-she who eighteen years ago had thrown a blank desolation over his whole life!

All unwittingly he had turned off the path, and he came to himself to find that he was striding aimlessly among the thick undergrowth, four miles distant from his little farmstead. He came

over.

to a standstill, and wiped great beads of perspiration from his forehead. The fit of agony was He smiled to himself with a pathetic little gesture of shame as he realised that he ought at that moment to be sitting at his dinner, with Trot at his side.

"Come, come, Ben Mallock!" he said. "This is fine goings-on for a man o' thy age! After talking so brave about it, too, all these years! Thee's no better than a child!

And so he turned and walked quietly home, and bravely set himself to eat his simple dinner, and read the volume of old sermons in the afterneon, just as it had been his wont to do on other Sundays. It was at best a hopeless and weary attempt. Strive as he would, the day refused to be as other Sundays had been. He could not read; he dared not think. He went out instead,

all as plain an' simple as the day, an' what's the use o' frettin' about it. The day after to-morrow she'll be gone agen. I heerd Mrs. Martin a-sayin' it. What's the use o' us frettin' then, jes' 'cos she remembered to come here once agen after bein' so long away! We ought to be pleased at that, instead of vexin' about it like this 'ere. Anyhow we'll keep out of the way till she goes away agen-thee an' me, Trot. What's the use o' showin' ourselves an' a-forcin' ourselves on her sight! I s'pose she'd a-hardly remembered me, if Mrs. Martin hadn' a-called my name out. Yes, it's the best thing we can do, Trot, is to keep out o' the way! I hope she's got a good home anyways. Well, the best thing thee and me can do is to go an' give Bess and the others somethin' to eat, and then make ourselves some tea. along, old boy!"

Come

and wandered disconsolately round the house, while the poplars sang and crooned to themselves in the freshening wind. Now he would come to a standstill and look sadly down the valley. Then suddenly he would pull himself up with :"Now then, Ben Mallock, now then! Thee's going at it afresh!" And then he would start walking again.

What pathos there was in those forlorn little attempts at humour, in that never-ceasing walk round the house, in that little soliloquy of his when at last he went indoors and sat in his armchair before the fire!

"One thing's certain," he said. "Trot, old boy, one thing's pretty certain. Thee an' me's got to get over it somehow-thee an' me an' Bess. It's no good for us to vex. If she went away an' left us then she went away an' left us, that's all. I don't blame her for that. She ain't married, Trot, an' yet she's bin away all these years! It's

Monday morning to commence a small carting contract for a farmer in the lowlands over to the west.

The day passed in slow jolting to and fro with sundry loads, and when he commenced his homeward way along one of the silent by-roads that led towards the hill it was already nightfall. Rattle and whirr went the old cart again over the stones. The same star shone in the north. The fiery glow from the furnace breathed luridly in the western sky. Ben sat in the cart with head bent forward, lost to all around him, and Bess jogged on at her own pleasure. Her master did not even speak to her to-night. He sat, instead, ever

lost in thought. Occasionally he would lift his face towards the dim gleam of the star, and thus meditate. Anon he would lean forward again in a fit of abstraction. So was his mood all the evening. He did not even speak to Trot, save to give him a friendly greeting as he passed through the gate of the paddock. He sat for an hour before the fire, forgetting even to light his pipe; then he fell to walking to and fro across the floor of the kitchen; then he sat down again before the fire and shaded his eyes with his hand; and all through the long night watches he tossed and turned and breathed uneasily in his little inner room.

Tuesday morning set in dull and cloudy. The wind had gone down to the south-west, and heavy rain-clouds were drifting slowly overhead. Ben went towards the window absently as he waited for the kettle to boil. There is no sight more desolate than to watch the dark presage of rain over a mountain landscape. The ghostly mists drift noiselessly over the woods, and wrap the far hill-tops in sombre gloom. The wind sighs disconsolately among the trees, and, now with louder note, gives a long moan down the trough of the valley. Towards the south the inky clouds gather with truculent frown, and slowly, silently, spread themselves over the still land. It is a dreary sight, and Ben looked drearier still as he stood at the window.

"She's gone this mornin'," he said aloud. "I expec' Farmer Martin drove her over to the station. I hope she won't have rain, anyway, till she gets safe on the Lunnon line. It don' matter then so much. I s'pose there's plenty o' shelter as one can run to in a big place like Lunnon. Well Trot, old boy, it's no good for you or me to think on it any more."

Nevertheless, he pushed his plate from him as he sat at breakfast. "I can't understand this," he said, wearily. "It's jes' as bad as it was eighteen year ago. I'm worse nor a child if I have n' got no more strength of mind than this 'ere. What's the good of worryin' about it! She's an' there's an end of it!" gone, Poor Ben! His attempts at philosophic reasoning were as brave as they were simple. He could never get any further than "What's the good! but it was a plucky effort for all that; for if there was a lonely heart in the wide world on this dull September morning, that heart was Ben's.

Slowly he donned his rough work-a-day hat and jacket, and slowly he harnessed Bess for the five

miles' journey across the mountain. The landscape had looked gloomy enough in his own little valley. It was more desolate still in the lowlands where his work lay. The mist had crept over them, and was shrouding them in sullen melancholy. A drizzling rain had commenced to fall, and the steady drip, drip, of the trees and hedges fell with monotonous regularity as Ben filled his cart at each journey. The afternoon was closing in rapidly towards twilight, and Ben was on his "last trip" when-oh wonder of wonders !—as he turned to secure the tailboard of the cart, he saw Mary standing in the roadside near the horse's head. He staggered, and caught hold of the wheel as she came towards him.

"Well, Ben!" she said, holding out her hand. There was a dead silence, while Ben, his head in a whirl, stood staring at her with one hand on the wheel, and the other pressed helplessly to his forehead.

"You didn't expect to see me, Ben," she said, coming nearer.

ears.

Ben hardly heard what she said. He only knew that her face was looking kindly and earnestly into his. It was the same face as of yore; pleasant, comely, tender, with sincere grey eyes, and sweet brown hair curling about the small But how could it be Mary? Surely he was dreaming. Mary had gone away that morning! "You didn't expect to see me, Ben," she said again. "You see, I have been staying here since last evening, and am going back to London tomorrow morning. I have watched you passing to and fro all day. I was obliged to come out at last, Ben! I thought I should like to say goodbye to you."

Ben was only just beginning to collect his senses. "You-you've-been-here all day, lass!" he

stammered.

"Yes, the Martins drove me over last night. But little did I think I should see you here, Ben! I have been wanting ever since the morning to come out to you, but I didn't know whether— whether-well, never mind that!"

There was another silence, broken only by the drip, drip, from the boughs and the voice of someone in the farm-yard. Ben was still hopelessly dumb. Mary was looking on the ground, and a rush of colour had suffused her face. silence stung her like so many needle-points. Did he think she had come out to-to

Ben's

A

NOTHER interesting visit paid was to the police at Kyoto. Here the chief director received us with much civility, and after some conversation, finding that we could not remain for the annual police tournament, he invited us to attend a fencing match to be specially arranged for our benefit. Accordingly at the time appointed we arrived at the police station, accompanied by our friend Dr. Saiki, a Christian physician, and were met by three superintendents and the stately old fencing-master, who kindly gave us the usual "tea," and then presented us with some photographs.

There was a fearful noise proceeding from the arena in the police school, and when we reached the platform above we found one hundred young policemen fighting like cats and dogs, apparently bent on slaying each other. This was the general scrimmage before the real work of the day. The combatants then came out in couples while the remainder watched the scene from the galleries around.

The

Each couple wore the old samaurai dress with short skirts, breastplates over a vest with short sleeves, thick padded leather helmets with masks of strong iron bars across the face, padded gloves, with gauntlets, and they had bare feet. bamboo swords were tipped with white kid. The two combatants began by sitting on the floor opposite each other and bowing profoundly, then kneeling on one knee and crossing swords, and then standing and literally squalling at one another like cats on a roof. Then with unearthly yells they attacked each other with the utmost ferocity, springing like wild animals, growling, shrieking, and raining blows, till it seemed as though somebody must be killed.

The point was to strike either the head, the wrist, or the heart. The victor must succeed three times in this, two of the victories being consecutive. If broken by a defeat they did not count. As soon as the third victory was accomplished the enemy was considered slain. The two then bowed profoundly to each other and departed to take off their armour and give place to another couple.

The master and his assistant acted as umpires, took notes, gave advice (sitting on the floor against the wall), and one of the inspectors kept the account and declared who had won. At length all the couples had fought, and then the two masters tried their strength and skill together: very stately they were, and they contended almost in silence, while the pupils watched breathlessly and applauded loudly when the old master gained the victory.

II.

The superintendent asked if either of the ladies would like to address the men.1 We accepted the invitation, only first asking if they would object to our speaking of Christianity. We were politely assured that we might speak of any subject and as long as we liked, only remembering that they would like to hear something about the police in our own land. So the men came forward and crowded into the arena, standing just beneath the platform and looking up with eager attention as we spoke to them, first telling them something of our brave "keepers of the peace" at home and mentioning the greetings which many had asked us to bear to the police of foreign lands, and then speaking of Jesus, the Saviour and Friend, whom we longed that all should know and trust. Dr. Saiki interpreted, and there was no mistaking the look of interest on the faces gazing up at him. We often hear of the downward glance, the uninterested expression of the Japanese while listening, but in our short experience this has not been the case. At the close of the address we offered copies of the Gospels in their own tongue to all who would care to have them, telling them that as we knew how the Japanese were ready to read all new books we would not apologize for asking them to accept the book we loved best, which told them of the Friend of whom we had been speaking. They responded eagerly, all crowding round and begging for a copy, and, after some kind expressions of thanks from the superintendent and the fencing master, we took our leave, and in due course continued our journey. It is interesting to know that the Word has borne fruit in Kyoto and that a branch of the police mission has been established there.

So much has been written about the religious life and the progress of missionary work in Japan that it is not needful to say much about it here.

Two or three points however specially occurred to us as observers from the outside of the missionary circle. First, there is great encouragement in the large and increasing amount of religious liberty in Japan. All religions are tolerated, and perhaps in no Eastern country is it so easy to propagate Christian truth, by means of preaching and teaching, "open front" meetings, tract and book distribution, house to house visiting, and other means and especially by the example of Christian lives. The Japanese are a reading and thinking people. They are on the look out for reality and wherever they find it they respect it.

1 For group of Kyoto police, see SUNDAY AT HOME, January, p. 156.