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So he let three weeks elapse, and then went to Maltby. The Cockchafer was a small, unpretentious tavern, frequented chiefly by carriers and tradesmen, and, I regret to say, not wholly unknown to some of the boys of Saint Dominic's, who were foolish enough to persuade themselves that skittles, and billiards, and beer were luxuries worth the risk incurred by breaking one of the rules of the school.
Shortly before four o'clock the vicar and his sister made their appearance; and then, in a little while, the procession, with appropriate banners flying, large and small, was on its way, Mr and Miss Maltby marching at the head, and Thomas Bradly bringing up the rear.
I knew it would be a dead failure if it were. What mattered one more drop in the foaming cup of my humiliation? I knew Braxton would grin and gloat. I didn't mind even that. 'Oh, well, I said, 'Braxton was in no mood for grinning and gloating. "The Drones" had already appeared. Maltby had never heard of 'The Drones' which I myself had remembered only in the course of his disclosures.
Anyhow, the parity of the two strivers was now somewhat re-established. In point of fact, the disparity had been less than I supposed. While Maltby was at Keeb, there Braxton was also in a sense.... It was a strange story. I did not hear it at the time. Nobody did. I heard it seventeen years later. I heard it in Lucca.
Her husband held out his hand to her, and while they exchanged a loving pressure, Miss Maltby said: "Woman seems now to be treated as an independent rational being, whose one great object ought to be in this life to outstrip, or at any rate keep on a level with, the other sex in all intellectual pursuits. Did God put her into the world for this?
"Dear, kind friend," began Miss Maltby, raising herself from her couch, and leaning herself on her mother, who came and sat by her, "I could not be satisfied to leave Crossbourne without seeing you first, as I want you to do something for me in the parish which I cannot ask my dear father to do.
For that matter, Braxton himself, whom I met often in the spring of '95, might have stepped straight out of his own pages. I am guilty of having wished he would step straight back into them. He was a very surly fellow, very rugged and gruff. He was the antithesis of pleasant little Maltby. I used to think that perhaps he would have been less unamiable if success had come to him earlier.
"Come, sit down, Thomas," said Mr Maltby; "my dear child cannot rest till she has seen you, and told you something that lies on her mind. I think she will be happier when she has had this little talk; and it may be that God will bless her visit to the sea, and send her back to us in improved health. I know we shall have your prayers, and the prayers of many others, that it may be so."
Loman, a monitor, had given him leave to go down to Maltby, so that was hardly a crime; and as to the Cockchafer well, he had only been in the private part of the house, and not the public bar, and surely there had been no harm in drinking ginger-beer and playing bagatelle, especially when he had distinctly refused to bet on the latter.
I only feel a wish, at times, that Religion herself were less hampered by creeds and dogmas, so that her full power might be felt, and to a far wider extent. I think that then religious and intellectual advancement would keep steady pace side by side." "Do you, my dear friend?" said Mr Maltby sadly. "I must confess I am quite of a different opinion.
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