black oak, and the light coming through the
pale yellow and paler greens of the great
windows, dappled over the two heads of the two
judges who sat together in stalls of honour,
imparting a regular saint's "nimbus" to the
chalky well-worn face of Mr. Baron Hodder,
and comically laying what seemed a little
dab of crimson gore right on the bald crown
of the rubicund and oily Mr. Justice Buckstone.
They had been brought in by the dean himself,
and stalled helplessly, and a great Prayer-book
thrust into their hands. All dotted about were
praying barristers, with their large serious
faces, and whiskers spread like black sails, for
whom, indeed, those benches and stalls seemed
but another shape of court; and if any one had
pulled the dreamy Colter from behind, whose
thoughts were still at his lodgings noting
Whichelo's Trusts, and whispered that it was
time, he would have almost risen and "moved"
their lordships on the spot.

Mr. Baron Hodder, the Criminal Judge,
with his eyes on his great book, was also
wandering off to a terrible shooting case which
was to be on before him, which had been
committed on the verge of two counties; for
he knew that Jones, the "Dock" counsel,
would have "a point" about the indictment
and "the five hundred yards" required by the
statute, and he was thinking what "he would
do with it;" all which speculations were
disturbed by the music—-the sublime anthem,
"For the Lord is a Just Judge," set specially
by Bliss, Mus. Doc., Oxon, and at which he was
now straining and creaking, and snatching at
pegs and handles left and right, and trampling
the very souls out of pedals underneath—-
and by the sweet chirruping bleat of Fugle,
whose eyes, like all other eyes in the place,
turning to the right to make proper effect on the
stall of honour, rose and fell; and he sometimes
seemed to smile in his singing and droop his
head sadly, as who should say, "Now all is
finish—-ed; let me be transfigured and
assum—-ed, forthwith, into my place in the
heavenly mansions!"

But the judges did not care for music, at first
merely looking for a moment curiously at Doctor
Fugle as they would at a new witness just entering
the box; and so Fugle bleated his bleat
mournfully, and the other seraphic canons came
in tumultuously, and Bliss, tumbling and surging
in over all, sent down monster billows of
sounds that swelled through the aisles, and
went floating up the towers and groined roofs,
and actually made the black oak benches
under the judges quiver and tremble with
the vibration. And then, though Bliss's music
was poor, and the singers, separately, theatrical
and affected, the grand old organ—-in which
were some of the Dutch Silbermann's pipes, rich,
ripe, mellow, and celestial, and the fresh voices
of children, and the union of all, and the associations
of the place—triumphed over everything;
and, as it rolled past the stalls of honour, made
the Coke upon Lyttleton which each judge had
bound up in him as a heart, thrill for a moment
and look up with pleasure.

It was altogether a delight, to the inhabitants.
Mrs. Tilney and her family went up in procession
to the cathedral, and perhaps the ladies of her
family took stock of the barristerial company
and the flowing whiskers; for Mr. Tilney, up at
the White Hart, only the night, before, had had
brown sherry with one of the Benjamins of the
society, and obtained from him an exact, list
and description of the gentlemen of the Bar then
in town. This youth, who was voluble and
eager, gave him little short sketches of each,
after the manner of the obituary notices, and
these meagre outlines Mr. Tilney could readily
fill out from his own sources of information.
He came back mysteriously to his family.

"Do you know who is here, my dears?
Young Tilbury, son of old Sir Thomas. Dear
me! has sent him to the Bar. Second son, of
course; but, if he pleases, Sir Thomas, you
know—-I like a young fellow's carving out a way
for himself. And there's Harris, in very fair
business, too. I am sure it's the same. It's nice,
isn't it?"

Ross was there with his friend, restless,
fuming, biting his nails, and with his eyes fixed,
now on the judges, now on Mr. Paget, his own
working counsel.

Mr. Cobham, the leader, was at his lodgings,
as indeed was Serjeant Ryder, and other
leading counsel, who were too busy to afford
time for these showy pious exercises—-in truth,
the serjeant was away on the hills taking a
bracing walk and a quiet cigar.

At the door Mr. Ross commented on this.
"Such hypocrites!" he said. "Setting up to
be holy fellows, and pretending piety! Such
cant! What do they care for those fellows'
praying, or for that old whining dean's long-
winded talk? "That's the way they swindle us
of our money, and go idling about the place
instead of minding their business. It's an
infernal shame! And then they tell me the other
fellows are up at their lodgings hammering
away at their business."

His friend Grainger, on whose arm he was
leaning, and whose staring eyes searched every
face that passed them by, struck in with his
subdued growl:

"Well 'fee'd,' indeed, and then won't work!
A regular set of impostors! The rule should
be, No cure, no pay."

The Tilney family were standing close by the
ancient porch—-where, indeed, all the congregation
were loitering—-to see the distinguished
strangers come out. Mr. Tilney was with them.
As the judges passed in custody of an eager
sheriff, hurrying them to the carriage, Ross,
still biting his fingers, devoured Mr. Justice
Buckstone with his eyes. "There he is," he
said to his companion; "and that bladder-chop
creature is to deal with our case. I wish it was
the other."

"He looks a lounging fellow," said his friend.
"Takes his work easy, you may depend."

Suddenly Ross saw Mr. Tillotson talking
to Ada Millwood; and, dropping his friend's arm,
strode up to them with a sour face. That ugly
cicatrice was still there, though he had been