THE

        SECOND MRS. TILLOTSON.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "NEVER FORGOTTEN."

                     BOOK II.

  CHAPTER XIV. NORBURY'S TROUBLES.

IT was put off, however, a long time. Meanwhile
the believers in the bank, as the dawning
of prosperity for Mr. Tilney, began to grow a
little impatient. He grew harassed with their
importunity and excuses. His faithful stick
must have been weary with all the flourishes it
was obliged to make in justification of its master.
He grew weary himself, and used to say, taking
Ada into his confidence, that "his heart was
well-nigh broken with it all." As indeed we
may be sure that the slow "fighting in retreat"
with duns is the most harassing and heart-breaking
of all struggles. There was a hill outside
the town to which he used to wander away,
where he would sit dolefully with his chin on
his stick, looking down at the cathedral.
Sometimes, too, he would gaze wistfully into the face
of Ada, and say he was "like a hunted hare."

"This sort of thing," he went on, "was
unknown—literally unknown in my day. A tradesman,
my dear, dursn't ask anything of a gentleman
but his custom. A fellow who sent you
letters and that kind of thing would have his
ears cropped close, and be cut by every decent
customer. Look at the Regent! No one ever
asked him for a shilling. And there was a
Banbury, and Grey, and Hillyar, and the whole
gang, who were treated in the same way.  I
think, my dear, I trace a good deal of it to the
irreverent, irreligious spirit of the age. There
was a more sacred tone then abroad."

This was spoken privately in their little parlour
looking out on the Close.

To him Ada replied as she had often replied:
"My dear uncle, why will you not take up
that little money of mine? I can't tell you how
welcome you would be to every sixpence of it.
As indeed you are entitled to it all."

"Never—never, dear!" said he, faintly, and
colouring a little, as he always did at this
appeal; "not for the world. Not that I would
scruple to do it if we wanted it badly."

"Then, why not now?" she said, earnestly.
"O! you must. It will make us all free and
happy."

Alas for poor Mr. Tilney!  With his other
troubles, he had made free with this little trust,
nibbling it away in small bites. Not he, indeed,
so much as Mrs. Tilney, for whose necessities
and those of her daughters it was required, and
who took it without scruple.  It, however, gave
a wrench to the heart of this gentleman of the
old school. He was now even relieved as he
saw one of the enemy "skirmishing" up the
little walk to the house.

"There they are again!" he said, eagerly.

The gentle girl, as usual, went out to meet
the foe, bore his angry remonstrances, soothed
him, and finally sent him away only grumbling.
A great victory.

But there were others, too, still fighting the
same irregular warfare. Behind the little old
green door up the Close, which was narrow and
rather awry from age, and like the green door
of a caravan, where poor Norbury and his swarm
lived, there was a battle more unequal, and
therefore more miserable. There was the blight
of squalor over them. Decent housewives going
by said it was "like a Foundling Hospital," and
enough "to breed a pestilence among the
neighbours."  In those days Mr. Tilney, passing by
on one of his gloomy saunters, was beckoned to
from the window by the pale face, now much
nearer to her periodic trouble than when we saw
her last. He heard the sounds of a violin,
and presently the canon looked over the stairs
in his shirt-sleeves, with a bow in his hand.

"Down in a moment," he said. "Out of
the way, chickabiddies" (addressed to the human
rabbits, who had swarmed out on hearing the
stranger's voice).

The canon could not find his coat. Some of
the children had got it away into a corner to
make a temporary bed to be occupied by at least
three of them, and he came down unshaven, tuning
his violin, and with a very dismal expression.

" Well," he said, "did you hear of last
night?"

"No, no," said the other, despondingly.
"Now, what happened the other night?"

"He's back, you know. Black Dick Topham
returned the day before yesterday, and, as ill luck
would have it, I came full on him last night."

"No, God bless me," said his friend, starting.

"O, Mr. Tilney," said the pale wife, wringing
her hands, "can you do nothing for us—for
poor Joe and the children ? We shall never get
over this. O dear, dear!"