The Anti-Masonic Vicar

fusion ; Mrs . Watkinson ' s sick baby to baptise ; and tAvo funerals in the afternoon to a certainty ! " " They must be cut short—yes ! very , very short ! " ejaculated the vicar , decisively and emphatically .

" What ! the sermons 1 " cried I , reverting at once to the topic uppermost in my own mind . "Oh , very Avell : your views , sir , are mine . They shall be shortened to a certainty . " "You are dreaming , " remarked my

superior , pettishly . "I allude to the speeches , the oratorical displays , the verbiage of these mystics . " "Ah ! precisely so , " Avas my dutiful reply . " You sir , and no other , hold the check-string ; the length of the intervieAv

must depend on your pleasure . Masons !"this Avas another aside— " I wish they Avere all walked up in the Pyramids . Six ; and no tidings . It will be midnight before I shall have completed my prepar-a tions for to-morroAv . "

" I am now narrow-minded . " resumed Mr . Gresham , fidgetting fretfully in his chair ; " far from it ; my views are liberal and enlarged ; I never by any chance indulge in a harsh surmise touching anyone of my felloAv-creatures . But these Mason people alarm me . They have a

secret ; there is some extraordinary bond , stringent and well understood , by Avhich they support each other . I look upon them as little better than conspirators . " Then , after a brief pause , " In fad , they ARE conspirators !"

"You really think so ? " said I , for the first time feeling an interest in the subject . "I do—seriously and solemnly , " said the vicar , with an air of the most earnest and portentous gravity .

"Rat-tat-tat ! Rap , Rap ! " " The Deputation , sir , " said the butler , bowing five middle-aged men into the study . For a set of " conspirators" they were the oddest-looking people imaginable .

There they stood , a knot of portly , frankfeatured , cheerful men , upon whom the cares of life sat lightly , AVIIO greeted their pastor with a smile , and seemed in high good humour with themselves and all around them , Nor Avhile I curiously scanned their look and bearing , could I ,

for the life of me , imagine a reason wh y men so happily circumstanced should take it into their heads to turn plotters . The foremost of the group I knew to be a man of wealth . He had "a stake , " and no small one , in the permanent prosperity of

his country . His next neighbour was a Avine-merchant , with a large and wellestablished connection , and blessed with a rising and most promising family—what had he to " conspire" about ? The party a little in the background was a Dissenter

of irreproachable character , and tenets strict even to sternness . Moreover , on no subject did he dilate , publicly as well as privately , with greater earnestness and unction than on the incalculable evils

arising from war , and the duty of every Christian state , at any sacrifice , to avoid it . What ! he '' a conspirator ! " Fronting the vicar was the banker of our little community . And to him I fancied nothing Avould be less agreeable than " a run" upon his small but flourishing firm in Quay

Street . And yet " runs" severe—repeated —exhausting " runs , " would inevitably result from any widely-spread and successful conspiracy . The banker ' s supporter Avas a little mirthful-eyed man—a bachelor —A \ dio held a light and eligible appointment under government , and looked as if he had never known a care in all his life .

He perplexed me more than all the rest . He of all created beings , a conspirator Maiwellous ! The spokesman of the party began his story . He said , in substance , that a new lodge being about to be opened within a mile and a half of Fairstreamit Avas the

, wish of the brethren ( the more firmly to engraft on the noble tree this new Masonic scion ) to go in procession to church , and there listen to a sermon from a clerical

brother . In tins arrangement he , in the name of the lodge , represented by the parties then in his presence , most respectfully requested the vicar ' s concurrence . That reverend personage , with a most distant and forbidding air , replied , that he could sanction no such proceeding .

Perplexed by this response , which Avas equally unpalatable and unexpected , the deputation , with deference , demanded my incumbent ' s reasons for refusal . " They are many and various , '' replied he ; " but resolve themselves mainiy into