CHAPTER XLIII.

THE LITTLE DOGS AND ALL.

These like to village curs,

Bark when their fellows do.-King Henry VIII.

MILES was quite prepared for the news which next morning's post and newspaper brought him simultaneously-that he was dismissed from the commission of the peace. The explanation of his conduct demanded and given by him was naturally considered unsatisfactory, and the authorities lost not a moment in communicating such popular news to the papers. Thus it happened that Miles heard of his disgrace through an official letter no sooner than all the world rejoiced over its announcement in the He knew that such precipitate endorsement of the charges made against him

newspapers.

by the Press would have the effect of the

verdict of a jury not only upon the public but upon his own immediate neighbours; yet this seemed at the moment but a little thing compared with its effect upon Maurice's fate and Norah's future.

For this prompt action of the authorities was accepted by the Press as a verdict at once impartial and conclusive against Maurice also. As the case was of deep political interest, it was not, perhaps, to be expected that the Press should suspend its judgment upon it until a jury had pronounced theirs; and Miles wasn't, therefore, surprised to find it assumed by nearly all the English papers that the complicity of this leader of the Land League with the assassinations of the secret societies was put now beyond a doubt. Though-the papers

protested this discovery of the missing-link between the League and the Thug societies fulfilled all their prophecies and confirmed all their political judgments for years past, yet they were shocked and beyond expression pained to

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find a gentleman of Maurice's birth, position, education, and ability seducing ignorance and poverty into a crime which he had not himself the courage to commit. These tears scalded Miles in his soreness, and smarted him all the more because he knew that they weighted the scale heavily against Maurice. For with unprejudiced persons and with Maurice's future jury this conviction of the Press, wrung from it against its will and with tears, would have double the weight of a tearless assumption of his guilt. When even Brutus, who is impartiality and mercy itself, is driven on public grounds to stab his dearest friend, there's not much room for doubt of that friend's guilt.

To begin with, then, it was not possible for any jury to enter the box unprejudiced, even though they were naturally the most impartial of men. But as the trial came on next week; as the venue was changed to Dublin; as the jury would be exclusively Protestant and the judge a Catholic on his promotion, there was

not a chance of the case against Maurice breaking down even if it were a weak one; but it was very far from being a weak one-it was only too strong. All these things being considered, Miles hadn't the shadow of a shade of hope of Maurice's acquittal. Nor had he a doubt that his conviction would either kill Norah, or leave her a life maimed and mangled and worse than death.

Yet, to all appearance, Norah hardly felt the blow she had already received. She went about her duties quickly and quietly, and talked of every-day things in an every-day manner. Nor was her calmness assumed for the relief of her father's anxiety. It would have been better if it had been; for, in truth, she was stunned, and acted almost as mechanically as those decapitated creatures who go through some of the accustomed movements of life after life itself is extinct. The eyes of the mind have to grow used to the sudden darkness of a great trouble before they can see its features,

or see more than its mere skirts, or the dim and formless outline of its vesture. Nature, like a sympathetic friend, breaks bad news to us bit by bit; beginning with the mere accidents and accessories of a crushing disaster, and helping us through them gradually to realise it. Thus Norah's mind at first fastened itself upon her father's disgrace, to the exclusion of the greater trouble of which it was the mere forecast shadow. This disgrace, by-the-way, was forced upon her attention not only by the newspapers, but by a kindly-meant visit from Mr. Hyslop.

Mr. Hyslop, as Miles had promised him, found that the club thought no worse of him for his chivalry. So far from it, indeed, that they respected him for the first time. That he should take the initiative in any matter was hardly credible; but that he should take it in the teeth of the feeling of the entire club was almost miraculous. Thus he became the hero of the moment. The club might have resented