Shirley

the wood with his book of fairy legends, and that other unwritten book of his imagination.
    Martin harboured an irreligious reluctance to see the approach of Sunday. His father and mother – while disclaiming community with the Establishment – failed not duly, once on the sacred day, to fill their large pew in Briarfield church with the whole of their blooming family. Theoretically, Mr. Yorke placed all sects and churches on a level: Mrs. Yorke awarded the palm to Moravians and Quakers, on account of that crown of humility by these worthies worn: neither of them were ever known, however, to set foot in a conventicle.
    Martin, I say, disliked Sunday, because the morning service was long, and the sermon usually little to his taste: this Saturday afternoon, however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in the coming day.
    It proved a day of deep snow: so deep, that Mrs. Yorke, during breakfast, announced her conviction that the children, both boys and girls, would be better at home; and her decision that, instead of going to church, they should sit silent for two hours in the back-parlour, while Rose and Martin alternately read a succession of sermons – John Wesley's Sermons: John Wesley, being a Reformer and an Agitator, had a place both in her own and her husband's favour.
    »Rose will do as she pleases,« said Martin, not looking up from the book which, according to his custom then and in after-life, he was studying over his bread and milk.
    »Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too,« observed the mother.
    »I am going to church.«
    So her son replied, with the ineffable quietude of a true Yorke, who knows his will and means to have it, and who, if pushed to the wall, will let himself be crushed to death, provided no way of escape can be found – but will never capitulate.
    »It is not fit weather,« said the father.
    No answer: the youth read studiously: he slowly broke his bread and sipped his milk.
    »Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more to obey,« said Mrs. Yorke.
    »I suppose I am influenced by pure perverseness?«
    »Yes – you are.«
    »Mother – I
am not.
«
    »By what, then, are you influenced?«
    »By a complication of motives; the intricacies of which I should as soon think of explaining to you as I should of turning myself inside out to exhibit the internal machinery of my frame.«
    »Hear Martin! Hear him!« cried Mr. Yorke. »I must see and have this lad of mine brought up to the Bar: Nature meant him to live by his tongue. Hesther, your third son must certainly be a lawyer: he has the stock in trade – brass, self-conceit, and words – words – words.«
    »Some bread, Rose, if you please,« requested Martin, with intense gravity, serenity, phlegm: the boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice, which, in his ›dour‹ moods, rose scarcely above a lady's whisper: the more inflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes.
    »But, Martin,« urged his sire, »there is drift all the way – a man could hardly wade through it. However, lad,« he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church-bell began to toll, »this is a case wherein I would by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the depth underfoot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm fireside.«
    Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberately went out.
    »My father has more sense than my mother,« he pronounced. »How women miss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammering away at insensate stone.«
    He reached church early.
    »Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest), or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss her after all, it will vex me: but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she
ought
to come; and, if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and features, she
will
come: she will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am here for the chance of seeing her: she will want to get a word respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavour of what I think the essence of life: a taste of existence, with the spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation what champagne is to flat porter.«
    He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old woman. As the chimes subsided, and