XXIV.
A VOL. OF REPRESENTATIVE CANADIAN POEMS.
Selected and Edited By W. D. LIGHTHALL.
POCKET ATLAS AND GAZETTEER OF CANADA .
ROLAND GRAEME, KNIGHT.
CHAPTER I.
ROLAND'S THREE VISITS.
The Reverend Cecil Chillingworth sat in his quiet study, absorbed in the preparation of his next Sunday evening's discourse. It was to be one of those powerful pulpit "efforts"—so comprehensive in its grasp, so catholic in its spirit, so suggestive in its teachings—for which Mr. Chillingworth, to quote the Minton Minerva, "was deservedly famous." In fact, this "fame" of his sat already like "black care" on his shoulders; or, as the Minton Minerva might have said, had it only known the secret, like a jockey determined on all occasions to whip and spur him up to his own record. The strongest forces are often those of which the subject of them is least conscious, and, though Mr. Chillingworth would not have admitted it to himself, he stood in mortal dread of "falling off" in his reputation as a preacher. Should that happen, he would feel—or so he would have put it to himself—that his "usefulness was gone," a reason that would have justified to him every possible effort to avert the calamity.
He was now hard at work, with the critical presence of the reporter of the Minerva painfully before his mind, as he racked his brain for new and original thoughts, fresh illustrations, apt and terse expressions, with an eager anxiety that often threatened to put too great a strain on even his fine and well-balanced physique. There were indeed already, in his inward experience, some unwelcome tokens of overstrain in a growing nervous irritability, and a miserable day, now and then, in which all the brightness of life, and faith, and hope seemed to disappear before the deadly touch of nervous prostration.
It was not wonderful, then, if on the days which he set apart more especially for preparation for the pulpit, Mr. Chillingworth was peculiarly impatient of interruption. It was not consistent with his principles absolutely to deny himself, on these days, to all who sought him; but he always yielded under protest, with the impatient sense of injury which is often caused by the inconvenient pressure of our ideals on our preferences. The subject of the particular sermon on which he was at this time engaged was, the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice demanded by the religion of Christ. He was in the full flow of clear and elevated thought, and was just elaborating what he thought a specially apt illustration, with the enthusiasm of an artist.
A knock at his study door suddenly awoke him from his preoccupation; his brow involuntarily contracted, as, without looking up, he uttered a reluctant "Come in!"
A trim maid-servant entered and handed him a card. On it was inscribed, in clear and decided, though small characters, the name, Roland Graeme.
"Roland Graeme!" he mentally re-echoed.
