The lecture was a straightforward and eloquent account of Whitman’s writings and doctrines, with extracts from “The Leaves of Grass;” and from beginning to end you might have heard a pin drop, particularly during one or two of the quotations.  When it was ended the buttered-roll expression had faded from the Canon’s face, and his “our young friend” expression was ready for the chairman’s remarks.  Londonderry’s sitting down awakened a few sad echoes that were no doubt hand-clappings, but seemed like the napping of the wings of night-birds frightened by a light.  But the Lit-and-Phils were not frightened; they were entirely bewildered and rather indignant, that was all.  It was characteristic of their incapacity to grasp the humanity of any subject, even when it was dangerous, that the criticism which followed was directed almost entirely against Whitman’s metrical vagaries.  This was not poetry!  Had not their revered founder, the learned Dr. Ambrose ...

The Canon kindly said, showing his pastoral interest in the local newspaper, that the verses which their young friend Mr. Rob Clitheroe, who was present with them that evening, occasionally contributed to the Coalchester “Argus” were in his opinion better poetry than anything Walt Whitman had written, though he confessed that his acquaintance with Walt Whitman was of the slightest.  This disastrous compliment sent the blood to young Clitheroe’s cheeks, and he felt surer than ever that he would never be a real poet,—­though, as a matter of fact, he had written some quite pretty lines.

It was an occasion that of course only the Lit-and-Phils could take seriously, and the way home to New Zion was a laughter of four beneath the stars,—­Mr. Moggridge’s deep guffaws coming every now and again, like the bay of some distant watch-dog, at the young minister’s brilliant mimicry of the ancient men they had left behind.

Then the gentle voice of little James Whalley took advantage of a silence:  “Isn’t it high time that we brought the Renaissance to Coalchester?”

“Capital!” cried Londonderry; “come in for a bit of supper, all of you, and let us talk over the plan of campaign.”

CHAPTER VIII

THE PLOT AGAINST COALCHESTER

Old Mrs. Talbot had been prepared for some such invasion, and had an excellent rabbit-pie awaiting them.  There was a delightful trait of old Mrs. Talbot’s which I would like to record, a curious chronological method of remembering great occasions and startling events by the food of the day.  Thus, for example, when with eyes that would still fill with tears, though it was ten years ago, she would tell the story of how her only boy had been brought home dead one night from an accident at his workshop, she would fix the date by saying, “It was about six o’clock at night, and I’d just got a nice little bit of liver and bacon cooking for your father’s dinner, when there came a knock at the door ...”  Sometimes it was, “I’d just sent Liz out for a little bit of fish,” or it would be Spanish onions maybe, or a lovely little rabbit, that marked the day.