They see the good time coming, and make ready the way for it, knowing all the while that its fuller light and wider freedom are not for them; they lead their fellows to the very borders of the promised land, conscious that their own graves are already dug in the wilderness.

No great social or political movement has ever been carried on without their aid; and they have never reaped the benefits of those reforms which they lived and died to compass.

Perhaps there are no sadder sights on the page of history than those solitary figures, of all nations and all times, who have foretold the coming of the dawn and yet died before it was yet day."' "Did you ever ?" exclaimed Mrs.Bateson _sotto voce_; "a grown man like that, and not to know John the Baptist when he sees him! Forerunners and heralds indeed! Why, it's John the Baptist as large as life, and those as don't recognise him ought to be ashamed of theirselves." "Lucy Ellen would have known who it was when she was three years old," said Caleb proudly.
"And so she ought; I'd have slapped her if she hadn't, and richly she'd have deserved it." "It's a comfort as Mr.Tremaine's mother is in her grave," remarked Mrs.
Hankey, not a whit behind the others as regards shocked sensibilities; "this would have been a sad day for her if she had been alive." "And it would!" agreed Mrs.Bateson warmly.

"I know if one of my children hadn't known John the Baptist by sight, I should have been that ashamed I should never have held up my head again in this world--never!" Mr.Bateson endeavoured to take a charitable view of the situation.

"I expect as the poor lad's schooling was neglected through having lost his parents; and there's some things as you never seem to master at all except you master 'em when you're young--the Books of the Bible being one of them." "My lads could say the Books of the Bible through, without stopping to take breath, when they were six, and Lucy Ellen when she was five and a half." "Well, then, Kezia, you should be all the more ready to take pity on them poor orphans as haven't had the advantages as our children have had." "So I am, Caleb; and if it had been one of the minor prophets I shouldn't have said a word--I can't always tell Jonah myself unless there's a whale somewhere at the back; but John the Baptist----!" When the inspection of the pictures had been accomplished, the company sat down to dinner in the large saloon; and Alan was slightly disconcerted when they opened the proceedings by singing, at the top of their voices, "Be present at our table, Lord." Elisabeth, on seeing the expression of his face, sorely wanted to laugh; but she stifled this desire, as she had learned by experience that humour was not one of Alan's strong points.