was still, and the rain was pattering from the eaves, he would sit
lonely and miserable by his desolate hearth, and think with a sigh of
what might have been had his patron lived. And five-and-twenty years
rolled on until James Brown, who was born during the first year of his
curateship, came home a broken man, with one arm gone, from the battle
of St. Vincent. And the great world roared on, and empires rose and
fell, and dull echoes of the great throes without were heard in the
peaceful English village, like distant thunder on a summer's afternoon,
but still no change for him.

But poor Jane bides her time in the old farm-house, sitting constant
and patient behind the long low latticed window, among the geraniums
and roses, watching the old willows by the river. Five-and-twenty
times she sees those willows grow green, and the meadow brighten up
with flowers, and as often she sees their yellow leaves driven before
the strong south wind, and the meadow grow dark and hoar before the
breath of autumn. Her father was long since dead, and she was bringing
up her brother's children. Her raven hair was streaked with grey, and
her step was not so light, nor her laugh so loud, yet still she waited
and hoped, long after all hope seemed dead.

But at length a brighter day seemed to dawn for them; for the bishop,
who had watched for years John Thornton's patient industry and
blameless conversation, gave him, to his great joy and astonishment,
the living of Drumston, worth 350L. a-year. And now, at last, he might
marry if he would. True, the morning of his life was gone long since,
and its hot noon spent in thankless labour; but the evening, the sober,
quiet evening, yet remained, and he and Jane might still render
pleasant for one another the downward road toward the churchyard, and
hand-in-hand walk more tranquilly forward to meet that dark tyrant