CHAPTER I - IN WHICH JOHN
       SOWS THE WIND

    JOHN VAREY NICHOLSON
        was stupid;
           yet,
           stupider men than
             he are now
                  sprawling in Parliament,
         and lauding themselves
               as the authors
                   of their own distinction.

    He was
           of a fat habit,
         even from boyhood,
         and inclined
               to a cheerful and cursory
              reading of
                   the face of life;
        and possibly this attitude
               of mind
            was the original cause
                   of his misfortunes.

    Beyond this hint philosophy
        is silent on his career,
           and superstition steps
               in with
                   the more ready explanation
             that he
                was detested of the gods.

    His father -
         that iron gentleman -
            had long ago enthroned himself
                   on the heights
                       of the Disruption Principles.

    What these are
         (and in spite
               of their grim name
             they are quite innocent)
          no array of terms
            would render thinkable
                   to the merely English intelligence;
            but to the Scot
                 they often prove unctuously nourishing,
               and Mr. Nicholson
                  found in
                       them the milk of lions.

    About the period
         when the churches
              convene at Edinburgh
                   in their annual assemblies,
           he was to be seen
             descending the Mound
                   in the company
                       of divers red-headed clergymen:
        these voluble,
           he only contributing oracular nods,
         brief negatives,
           and the austere spectacle
               of his stretched upper lip.

    The names of Candlish
           and Begg were
         frequent in these interviews,
           and occasionally the talk
            ran on the Residuary Establishment
                and the doings
                     of one Lee.

    A stranger
        to the tight little
           theological kingdom
               of Scotland
        might have listened and
              gathered literally nothing.

    And Mr. Nicholson
         (who was
               not a dull man)
          knew this,
               and raged at it.

    He knew
        there was
               a vast world outside,
           to whom Disruption Principles
            were as the chatter
                   of tree-top apes;
        the paper
              brought him chill whiffs
                   from it;
        he had met Englishmen
             who had asked lightly
               if he
                did not
                      belong to the Church
                           of Scotland,
           and then
            had failed
                  to be much
                      interested by his elucidation of
             that nice point;
        it was an evil,
           wild,
         rebellious world,
           lying sunk in DOZENEDNESS,
         for nothing short
               of a Scots word
            will paint this Scotsman's feelings.

    And when
         he entered into his own
               house in Randolph Crescent
         (south side),
            and shut the door
               behind him,
             his heart swelled with security.

    Here,
           at least,
         was a citadel impregnable
               by right-hand defections
              or left-hand extremes.

    Here was a family
         where prayers
            came at the same hour,
           where the Sabbath literature
            was unimpeachably selected,
         where the guest
             who should have leaned
                   to any false opinion
                was instantly set down,
           and over
              which there reigned all week,
         and grew denser on Sundays,
           a silence
             that was agreeable
                   to his ear,
         and a gloom
             that he found comfortable.

    Mrs. Nicholson
        had died about thirty,
           and left him
               with three children:
        a daughter two years,
           and a son
               about eight years younger
                   than John;
        and John himself,
           the unlucky bearer
               of a name infamous
             in English history.

    The daughter,
           Maria,
      was a good girl
           - dutiful,
           pious,
         dull,
           but so easily startled
             that to speak to her
                was quite a perilous enterprise.

    'I don't think
         I care
              to talk about that,
           if you please,'
          she would say,
               and strike the boldest speechless
                   by her unmistakable pain;
            this upon
                   all topics - dress,
               pleasure,
             morality,
               politics,
             in which the formula
                was changed to 'my papa
                    thinks otherwise,' and
                 even religion,
               unless it
                was approached
                       with a particular whining