Sequences

There are few episodes in life which break off finally. Life is now so
variable, travel so easy, there are no continuing cities and no lasting
interests, and we ask ourselves involuntarily, "What will the sequence
be?" When I left Yorkshire, I was too young and too ignorant of the
ever-changing film of daily existence to think or to care much about
sequences; and the Hattons were a family of the soil; they appeared to
be as much a part of it as the mountains and elms, the blue bells and
the heather. I never expected to see them again and the absence of this
expectation made me neither sorry nor glad.

One day, however, a quarter of a century after the apparent close of my
story, I was in St. Andrews, the sacred, solemn-looking old city that is
the essence of all the antiquity of Scotland. But it was neither its
academic air nor its ecclesiastical forlornness, its famous links nor
venerable ruins of cloister and cathedral that attracted me at that
time. It was the promise of a sermon by Dean Stanley which detained me
on my southward journey. I had heard Dean Stanley once, and naturally I
could not but wish to hear him again.

He was to preach in the beautiful little chapel of St. Salvator's
College and I went with the crowd that followed the University faculty
there. One of the incidents of this walk was seeing an old woman in a
large white-linen cap, carrying an umbrella, innocently join the gowned
and hooded procession of the University faculty. I was told afterwards
that Stanley was greatly delighted at her intrusion. He wore a black
silk gown and bands, the Oxford D.D. hood, a broad scarf of what looked
like crêpe, and the order of the Bath, and his text was, "Ye have need
of patience." The singing was extraordinarily beautiful, beginning with
that grand canticle, "Lord of All Power and Might," as he entered the
pulpit. His beautiful beaming face and the singular way in which he
looked up with closed eyes was very attractive and must be well
remembered. But I did not notice it with the interest I might have done,
if other faces had not awakened in my memory a still keener interest.
For in a pew among those reserved for the professors and officials of
the city, I saw one in which there was certainly seated John Hatton and
his wife. There were some young men with them, who had a remarkable
resemblance to the couple, and I immediately began to speculate on the
probabilities which could have brought a Yorkshire spinner to the
ecclesiastical capital of Scotland.

After the service was over I found them at the Royal Hotel. Then I began
to learn the sequence. The landlord of the Royal introduced it by
informing me that Mr. and Mrs. John Hatton were _not_ there, but that