type of the Catholic country squire of the old school than the somewhat
morbid and impossible Helbeck of Bannisdale. With her preconceived
notions, Mrs. Humphrey Ward could not imagine any alternative between
'religious' and 'irreligious' in the Puritan sense. If Helbeck was to be
a good Catholic at all he must of necessity be fanatically devoted to
the propagation of the faith and offer his fortune and energies to the
service of an unscrupulous clergy only too ready to play upon his
credulous enthusiasm. His is represented as being naturally a religious
and mystical soul, but blighted and narrowed through the influence of
Catholicism. We are made to feel that the only thing the matter with him
is his creed--"all those stifling notions of sin, penance, absolution,
direction, as they were conventionalized in Catholic practice and
chattered about by stupid and mindless people."

On the other hand, in Squire Riversdale and Marmaduke Lemarchant there
is by nature nothing but healthy humanity, no mystic or religious strain
whatever; they are not semi-ecclesiastics like Helbeck; and yet we feel
that their prosaic lives are governed, restrained, and rectified by a
deep-rooted faith in the authority of the Catholic Church. "The
qualities most obvious are not those of the mystic, but of the manly
out-of-door sportsman who may seem to be nothing more than a bluff
Englishman who rides to the hounds and does his ordinary duties. Yet one
of these red-coated cavaliers would, I have not the least doubt, if
occasion called for it, show himself capable of the very highest
heroism. Men of action, I should say, and not of reflection--a race of
few words but of brave deeds."

It was just men of this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious
faith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign
secret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast "ready any day to