The north side of Cullerne Church, which faced the square, was still in
shadow, but, as Westray stepped inside, he found the sunshine pouring
through the south windows, and the whole building bathed in a flood of
most mellow light. There are in England many churches larger than that
of Saint Sepulchre, and fault has been found with its proportions,
because the roof is lower than in some other conventual buildings of its
size. Yet, for all this, it is doubtful whether architecture has ever
produced a composition more truly dignified and imposing.
The nave was begun by Walter Le Bec in 1135, and has on either side an
arcade of low, round-headed arches. These arches are divided from one
another by cylindrical pillars, which have no incised ornamentation, as
at Durham or Waltham or Lindisfarne, nor are masked with Perpendicular
work, as in the nave of Winchester or in the choir of Gloucester, but
rely for effect on severe plainness and great diameter. Above them is
seen the dark and cavernous depth of the triforium, and higher yet the
clerestory with minute and infrequent openings. Over all broods a stone
vault, divided across and diagonally by the chevron-mouldings of heavy
vaulting-ribs.
Westray sat down near the door, and was so engrossed in the study of the
building and in the strange play of the shafts of sunlight across the
massive stonework, that half an hour passed before he rose to walk up
the church.
A solid stone screen separates the choir from the nave, making, as it
were, two churches out of one; but as Westray opened the doors between
them, he heard four voices calling to him, and, looking up, saw above
his head the four tower arches. "The arch never sleeps," cried one.
"They have bound on us a burden too heavy to be borne," answered
another. "We never sleep," said the third; and the fourth returned to
the old refrain, "The arch never sleeps, never sleeps."
As he considered them in the daylight, he wondered still more at their
breadth and slenderness, and was still more surprised that his Chief had
made so light of the settlement and of the ominous crack in the south
wall.
The choir is a hundred and forty years later than the nave, ornate Early
English, with a multiplication of lancet-windows which rich
hood-mouldings group into twos and threes, and at the east end into
seven. Here are innumerable shafts of dark-grey purbeck marble,
elaborate capitals, deeply undercut foliage, and broad-winged angels
bearing up the vaulting shafts on which rests the sharply-pointed roof.
The spiritual needs of Cullerne were amply served by this portion of the
church alone, and, except at confirmations or on Militia Sunday, the
congregation never overflowed into the nave. All who came to the
minster found there full accommodation, and could indeed worship in much
comfort; for in front of the canopied stalls erected by Abbot Vinnicomb
in 1530 were ranged long rows of pews, in which green baize and brass
nails, cushions and hassocks, and Prayer-Book boxes ministered to the
devotion of the occupants. Anybody who aspired to social status in
Cullerne rented one of these pews, but for as many as could not afford
such luxury in their religion there were provided other seats of deal,
which had, indeed, no baize or hassocks, nor any numbers on the doors,
but were, for all that, exceedingly appropriate and commodious.
The clerk was dusting the stalls as the architect entered the choir, and
made for him at once as the hawk swoops on its quarry. Westray did not
attempt to escape his fate, and hoped, indeed, that from the old man's
garrulity he might glean some facts of interest about the building,
which was to be the scene of his work for many months to come. But the
clerk preferred to talk of people rather than of things, and the
conversation drifted by easy stages to the family with whom Westray had
taken up his abode.
The doubt as to the Joliffe ancestry, in the discussion of which Mr
Sharnall had shown such commendable reticence, was not so sacred to the
clerk. He rushed in where the organist had feared to tread, nor did
Westray feel constrained to check him, but rather led the talk to Martin
Joliffe and his imaginary claims.
"Lor' bless you!" said the clerk, "I was a little boy myself when
Martin's mother runned away with the soldier, yet mind well how it was
in everybody's mouth. But folks in Cullerne like novelties; it's all
old-world talk now, and there ain't one perhaps, beside me and Rector,
could tell you _that_ tale. Sophia Flannery her name was when Farmer
Joliffe married her, and where he found her no one knew. He lived up at
Wydcombe Farm, did Michael Joliffe, where his father lived afore him,
and a gay one he was, and dressed in yellow breeches and a blue
waistcoat all his time. Well, one day he gave out he was to be married,
and came into Cullerne, and there was Sophia waiting for him at the
Blandamer Arms, and they were married in this very church. She had a
three-year-old boy with her then, and put about she was a widow, though
there were many who thought she couldn't show her marriage lines if
she'd been asked for them. But p'raps Farmer Joliffe never asked to see
'em, or p'raps he knew all about it. A fine upstanding woman she was,
with a word and a laugh for everyone, as my father told me many a time;
and she had a bit of money beside. Every quarter, up she'd go to London
town to collect her rents, so she said, and every time she'd come back
with terrible grand new clothes. She dressed that fine, and had such a
way with her, the people called her Queen of Wydcombe. Wherever she
come from, she had a boarding-school education, and could play and sing
beautiful. Many a time of a summer evening we lads would walk up to
Wydcombe, and sit on the fence near the farm, to hear Sophy a-singing
through the open window. She'd a pianoforty, too, and would sing
powerful long songs about captains and moustachers and broken hearts,
till people was nearly fit to cry over it. And when she wasn't singing
she was painting. My old missis had a picture of flowers what she
painted, and there was a lot more sold when they had to give up the
farm. But Miss Joliffe wouldn't part with the biggest of 'em, though
there was many would ha' liked to buy it. No, she kep' that one, and
has it by her to this day--a picture so big as a signboard, all covered
with flowers most beautiful."
"Yes, I've seen that," Westray put in; "it's in my room at Miss
Joliffe's."
He said nothing about its ugliness, or that he meant to banish it, not
wishing to wound the narrator's artistic susceptibilities, or to
interrupt a story which began to interest him in spite of himself.
"Well, to be sure!" said the clerk, "it used to hang in the best parlour
at Wydcombe over the sideboard; I seed'n there when I was a boy, and my
mother was helping spring-clean up at the farm. `Look, Tom,' my mother
said to me, `did 'ee ever see such flowers? and such a pritty
caterpillar a-going to eat them!' You mind, a green caterpillar down in
the corner."
Westray nodded, and the clerk went on:
"`Well, Mrs Joliffe,' says my mother to Sophia, `I never want for to
see a more beautiful picture than that.' And Sophia laughed, and said
my mother know'd a good picture when she saw one. Some folks 'ud stand
her out, she said, that 'tweren't worth much, but she knew she could get
fifty or a hundred pound or more for't any day she liked to sell, if she
took it to the right people. _Then_ she'd soon have the laugh of those
that said it were only a daub; and with that she laughed herself, for
she were always laughing and always jolly.
"Michael were well pleased with his strapping wife, and used to like to
see the people stare when he drove her into Cullerne Market in the high
cart, and hear her crack jokes with the farmers what they passed on the
way. Very proud he was of her, and prouder still when one Saturday he
stood all comers glasses round at the Blandamer, and bid 'em drink to a
pritty little lass what his wife had given him. Now he'd got a brace of
'em, he said; for he'd kep' that other little boy what Sophia brought
when she married him, and treated the child for all the world as if he
was his very son.
"So 'twas for a year or two, till the practice-camp was put up on
Wydcombe Down. I mind that summer well, for 'twere a fearful hot one,
and Joey Garland and me taught ourselves to swim in the sheep-wash down
in Mayo's Meads. And there was the white tents all up the hillside, and
the brass band a-playing in the evenings before the officers'
dinner-tent. And sometimes they would play Sunday afternoons too; and
Parson were terrible put about, and wrote to the Colonel to say as how
the music took the folk away from church, and likened it to the worship
of the golden calf, when `the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose
up again to play.' But Colonel never took no notice of it, and when
'twas a fine evening there was a mort of people trapesing over the
Downs, and some poor lasses wished afterwards they'd never heard no
music sweeter than the clar'net and bassoon up in the gallery of
Wydcombe Church.
"Sophia was there, too, a good few times, walking round first on her
husband's arm, and afterwards on other people's; and some of the boys
said they had seen her sitting with a redcoat up among the
juniper-bushes. 'Twas Michaelmas Eve before they moved the camp, and
'twas a sorry goose was eat that Michaelmas Day at Wydcombe Farm; for
when the soldiers went, Sophia went too, and left Michael and the farm
and the children, and never said good-bye to anyone, not even to the
baby in the cot. 'Twas said she ran off with a sergeant, but no one
rightly knew; and if Farmer Joliffe made any search and found out, he
never told a soul; and she never come back to Wydcombe.
"She never come back to Wydcombe," he said under his breath, with
something that sounded like a sigh. Perhaps the long-forgotten break-up
of Farmer Joliffe's home had touched him, but perhaps he was only
thinking of his own loss, for he went on: "Ay, many's the time she would
give a poor fellow an ounce of baccy, and many's the pound of tea she
sent to a labourer's cottage. If she bought herself fine clothes, she'd
give away the old ones; my missis has a fur tippet yet that her mother
got from Sophy Joliffe. She was free with her money, whatever else she
mid have been. There wasn't a labourer on the farm but what had a good
word for her; there wasn't one was glad to see her back turned.
"Poor Michael took on dreadful at the first, though he wasn't the man to
say much. He wore his yellow breeches and blue waistcoat just the same,
but lost heart for business, and didn't go to market so reg'lar as he
should. Only he seemed to stick closer by the children--by Martin that
never know'd his father, and little Phemie that never know'd her mother.
Sophy never come back to visit 'em by what I could learn; but once I
seed her myself twenty years later, when I took the hosses over to sell
at Beacon Hill Fair.
"That was a black day, too, for 'twas the first time Michael had to
raise the wind by selling aught of his'n. He'd got powerful thin then,
had poor master, and couldn't fill the blue waistcoat and yellow
breeches like he used to, and _they_ weren't nothing so gay by then
themselves neither.
"`Tom,' he said--that's me, you know--`take these here hosses over to
Beacon Hill, and sell 'em for as much as 'ee can get, for I want the
money.'
"`What, sell the best team, dad!' says Miss Phemie--for she was standing
by--`you'll never sell the best team with White-face and old
Strike-a-light!' And the hosses looked up, for they know'd their names
very well when she said 'em.
"`Don't 'ee take on, lass,' he said; `we'll buy 'em back again come Lady
Day.'
"And so I took 'em over, and knew very well why he wanted the money; for
Mr Martin had come back from Oxford, wi' a nice bit of debt about his
neck, and couldn't turn his hand to the farm, but went about saying he
was a Blandamer, and Fording and all the lands belonged to he by right.
'Quiries he was making, he said, and gadded about here and there,
spending a mort of time and money in making 'quiries that never came to
nothing. 'Twas a black day, that day, and a thick rain falling at
Beacon Hill, and all the turf cut up terrible. The poor beasts was wet
through, too, and couldn't look their best, because they knowed they was
going to be sold; and so the afternoon came, and never a bid for one of
'em. `Poor old master!' says I to the horses, `what'll 'ee say when we
get back again?' And yet I was glad-like to think me and they weren't
going to part.
"Well, there we was a-standing in the rain, and the farmers and the
dealers just give us a glimpse, and passed by without a word, till I see
someone come along, and that was Sophia Joliffe. She didn't look a year
older nor when I met her last, and her face was the only cheerful thing
we saw that afternoon, as fresh and jolly as ever. She wore a yellow
mackintosh with big buttons, and everybody turned to measure her up as
she passed. There was a horse-dealer walking with her, and when the
people stared, he looked at her just so proud as Michael used to look
when he drove her in to Cullerne Market. She didn't take any heed of
the hosses, but she looked hard at me, and when she was passed turned
her head to have another look, and then she come back.
"`Bain't you Tom Janaway,' says she, `what used to work up to Wydcombe
Farm?'
"`Ay, that I be,' says I, but stiff-like, for it galled me to think what
she'd a-done for master, and yet could look so jolly with it all.
"She took no note that I were glum, but `Whose hosses is these?' she
asked.
"`Your husband's, mum,' I made bold to say, thinking to take her down a
peg. But, lor'! she didn't care a rush for that, but `Which o' my
husbands?' says she, and laughed fit to bust, and poked the horse-dealer
in the side. He looked as if he'd like to throttle her, but she didn't
mind that neither. `What for does Michael want to sell his hosses?'
"And then I lost my pluck, and didn't think to humble her any more, but
just told her how things was, and how I'd stood the blessed day, and
never got a bid. She never asked no questions, but I see her eyes
twinkle when I spoke of Master Martin and Miss Phemie; and then she
turned sharp to the horse-dealer and said:
"`John, these is fine horses; you buy these cheap-like, and we can sell
'em again to-morrow.'
"Then he cursed and swore, and said the hosses was old scraws, and he'd
be damned afore he'd buy such hounds'-meat.
"`John,' says she, quite quiet, `'tain't polite to swear afore ladies.
These here is good hosses, and I want you to buy 'em.'
"Then he swore again, but she'd got his measure, and there was a mighty
firm look in her face, for all she laughed so; and by degrees he quieted
down and let her talk.
"`How much do you want for the four of 'em, young man?' she says; and I
had a mind to say eighty pounds, thinking maybe she'd rise to that for
old times' sake, but didn't like to say so much for fear of spoiling the
bargain. `Come,' she says, `how much? Art thou dumb? Well, if thou
won't fix the price, I'll do it for 'ee. Here, John, you bid a hundred
for this lot.'
"He stared stupid-like, but didn't speak.
"Then she look at him hard.
"`You've got to do it,' she says, speaking low, but very firm; and out
he comes with, `Here, I'll give 'ee a hundred.' But before I had time
to say `Done,' she went on: `No--this young man says no; I can see it in
his face; he don't think 'tis enough; you try him with a hundred and
twenty.'
"'Twas as if he were overlooked, for he says quite mild, `Well, I'll
give 'ee a hundred and twenty.'
"`Ay, that's better,' says she; `he says that's better.' And she takes
out a little leather wallet from her bosom, holding it under the flap of
her waterproof so that the rain shouldn't get in, and counts out two
dozen clean banknotes, and puts 'em into my hand. There was many more
where they come from, for I could see the book was full of 'em; and when
she saw my eyes on them, she takes out another, and gives it me, with,
`There's one for thee, and good luck to 'ee; take that, and buy a
fairing for thy sweetheart, Tom Janaway, and never say Sophy Flannery
forgot an old friend.'
"`Thank 'ee kindly, mum,' says I; `thank 'ee kindly, and may you never
miss it! I hope your rents do still come in reg'lar, mum.'
"She laughed out loud, and said there was no fear of that; and then she
called a lad, and he led off White-face and Strike-a-light and Jenny and
the Cutler, and they was all gone, and the horse-dealer and Sophia,
afore I had time to say good-night. She never come into these parts
again--at least, I never seed her; but I heard tell she lived a score of
years more after that, and died of a broken blood-vessel at Beriton
Races."
He moved a little further down the choir, and went on with his dusting;
but Westray followed, and started him again.
"What happened when you got back? You haven't told me what Farmer
Joliffe said, nor how you came to leave farming and turn clerk."
The old man wiped his forehead.
"I wasn't going to tell 'ee that," he said, "for it do fair make I sweat
still to think o' it; but you can have it if you like. Well, when they
was gone, I was nigh dazed with such a stroke o' luck, and said the
Lord's Prayer to see I wasn't dreaming. But 'twas no such thing, and so
I cut a slit in the lining of my waistcoat, and dropped the notes in,
all except the one she give me for myself, and that I put in my
fob-pocket. 'Twas getting dark, and I felt numb with cold and wet, what
with standing so long in the rain and not having bite nor sup all day.
"'Tis a bleak place, Beacon Hill, and 'twas so soft underfoot that day
the water'd got inside my boots, till they fair bubbled if I took a
step. The rain was falling steady, and sputtered in the naphtha-lamps
that they was beginning to light up outside the booths. There was one
powerful flare outside a long tent, and from inside there come a smell
of fried onions that made my belly cry `Please, master, please!'
"`Yes, my lad,' I said to un, `I'm darned if I don't humour 'ee; thou
shan't go back to Wydcombe empty.' So in I step, and found the tent
mighty warm and well lit, with men smoking and women laughing, and a
great smell of cooking. There were long tables set on trestles down the
tent, and long benches beside 'em, and folks eating and drinking, and a
counter cross the head of the room, and great tin dishes simmering a-top
of it--trotters and sausages and tripe, bacon and beef and colliflowers,
cabbage and onions, blood-puddings and plum-duff. It seemed like a
chance to change my banknote, and see whether 'twere good and not
elf-money that folks have found turn to leaves in their pocket. So up I
walks, and bids 'em gie me a plate of beef and jack-pudding, and holds
out my note for't. The maid--for 'twas a maid behind the counter--took
it, and then she looks at it and then at me, for I were very wet and
muddy; and then she carries it to the gaffer, and he shows it to his
wife, who holds it up to the light, and then they all fall to talking,
and showed it to a 'cise-man what was there marking down the casks.
"The people sitting nigh saw what was up, and fell to staring at me till
I felt hot enough, and lief to leave my note where 'twas, and get out
and back to Wydcombe. But the 'cise-man must have said 'twere all
right, for the gaffer comes back with four gold sovereigns and nineteen
shillings, and makes a bow and says:
"`Your servant, sir; can I give you summat to drink?'
"I looked round to see what liquor there was, being main glad all the
while to find the note were good; and he says:
"`Rum and milk is very helping, sir; try the rum and milk hot.'
"So I took a pint of rum and milk, and sat down at the nighest table,
and the people as were waiting to see me took up, made room now, and
stared as if I'd been a lord. I had another plate o' beef, and another
rum-and-milk, and then smoked a pipe, knowing they wouldn't make no
bother of my being late that night at Wydcombe, when I brought back two
dozen banknotes.
"The meat and drink heartened me, and the pipe and the warmth of the
tent seemed to dry my clothes and take away the damp, and I didn't feel
the water any longer in my boots. The company was pleasant, too, and
some very genteel dealers sitting near.
"`My respec's to you, sir,' says one, holding up his glass to me--`best
respec's. These pore folk isn't used to the flimsies, and was a bit
surprised at your paper-money; but directly I see you, I says to my
friends, "Mates, that gentleman's one of us; that's a monied man, if
ever I see one." I knew you for a gentleman the minute you come in.'
"So I was flattered like, and thought if they made so much o' one
banknote, what'd they say to know I'd got a pocket full of them? But
didn't speak nothing, only chuckled a bit to think I could buy up half
the tent if I had a mind to. After that I stood 'em drinks, and they
stood me, and we passed a very pleasant evening--the more so because
when we got confidential, and I knew they were men of honour, I proved
that I was worthy to mix with such by showing 'em I had a packet of
banknotes handy. They drank more respec's, and one of them said as how
the liquor we were swallowing weren't fit for such a gentleman as me; so
he took a flask out o' his pocket, and filled me a glass of his own tap,
what his father 'ud bought in the same year as Waterloo. 'Twas powerful
strong stuff that, and made me blink to get it down; but I took it with
a good face, not liking to show I didn't know old liquor when it come my
way.
"So we sat till the tent was very close, and them hissing naphtha-lamps
burnt dim with tobacco-smoke. 'Twas still raining outside, for you
could hear the patter heavy on the roof; and where there was a belly in
the canvas, the water began to come through and drip inside. There was
some rough talking and wrangling among folk who had been drinking; and I
knew I'd had as much as I could carry myself, 'cause my voice sounded
like someone's else, and I had to think a good bit before I could get
out the words. 'Twas then a bell rang, and the 'size-man called out,
`Closing time,' and the gaffer behind the counter said, `Now, my lads,
good-night to 'ee; hope the fleas won't bite 'ee. God save the Queen,
and give us a merry meeting to-morrow.' So all got up, and pulled their
coats over their ears to go out, except half a dozen what was too heavy,
and was let lie for the night on the grass under the trestles.
"I couldn't walk very firm myself, but my friends took me one under each
arm; and very kind of them it was, for when we got into the open air, I
turned sleepy and giddy-like. I told 'em where I lived to, and they
said never fear, they'd see me home, and knew a cut through the fields
what'd take us to Wydcombe much shorter. We started off, and went a bit
into the dark; and then the very next thing I know'd was something
blowing in my face, and woke up and found a white heifer snuffing at me.
'Twas broad daylight, and me lying under a hedge in among the
cuckoo-pints. I was wet through, and muddy (for 'twas a loamy ditch),
and a bit dazed still, and sore ashamed; but when I thought of the
bargain I'd made for master, and of the money I'd got in my waistcoat, I
took heart, and reached in my hand to take out the notes, and see they
weren't wasted with the wet.
"But there was no notes there--no, not a bit of paper, for all I turned
my waistcoat inside out, and ripped up the lining. 'Twas only half a
mile from Beacon Hill that I was lying, and I soon made my way back to
the fair-ground, but couldn't find my friends of the evening before, and
the gaffer in the drinking-tent said he couldn't remember as he'd ever
seen any such. I spent the livelong day searching here and there, till
the folks laughed at me, because I looked so wild with drinking the
night before, and with sleeping out, and with having nothing to eat; for
every penny was took from me. I told the constable, and he took it all
down, but I see him looking at me the while, and at the torn lining
hanging out under my waistcoat, and knew he thought 'twas only a light
tale, and that I had the drink still in me. 'Twas dark afore I give it
up, and turned to go back.
"'Tis seven mile good by the nigh way from Beacon Hill to Wydcombe; and
I was dog-tired, and hungry, and that shamed I stopped a half-hour on
the bridge over Proud's mill-head, wishing to throw myself in and ha'
done with it, but couldn't bring my mind to that, and so went on, and
got to Wydcombe just as they was going to bed. They stared at me,
Farmer Michael, and Master Martin, and Miss Phemie, as if I was a
spirit, while I told my tale; but I never said as how 'twas Sophia
Joliffe as had bought the horses. Old Michael, he said nothing, but had
a very blank look on his face, and Miss Phemie was crying; but Master
Martin broke out saying 'twas all make-up, and I'd stole the money, and
they must send for a constable.
"`'Tis lies,' he said. `This fellow's a rogue, and too great a fool
even to make up a tale that'll hang together. Who's going to believe a
woman 'ud buy the team, and give a hundred and twenty pounds in notes
for hosses that 'ud be dear at seventy pounds? Who was the woman? Did
'ee know her? There must be many in the fair 'ud know such a woman.
They ain't so common as go about with their pockets full of banknotes,
and pay double price for hosses what they buy.'
"I knew well enough who'd bought 'em, but didn't want to give her name
for fear of grieving Farmer Joliffe more nor he was grieved already, so
said nothing, but held my peace.
"Then the farmer says: `Tom, I believe 'ee; I've know'd 'ee thirty year,
and never know'd 'ee tell a lie, and I believe 'ee now. But if thou
knows her name, tell it us, and if thou doesn't know, tell us what she
looked like, and maybe some of us 'll guess her.'
"But still I didn't say aught till Master Martin goes on:
"`Out with her name. He must know her name right enough, if there ever
was a woman as did buy the hosses; and don't you be so soft, father, as
to trust such fool's tales. We'll get a constable for 'ee. Out with
her name, I say.'
"Then I was nettled like, at his speaking so rough, when the man that
suffered had forgiven me, and said:
"`Yes, I know her name right enough, if 'ee will have it. 'Twas the
missis.'
"`Missis?' he says; `what missis?'
"`Your mother,' says I. `She was with a man, but he weren't the man she
runned away from here with, and she made he buy the team.'
"Master Martin didn't say any more, and Miss Phemie went on crying; but
there was a blanker look come on old master's face, and he said very
quiet:
"`There, that'll do, lad. I believe 'ee, and forgive thee. Don't
matter much to I now if I have lost a hundred pound. 'Tis only my luck,
and if 'tweren't lost there, 'twould just as like be lost somewhere
else. Go in and wash thyself, and get summat to eat; and if I forgive
'ee this time, don't 'ee ever touch the drink again.'
"`Master,' I says, `I thank 'ee, and if I ever get a bit o' money I'll
pay thee back what I can; and there's my sacred word I'll never touch
the drink again.'
"I held him out my hand, and he took it, for all 'twas so dirty.
"`That's right, lad; and to-morrow we'll put the p'leece on to trace
them fellows down.'
"I kep' my promise, Mr--Mr--Mr--"
"Westray," the architect suggested.
"I didn't know your name, you see, because Rector never introduced _me_
yesterday. I kep' my promise, Mr Westray, and bin teetotal ever since;
but he never put the p'leece on the track, for he was took with a stroke
next morning early, and died a fortnight later. They laid him up to
Wydcombe nigh his father and his grandfather, what have green rails
round their graves; and give his yellow breeches and blue waistcoat to
Timothy Foord the shepherd, and he wore them o' Sundays for many a year
after that. I left farming the same day as old master was put
underground, and come into Cullerne, and took odd jobs till the sexton
fell sick, and then I helped dig graves; and when he died they made I
sexton, and that were forty years ago come Whitsun."
"Did Martin Joliffe keep on the farm after his father's death?" Westray
asked, after an interval of silence.
They had wandered along the length of the stalls as they talked, and
were passing through the stone screen which divides the minster into two
parts. The floor of the choir at Cullerne is higher by some feet than
that of the rest of the church, and when they stood on the steps which
led down into the nave, the great length of the transepts opened before
them on either side. The end of the north transept, on the outside of
which once stood the chapter-house and dormitories of the monastery, has
only three small lancet-windows high up in the wall, but at the south
end of the cross-piece there is no wall at all, for the whole space is
occupied by Abbot Vinnicomb's window, with its double transoms and
infinite subdivisions of tracery. Thus is produced a curious contrast,
for, while the light in the rest of the church is subdued to sadness by
the smallness of the windows, and while the north transept is the most
sombre part of all the building, the south transept, or Blandamer aisle,
is constantly in clear daylight. Moreover, while the nave is of the
Norman style, and the transepts and choir of the Early English, this
window is of the latest Perpendicular, complicated in its scheme, and
meretricious in the elaboration of its detail. The difference is so
great as to force itself upon the attention even of those entirely
unacquainted with architecture, and it has naturally more significance
for the professional eye. Westray stood a moment on the steps as he
repeated his question:
"Did Martin keep on the farm?"
"Ay, he kep' it on, but he never had his heart in it. Miss Phemie did
the work, and would have been a better farmer than her father, if Martin
had let her be; but he spent a penny for every ha'penny she made, till
all came to the hammer. Oxford puffed him up, and there was no one to
check him; so he must needs be a gentleman, and give himself all kinds
of airs, till people called him `Gentleman Joliffe,' and later on `Old
Neb'ly' when his mind was weaker. 'Twas that turned his brain," said
the sexton, pointing to the great window; "'twas the silver and green
what done it."
Westray looked up, and in the head of the centre light saw the nebuly
coat shining among the darker painted glass with a luminosity which was
even more striking in daylight than in the dusk of the previous evening.