"UP TO CHURCH."
"Fine growing marning, you."
"Ay, casualty weather, though."
Ding--ding--dill! Dill--ding--dill! This last was the cracked bell of
the village church ringing "to service." The speakers were two farmers,
who, after exchanging greeting, leant against the churchyard wall, and
looked over, as they had done every fine-weather Sunday this thirty
years. So regular was this pressure, that the moss which covered the
coping-stones elsewhere was absent from the spot where they placed their
arms. On the other side of the wall, and on somewhat lower ground, was
a pigsty, beyond that a cow-yard, then a barn and some ricks.
"Casualty," used in connection with weather, means uncertain. Mr
Hedges, the taller of the two men, stooped a good deal; he wore a suit
of black, topped, however, by a billycock. Mr Ruck, very big and
burly, was shaped something like one of his own mangolds turned
upside-down: that is to say, as the glance ran over his figure,
beginning at the head, it had to take in a swelling outline as it
proceeded lower. He was clad in a snowy-white smock-frock, breeches and
gaiters, and glossy beaver hat.
This costume had a hieroglyphic meaning. The showy smock-frock
intimated that he had risen from lowly estate, and was proud of the
fact. The breeches and gaiters gave him an air of respectable antiquity
in itself equivalent to a certain standing. Finally the beaver hat--
which everybody in the parish knew cost a guinea, and nothing less--
bespoke the thousand pounds at the bank to which he so frequently
alluded.
Dill--ding--ding! Ding--dill--dill!
The sweet spring air breathed softly; the warm sunshine fell on the old
grey church, whose shadow slowly receded from the tombstones and low
grassy mounds. The rounded ridge of the Downs rose high to the south--
so near that the fleecy clouds sailing up were not visible till they
slid suddenly into view over the summit. Tiny toy-like sheep, reduced
in size by the distance were dotted here and there on the broad slope.
Over the corn hard by, the larks sprang up and sang at so great a height
that the motion of their wings could not be distinguished. The earth
exhaled a perfume, there was music in the sky, a caress in the breeze.
Far down in the vale a sheet of water glistened; beyond that the forest
of trees and hedges became indistinct, and assumed a faint blue tint,
extending like the sea, till heaven and earth mingled at the hazy
horizon.
Humph--humph! The pigs were thrusting their noses into a heap of
rubbish piled up against the wall, and covered with docks and nettles.
Mr Hedges leant a little farther over the coping, and with the end of
his stick rubbed the back of the fattest, producing divers grunts of
satisfaction. This operation seemed to give equal pleasure to the man
and the animal.
"Thirteen score," said Ruck sententiously, referring to the weight of
the said pig.
"Mebbe a bit more, you,"--two farmers could by no possibility agree on
the weight of an animal. "Folk never used to think nothing of a peg
till a' were nigh on twenty score. But this generation be nice in
bacon, and likes a wafer rasher as shrivels up dry without a lick of
grease."
"It be a spectacle to see the chaps in the Lunnon eating-houses pick
over their plates," said Ruck. "Such a waste of good vittels!"
"There'll be a judgment on it some day." The click of the double
wicket-gates--double, to keep other people's sheep out and the rector's
sheep in--now began to sound more frequently, as the congregation
gathered by twos and threes, coming up the various footpaths that led
across the fields. Very few entered the church--most hanging about and
forming little groups as their acquaintances came up. The boys stole
away from their gossiping parents, and got together where a projecting
buttress and several high square tombs formed a recess and hid their
proceedings. A broad sunken slab just there was level with the turf;
the grass grew over at the edges. They had scraped away the moss that
covered it; the inscription had long since disappeared, except the
figure 7, a remnant of the date. Something like the chink of coppers on
stone might have been heard now and then, when there was a lull in their
chatter.
Dill--dill!
"Squire Thorpe got visitors, yent a'?" asked Hedges, perfectly well
aware of the fact, but desirous of learning something else, and getting
at it sideways, as country folk will.
"Aw; that tall fellow, Geoffrey Newton, and Val Browne, as have set up
the training-stables."
"Warn he'll want some hay?" This was a leading question, and Hedges
rubbed away at the pig to appear innocently unconcerned.
"I sold his trainer eighty ton o' clauver," said Ruck. "A' be a
gentleman, every inch of un."
"Stiffish price, you?"
"Five pound ten."
Whew!
"Ay, ay; but it be five mile to cart it; and a nation bad road."
"What's that long chap doing at Squire's? He 'as been to Australia."
"A' be goin' to larn farming."
"Larn farming!" Intense contempt.
"A' be down to Greene Ferne a' studying pretty often," said Ruck, with a
wink and a broad grin.
"Wimmen," said Hedges, giving an extra hard scrape at the pig, who
responded Humph--humph!
"Wimmen," repeated Ruck still more emphatically.
"There be worse thengs about," said a voice behind. It was the clerk,
who, having put the rector's surplice ready, had slipped out for a
minute into the churchyard to communicate a piece of news. He was a
little shrivelled old fellow.
"Nash was allus a gay man," said Ruck.
"So was his father afore un," added Hedges. "It runs in the family."
"Summut in the blood, summut in the blood," said Nash, not to appear to
value the hereditary propensity too highly. "Did ee never notice that
shart men be a'most sure to get on with th' wimmen? I got summut to
tell ee."
"What be it?" from both listeners at once.
If the Athenians were eager for something new, those that dwell in the
fields are ten times more so.
"You knows Mr Valentine Browne as built the new stables?"
"Sartainly."
"He have took my cottage for the trout-fishing."
"Aw! You calls un Hollyocks, doan't ee?" said Ruck.
"A' bean't very far from Greene Ferne, be a'?" asked Hedges.
"Wimmen," said the clerk meaningly. "'Pend upon it, it be the wimmen!"
"Lor, here um comes!" said Ruck.
Two young men walked quickly round the tower, coming from the other
side, down the gravel path past the group, and opening the wicket-gate
went out into the field. Nash bowed and scraped, Ruck lifted his
beaver, but neither seemed to observe these attentions.
"It be the wimmen, and no mistake," said Ruck. "Thaay be gone to meet
um. The Ferne folk be moast sure to come up thuck path this sunny day,
'stead of driving."
"Marnin', shepherd," said the clerk to a labouring man who had just
entered the churchyard. "I was afeared you'd be late. 'Spose you come
from Upper Furlong. How's your voice?"
"Aw, featish [fairish]. I zucked a thrush's egg to clear un."
"Arl right, Jabez; mind as you doan't zeng too fast. It be your fault,
shepherd, it be your fault."
For Jabez was the leader of the choir. "Nash!" cried a stern voice, and
the clerk jumped and tore his hat off at the sound. "Catch those boys!"
It was Squire Thorpe, whose magisterial eye had at once detected the
youthful gamblers behind the buttress. Nash rushed towards them; but
they had scented the Squire's arrival, and dodged him round the big
tombstones. Thorpe turned to the two farmers, who lifted their hats.
"Grass coming on nicely, Hedges," said he. "Ought to be a good hay
year."
The Squire was as fond of gossip as any man in the parish; but he was
rather late that morning; for he had hardly taken his stand by the wall
when the "dill-dill" of the bell came to a sudden stop. The two
gentlemen who had gone out into the field returned at a run.
"Ah, here you are!" said the Squire; and the three walked rapidly to the
chancel door.
Ruck and Hedges, however, showed no signs of moving. A low hum arose
from the hand-organ within; still they leant on the wall, deferring
action to the last moment.
The sound of voices--the speakers clearly almost out of breath, but none
the less talking--approached the wicket-gate, and three bonnets appeared
above the wall there.
"It be the Greene Ferne folk," said Hedges. "Measter Newton and t'other
chap was too much in a hurry."
Three ladies--two young and one middle-aged--entered the churchyard.
The taller of the two girls left the path, and ran to a tomb inclosed
with low iron railings. She carried a whole armful of spring flowers,
gathered in the meadows and copses _en route_, bluebells and cowslips
chiefly, and threw them broadcast on the grave.
"Miss Margaret don't forget her feyther," said Hedges.
The three, as they passed, nodded smilingly to the two farmers, and went
into the church.
"May Fisher be allus down at the Estcourts", said Ruck. "S'pose her
finds it dull up on the hills with the old man."
"Mrs Estcourt looks well," said Hedges. "Warn hur'll marry agen some
day. Miss Margaret do dress a bit, you."
"Nation gay. Hur be a upstanding girl, that Margaret Estcourt. A' got
a thousand pound under the will."
"And the Greene Ferne Farm when the widder goes."
"Five hundred acres freehold, and them housen in to town."
"A' be a featish-looking girl, you."
"So be May Fisher; but a' bean't such a queen as Mother. Margaret walks
as if the parish belonged to her."
"If a' did, her would sell un, and buy a new bonnet. These yer wimmen!"
The sound of singing came from the open door under the tower hard by.
"Dall'd if it bean't `I will arise.'"
"S'pose us had better go in." They walked to the tower-door. It was
arched and low--so low that to enter it was necessary to stoop, and
inside the pavement was a step beneath the level of the ground. Within
stood the font, and by it some forms against the wall, on which the
school children left their caps. There was a space behind the first
pillar of the side-aisle unoccupied by pews, being dark and not
affording a view of the pulpit. Now it was possible to tell the rank of
the congregation as they entered, by the length of time each kept his
hat on after getting through the door. The shepherd or carter took off
his hat the moment he set his hobnailed boot down on the stone flags
with a clatter. The wheelwright, who had a little money and a house of
his own, wore his hat till he got to the font. So did the ale-house
keeper, who had the grace to come to church. So did the small farmers.
Ruck, who could write a cheque for a thousand pounds, never removed his
till he arrived at the step that led down to the side-aisle. Hedges,
who was higher in the rank of society, inasmuch as he had been born in
the purple of farming, kept his on till he reached the first pillar.
One of the semi-gentlemen-farmers actually walked half-way to his
pew-door wearing his hat, though the congregation were standing
listening to Jabez and the choir get through the introductory chant.
Entering from the beautiful sunshine, the church gave the impression of
a rather superior tomb. It struck chilly, as if the cold of the last
five or six centuries had got into it and could not be driven out. Cold
rose up from the tombs under the aisles--cold emanated from the walls,
where slabs spoke of the dead--cold came down from the very roof.
Whitewashed walls, whitewashed pillars--everything plain, bare, hard.
The only colour to be seen was furnished by two small stained-glass
windows, and the faded gilt and paint of the royal arms over the
chancel; the lion and the unicorn in the middle, and the names of the
churchwardens who reigned when it was put up on either side. The pews
in the centre were modern; those in the side-aisles high, like boxes.
There might, perhaps, have been forty people in the church altogether--
all crowded up towards the chancel: the back seats were quite empty. If
a modest stranger went into such a back seat, and helped himself to the
Prayer-book he might find there, the covers came off in his hand, and
displayed a mass of sawdust-like borings thrown up by the grubs that had
eaten their way right through the prayer for King William IV. A
cheerless edifice--tomb-like; and yet there were some to whom it had
grown very dear in the passage of years, and others to whom it was
equally dear because of associations. So it was that this chilly,
harsh, repellent place--squat rather than built on the edge of the
hills--was beloved far more by some of the worshippers therein than
those grand vaulted cathedrals whose vastness seems to remove them from
human sympathy. But how marked the contrast between the sunshine, the
blue sky, the song of birds, the soft warm air, the green leaf and bud
without!
Squire Thorpe's pew of black oak occupied one entire side of the
chancel; the choir and the barrel-organ were together, far down the
side-aisle. From the raised dais of the chancel every member of the
congregation could be discerned with ease. While the Rev Basil
Thorpe, cousin of the Squire, "droned in the pulpit," or rather
reading-desk, the Squire, sitting, kneeling, or standing, surveyed with
keen glance every nook and corner. This severe and continuous
examination did not in the least interfere with his devotions. Such is
the dual character of the mind, that he uttered the responses earnestly
in his sonorous tones, and at the same moment noted the two wenches
giggling with the plough-boy behind the pillar. His imagination
followed the lesson and saw the patriarchal life on the plains of
Chaldea, while his physical eye watched the grey-haired "fore-father" in
his blue smock-frock, who, leaning his chin upon his ashen staff, traced
the words with his horny finger on the book. The school children sat on
forms placed endwise down the centre aisle. He saw one near the top
stealthily produce an apple, and after taking a bite hand it to the
next. All down the row it went, each nibbling in turn, and the final
receiver putting the core in his pocket. Such innocent tricks did not
annoy him in the least--his mind was broad enough to make allowances for
the little weaknesses of human nature--the one thing that hurt him was
the empty pews. He looked to see who was absent. He knew every
inhabitant of the parish, and as it were checked them off mentally. It
was a process he went through every Sunday with the same depressing
result. The church was practically deserted: he hardly dared own to
himself how small was the percentage that attended. Now the Squire felt
no animosity against Bethel Chapel--he was candid enough to own that
Basil was dull in the pulpit and somewhat mistaken in the tone of his
intercourse with the poor. Still, to desert the church was as if a man
turned his back on his own father, and preferred to sit at a stranger's
hearth. He could not help associating it with that general divorce, as
it were, of the people from authority, the general contempt for property
and capital, the loss of respect for institutions of all kinds, that is
so striking a feature of modern English life. Then his gaze fell on the
group of three ladies in a high old-fashioned pew, and he marked
Margaret's bonnet.
"Another," was his thought--"another since last week. But she is
singularly handsome, and so like her poor father." And his gaze grew
gentle, noting the empty corner of the pew where the stalwart frame of
his oldest friend had sat till darkness closed the eye of the boldest of
riders and keenest of shots. Involuntarily he looked across at the
marble tablet on the opposite wall of the chancel--set there at his own
special wish--and read:
To The Beloved Memory
of
Warren Estcourt.
The black lettering on the pure white marble grew dim; his eyes became
misty. Then came the sorrowful, and yet assured, prayer:
"Make them to be numbered with Thy saints: in glory everlasting."
Rude voices chanted it--voices used to the roaring of the wind in the
trees and the hiss of the rain on the hill. Yet as they stood there and
gave forth the old, old words that have been linked with human fate so
many centuries, there came a meaning through the hoarse harsh notes.
A tear fell on the broad yellow page of the old Prayer-book the Squire
held so closely to his face. This was why the low grey church was so
dear to him; it was full of the past. Shadowy forms hid behind the
pillars; faces looked down from the worm-eaten rafters; bright and yet
quick-fading groups of other days appeared through the greenish-yellow
panes of the windows.
"I am an old fool," he said to himself. "If these young fellows see me,
they will laugh."
But the young fellows by his side were otherwise engaged. They too had
noted the extravagant bonnet; but their thoughts went no farther than
the face beneath it. The old man thought of the father; the young men
of the living daughter. But, indeed, Margaret Estcourt could not but be
observed, standing so manifestly apart from, and yet among, that simple
congregation. A single flower in a gloomy room will sometimes light it
up as with a glory--the eye instantly rests upon it; a single violet
will fill the place with perfume. She was the violet in that ancient
building. Yet there was nothing extraordinary about her--no marvellous
hyacinthine or golden tresses, no burning eye flashing with southern
passion. She was simply very near the ideal of a fair young English
girl, in the full glow of youth and with all its exquisite bloom.
Perhaps at the first glance the beautiful pose of the tall and graceful
figure seemed her most distinctive characteristic. The slight form of
May Fisher brought her still more into relief.
So to the young men in the chancel pew the old grey church began to grow
very dear, and the first part of the service slipped by speedily,
despite Basil's droning. Then the choir gave out a hymn with all their
might, sturdily drowning the organ, stimulated to an extra effort by the
presence of visitors in the Squire's pew. Jabez the shepherd sang like
a giant refreshed with wine, and got through four verses magnificently.
But in the triumph of the moment he forgot the clerk's warning not to
"zeng too fast." The verse finished with the word "Jacob:" Jabez
unfortunately got a little in advance of the time, and desperately
struggling to lengthen it out, an ale-house chorus slipped from his
tongue: "Ja-aa-fol-de-rol-cob!"
When Basil went up into the pulpit the Squire quietly folded a silk
handkerchief as a cushion to protect the back of his head from the hard
oak of the pew, and slumbered peacefully till at the Rector's "Fifthly,
and in conclusion," the stir of relief that ran through the congregation
awoke him, as it usually did. Thorpe waited in the churchyard for Mrs
Estcourt, and walked with her as far as the wicket-gate, his own
carriage waiting at the road entrance. There at the wicket the group
paused a moment on the edge of the green fields. The sweetness of the
air coming from the Downs, after the close and yet chilly atmosphere of
the church, was in itself an exquisite pleasure. The larks still sang,
the sun still shone, and the clouds came over the hill. Yet there was
something more beautiful still in the mantling colour of Margaret's soft
check. Youth and love--youth and love and May-time!
Cuckoo--cuckoo! from the bird on the elm below the hill.
"O, look!" said Mrs Estcourt, suddenly, in some alarm, yet laughing.
"My poor shepherd"--for Jabez worked for her. Wildly he fled over
grassy grave and tombstone, chased by a mob of smock-frocks and boys
yelling "Fol-de-rol-cob!" at his heels, till, reaching the wall, he
leaped, hitched his toe in the coping, and fell prone among the docks
and nettles and pigs.
The Squire laughed heartily. By-and-by, as he leaned back in his
carriage, the thought came into his mind that this was human life in
little. First, pathos in the memory of his old friend; next, love--for
he shrewdly suspected Geoffrey and Val--and beside that love the grim
tomb and sad low mound; finally, the grotesque. Wherefore the old
monks, seeing that all life came to the church in their day, carved
fantastic faces on the gargoyles grinning down, sneering and mocking at
it. And even sweet young love brought its regret. "For," thought he to
himself, as he narrowly scanned the faces of the young men sitting
opposite, "I fancy I detect a coldness and distance already between
these boys, who used to be more than brothers. Margaret has come
between them."