_Toot--toot--toot!_
The postman's horn in the village street above him shook the Parson out
of his idleness, if not out of his dark thoughts. He sprang up, gripped
his shovel, and began spading the white river-sand into his sack.
"It is useless, after all," said he to himself. "The crack on the south
of the tower stands still, but the smaller and more dangerous one--the
one on the weather side--is widening fast. This winter, even, may
finish matters."
He took up a few more shovelfuls. "Anyhow, it will not last my time;
and since it will not--" He paused, as a thought rose before him like a
blank wall. If the church fell--nay, _when_ it fell--this comrade which
had taken possession of his purposes, his fears, his fate--this
enigmatic building of which he knew neither the history nor the
founder's name, but only its wounds--why, then his occupation was gone!
He might outlive it for years, perhaps a third of a lifetime; but he had
no hopes beyond. In imagination he saw it fall, and after that--
nothing. And he laughed--not the laugh with which he had counted out
the money in his collecting-box, but one of sheer self-contempt, and
passing bitter.
The impression had been so sharp that he flung a glance up at the grey
tower topping the grey-green rise; and with that was aware of the
postman swinging, with long strides, down the slope towards him.
He turned in confusion and resumed his shovelling. Why was the man
coming this way, by a path out of his daily beat? Parson Jack stooped
over his work. He wished to avoid greeting him. There was talk, no
doubt, up at the village. . . .
But the postman was not to be denied. He stopped and hailed across the
stream.
"Hulloa, Parson! I've just left a letter for you up at the Parsonage: a
long blue letter, and important, by the look of it, with a seal--a man's
hand coming out of a castle. Do you know it?"
"No," answered Parson Jack. "Did you come out of your way to tell me
this?"
"Not quite; though I'd do as much for 'ee any day, out of friendliness.
But, tell 'ee the truth, I was sent to seek you with a message."
"A message?"
"Sir Harry has ridden over from Carwithiel, and wants you up to church.
He's there waitin' with his nephew, a narra-chested slip of a chap with
a square-cut collar and a Popish sort of face."
Parson Jack lifted his shovel and passed his palm over its blade, which
the sand had already polished. "Thank you," said he, "I'll be going at
once."
But he made no motion to start while the postman stood eyeing him.
A sudden selfish fear paralysed him. Had Sir Harry heard? And was this
the end of his patron's forbearance? No; the news could not have
reached Carwithiel so quickly. He had no enemy to arise early and carry
it; to no living creature were even his follies of such importance.
"Don't forget your letter," the postman reminded him, moving off towards
the foot-bridge.
Parson Jack watched him as he crossed it, and until he had scaled the
western slope and disappeared over its shoulder. Then, kneeling by the
stream, he dipped his head, and let the icy water run past his temples.
When he raised it again his plain face was glowing, for hard fare and
life in the open weather kept his complexion clear and ruddy. But the
hand gripping the sack on his shoulder shook as he climbed the hill.
By the lych-gate he found two saddle-horses tethered, and just outside
the porch stood Sir Harry Vyell--a strikingly handsome man with a
careless thoroughbred look; in fact, well over sixty, but apparently ten
years younger. By habit he dressed well, and was scrupulously careful
of his person; by habit, too, he remained sweet of temper and kindly of
speech. But beneath this mask of habit the heart had withered, a while
ago, to dust, and lay in the grave of his only son.
"Ah? Good morning, Flood!" cried Sir Harry genially. Parson Jack,
reassured, felt the colour rushing into his face. "I've brought over my
nephew Clem to introduce to you--he's in Orders, you know--scholar of
Balliol, Fellow of All Souls, and what not. High Anglican, too--he'll
be a bishop one of these days, if money doesn't make him lazy.
He's inside, dancing with delight in front of your chancel-screen--or,
rather, the remains of it. Church architecture is his craze just now--
that and Church History. Between ourselves"--Sir Harry glanced over his
shoulder--"he has a bee or two in his bonnet; but that's as it should
be. Every lad at his age wants to eat up the world."
Parson Jack could remember no such ambition. They passed into the
church together.
Now the surprise which awaits you in Langona Church is its chancel,
which stands high above the level of the nave, and, rising suddenly
beneath a fine Early English arch, carries the eye upward to the altar
with a strange illusion of distance. Even in those days the first
impression was one of rare, almost singular, beauty--an impression lost
in a series of small pangs as your eye rested on the ruinous details one
by one. For of the great screen nothing remained but two tall uprights,
surmounted by hideous knops--the addition of some local carpenter.
Between the lozenge-shaped shafts of the choir arches, the worm-riddled
parclose screens dripped sawdust in little heaps. Down in the nave,
bench-ends leaned askew or had been broken up, built as panels into deal
pews, and daubed with paint; the floor was broken and ran in uneven
waves; the walls shed plaster, and a monstrous gallery blocked the
belfry arch. Upon this gallery Parson Jack had spent most of his
careful, unsightly carpentry, for the simple reason that it had been
unsafe; and, for the simple reason that they had let in the rain, he had
provided half a dozen windows with new panes, solid enough, but in
appearance worthy only to cover cucumbers.
As he entered with Sir Harry, the Rev. Clement Vyell swung round upon
him eagerly, but paused with a just perceptible start at sight of his
unclerical garb.
"Let me introduce you, Clem. This is Mr. Flood."
Parson Jack bowed, and let his eyes travel around the church, which he
had often enough pitied, but of which he now for the first time felt
ashamed.
"We're in a sad mess, I'm afraid," he muttered.
"It's most interesting, nevertheless," Clement Vyell answered. He was a
thin-faced youth with a high pedagogic voice. "Better a church in this
condition than one restored out of all whooping--though I read on the
box yonder that you are collecting towards a restoration."
Parson Jack blushed hotly.
"You have made a start, eh? What are your funds in hand?"
"Two pounds four shillings--as yet."
Sir Harry laughed outright; and after a moment Parson Jack laughed too--
he could not help it. But Clement Vyell frowned, having no sense of
humour.
"I patch it up, you know--after a fashion." Parson Jack's tone was
humble enough and propitiatory; nevertheless, he glanced at his
handiwork with something like pride. "The windows, for instance--"
The younger man turned with a shudder. "I suppose now," he said
abruptly, staring up at an arch connecting the choir-stalls with the
southern transept, "this bit of Norman work will be as old as anything
you have?"
That it was Norman came as news to Parson Jack. He, too, stared up at
it, resting a palm on a crumbling bench-end.
"Well," said he ingenuously, "I'm no judge of these things, you know;
but I always supposed the tower was the oldest bit."
He broke off in confusion--not at his speech, but because Clement
Vyell's eyes were resting on the back of his hand, which shook with a
tell-tale palsy.
"The tower," said the young man icily, "is Perpendicular, and later than
1412, at all events, when a former belfry fell in, destroyed the nave,
and cracked the pavement, as you see. All this is matter of record, as
you may learn, sir, from the books which, I feel sure, my uncle will be
pleased to lend you. I need not ask, perhaps, if in the course of
your--ah--excavations you have come on any traces of the original
pre-Augustine Oratory, or of the conventual buildings which existed here
till, we are told, the middle of the thirteenth century."
He turned away, obviously expecting no answer, addressed himself
henceforward to Sir Harry, and ignored Parson Jack, who followed him
abashed, yet secretly burning to hear more, and wondering where all this
knowledge could be obtained.
"But it is inconceivable!" Clement Vyell protested to his uncle, half an
hour later, as they rode back towards Carwithiel. "The man has had the
cure of that parish for--how long, do you say?--twenty-five years, and
has never had the curiosity to discover the most rudimentary facts in
its history."
"A hard case," assented Sir Harry. "He lifts his elbow, too."
"Eh?"
"Drinks." Sir Harry illustrated the idiom, lifting an imaginary glass
to his mouth. "Oh, it's notorious. But what the deuce can we do?
Kick him out?--not so easy; and, besides, he'd die under a hedge.
You're hard on him, Clem. He has his notions of duty. Why"--the
Baronet laughed--"I've seen him on the roof with a tar-bucket, caulking
the leaks for dear life. He's a gentleman, too."
Clement Vyell tightened his lips and rode on in silence.
Left alone, Parson Jack stared around his church. His repairs, in which
he had taken pride before now, seemed nakedly, hideously mean at this
moment. But a new sense fought with his dejection--a sense altogether
new to him--that his church had a history, a meaning into which he had
never penetrated. The aisles seemed to expand, the chancel to reach up
into a distance in which space and time were confused; and, following
it, his eye rested on a patch of colour in the east window between the
wooden tablets of the Law--a cluster of fragments of stained glass,
rescued by some former vicar and set amid the clear panes--the legs and
scarlet robe of a saint, an angel's wing, a broken legend on a scroll,
part of a coat-of-arms, azure with a fesse,--wavy of gold--all thrown
together as by a kaleidoscope gone mad. Each of these scraps had once a
meaning: so this church held meanings, too long ignored by him, partly
intelligible yet, soon to be mixed inextricably in a common downfall.
For Clement Vyell might be wise in the history of architecture, but his
eye had not read the one plain warning which stared a common workman in
the face--that the days of this building were surely numbered, and were
probably few.
Parson Jack had a mind to run after him. He must learn, and speedily,
all about the church, its builders, this old colony of monks.
But where? In books doubtless. Where could those books be found?
He had almost reached the door, when his eye fell on the two
collecting-boxes. With a sudden thought he paused, drew a key from the
pocket of his corduroys, and unlocked his own--the Parson's box.
A sovereign lay within.
He picked up the coin and considered it, a dark flush growing on his
face. Parson Jack had a temper, though few guessed it. With an effort
he controlled it now, dropped the sovereign into the box labelled
"Church Repairs," and walked slowly out.
He had no longer a mind to run after Clement Vyell. Instead, he bent
his steps towards the four-roomed cottage which he called the Parsonage
and found too large for his needs.
On the sitting-room table lay a letter, in a large blue envelope with a
red seal.