Foxglove Manor: A Novel, Volume 1 (of 3)

CONTENTS

The following attempt at a tragedy in fiction (a tragedy, however, without a tragic ending) must not be construed into an attack on the English priesthood generally. I have simply pictured, in the Rev. Charles Santley, a type of man which exists, and of which I have had personal experience. Fortunately, such men are uncommon; still more fortunately, the clergymen of, the English Establishment are for the most part sane and healthy men, too unimaginative for morbid deviations.


As the sweet, clear voices of the surpliced choristers rose in the closing verse of the hymn, and the vicar, in his white robe and violet hood, ascended the pulpit steps, old Gabriel Ware, sexton and doorkeeper of St. Cuthbert’s, limped across the pavement and slipped into the porch, as his custom was at sermon-time on Sunday afternoons.
He waited till the singing had ceased and the congregation had settled in their pews; and while he listened to the vicar announcing his text—“For in Him we live, and move, and have our being”—he fumbled in the pockets beneath his black gown of office, and then limped noiselessly out into the sunshine, where, after a glance round him, he pulled out a short clay pipe, well seasoned, filled it with twist, and began his usual after-dinner smoke.
It was a hot, shimmering July afternoon, and it was much pleasanter to sit out of doors on a tombstone, listening to the vicars voice as it came though the dark lancets like a sound of running water.
Half a mile or so away, nestled in trees, was the village of Omberley, with its glimpses of white walls and tiled or slated roofs. Then there were soft, hazy stretches of pasture, with idyllic groupings of cattle and sheep and trees. The fields of wheat and barley, turnips and potatoes, lay out idle and warm, growing and taking no care, and apparently causing none. The sight and smell of the land filled Gabriel with a stolid satisfaction at the order of nature and the providential gift of tobacco.