Why he should "call" me to come along I never knew. I had no part in the piece at that moment. But he soon gave me one. I followed, with lingering steps and slow, having no knowledge of the construction of the premises; but in a moment Mathews had disappeared, and I found myself in the middle of the stage, with a crowded house in front of me. The whole audience burst into an uproar of laughter. I suppose it was the incompatibility of my appearance at that juncture which made me "take" so well; but it brought down the house, and if the curtain had fallen at that moment, I should have been a great success, and Mathews would have been out of it. In the midst of my discomfiture, however, he came on to the stage by another entrance as "cool as a cucumber." He told me afterwards that he had turned the incident to good account by referring to me as "Every man in his humour," or, "A bailiff in distressing circumstances!"
I was visiting the country house of a respectable old solicitor, who was instructing me in a "compensation case" which was to be heard at Wakefield.
"I don't know, Mr. Hawkins," said he on Sunday morning, "whether you would like to see our little church?"
"No, thank you," I answered; "we can have a look at it to-morrow when we have a 'view of the premises.'"
"I thought, perhaps," said Mr. Goodman, "you might like to attend the service."
"No," said I, "not particularly; a walk under the 'broad canopy' is preferable on a beautiful morning like this to a poky little pew; and I like the singing of the birds better than the humming of a clergyman's nose.
"Very well," he said; "we will, if you like, take a little walk."
With surprising innocence he inflicted upon me a pious fraud, leading me over fields and meadows, stiles and rustic bridges, until at last the cunning old fox brought me out along a by-path and over a plank bridge right into the village. Then turning a corner near a picturesque farmhouse, he smilingly observed, "This is our church."
"It's a very old one, and looks much more picturesque in the distance.
Shall we have a view a little farther off?"
"St. Mary's," said he; "1694 is the date—"