Mr Colbran is an archæologist. He does not take himself seriously, however, in his hobby, so that nobody knows the worth of his opinions on the subject.
“Here you are,” he said to me after dinner, “I’ve found another paragraph for my great work.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Haven’t I told you I was compiling a Bible of the English people—the Bible of their hearts—their exclamations in presence of the unknown? I’ve found a fragment at home, a jump at God from Beauvale.”
“Where?” I asked, startled.
The vicar closed his eyes whilst looking at me.
“Only on parchment,” he said.
Then, slowly, he reached for a yellow book, and read, translating as he went:
“Then, while we chanted, came a crackling at the window, at the great east window, where hung our Lord on the Cross. It was a malicious covetous Devil wrathed by us, rended the lovely image of the glass. We saw the iron clutches of the fiend pick the window, and a face flaming red like fire in a basket did glower down on us. Our hearts melted away, our legs broke, we thought to die. The breath of the wretch filled the chapel.
“But our dear Saint, etc., etc., came hastening down heaven to defend us. The fiend began to groan and bray—he was daunted and beat off.