I said that the churches were magnificent. It is another instance of the compensatory tendency of the gifts of Providence, that ugly countries generally have fine churches. Look at Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire. There was a time when even Holland received the benefit of this arrangement, and did not build shanties round the bases of its cathedrals. The decay of agriculture, the diminution of the rural population, and, above all, the migration of the weavers to the coalfields have wrought havoc with the congregations, charm the Rector never so wisely. Who, outside Norfolk, knows that “worsted” gets its name from Worstead in East Norfolk, a village with a noble church that might hold from 800 to 1,000 people? I see in the “Clergy List” that the population is now 781, of whom 54 per cent. might be expected to go to church, if they valued statistics—and our incomparable Liturgy.
Take another case. There was a time when Our Lady of Walsingham had an extraordinary reputation, not only in England but in the Low Countries. Five English sovereigns sought her shrine: three Henries and two Edwards. Erasmus visited it in 1511, and wrote an account of it, which for wit, irreverence, and general impropriety could hardly be surpassed.[16] The cult lasted for 300 years, and when it was at its height pilgrims came over in great numbers to Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, and made their way along a Via Sacra of noble churches and priories. The finest of eastern counties’ churches, in my recollection, is at Sawell, or Sall, within easy reach of Walsingham; and it was suggested that pilgrims were persuaded to drop a coin or two at churches on the road, whereon Sall flourished (Sall—profits—yes, I see; I leave it), as did the Lady Chapel at King’s Lynn, and the churches on the Palmers’ way from London and the South.
When I saw the great church in 1876 it was going fast to decay, and the sum mentioned as necessary for repairs was alarming. The population in 1901 was 191.
In another of these fine churches I found the Rector in much trouble. Bats had got into the roof and multiplied. The parish would gladly have retained the Pied Piper of Hamelin to rid them of their foes; besides ordinary pollution they had made the church their slaughter-house and their dining-room—the wings of moths, and all sorts of garbage lay about.
“Bats!” said the Rector, who was a Biblical scholar; “Isaiah couples them with the moles, according to our translation, but I doubt whether chephor peroth refers to moles.”
“Perhaps it was the church mouse?” I suggested.
“Bats,” he went on, after giving me a suspicious glance, “are clearly indicated by the word atalleph.”
“It is ystlumod in Welsh,” I said, not to be overcrowed by a Rural Dean, “and Fledermaus in German; flittermouse in Ben Jonson.”
But the Rector was intent on murder, and heeded not my pedantic flippancies:
“Bats,” he repeated, with a far-away look in his eyes.