"Mrs. More is a beautiful old lady," Joyce said.
"She did not give you any tracts, I hope," Mrs. Falconer said. "I won't have any cant, and rank Methodism here. You know my mind, Joyce."
"Yes, mother," Joyce said, gently. "But I should like to pay a visit to Barley Wood. Do you think, when the boys return to school, I may go."
"Well, we will see about it. If you want to gad about you must go, I suppose. You all seem alike now; no rest and no peace unless you are scouring the country like so many wild things. It was very different in my young days. I don't know that I ever slept a night from under my father's roof till I married. I don't mind your going to Barley Wood at the proper time, but I'll have no tracts and no nonsense here, or setting up servant-girls to be wiser than their betters; for all this talk, and preaching, and reading, and writing, the Mendip folk are as bad, as bad can be. Mrs. More has not done much there, anyhow. That was plain enough the other day, when the man was brought before the justices, and they were a pack of chicken-hearts, and dare not commit him for fear of getting their heads broken as they rode home; your father was the only brave man amongst them, and held out that the rascal should be committed for trial."
All this was said in Mrs. Falconer's voluble fashion, while she was engaged in piling up a basket full of harvest cakes, which Joyce soon bore off to the field, where her brothers, and Nip and Pip were still tossing about the sweet hay, and burying themselves and everyone else under it. Piers threw a wisp with the end of his crutch at Joyce as she came, and Bunny rushed to possess himself of the basket and scatter the cakes about, which the younger part of the haymakers scrambled for, head foremost, burrowing in the tussocks of hay, like so many young ferrets, while Nip and Pip barked and danced about in the extremity of their excitement.
The fair weather lasted all through the week, and Sunday dawned in cloudless beauty. Fair Acres did not have the services of one clergyman, but shared the ministrations of the vicar, with another small parish.
The cracked bell began to ring in a querulous, uncertain fashion on Sunday morning, and punctually at half-past ten Mrs. Falconer marshalled her flock down the road to the church.
The church, though small, was architecturally a fine specimen of Early English, and raised a noble tower to the sky; but the interior was dilapidated, and the pillars were covered with many coats of yellow wash, and the pews were hung with moth-eaten cloth. The squire's pew was like a square room, with a fire-place and cushioned seats, and a high desk for the books ran round it.
Mrs. Falconer and her husband sat facing each other on either side of the door of the pew, and the boys were ranged round, while at the further end Joyce sat with Mr. Arundel, a place being left for Melville.
Just as the clergyman had hurried on his very crumpled surplice, and the band in the gallery struck up the familiar air to which the morning hymn was sung, Melville, dressed in his best, came up the uneven pavement of the aisle with the proud consciousness of superiority to the rest of the world. His father threw back the door, and he passed up to the further end of the seat, nodding carelessly to Mr. Arundel, who made no sign in return. Chatting and making engagements for the week was at this time very common in church. There was scant reverence shown for the house of God. He was a God afar off, and the formal recognition of some sort of allegiance to Him being respectable and necessary for the maintenance of social position, brought people like Mrs. Falconer to church Sunday after Sunday.