“Why, I think yu would call it turning stump-orator,” was the reply, as Mr. Tremodart bent over his work again. “He hasn’t any time by the week to help enlighten the ignorance of his fellow-men, but he was good enough to invite them to a preaching or a speaking on the shore on Sunday morning in church hours, so we had an empty church save for the Duke and Lady Bride, and some of the castle servants.” The parson raised his head and gently scratched his nose with his forefinger as he concluded reflectively, “If yu come tu think of it, ’tis a curious thing how much more attractive it is to mankind to know how they may rob their neighbours than how they may save their souls.”
Eustace could not for the life of him refrain from the retort which sprang to his lips—
“And you hold that they do learn that important lesson by coming to the weekly service at St. Bride’s church?”
Mr. Tremodart continued gently to rub his nose with his forefinger. His rugged face expressed no annoyance, rather some compunction and humility, and yet he answered with the quiet composure which in most cases appeared natural to him.
“I know what yu are thinking, young man. I can tell yu that without either feeling or meaning offence. Yu are thinking that my poor discourses in yon pulpit are but sorry food for the souls of men—and I am with yu there. Yu are thinking that if I shut up the church on a Sunday from time to time on some paltry excuse, I cannot greatly value its services for the poor. Yu could say some very harsh things of me, and I in shame and sorrow would be forced to say ‘Amen’ to them. I am a sorry minister, and I know it; but for all that, I would have yu distinguish between the unworthy servant and the Master he serves. My incapacity, idleness, and mistakes must not be set down to Him. A most unworthy and disobedient servant may yet serve in some sort the best of masters.”
“Forgive me,” said Eustace frankly; “I should not have spoken as I did; although I confess I was thinking of the service suspended on account of the sitting hen.”
“Yes, I made an error there,” answered Mr. Tremodart, pushing his hands through his hair; “but she was the best hen in my yard. I had set my heart on having a brood of her chickens to bring up, and she was so wild and shy that I feared we’d never find her, and that the foxes would get at the eggs of the chicks before ever we could make sure of them. I had a bad cold too, and was in bed when the old sexton came hurrying in to tell me of the find. I knew once we rudely and hastily disturbed her she would never sit again, and I had no other broody hen to take her place; so I just said we’d have no service that day, thinking David would go and say it was my cold that kept me to home. But instead, he told the story of the hen, and shamed me before my flock. And yet I cannot complain—it was my own sinfulness. But mark my word, my young friend: however sinful the minister may be, the church is the house of God, and a blessing rests on those who come thither to worship Him, talk as you hot-headed young reformers may of your newer and more rational religions which are to take the place of that ordained by God.”
With Mr. St. Aubyn Eustace would have argued, but this man had not the learning to enable him to support his beliefs, and Eustace declined controversy by saying, with a smile—
“I am, at least, quite ready to admit that if we have souls in your sense of the word, they may easily be saved through regular attendance at St. Bride’s or any other church.”
The Cornishman threw back his head with a gesture that was at once emphatic and picturesque.