"I've brought you something I want to read to you," she said, "if you think
Mr. Percivale can bear it."
I told her I believed he could, and she proceeded to explain what it was.
"One morning, when I went into the nursery, I found the children playing at church, or rather at preaching; for, except a few minutes of singing, the preaching occupied the whole time. There were two clergymen, Ernest and Charles, alternately incumbent and curate. The chief duty of the curate for the time being was to lend his aid to the rescue of his incumbent from any difficulty in which the extemporaneous character of his discourse might land him."
I interrupt Marion to mention that the respective ages of Ernest and
Charles were then eight and six.
"The pulpit," she continued, "was on the top of the cupboard under the cuckoo-clock, and consisted of a chair and a cushion. There were prayer-books in abundance; of which neither of them, I am happy to say, made other than a pretended use for reference. Charles, indeed, who was preaching when I entered, can't read; but both have far too much reverence to use sacred words in their games, as the sermons themselves will instance. I took down almost every word they said, frequent embarrassments and interruptions enabling me to do so. Ernest was acting as clerk, and occasionally prompted the speaker when his eloquence failed him, or reproved members of the congregation, which consisted of the two nurses and the other children, who were inattentive. Charles spoke with a good deal of unction, and had quite a professional air when he looked down on the big open book, referred to one or other of the smaller ones at his side, or directed looks of reprehension at this or that hearer. You would have thought he had cultivated the imitation of popular preachers, whereas he tells me he has been to church only three times. I am sorry I cannot give the opening remarks, for I lost them by being late; but what I did hear was this."
She then read from her paper as follows, and lent it me afterwards. I merely copy it.
"Once" (Charles was proceeding when Marion entered), "there lived an aged man, and another who was a very aged man; and the very aged man was going to die, and every one but the aged man thought the other, the very aged man, wouldn't die. I do this to explain it to you. He, the man who was really going to die, was—I will look in the dictionary" (He looks in the book, and gives out with much confidence), "was two thousand and eighty-eight years old. Well, the other man was—well, then, the other man 'at knew he was going to die, was about four thousand and two; not nearly so old, you see." (Here Charles whispers with Ernest, and then announces very loud),—"This is out of St. James. The very aged man had a wife and no children; and the other had no wife, but a great many children. The fact was—this was how it was—the wife died, and so he had the children. Well, the man I spoke of first, well, he died in the middle of the night." (A look as much as to say, "There! what do you think of that?"); "an' nobody but the aged man knew he was going to die. Well, in the morning, when his wife got up, she spoke to him, and he was dead!" (A pause.) "Perfectly, sure enough—dead!" (Then, with a change of voice and manner), "He wasn't really dead, because you know" (abruptly and nervously)—"Shut the door!—you know where he went, because in the morning next day" (He pauses and looks round. Ernest, out of a book, prompts—"The angels take him away"), "came the angels to take him away, up to where you know." (All solemn. He resumes quickly, with a change of manner), "They, all the rest, died of grief. Now, you must expect, as they all died of grief, that lots of angels must have come to take them away. Freddy will go when the sermon isn't over! That is such a bother!"
At this point Marion paused in her reading, and resumed the narrative form.
"Freddy, however, was too much for them; so Ernest betook himself to the organ, which was a chest of drawers, the drawers doing duty as stops, while Freddy went up to the pulpit to say 'Good-by,' and shake hands, for which he was mildly reproved by both his brothers."
My husband and I were so much amused, that Marion said she had another sermon, also preached by Charles, on the same day, after a short interval; and at our request she read it. Here it is.