“Not a word,” said Timson, firmly.
“But it was neatly introduced, eh?”
“Yes, ye-e-e-s,” said Timson; “but it does no good, depend upon it, sir. The man who takes money from a church won’t be frightened because you tell him it’s wicked.”
“Think not?” said the vicar.
“Sure of it,” said Timson.
Timson was right, for the money still went, week after week—shillings and half-crowns, and sixpences and florins. Purkis groaned and grunted as he polished off the rust that would collect on the steel-work, as much at the labour as at the losses; but he could not see the money take to itself wings and fly away. Jared and Ichabod came and went, and the harmonies flooded the old church, but they saw nothing. Vicar and churchwarden gazed about as they came and went, and shook their heads at the boxes, but they went away as wise as they came. Neither did Mrs Ruggles unravel the mystery when she came on Saturdays to set open the doors, and swept and dusted, and punched pulpit pillows, and walloped (Ichabod’s own term) pew cushions, and banged hassocks in the porch, finishing her duties by perversely shifting people’s prayer-books and church-services from pew to pew, starting them upon voyages round the church—trips which some times occupied whole months—while, more than once she obtained rewards, when, by request, she hunted out and restored the missing volumes.
But though the officials saw not the thief, some of those fat-cheeked, half-dressed, trumpet-blowing angels must have beheld, and, herald-like, might have proclaimed the offender with the sound of the trump.
The marble effigy of the statesman who stood with scroll in outstretched hand, as if in debate, must have seen the culprit; while Edward Lawrence, citizen of London, and Dame Alys, his wife, intent though they were in prayer upon their marble cushions, might have stolen one stony glance upon the sacrilege committed.
Why! there were effigies poised and planted everywhere about the old edifice, which the good knight and architect, Sir Christopher Wren, had restored when it was crumbling and dilapidated inside—restored most fully, according to the sublime taste of his period; but none of these effigies told tales, not even David, who stood within three feet of one box, and busily harped away, so busily indeed, that he had lost his garments, probably in the heat of the work, for there was no Michal at hand to take him to task.
Time did not tell either, at least not at this period of the story, though he, too, commanded a good view of the church, as he stood upon a bracket on one side of the chancel-arch, mowing away with a broken scythe, like a ragged Irishman in the haymaking season, his hour-glass being slung at his side, after the fashion of Pat’s bottle.