Will was touched and astonished by this revelation of romance in the two elderly people foisted upon him as parents, whom he had all his life taken as eternally elderly. But still more surprising was the realization forced upon him that the religion which to him was a bore was to them a thrill.
“Shall I carry the parcel, father?” he asked gently.
“Nay, nay, that don’t goo with Parlyment clothes. And it ain’t as sizeable as the box you carried from Chipstone.” He chuckled in freshly admiring glee.
Passing adown the long hawthorn avenue, they now issued from Plashy Walk, the rights of leg vindicated, and soon they began to see signs of other pilgrims faring towards Chipstone, that great gathering-place of faiths and creeds.
CHAPTER VI
SUNDAY AT CHIPSTONE
This zealot
Is of a mongrel, diverse kind;
Cleric before, and lay behind;
A lawless linsey-woolsey brother,