“Elizabeth!” interrupted Norah. “Surely you’re not going to be so silly?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Elizabeth.
“I mean,” responded Norah, “that you’d better remember life at a country vicarage isn’t all laughing at nothing and burying boiled fowl under a gooseberry bush.”
“I never thought it was,” said Elizabeth somewhat shortly. “Oh, here’s father!”
And she greeted her parent with quite unusual effusion.
CHAPTER IX
Andy paid one or two calls in the parish that afternoon and then went into the church to ring the bell for evensong. Clang, clang, cling! Come to church! So it had rung for generations of Sundays across the quiet fields, but only for Andy had it worked upon a week-day. He had a great argument on the subject with Mr. Thorpe, who thought that week-day services in Gaythorpe, where every one was busy from morning to night, would be merely an accentuation of the fact that the parson had nothing to do. For Gaythorpe never could and never would believe that a parson’s occupations could be truthfully called work.
It was only when Andy did finally so envelop himself in the mantle of the senior curate as to leave not a trace of the original Andy to be seen, that Mr. Thorpe said, “Have two a day, then, if you like. But to my mind it’s ridiculous! And nobody’ll come unless they want to get something out of you.”
Nobody, evidently, thought what could be got out of Andy worth leaving work and attending daily service for, so he read the service grimly alone each morning and late afternoon. Labourers, looking up from their work, used to say in a morning with a chuckle, “Parson’s at it again. Pity he hasn’t nowt better to do.” And later in the day, women, straining the milk, would remark to one another, “Does he think we’re going to leave all this and go up to church just at tea-time? Here—are them eggs for Mr. Deane? Oh, he only gets twelve to the shilling. It’s grocer gets thirteen.”