‘No, ma’am; except there was another vary small church where there was a queer habit, more like than a custom——’
‘Indeed,’ said she, amused within herself at the distinction.
‘A vary lile one it was, too, i’ Langstrothdale——’
‘Langstrothdale—where’s that?’ she asked, quickly.
‘On the other side o’ Cam Fell, miss. They do say that that’s where the doctor’s and Mr. Gilbert’s family first came fro’, and that they’re not Durham at all, but Yorkshire. I reckon doctor desarves to be a Yorkshire-man, choose what Mr. Gilbert——’
‘Never mind about that. What of the little church?’
‘Only that th’ congrygation there was vary poor too, and it was a door as they were in want of,—just like i’ Lunds they couldna get a bell. So, when service was o’er, they used to stick a big thorn in th’ doorway, to fill it up; but shape’ (the sheep) ‘used to get in in t’ winter weather, and make a shelter of it; and they had to be cleared out regular, ivery Sunda’—that’s all, miss,’ said William, exhausted with his two prolonged narrative efforts, and falling into his place behind again.
Eleanor rode on, smiling to herself at the picture of the man who shook a tin can full of stones, and cried ‘boll-loll’ from the top of the church to summon the congregation. He must have had lusty lungs, she thought, that Yorkshire sexton.
Cotherstone was safely reached about three o’clock, and Eleanor must ride down to the river, and see where Balder emptied his waters into Tees, and repeat to herself—
‘Then Balder, one bleak garth was thine;