“If no branch of your family brings you more discredit than my landlady, you may hold your head high enough. And if all the pork you sell is as good as her lodgings, your business will thrive. Come along,” he said, taking Westray by the arm; “I have no wife to be indisposed, so I can offer you the hospitality of my house; and we will stop at Mr Joliffe’s shop on our way, and buy a pound of sausages for tea.”
Chapter Two.
There was a rush of outer air into the building as they opened the door. The rain still fell heavily, but the wind was rising, and had in it a clean salt smell, that contrasted with the close and mouldering atmosphere of the church.
The organist drew a deep breath.
“Ah,” he said, “what a blessed thing to be in the open air again—to be quit of all their niggling and naggling, to be quit of that pompous old fool the Rector, and of that hypocrite Joliffe, and of that pedant of a doctor! Why does he want to waste money on cementing the vaults? It’s only digging up pestilences; and they won’t spend a farthing on the organ. Not a penny on the Father Smith, clear and sweet-voiced as a mountain brook. Oh,” he cried, “it’s too bad! The naturals are worn down to the quick, you can see the wood in the gutters of the keys, and the pedal-board’s too short and all to pieces. Ah well! the organ’s like me—old, neglected, worn-out. I wish I was dead.” He had been talking half to himself, but he turned to Westray and said: “Forgive me for being peevish; you’ll be peevish, too, when you come to my age—at least, if you’re as poor then as I am, and as lonely, and have nothing to look forward to. Come along.”
They stepped out into the dark—for night had fallen—and plashed along the flagged path which glimmered like a white streamlet between the dark turves.
“I will take you a short-cut, if you don’t mind some badly-lighted lanes,” said the organist, as they left the churchyard; “it’s quicker, and we shall get more shelter.” He turned sharply to the left, and plunged into an alley so narrow and dark that Westray could not keep up with him, and fumbled anxiously in the obscurity. The little man reached up, and took him by the arm. “Let me pilot you,” he said; “I know the way. You can walk straight on; there are no steps.”
There was no sign of life, nor any light in the houses, but it was not till they reached a corner where an isolated lamp cast a wan and uncertain light that Westray saw that there was no glass in the windows, and that the houses were deserted.