A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Passages in the Life of an only Son

by Juliana Horatia Ewing

I asked Mrs. Buckle about the two little beaver-bonneted ladies, but she did not help me much. She did not remember them. They might be Mr. St. John's little girls; he had buried four. A many ladies wore beaver bonnets then. This was all she could say, so I gave up my inquiries. It was as we were on our way from the Buckles to join the rest of the party that Mr. Clerke caught sight of the quaint little village church, and as churches and church services were matters of great interest to us just then, the two parsons, the churchwarden, five elder scholars and myself got the key from the sexton and went to examine the interior.

It was an old and rather dilapidated building. The glass in the east window was in squares of the tint and consistency of "bottle glass," except where one fragment of what is technically known as "ruby" bore witness that there had once been a stained window there. There were dirty calico blinds to do duty for stained glass in moderating the light; dirt, long gathered, had blunted the sharpness of the tracery on the old carved stalls in the chancel, where the wood-worms of several generations had eaten fresh patterns of their own, and the squat, solemn little carved figures seemed to moulder under one's eyes. In the body of the church were high pews painted white, and four or five old tombs with life-size recumbent figures fitted in oddly with these, and a skimpy looking prayer-desk, pulpit, and font, which were squeezed together between the half-rotten screen and a stone knight in armour.

"Pretty tidy," said our churchwarden, tapping of the pews with a patronising finger; "but bless and save us, Mr. Andrewes, sir, the walls be disgraceful dirty, and ten shillings' worth of lime and labour would make 'em as white as the driven snow. The sexton says there be a rate, and if so, why don't they whitewash and paint a bit, and get rid of them rotten old seats, and make things a bit decent? You don't find a many places to beat Dacrefield, sir, go as far as you will," he added complacently, and with an air of having exhausted experience in the matter of country churches.

"Them old figures," he went on, "they puts me in mind of one my father used to tell us about, that was in Dacrefield Church. A man with a kind of cap on his face, and his feet crossed, and very pointed toes, and a sword by his side."

"At Dacrefield?" cried Mr. Andrewes; "surely there isn't a Templar at Dacrefield?"

"It were in the old church that came down," continued the churchwarden, "in the old Squire's time. There was a deal of ancient rubbish cleared out then, sir, I've heard, and laid in the stackyard at the Hall. It were when my father were employed as mason under 'brick and mortar Benson,' as they called him, for repairs of a wall, and they were short of stones, and they chipped up the figure I be telling you of. My father allus said he knowed the head was put in whole, and many's the time I've looked for it when a boy."

I think Mr. Andrewes could endure the churchwarden's tale of former destructiveness no longer, and he abruptly called us to come away. I was just running to join the rest at the door, when my eye fell upon a modern tablet of marble above a large cushioned pew. Like the other monuments in the church, it was sacred to the memory of members of the St. John family, and, as I found recorded the names of the wife and six children of the present owner of the estate. Very pathetic, after the record of such desolation, were the words of Job (cut below the bas-relief at the bottom, which, not very gracefully, represented a broken flower): "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord."

Mr. Clerke was hurrying back up the church to fetch me as I read the text. I had just time to see that the last two names were the names of girls, before I had to join him.

Amy and Lucy. Were those indeed the dainty little children who such a short time ago were living, and busy like myself, happy with the tinsmith's toys, and sad for a drenched doll? Wild speculations floated through my head as I followed the tutor, without hearing one word of what he was saying about tea and teachers, and reaching Dacrefield before dark.

I had wished to be their brother. Supposing it had been so, and that I were now withering under the family doom, homesick and sick unto death "in furrin parts!" My last supposition I thought aloud: