Meanwhile Walden, leaving his own grounds, entered the churchyard, walking with softly reverent step among the little green mounds of earth, under which kind eyes were closed, and warm hearts lay cold, till, reaching the porched entrance of the church itself, he paused, brought to a halt by the sound of voices which were pitched rather too loud for propriety, considering the sacredness of the surroundings.
"That eastern window is crude—very crude!" said a growlingly robust baritone; "I suppose the reverend gentleman could not secure sufficient subscriptions to meet the expense of suitable stained glass?"
"Unfortunately Mr. Walden is a very self-opinionated man," replied a smooth and oily tenor, whose particular tone of speech Walden recognised as that of the Reverend 'Putty' Leveson, the minister of Badsworth, a small scattered village some five or six miles 'on the wrong side of Badsworth Hall,' as the locality was called, owing to its removed position from the county town of Riversford. "He would not accept outside advice. Of course these columns and capitals are all wrong,—they are quite incongruous with early Norman walls,—but when ignorance is allowed to have its own way, the effect is always disastrous."
"Always—always,—my dear sir—always!" And the voice or Sir Morton Pippitt, high pitched and resonant, trolled out on the peaceful air; "The fact is, the church could have been much better done, had I been consulted! The whole thing was carried out in the most brazen manner, under my very nose, sir, under my very nose!—without so much as a 'by your leave'! Shocking, shocking! I complained to the Bishop, but it was no use, for it seems that he has a perfect infatuation for this man Walden—they were college friends or something of that kind. As for the sarcophagus here, of course it ought in the merest common decency to have been transferred to the Cathedral of the diocese. But you see the present incumbent bought the place;—the purchase of advowsons is a scandal, in my opinion— however this man got it all his own way, more's the pity!—he bought it through some friend or other—and so—"
"So he could do as he liked with it!" said a mild, piping falsetto; "And so far, he has made it beau-ti-ful!—beau-ti-ful!" carved with traceries of natural fruit and foliage, which were scarcely injured by the devastating mark of time. But rough and sacrilegious hands had been at work to spoil and deface the classic remains of the time-worn edifice, and some of the lancet windows had been actually hewn out and widened to admit of the insertion of modern timber props which awkwardly supported a hideous galvanised iron roof, on the top of which was erected a kind of tin hen-coop in which a sharp bell clanged with irritating rapidity for Sunday service. Outside, the building was thus rendered grotesquely incongruous,—inside it was almost blasphemous in its rank ugliness. There were several rows of narrow pews made of common painted deal,—there was a brown stone font and a light pine-wood pulpit—a small harmonium stood in one corner, festooned by a faded red woollen curtain, and a general air of the cheap upholsterer and jerry-builder hovered over the whole concern. And the new incumbent, gazing aghast at the scene, was triumphantly informed that "Sir Morton Pippitt had been generous enough to roof and 'restore' the church in this artistic manner out of his own pocket, for the comfort of the villagers," and moreover that he actually condescended to attend Divine service under the galvanised iron roof which he had so liberally erected. Nay, it had been even known that Sir Morton had on one or two occasions himself read the Lessons in the absence of the late rector, who was subject to sore throats and was constantly compelled to call in outside assistance.
To all this information John Walden said nothing. He was not concerned with Sir Morton Pippitt or any other county magnate in the management of his own affairs. A fortnight after his arrival he quietly announced to his congregation that the church was about to be entirely restored according to its original lines of architecture, and that a temporary building would be erected on his, Walden's, own land for the accommodation of the people during such time as the restoration should be in progress. This announcement brought about Walden's first acquaintance with his richest neighbour, Sir Morton Pippitt. That gentleman having been accustomed to have his own way in everything concerning St. Rest, for a considerable time, straightway wrote, expressing his 'surprise and indignation' at the mere assumption that any restoration was required for the church beyond what he, Sir Morton, had effected at his own expense. The number of parishioners was exceedingly small,— too small to warrant any further expenditure for enlarging a place of worship which mental ability as he possessed, and was now Bishop of the very diocese in which he had his little living. University men said he had 'stood aside' in order to allow Brent to press more swiftly forward, but though this was a perfectly natural supposition on the part of those who knew something of Walden's character, it was not correct. Walden at that time had only one object in life,— and this was to secure such name and fame, together with such worldly success as might delight and satisfy the only relative he had in the world, his sister, a beautiful and intelligent woman, full of an almost maternal tenderness for him, and a sweet resignation to her own sad lot, which made her the victim of a slow and incurable disease. So long as she lived, her brother threw himself into his work with intensity and ardour; but when she died that impulse withered, as it were, at its very root. The world became empty for him, and he felt that from henceforth he would be utterly companionless. For what he had seen of modern women, modern marriage and modern ways of life, did not tempt him to rashly seek refuge for his heart's solitude in matrimony. Almost immediately following the loss of his sister, an uncle of whom he had known very little, died suddenly, leaving him a considerably large fortune. As soon as he came into possession of this unexpected wealth, he disappeared at once from the scene of his former labours,—the pretty old house in the University town, with its great cedars sloping to the river and its hallowed memories of the sister he had so dearly loved, was sold by private treaty,—his voice was heard no more in London pulpits, where it had begun to carry weight and influence,—and he managed to obtain the then vacant and obscure living of St. Rest, the purchase of the advowson being effected, so it was said, privately through the good offices of his quondam college friend, Bishop Brent. And at St. Rest he had remained, apparently well contented with the very simple and monotonous round of duty it offered.
When he had first arrived there, he found that the church consisted of some thick stone walls of the early Norman, period, built on a cruciform plan, the stones being all uniformly wrought and close- jointed,—together with a beautiful ruined chancel divided from the main body of the building by massive columns, which supported on their capitals the fragments of lofty arches indicative of an architectural transition from the Norman to the Early Pointed English style. There were also the hollow slits of several lancet windows, and one almost perfect pierced circular window to the east, elaborately And here he whirled round on his only daughter, an angular and severely-visaged spinster; "Look at this fool!—this staring ape! All the sauce on the carpet! Wish he had to pay for it! He'll take an hour to get a cloth and wipe it up! Why did you engage such a damned ass, eh?"
Miss Tabitha preserved a prudent silence, seeing that the butler, a serious-looking personage with a resigned-to-ill-usage demeanour, was already engaged in assisting the hapless footman to remove the remains of the spilt condiment, from the offended gaze of his irate master.
"Like his damned impudence!" broke out Sir Morton again, resuming with some reluctance his seat at the breakfast table, and chopping at the fried bacon on his plate till the harder bits flew far and wide,—"'Happy to reimburse me!'—the snivelling puppy! Why the devil he was allowed to sneak into this living, I don't know! The private purchase of advowsons is a scandal—a disgraceful scandal! Any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a friend to buy him a benefice in which to make himself a nuisance! Done under the rose,—and called a 'presentation'! All humbug and hypocrisy! That's why we get impudent dogs like this beast Walden settling down in a neighbourhood whether we like it or not!"
Miss Tabitha munched some toast slowly with a delicate regard for her front teeth, which had cost money. There was no one in the room to suggest to Sir Morton that it is a pity some law is not in progress to prevent the purchase of historic houses by vulgar and illiterate persons of no family;—which would be far more a benefit to the land at large than the suppression of privately purchased benefices. For the chances are ten to one that the ordained minister, who, by his own choice secures a Church living for himself, is likely at least to be a well-educated gentleman, interested in the work he has himself elected to do,—whereas the illiterate individual who buys an historic house simply for self- glorification, will probably be no more than a mere petty and pompous tyrant over the district which that particular house dominates.