“Do let us look,” they said, both together; Eira, who was the old vicar’s favourite, adding, playfully, “But you must come out yourself, Mr Ferraby, please. If it is anywhere, it is pretty sure to be on the floor.”
“I don’t know that,” said Betty, who had no special wish to grope on her hands and knees. “You may feel on the floor if you like, Eira; I shall look on the seats and the book-rail.” And, strange to say, she had scarcely begun to do so when she gave a little cry of pleasure. “Here it is,” she exclaimed, “wedged into a crack in the woodwork between the pews, ever so neatly; but no doubt it would have dropped down the first time the pew was dusted,” and with deft fingers she withdrew the little trinket from its temporary resting-place. “It is queer,” she added; “there must be a hollow space between this and the panel on our side. Perhaps it’s the place with a little door where we leave our prayer-books,” and, standing on a hassock, she peered over into their own pew, adding, “No, our book-cupboard is farther along.”
No one paid any attention, however, to her researches. Mr Ferraby was too delighted to have recovered the brooch to care much about where it had been concealed. He thanked Betty with effusion.
“My good wife will not have come home yet; she is in the village,” he said. “So I am not in a hurry, and quite at your service, young ladies. Were you looking for me?”
For, in his mild, unenergetic, though kindly way, the old vicar was always ready to be consulted as to the few poor people under his wing, or indeed on any other subject as to which the Morion sisters could apply for his advice or sympathy.
For half an instant an impulse came over Frances to confide in him her little scheme for benefiting the fisher-folk at Scaling Harbour, but a glance at the bent and fragile figure of their old friend made her dismiss the idea.
“He wouldn’t understand it,” she thought; “it would seem to him new-fangled and unnecessary; and then he is so poor and so generous,”—for it was well known that out of his tiny stipend Mr Ferraby was far too ready to give more than he could really afford—“he would be writing for books for us, even if he thought it would only be an amusement. No, I had better not speak of it.”
And—“Thank you,” Frances went on aloud, “no, we had no idea you were in the church; seeing it open, we just strolled in, with no better motive than to kill a little time, I’m afraid. It is not tempting weather for walking.”
“No, indeed,” the vicar agreed. “The season is peculiarly dull and depressing this year, even to one who should be well accustomed to this climate and to everything about the place. I have been here over fifty years, half a century,” and he gave a little sigh.
“And we have been here,” said Eira, “nearly all of our lives that we can remember; so we should be accustomed to it, too, shouldn’t we, Mr Ferraby?”