"Going to church," he replies, in the same tone; "as you may perceive by the strenuous efforts I have made to get there this afternoon."
Radley church stands on a knoll. Radley parishioners have to go upwards to be buried—a happy omen, it is to be hoped, for the destination of their souls. The church has a little grey tower, pretty, old, and squat, and a peal of bells—these are its claim to distinction—a merry peal, as people say; but to me it seems that in all the gamut of sad sounds there is nothing sadder, sorrowfuller, than bells chiming out sweetly and solemnly across the summer air.
Rung in by the grave music of their invitation, St. John and Esther enter. Verger or pew-opener is there none, so they slip into the first of the open sittings that presents itself. The clergyman is young and energetic: he has rooted up the tall, worm-eaten, oak pews—disfiguring compromises between cattle-pen and witness-box—has clothed several
"Dear little souls
In nice white stoles,—"
and is trying to teach himself intoning. He produces at present only prolonged whining groans, but it is a step in the right direction.
Rest is good after exertion, and so Essie thinks. The south wind has been playing tricks with the dusk riches of her hair. Nature has been laying on her bistre under the great liquid eyes, and emptying a whole potful of her rouge on the rose velvet round of her cheeks. She is not in apple-pie order at all, and yet
"She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady from a far countree."
If Esther were to murder any one, and her guilt were to be brought home to her as plainly as the eye of day shines in the sky at noon, judge and jury would combine to acquit her.
"Blessed be God, who has made beautiful women!" says the Bedouin, and Gerard echoes the benediction, as he stands with his big lavender thumb on one side of the hymn book, and her small, lavender thumb on the other, while the "dear little souls" are singing sweetly and quickly:
"There God for ever sitteth,
Himself of all the Crown;
The Lamb, the Light that shineth,
And goeth never down."