CHAPTER IV.
A STRANGER FROM LONDON.
OW it was that we began seriously to consider the expediency of organizing "Penny Readings" in the school-room attached to the quaint old square-towered church at Chewton Cudley I haven't the remotest idea. I fancy it must have been Mr. Petifer, the curate, who suggested it after he had been to preach for a friend of his in London. I know that he was much impressed by what the congregation of St. Boanerges—his friend's church—were doing, and that there was a noticeable difference in his delivery when he read the lessons after his visit. We all observed it, and some of the old-fashioned people thought that he was going to intone—to which there was a strong objection—but his efforts not carrying him beyond a peculiar rising inflection towards the middle of a verse, and a remarkable lingering fall into deep bass at the end, we soon regarded it as a praiseworthy attempt to give variety to his previous vapid utterances, and came rather to like it, as it gave the church somewhat of a cathedral flavour. The old pew-opener and sextoness said that to hear him publish the banns was almost as good as listening to the marriage service itself.
The truth is that we had few changes of any kind at Chewton. It had ceased to be a market town when the new line of railway took the three coaches off the road, and opened a branch to Noxby; and though the tradesfolk contrived to keep their shops open they did a very quiet business indeed. There was nothing actively speculative about the place, and the motto of the town was "Slow and sure." From the two maiden ladies—the Misses Twitwold—who kept the circulating library, and sold stationery and Berlin wool—to the brewer who owned half the beer-shops, or the landlord of the "George and Gate," who kept a select stud of saddle-horses, and had promoted the tradesmen's club—nobody was ever seen in a hurry, not even the doctor who had come to take old Mr. Varico's practice, and was quite a young man from the hospitals. He began by bustling about, and walking as though he was out for a wager, and speaking as though he expected people to do things in a minute; but he soon got over that. Folks at Chewton Cudley had a way of looking with a slow, placid, immovable stare at anybody who showed unseemly haste. If they were told to "be quick" or to "look sharp," they would leave what they were about to gaze with a cow-like serenity at the disturber. It was quite a lesson in placidity even to watch a farm-labourer or a workman sit on a gate or a cart-shaft to eat a slice of bread and cheese. Each bite was only taken after a deliberate investigation of the sides and edges of the hunch, and was slowly masticated during a peculiar ruminating survey of surrounding objects. The possessor of a clasp-knife never closed it with a click; and if any adult person had been seen to run along the High-street public attention would have been aroused by the event.
The vicar was really the most active person in the town; and though he had lived there in the quaint, ivy-covered parsonage house for twenty years, and had been constantly among his parishioners, he had the same bright, pleasant, and yet grave smile, the same quick, easy step, the same lively way with children and old women, the same impatient toleration of "dawdlers," as had distinguished him on his first coming. He had been a famous cricketer at college, and one of the first things he did was to form a cricket club; but he always said the batsman waited to watch the ball knock down the wicket, and the fielders stood staring into space when they ought to have made a catch. This was his fun, of course, and the cricket club flourished in a sedate, slow-bowling sort of way. So did the penny bank, and the evening school, and the sewing-class—for he was well loved, was our vicar, in spite, or perhaps because, of his offering such a contrast to the larger number of his flock.