The Ship of Stars. Arthur Quiller-Couch
towans the rabbits heard the sound, and ran scampering. Others, farther away, paused in their feeding, and listened with cocked ears.
Ding—ding—ding.
Mr. Raymond stood in the belfry at the boy's elbow. He wore his surplice, and held his prayer-book, with a finger between the pages. Glancing down toward the nave, he saw Humility sitting in the big vicarage pew—no other soul in church.
He took the cord from Taffy, "Run to the door, and see if anyone is coming."
Taffy ran, and after a minute came back.
"There's Squire Moyle coming along the path, and the little girl with him, and some servants behind—five or six of them. Bill Udy's one."
"Nobody else?"
"I expect the people don't hear the bell," said Taffy. "They live too far away."
"God hears. Yes, and God sees the lamp is lit."
"What lamp?" Taffy looked up at his father's face, wondering.
"All towers carry a lamp of some kind. For what else are they built?"
It was exactly the tone in which he had spoken that afternoon at Tewkesbury about men being like towers. Both these sentences puzzled the boy; and yet Taffy never felt so near to understanding him as he had then, and did again now. He was shy of his father. He did not know that his father was just as shy of him. He began to ring with all his soul—ding—ding-ding, ding-ding.
The old Squire entered the church, paused, and blew his nose violently, and taking Honoria by the hand, marched her up to the end of the south aisle. The door of the great pew was shut upon them, and they disappeared. Before Honoria vanished Taffy caught a glimpse of a grey felt hat with pink ribbons.
The servants scattered and found seats in the body of the church. He went on ringing, but no one else came. After a minute or two Mr. Raymond signed to him to stop and go to his mother, which he did, blushing at the noise of his shoes on the slate pavement. Mr. Raymond followed, walked slowly past, and entered the reading-desk.
"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. … "
Taffy looked towards the Squire's pew. The bald top of the Squire's head was just visible above the ledge. He looked up at his mother, but her eyes were fastened on her prayer-book. He felt—he could not help it—that they were all gathered to save this old man's soul, and that everybody knew it and secretly thought it a hopeless case. The notion dogged him all through the service, and for many Sundays after. Always that bald head above the ledge, and his father and the congregation trying to call down salvation on it. He wondered what Honoria thought, boxed up with it and able to see its face.
Mr. Raymond mounted an upper pulpit to preach his sermon. He chose his text from Saint Matthew, Chapter vii., verses 26 and 27:
"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand;
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of it."
Taffy never followed his father's sermons closely. He would listen to a sentence or two, now and again, and then let his wits wander.
"You think this church is built upon the sands. The rain has come, the winds have blown and beaten on it; the foundations have sunk and it leans to leeward. … By the blessing of God we will shore it up, and upon a foundation of rock. Upon what rock, you ask? … Upon that rock which is the everlasting foundation of the Church spiritual. … Hear what comfortable words our Lord spake to Peter. … Our foundation must be faith, which is God's continuing Presence on earth, and which we shall recognise hereafter as God Himself. … Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. … In other words, it is the rock we search for. … Draw near it, and you will know yourself in God's very shadow—the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. … As with this building, so with you, O man, cowering from wrath, as these walls are cowering. … "
The benediction was pronounced, the pew-door opened, and the old man marched down the aisle, looking neither to right nor to left, with his jaw set like a closed gin. Honoria followed. She had not so much as a glance for Taffy; but in passing she gazed frankly at Humility, whom she had not seen before.
Humility was rather ostentatiously cheerful at dinner that day; a sure sign that at heart she was disappointed. She had looked for a bigger congregation. Mrs. Venning, who had been carried downstairs for the meal, saw this and asked few questions. Both the women stole glances at Mr. Raymond when they thought he was not observing them. He at least pretended to observe nothing, but chatted away cheerfully.
"Taffy," he said, after dinner, "I want you to run up to Tredinnis with a note from me. Maybe I will follow later, but I must go to the village first."
CHAPTER VI.
A COCK-FIGHT.
A footpath led Taffy past the church, and out at length upon a high road, in face of two tall granite pillars with an iron gate between. The gate was surmounted with a big iron lantern, and the lantern with a crest—two snakes' heads intertwined. The gate was shut, but the fence had been broken down on either side, and the gap, through which Taffy passed, was scored with wheel-ruts. He followed these down an ill-kept road bordered with furze-whins, tamarisks, and clumps of bannel broom. By-and-by he came to a ragged plantation of stone pines, backed by a hedge of rhododendrons, behind which the hounds were baying in their kennels. It put him in mind of the "Pilgrim's Progress." He heard the stable clock strike three, and caught a glimpse, over the shrubberies, of its cupola and gilt weather-cock. And then a turn of the road brought him under the gloomy northern face of the house, with its broad carriage sweep and sunless portico. Half the windows on this side had been blocked up and painted black, with white streaks down and across to represent framework.
He pulled at an iron bell-chain which dangled by the great door. The bell clanged far within and a dozen dogs took up the note, yelping in full peal. He heard footsteps coming; the door was opened, and the dogs poured out upon him—spaniels, terriers, lurchers, greyhounds, and a big Gordon setter—barking at him, leaping against him, sniffing his calves. Taffy kept them at bay as best he could and waved his letter at a wall-eyed man in a dirty yellow waistcoat, who looked down from the doorstep but did not offer to call them off.
"Any answer?" asked the wall-eyed man.
Taffy could not say. The man took the letter and went to inquire, leaving him alone with the dogs.
It seemed an age before he reappeared, having in the interval slipped a dirty livery coat over his yellow waistcoat. "The Squire says you're to come in." Taffy and the dogs poured together into a high, stone-flagged hall; then through a larger hall and a long dark corridor. The footman's coat, for want of a loop, had been hitched on a peg by its collar, and stuck out behind his neck in the most ludicrous manner; but he shuffled ahead so fast that Taffy, tripping and stumbling among the dogs, had barely time to observe this before a door was flung open and he stood blinking in a large room full of sunlight.
"Hallo! Here's the parson's bantam!"
The room had four high, bare windows through which the afternoon sunshine streamed on the carpet. The carpet had a pattern of pink peonies on a delicate buff ground, and was shamefully dirty. And the vast apartment, with its white paint and gilding and Italian sketches in water-colour and statuettes under glass, might have been a lady's drawing-room. But paint and gilding were tarnished; the chintz chair-covers soiled and torn; the pictures hung askew; and a smell of dog filled the air.
Squire Moyle sat huddled in a deep chair beside the fire-place, facing the middle of the room, where a handsome, high-complexioned