Afloat | Page 8

"Do you know," I returned, "I can't help saying something you will not
like to hear. It is a very fine church, no doubt, but it always angers me
to hear of a case like this where some ancient church is pulled down
and a grand new one raised in its place to the honour and glory of some
rich parvenu with or without a brand new title."
"You are not hurting me in the least," he replied, with that change
which came from time to time in his eyes as if the flame behind the
screen had suddenly grown brighter. "I agree with every word you say;
the meanest church in the land should be cherished as long as it will
hold together. But unfortunately ours had to come down. It was very
old and decayed past mending. The floor was six feet below the level of
the surrounding ground and frightfully damp. It had been examined
over and over again by experts during the past forty or fifty years, and
from the first they pronounced it a hopeless case, so that it was never
restored. The interior, right down to the time of demolition, was like
that of most country churches of a century ago, with the old black
worm- eaten pews, in which the worshippers shut themselves up as if in
their own houses or castles. On account of the damp we were haunted
by toads. You smile, sir, but it was no smiling matter for me during my
first year as vicar, when I discovered that it was the custom here to
keep pet toads in the church. It sounds strange and funny, no doubt, but
it is a fact that all the best people in the parish had one of these
creatures, and it was customary for the ladies to bring it a weekly
supply of provisions--bits of meat, hard-boiled eggs chopped up, and
earth-worms, and whatever else they fancied it would like--in their
reticules. The toads, I suppose, knew when it was Sunday--their feeding
day; at all events they would crawl out of their holes in the floor under

the pews to receive their rations--and caresses. The toads got on my
nerves with rather unpleasant consequences. I preached in a way which
my listeners did not appreciate or properly understand, particularly
when I took for my subject our duty towards the lower animals,
including reptiles."
"Batrachians," I interposed, echoing as well as I could the tone in
which he had rebuked me before.
"Very well, batrachians--I am not a naturalist. But the impression
created on their minds appeared to be that I was rather an odd person in
the pulpit. When the time came to pull the old church down the
toad-keepers were bidden to remove their pets, which they did with
considerable reluctance. What became of them I do not know--I never
inquired. I used to have a careful inspection made of the floor to make
sure that these creatures were not put back in the new building, and I
am happy to think it is not suited to their habits. The floors are very
well cemented, and are dry and clean."
Having finished his story he invited me to go to the parsonage and get
some refreshment. "I daresay you are thirsty," he said.
But it was getting late; it was almost dark in the church by now,
although the figure of the golden-haired saint still glowed in the
window and gazed at us out of her blue eyes. "I must not waste more of
your time," I added. "There are your boys still patiently waiting to
begin their practice--such nice quiet fellows!"
"Yes, they are," he returned a little bitterly, a sudden accent of
weariness in his voice and no trace now of what I had seen in his
countenance a little while ago--the light that shone and brightened
behind the dark eye and the little play about the corners of the mouth as
of dimpling motions on the surface of a pool.
And in that new guise, or disguise, I left him, the austere priest with
nothing to suggest the whimsical or grotesque in his cold ascetic face.
Recrossing the bridge I stood a little time and looked once more at the
noble church tower standing dark against the clear amber-coloured sky,

and said to myself: "Why, this is one of the oddest incidents of my life!
Not that I have seen or heard anything very wonderful--just a small
rustic village, one of a thousand in the land; a big new church in which
some person was playing rather madly on the organ, a set of unruly
choir-boys; a handsome stained-glass west window, and, finally, a nice
little chat with the vicar." It was not in these things; it was a sense