Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood | Page 5

in these
two texts: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to
minister;" and "It is enough that the servant should be as his master."
Neither have I ever been able to see the very great difference between
right and wrong in a clergyman, and right and wrong in another man.
All that I can pretend to have yet discovered comes to this: that what is
right in another man is right in a clergyman; and what is wrong in
another man is much worse in a clergyman. Here, however, is one more
proof of approaching age. I do not mean the opinion, but the digression.
"Well, then," I said, "you'll see my face in church on Sunday, if you
happen to be there."
"Yes, sir; but you see, sir, on the bridge here, the parson is the parson

like, and I'm Old Rogers; and I looks in his face, and he looks in mine,
and I says to myself, 'This is my parson.' But o' Sundays he's nobody's
parson; he's got his work to do, and it mun be done, and there's an end
on't."
That there was a real idea in the old man's mind was considerably
clearer than the logic by which he tried to bring it out.
"Did you know parson that's gone, sir?" he went on.
"No," I answered.
"Oh, sir! he wur a good parson. Many's the time he come and sit at my
son's bedside--him that's dead and gone, sir--for a long hour, on a
Saturday night, too. And then when I see him up in the desk the next
mornin', I'd say to myself, 'Old Rogers, that's the same man as sat by
your son's bedside last night. Think o' that, Old Rogers!' But, somehow,
I never did feel right sure o' that same. He didn't seem to have the same
cut, somehow; and he didn't talk a bit the same. And when he spoke to
me after sermon, in the church-yard, I was always of a mind to go into
the church again and look up to the pulpit to see if he war really out ov
it; for this warn't the same man, you see. But you'll know all about it
better than I can tell you, sir. Only I always liked parson better out o'
the pulpit, and that's how I come to want to make you look at me, sir,
instead o' the water down there, afore I see you in the church
to-morrow mornin'."
The old man laughed a kindly laugh; but he had set me thinking, and I
did not know what to say to him all at once. So after a short pause, he
resumed--
"You'll be thinking me a queer kind of a man, sir, to speak to my
betters before my betters speaks to me. But mayhap you don't know
what a parson is to us poor folk that has ne'er a friend more larned than
theirselves but the parson. And besides, sir, I'm an old salt,--an old
man-o'-war's man,--and I've been all round the world, sir; and I ha' been
in all sorts o' company, pirates and all, sir; and I aint a bit frightened of
a parson. No; I love a parson, sir. And I'll tell you for why, sir. He's got
a good telescope, and he gits to the masthead, and he looks out. And he
sings out, 'Land ahead!' or 'Breakers ahead!' and gives directions
accordin'. Only I can't always make out what he says. But when he
shuts up his spyglass, and comes down the riggin', and talks to us like
one man to another, then I don't know what I should do without the

parson. Good evenin' to you, sir, and welcome to Marshmallows."
The pollards did not look half so dreary. The river began to glimmer a
little; and the old bridge had become an interesting old bridge. The
country altogether was rather nice than otherwise. I had found a friend
already!--that is, a man to whom I might possibly be of some use; and
that was the most precious friend I could think of in my present
situation and mood. I had learned something from him too; and I
resolved to try all I could to be the same man in the pulpit that I was
out of it. Some may be inclined to say that I had better have formed the
resolution to be the same man out of the pulpit that I was in it. But the
one will go quite right with the other. Out of the pulpit I would be the
same man I was in it--seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen; and
in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it--taking