Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood | Page 8

of the organ-loft; and over--in fact upon this apex appeared the

face of the man whom I have mentioned. It was a very remarkable
countenance--pale, and very thin, without any hair, except that of thick
eyebrows that far over-hung keen, questioning eyes. Short bushy hair,
gray, not white, covered a well formed head with a high narrow
forehead. As I have said, those keen eyes kept looking at me from
under their gray eyebrows all the time of the sermon--intelligently
without doubt, but whether sympathetically or otherwise I could not
determine. And indeed I hardly know yet. My vestry door opened upon
a little group of graves, simple and green, without headstone or slab;
poor graves, the memory of whose occupants no one had cared to
preserve. Good men must have preceded me here, else the poor would
not have lain so near the chancel and the vestry-door. All about and
beyond were stones, with here and there a monument; for mine was a
large parish, and there were old and rich families in it, more of which
buried their dead here than assembled their living. But close by the
vestry-door, there was this little billowy lake of grass. And at the end of
the narrow path leading from the door, was the churchyard wall, with a
few steps on each side of it, that the parson might pass at once from the
churchyard into his own shrubbery, here tangled, almost matted, from
luxuriance of growth. But I would not creep out the back way from
among my people. That way might do very well to come in by; but to
go out, I would use the door of the people. So I went along the church,
a fine old place, such as I had never hoped to be presented to, and went
out by the door in the north side into the middle of the churchyard. The
door on the other side was chiefly used by the few gentry of the
neighbourhood; and the Lych-gate, with its covered way, (for the main
road had once passed on that side,) was shared between the coffins and
the carriages, the dead who had no rank but one, that of the dead, and
the living who had more money than their neighbours. For, let the old
gentry disclaim it as they may, mere wealth, derived from whatever
source, will sooner reach their level than poor antiquity, or the rarest
refinement of personal worth; although, to be sure, the oldest of them
will sooner give to the rich their sons or their daughters to wed, to love
if they can, to have children by, than they will yield a jot of their
ancestral preeminence, or acknowledge any equality in their sons or
daughters-in-law. The carpenter's son is to them an old myth, not an
everlasting fact. To Mammon alone will they yield a little of their

rank--none of it to Christ. Let me glorify God that Jesus took not on.
Him the nature of nobles, but the seed of Adam; for what could I do
without my poor brothers and sisters?
I passed along the church to the northern door, and went out. The
churchyard lay in bright sunshine. All the rain and gloom were gone.
"If one could only bring this glory of sun and grass into one's hope for
the future!" thought I; and looking down I saw the little boy who
aspired to paint the sky, looking up in my face with mingled confidence
and awe.
"Do you trust me, my little man?" thought I. "You shall trust me then.
But I won't be a priest to you, I'll be a big brother."
For the priesthood passes away, the brotherhood endures. The
priesthood passes away, swallowed up in the brotherhood. It is because
men cannot learn simple things, cannot believe in the brotherhood, that
they need a priesthood. But as Dr Arnold said of the Sunday, "They DO
need it." And I, for one, am sure that the priesthood needs the people
much more than the people needs the priesthood.
So I stooped and lifted the child and held him in my arms. And the little
fellow looked at me one moment longer, and then put his arms gently
round my neck. And so we were friends. When I had set him down,
which I did presently, for I shuddered at the idea of the people thinking
that I was showing off the CLERGYMAN, I looked at the boy. In his
face was great sweetness mingled with great rusticity, and I could not
tell whether he was the child of gentlefolk or of peasants. He did not
say a word, but walked away to join his aunt, who was waiting for him
at the gate of the churchyard. He kept his head