Kenelm Chillingly | Page 4

The
conduct of the knight was reported to the sainted king, with a request
that it should be properly reprimanded; but the sainted king delivered
himself of this wise judgment:--
"If a pious knight is a very learned clerk, and can meet in fair argument
the doctrines of the misbeliever, by all means let him argue fairly; but if
a pious knight is not a learned clerk, and the argument goes against him,
then let the pious knight cut the discussion short by the edge of his
good sword."
The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly was of the same opinion as Saint
Louis; otherwise, he was a mild and amiable man. He encouraged
cricket and other manly sports among his rural parishioners. He was a
skilful and bold rider, but he did not hunt; a convivial man--and took
his bottle freely. But his tastes in literature were of a refined and
peaceful character, contrasting therein the tendencies some might have
expected from his muscular development of Christianity. He was a
great reader of poetry, but he disliked Scott and Byron, whom he
considered flashy and noisy; he maintained that Pope was only a
versifier, and that the greatest poet in the language was Wordsworth; he
did not care much for the ancient classics; he refused all merit to the
French poets; he knew nothing of the Italian, but he dabbled in German,
and was inclined to bore one about the "Hermann and Dorothea" of
Goethe. He was married to a homely little wife, who revered him in
silence, and thought there would be no schism in the Church if he were
in his right place as Archbishop of Canterbury; in this opinion he
entirely agreed with his wife.
Besides these three male specimens of the Chillingly race, the fairer sex
was represented, in the absence of her ladyship, who still kept her room,
by three female Chillinglys, sisters of Sir Peter, and all three spinsters.
Perhaps one reason why they had remained single was, that externally
they were so like each other that a suitor must have been puzzled which

to choose, and may have been afraid that if he did choose one, he
should be caught next day kissing another one in mistake. They were
all tall, all thin, with long throats--and beneath the throats a fine
development of bone. They had all pale hair, pale eyelids, pale eyes,
and pale complexions. They all dressed exactly alike, and their
favourite colour was a vivid green: they were so dressed on this
occasion.
As there was such similitude in their persons, so, to an ordinary
observer, they were exactly the same in character and mind. Very well
behaved, with proper notions of female decorum: very distant and
reserved in manner to strangers; very affectionate to each other and
their relations or favourites; very good to the poor, whom they looked
upon as a different order of creation, and treated with that sort of
benevolence which humane people bestow upon dumb animals. Their
minds had been nourished on the same books--what one read the others
had read. The books were mainly divided into two classes,--novels, and
what they called "good books." They had a habit of taking a specimen
of each alternately; one day a novel, then a good book, then a novel
again, and so on. Thus if the imagination was overwarmed on Monday,
on Tuesday it was cooled down to a proper temperature; and if
frost-bitten on Tuesday, it took a tepid bath on Wednesday. The novels
they chose were indeed rarely of a nature to raise the intellectual
thermometer into blood heat: the heroes and heroines were models of
correct conduct. Mr. James's novels were then in vogue, and they
united in saying that those "were novels a father might allow his
daughters to read." But though an ordinary observer might have failed
to recognize any distinction between these three ladies, and, finding
them habitually dressed in green, would have said they were as much
alike as one pea is to another, they had their idiosyncratic differences,
when duly examined. Miss Margaret, the eldest, was the commanding
one of the three; it was she who regulated their household (they all
lived together), kept the joint purse, and decided every doubtful point
that arose: whether they should or should not ask Mrs. So-and-so to tea;
whether Mary should or should not be discharged; whether or not they
should go to Broadstairs or to Sandgate for the month of October. In
fact, Miss Margaret was the WILL of the body corporate.

Miss Sibyl was of milder nature and more melancholy temperament;
she had a poetic turn of mind, and occasionally wrote verses. Some of
these had been printed on satin paper, and sold for objects of
beneficence at charity bazaars. The county newspapers