s made up its
mind to advertise itself at our expense. Ignoramuses who don't know an
aumbry from an abacus, charlatans, amateur faddists, they _will_ abuse
our work. Good, bad, or indifferent, it's all one to them; they are
pledged to abuse it."

His voice rang with a fine professional contempt, but he sobered himself
and came back to business.

"The south transept roof and the choir vaulting will want careful
watching. There is some old trouble, too, in the central tower; and I
should like later on to underpin the main crossing piers, but there is
no money. For the moment I have said nothing about the tower; it is no
use raising doubts that one can't set at rest; and I don't know how we
are going to make ends meet, even with the little that it is proposed to
do now. If funds come in, we must tackle the tower; but transept and
choir-vaults are more pressing, and there is no risk from the bells,
because the cage is so rotten that they haven't been rung for years.

"You must do your best. It isn't a very profitable stewardship, so try
to give as good an account of it as you can. We shan't make a penny out
of it, but the church is too well known to play fast-and-loose with. I
have written to the parson--a foolish old fellow, who is no more fit
than a lady's-maid to be trusted with such a church as Cullerne--to say
you are coming to-morrow, and will put in an appearance at the church in
the afternoon, in case he wishes to see you. The man is an ass, but he
is legal guardian of the place, and has not done badly in collecting
money for the restoration; so we must bear with him."

CHAPTER ONE.

Cullerne Wharf of the Ordnance maps, or plain Cullerne as known to the
countryside, lies two miles from the coast to-day; but it was once much
nearer, and figures in history as a seaport of repute, having sent six
ships to fight the Armada, and four to withstand the Dutch a century
later. But in fulness of time the estuary of the Cull silted up, and a
bar formed at the harbour mouth; so that sea-borne commerce was driven
to seek other havens. Then the Cull narrowed its channel, and instead
of spreading itself out prodigally as heretofore on this side or on
that, shrunk to the limits of a well-ordered stream, and this none of
the greatest. The burghers, seeing that their livelihood in the port
was gone, reflected that they might yet save something by reclaiming the
salt-marshes, and built a stone dyke to keep the sea