He's a
free, pleasant gentleman as ever lived--rides to the hounds, keeps his
pointers and all that. He's vestry-clerk here now as his father was
before him."

"Did you not tell me your former master lived at Knowlesbury?" I asked,
calling to mind the long story about the precise gentleman of the old
school with which my talkative friend had wearied me before he opened
the register-book.

"Yes, to be sure, sir," replied the clerk. "Old Mr. Wansborough lived
at Knowlesbury, and young Mr. Wansborough lives there too."

"You said just now he was vestry-clerk, like his father before him. I
am not quite sure that I know what a vestry-clerk is."

"Don't you indeed, sir?--and you come from London too! Every parish
church, you know, has a vestry-clerk and a parish-clerk. The
parish-clerk is a man like me (except that I've got a deal more
learning than most of them--though I don't boast of it). The
vestry-clerk is a sort of an appointment that the lawyers get, and if
there's any business to be done for the vestry, why there they are to
do it. It's just the same in London. Every parish church there has
got its vestry-clerk--and you may take my word for it he's sure to be a
lawyer."

"Then young Mr. Wansborough is a lawyer, I suppose?"

"Of course he is, sir! A lawyer in High Street, Knowlesbury--the old
offices that his father had before him. The number of times I've swept
those offices out, and seen the old gentleman come trotting in to
business on his white pony, looking right and left all down the street
and nodding to everybody! Bless you, he was a popular character!--he'd
have done in London!"

"How far is it to Knowlesbury from this place?"

"A long stretch, sir," said the clerk, with that exaggerated idea of
distances, and that vivid perception of difficulties in getting from
place to place, which is peculiar to all country people. "Nigh on five
mile, I can tell you!"

It was still early in the forenoon. There was plenty of time for a
walk to Knowlesbury and back again to Welmingham; and there was no
person probably in the town who was fitter to assist my inquiries about
the character and position of Sir Percival's mother before her marriage
than the local solicitor. Resolving to go at once to Knowlesbury on
foot, I led the way out of the vestry.

"Thank you kindly, sir," said the clerk, as I slipped my little present
into his hand. "Are you really going to walk all the way to
Knowlesbury and back?