shoulder. As luck would have it, near the top
he met Squire Moyle descending on horseback. The Vicar nodded
"Good-morning" in passing, but had not gone a dozen steps when the
old man reined up and called after him.

"Hi!"

The Vicar halted.

"Whose basket is that you're carrying?" Then, getting no answer,
"Wait till next Saturday night, when Joel Hugh comes to thank you.
I suppose you know he rents his cottage by the week?"

"No harm shall come to him through me," said the Vicar, and retraced
his steps down the hill. The Squire followed at a foot-pace,
grinning as he went.

That night Mr. Raymond went back to his beloved books, but not to
read; and early next morning was ready at the cross-roads for the van
which plied twice a week between Innis village and Truro. He had
three boxes with him--heavy boxes, as Calvin the van-driver remarked
when it came to lifting them on board.

"Thee'rt not leaving us, surely?" said he.

"No."

"But however didst get these lumping boxes up the hill?"

"My son helped me."

He had modestly calculated on averaging a shilling a volume for his
books; but discovered on leaving the shop at Truro that it worked out
at one-and-threepence. He returned to Nannizabuloe that night with
one box only--but it was packed full of tools--and a copy of Fuller's
"Holy State," which at the last moment had proved too precious to be
parted with--at least, just yet.

The woodwork of the old pews--painted deal for the most part, but
mixed with a few boards of good red pine and one or two of teak,
relics of some forgotten shipwreck--lay stacked in the belfry and
around the font under the west gallery. Mr. Raymond and Taffy spent
an hour in overhauling it, chose out the boards for their first pew,
and fell to work.

At the end of another hour the pair broke off and looked at each
other. Taffy could not help laughing. His own knowledge of
carpentry had been picked up by watching Joel Hugh at work, and just
sufficed to tell him that his father was possibly the worst carpenter
in the world.

"I think my fingers must be all thumbs," declared Mr. Raymond.

The puckers in his face set Taffy laughing afresh. They both laughed
and fell to work again, the boy explained his notions of the
difficult art of mortising. They were rudimentary, but sound as far
as they went, and his father recognised this. Moreover, when the boy
had a tool to handle he did it with a natural deftness, in spite of