them. And seeing
him so awkward, and how with all his book-learning he listened to
their opinions and blushed when he offered any small service, they
grew to like him, being shy themselves. They pitied him too, knowing
the old Squire better than he did. So from Sunday to Sunday Taffy,
pulling at his rope in the belfry, counted the new-comers, and
Humility talked about them on the way home and at dinner. They were
fisher folk for the most part; the men in blue guernseys and corduroy
trousers, and some with curled black beards and rings in their ears;
the women, in gayer colours than you see in an up-country church; a
southern-seeming race, with southern-sounding names--Santo, Jose,
Hugo, Bennet, Cara. They belonged--so Mr. Raymond often told
himself--to the class which Christ called His Apostles. Sometimes,
scanning an olive-coloured face, he would be minded of the Sea of
Gennesareth; and, a minute later, the sight of the grey coast-line
with its whirled spray would chill the fancy.

The congregation always lingered outside the porch after service; and
then one would say to another: "Wall, there's more in the man than
you'd think. See you up to the meetin' this evenin' I s'pose?
So long!"

But having come once, they came again. And the family at the
Parsonage were full of hope, though Taffy longed sometimes for a
play-fellow, and sometimes for he knew not what, and Humility bent
over her lace pillow and thought of green lanes and of Beer Village
and women at work by sunshiny doorways; and wondered if their faces
had changed.

"O, that I were where I would be!
Then would I be where I am not;
But where I am, there I must be,
And where I would be, I cannot."

She never told a soul of her home thoughts. Her husband never
guessed them. But Taffy (without knowing why), whenever this verse
from his old playbook came into his head, connected it with his
mother.

But the old Squire was getting impatient. He took quite a feudal
view of the saving of his soul, and would have dragged the whole
parish to church by main force, had it been possible.

Late one afternoon, Taffy was lying in one of his favourite nooks in
the lee of the towans, when he heard voices and looked up. And there
sat the old gentleman gazing down on him from horseback, with Bill
Udy at his side. The Squire was in hunting dress.

"What be doin' down there?" he asked. "Praying?"

"No, sir."

"I wish you would.