George Fenn - Eli's Children - The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

“Eh? What?”

“I say, why don’t you give it up quietly?”

“Speak up; I’m a little hard of hearing.”

“I say, why don’t you give it up quietly?” roared the speaker to a little bent old man, with a weak, thin, piping voice, and a sharp look that gave him somewhat the air of a very attenuated sparrow in a severe frost, his shrunken legs, in tight yellow leather leggings, seeming to help the idea.

“Don’t shout at me like that, Master Portlock. I arn’t deaf, only a trifle hard of hearing when I’ve got a cowd – just a trifle, you know.”

“Have you got a cold?” asked the man addressed, a sturdy-looking, fresh-coloured, middle-aged man, with a very bluff manner, and a look of prosperity in his general appearance that made him seem thoroughly adapted to his office. In fact, he was just the man that a country clergyman would be glad to elect at a vestry meeting for vicar’s churchwarden. “Eh?”

“I – say – have – you – got – a – cold? Hang him, how deaf he is!”

“Oh, no! oh, no!” chirped the little old man, sharply; “I’m not deaf. Just a little thick i’ the ears. Yes; I’ve got a cowd. It’s settled here – just here,” he piped, striking himself upon his thin chest with the hand that held his stick. “A bad cowd – a nasty cowd as keeps me awake all night, doing nowt but cough. It’s that stove, that’s what it is, Master Portlock.”

“Nonsense, man! It would keep the cold off.”

“Eh?”

“I say it would keep the cold off.”

“Nay, nay; not it. A nasty, brimstone-smelling, choking thing, as sends out a reek as settles on your chest. Stove, indeed! What do we want with your noo-fangled stoves? We never had no stoves before. Here he stops away from town all these years, only coming now and then, and now all at once he’s back at the Rectory, and nothing’s right. Mr Paulby never said a word about no stoves.”

“No; but see how damp the church was.”

“Eh?”

“Eh?”

“Damp,” roared the Churchwarden; “church – damp. Cush – shuns – moul – dee.”

“Chah! Nonsense, Master Portlock. Damp? Suppose it was? A chutch ought to be damp, and smell solemn like of owd age and venerations. Mouldy? Ay; why not?” he piped. “’Mind ta chutch folk o’ decay, and what they’re comin’ to some day. I once went to London, Master Portlock – forty year ago now, sir – forty year ago. It was cowd weather, and I got ’most froze a’ top o’ the coach, and it was a ’mazin’ plaace. Ay, that it was. But you’ve been there?”

“Ay, lots o’ times in my life.”

“Niver been in your life? Then don’t go. Niver go if you can help it. Owd Mr Burton paid for me to go, he did – owd vicar’s father, you know – and he said to me a did, ‘Mind ta go and see some o’ the London chutches, Warmoth,’ he says; and I did, and bless thou, pretty places they weer. I niver see a playhouse, but Sammy Mason wint to one i’ London, and he towd me what it were like, and the chutch I went into i’ the City weer just like it. Why, mun, theer were a big picter ower the ’mandments, and carpets on the floors, and all the pews was full o’ red cushions an’ basses, just as if they was all squires’ sittings, and brass rails and red curtins an’ grand candlesticks. Then reight up i’ the gallery wheer the singers sit was a great thing all covered wi’ goolden pipes, an’ a man i’ the front sittin’ lookin’ at his self i’ a lookin’ glass. That was t’ organ, you know, and eh, but it was a straange sort o’ plaace altogether to call a chutch.”

“Not like our old barn, eh, Sammy?” shouted the Churchwarden.

“Nay, not a bit, Master Portlock,” piped the old man. “Gi’e me whitewesh, and neat clean pews and a plait-straw cushion and bass. Folk don’t go to sleep then, and snore through t’ sarmunt. If I had my way, Master Portlock, I wouldn’t hev a thing changed.”

“No, I suppose not, Sam,” said the Churchwarden, nodding.

“Sixty years have I been clerk o’ t’ owd chutch, and hae buried generations of them as comed to the owd place – christened ’em, and married ’em, and buried ’em, Master Portlock. They didn’t like me being made clerk so young in them days. Jacky Robinson, as wanted to be clerk when father died, said I was nobbut a boy, but t’ owd vicar said – owd Master Willoughby, you didn’t know him?” The Churchwarden shook his head. “No; he died eight and fifty year ago. He said, ‘No; let Sammy Warmoth step into his father’s shoes, same as him as is dead stepped into his father’s shoes. I find,’ he says, ‘there’s been Warmoth’s clerks here for a hundred years at least;’ and now, Master Portlock, sir, I can say there’s been Warmoths clerks here for a hundred and sixty year, and if my life is spared I’ll make it two hundred, for they can’t turn me out, and I wean’t go.”

“How old wert ta when you was made clerk, Sammy?” said the Churchwarden, looking at the old man with a pitying smile. “Thrutty-three, and I was just married, Master Portlock, and thrutty-three and sixty makes ninety-three, eh?”

“Fine owd age, Sam.”

“Eh?”

“A fine owd age, I say.”

“Chah! Not it. Read your Bible more, man. Ninety-three’s as good as nowt to what men used to be. Nay, nay, nay, I shan’t give up. Yow may go and tell parson as theer’s lots o’ life in me yet, and that he’d best go back again to London and foreign parts, and leave us alone here wi’ Mr Paulby. He’ll drive all the congregation over to the Dissenters, they’re talking a’ready o’ building noo chapel for ta Wesley folk.”

“Ay, they’re going ahead, Sammy, but we don’t care for the opposition shop. We’ve got the old established bank, eh?”

“That’s a true word, Master Portlock,” piped the old man, “and we can pity ’em, wi’ their plans and local preachers, a set o’ nobodies, o’ sons o’ Levi, takking off their aprons and running fro’ behind their counters to usurp the priest’s office; but you mark my words, and you may tell parson what I say; if he’s coming down here thinking to do just as he likes, he’ll be driving all folk to chapel.”

“No, no; not he, Sammy.”

“Ay, but he will, altering ta chutch sarvice, an’ upsetting all that’s owd – schoolmaster, and clerk, and chutch. You tell him that he may keep his man till I’m dead, and then put him in, for I nivver had a boy o’ my own to tak’ my place.”

“But he hasn’t got a man.”

“Eh? Not got a man? Good job too. He don’t want one?”

“No. He isn’t going to have a clerk any more.”

“Eh?”

“I say you’ll be the last clerk o’ Lawford. There’ll nivver be another.”

“Nivver be another? What dost ta mean?”

“Mr Mallow is going to do the service wi’out a clerk,” roared the Churchwarden.

“Do sarvice wi’out a clerk!” piped the old man, indignantly; “who’s to say t’ ‘Amens’?”

“Congregation and singers.”

“An’ what ’bout t’ ’sponses?” quavered the old clerk.

“People!”

They were standing in the churchyard, walled up high above the town street, and as the Churchwarden spoke the old clerk placed his left hand across the small of his back, and stamping his stick on the cobble stones of the path, he made an effort to straighten himself up so as to gaze at the venerable mouldering square-towered church, taking it in from end to end with his pale grey eyes before resuming his former attitude with his head on one side.