The Country Farson. 135 



managed the singing, had f aii'ly earned his leisure and his 

 pleasant evening chat and cigar, and a quiet perusal in 

 " Bell " (which I always took with me) of the cricket or 

 rowing of the past week. This is not a theological treatise, 

 and if I attempted to make it so there would be a just and 

 indignant howl ; but I fancy that most of the readers are 

 in accord with me, that a good country parson is the salt of 

 the earth, and that nine sensible people out of ten, except 

 the ecclesiastical lawyers, think that the columns in news- 

 paper reports of religious squabbles about shadows are 

 evidence of wicked waste of money and fanatical temper. 

 And although every word of this paper is true and from 

 the life, it is not a sketch of A., or B., or C, but of a class 

 whom I have been fortunate enough to know, and of scenes 

 which I have witnessed. 



First, as to our congregation. There was the conven- 

 tional bore, who exists everywhere, the most respectahle man 

 in the parish, who made a lot of money somehow, and 

 always came to church in shiny black dittos, and a shirt 

 frill (hke Mr. Chuck's, in " Peter Simple "), and stiff white 

 neckcloth, who said '"the minister did not preach the 

 gospel," and who encouraged the ranters, and bellowed out 

 the psalms, emphasising any damnatory clauses with a wave 

 of the hand and a satisfactory shake of the head. The 

 squire's family of course occupied one enormous pew, reached 

 by steps, with armchairs and a fire-place, and every con- 

 venience of a club, except the morning papers ; a second 

 large pew held the upper servants, and there was an 

 inferior pew for the under female servants, with benches 

 for coachmen, grooms, gardeners, ttc, outside. (Of course 

 this state of things has long since ceased to exist.) 



Then came the farmers' families, the younger portion of 

 whom always expected me to make them a " clown's face " 

 just before the Litany — and were never disappointed — 



