252 IDLEHURST : 



times in the day come down the churchyard path. 

 But no excitement in the least affects his work; if 

 he were set to sweep the Bank crossing to-morrow, 

 he would do his slow, equable, tireless day's labour. 

 His touch was evident when I entered the drive at 

 the Rectory yesterday : there was an unwonted well- 

 kept look about the gravel and the edges quite be- 

 yond the reach of Awcock's rake and shears. In any 

 state, the garden is a pleasant place. The modest 

 white-fronted parsonage stands half hidden between 

 two beeches, round which an irregular lawn slopes 

 and winds, hedged by high shrubberies and careless 

 flower-borders. The churchyard wall makes the 

 boundary on one side grey stone shagged with huge- 

 stemmed ivy ; over the wall peer the graveyard 

 grasses, with one or two of the old wooden monu- 

 ments ; through the outmost feathering branches of 

 the great yew trees and between their trunks, black as 

 night, the chancel-wall of the church shows its silver- 

 green lichens. At every corner of the garden the 

 spire looks down over the trees, iron-grey in storm, 

 to-day glistening white against the pale blue sky. 



As I came up the drive I thought that the sense 

 of peace which always dwells there had never before 

 seemed so deep : the still cool air of the morning, the 



