CHAP, iv.] CHURCH AND PARISH 25 



examinee knew the use of a pocket-handkerchief. My 

 mother was a more efficient aid by paying the schooling of 

 all our own cottagers' children, and also in allaying strife. 

 On one occasion, when a woman wished to remove her 

 children from the parish school because they were better 

 taught at a recently established Unitarian school, she 

 dexterously overcame the difficulty by stating she meddled 

 with nobody's conscience, but if the children went to the 

 parish school she paid, and if they did not go she didn't. 

 We heard no more on the subject. 



Some of our customs were very pretty. On Palm 

 Sunday, that is the Sunday before Easter Sunday, some- 

 times known in our part and the district as " Flowering 

 Sunday," it was the custom to dress the graves with 

 flowers. Friends of the family came from a long distance. 

 A son of our head-gardener would come down from 

 Scotland for the occasion, and the wealth of yellow 

 daffodils and white narcissus, which grew by the Wye, 

 close to the little church of Llancaut, helped greatly 

 towards the decoration. Two Crown Imperials were a 

 greatly admired addition which, season permitting, appeared 

 to ornament one special grave. The " flowering " was a 

 touching and pleasing remembrance of the friends whose 

 bodies rested below, until in after years the custom 

 gradually arose of placing artificial flowers along with 

 the fresh blossoms, and then followed the much to be 

 deprecated practice of putting little cases of flowers of 

 tinsel, or anything that was approved of, which might 

 remain on the grave. At Christmas time we had the real 

 old-fashioned church decorations of good large boughs 

 of holly, with plenty of red berries, mistletoe, laurel, and 

 anything evergreen of a solid sort. The squire (i.e. f my 

 father) contributed a cartload of evergreen branches, and as 

 a matter of course, they were applied largely to ornamenting 

 our corner pew with more regard to appearance than 

 comfort. 



The service was performed simply, as was customary 

 in those days, without any music excepting the singing of 

 the hymns, but as nothing was omitted, and there was, 

 I believe, no curate, it must have been rather fatiguing 

 to the vicar, and it certainly was a terribly long business 

 especially for those not always in good health, if they 

 stayed for the Communion Service on the rare occasions on 

 which it was administered. The drive from the Park to the 

 bottom of the hill on which the Church stood, was upwards 



