THE COUNTRY SUNDAY. 57 



creeturs.' Or possibly the pastor himself may be over- 

 heard discoursing to a bullet-headed woman, with one 

 ringer on the palm of his other hand, ' That's their serpen- 

 tine way ; that's their subtlety ; that's their casuistry ; 

 which arguments you may imagine to refer, as your fancy 

 pleases, to the village curate, or the tonsured priest of 

 the monastery over the hill. For the tonsured priest, 

 and the monastery, and the nunnery, and the mass, and 

 the Virgin Mary, have grown to be a very great power 

 indeed in English lanes. Between the Roman missal 

 and the chapel hymn-book, the country curate with his 

 good old-fashioned litany is ground very small indeed, 

 and grows less and less between these millstones till he 

 approaches the vanishing-point. The Roman has the 

 broad acres, his patrons have given him the land ; the 

 chapel has the common people, and the farmers are 

 banding together not to pay tithes. So that his whole 

 soul may well go forth in the apostrophe, ' Good Lord, 

 deliver us ! ' 



There is no man so feasted as the chapel pastor. 

 His tall and yet rotund body and his broad red face 

 might easily be mistaken for the outward man of a sturdy 

 farmer, and he likes his pipe and glass. He dines every 

 Sunday, and at least once a week besides, at the house 

 of one of his stoutest upholders. It is said that at such 

 a dinner, after a large plateful of black currant pudding, 

 finding there was still some juice left, he lifted the plate 

 to his mouth and carefully licked it all round ; the 

 hostess hastened to offer a spoon, but he declined, 

 thinking that was much the best way to gather up the 

 essence of the fruit. So simple were his manners, he 

 needed no spoon ; and, indeed, if we look back, the 

 apostles managed without forks, and put their fingers in 

 the dish. After dinner the cognac bottle is produced, 



