"Not many," said Miss Gollop. "I always say, 'Let's run about in this world; plenty of time to sit down in the next.'"
"I may tell you," added Thomas kindly, "that your first sermon went down very suent. From where I sits, along by the font, I can get a good look across the faces, and the important people, the Baskervilles and the Lillicraps and the Luscombes and the Mumfords--one and all listened to every word, and nodded now and again. You'll be glad to know that."
"Some thought 'twas a sermon they'd heard afore, however," said Miss Gollop; "but no doubt they was wrong."
"Quite wrong," declared Dennis warmly. "It was a sermon written only the night before I preached it. And talking of the font----"
"Yes, of course, you've marked the famous font-cover over the holy basin, I suppose?" interrupted Mr. Gollop. "'Tis the joy and pride of the church-town, I assure you. Not another like it in the world, they say. Learned men come all across England to see it--as well they may."
The famous font-cover, with its eight little snub-nosed saints and the Abbot elevated in the midst, was a special glory of St. Edward's.
"I meant to speak of that," said the clergyman. "The figure at the top has got more than his proper vestments on, Gollop. In fact, he's wrapped up in cobwebs. That is not worthy of us. Please see they are cleaned off."
"I hadn't noticed them; but since you say so--I'll look to it myself. Where the vamp-dish be concerned I allow none to meddle. It shall be done; but I must say again that I haven't noticed any cobwebs--not last Sunday. Have you, Eliza?" said Thomas.
"The dirt has clearly been there for months," remarked Miss Masterman.
There was a painful pause, during which Miss Gollop gazed at the vicar's sister and then at the vicar.
"'Tis a well-known fact that spiders will spin," she said vaguely, but not without intention. The other woman ignored her and turned to Thomas.
"Yes, and gladly, miss," he answered. "And I'll begin with the Gollops, since they've done as much for this parish as anybody, living or dead. My father was parish clerk afore me, and a very remarkable man, wasn't he, Eliza?"
"A remarkable man with a large faith in the power of prayer, was father. You don't see such faith now, worse luck. But he believed more than even I hold to, or my sister, either. You might say that he wasn't right always; but none ever dared to doubt the high religious quality of the man. But there he was--a pillar of the Church and State, as they say. He used to help his money a bit by the power of prayer; and they fetched childer sick of the thrush to him; and he'd tak 'em up the church tower and hold 'em over the battlements, north, south, east, and west--while he said the Lord's Prayer four times. He'd get a shilling by it every time, and was known to do twenty of 'em in a good year, though I never heard 'twas a very quick cure. But faith moves mountains, and he may have done more good than appeared to human eyes. And then in his age, he very near let a heavy babby drop over into the churchyard--just grabbed hold of un by a miracle and saved un. So that proper terrified the old man, and he never done another for fear of some lasting misfortune. Not but what a few devilish-natured people said that if 'twas knowed he let the childer fall now and again, he'd brisk up his business a hundred per centum. Which shows the evil-mindedness of human nature."