ght--never smelt as a church _ought_ to smell. You know
the smell of a' old church? Well, I don't know what makes it; but there
it is, and when you've said your prayers to it for forty years you can't
say 'em to no other.

"I can remember what a turn it gave me that Sunday when the Bishop came
down to open the church after it had been restored. The old smell clean
gone, and what was worse a new smell come! 'Mr. Abel,' I says, 'I can
put up wi' a bit of new doctrine, and I don't mind a pinch or two o'
ceremony; but I can't abide these 'ere new smells,' 'I'll never be able
to keep on comin',' I says to Charley Shott. 'Nor me, neither,' he says.
"I'll go to church in another parish,' I says to my missis, 'for danged
if you'll ever see me goin' inside a chapel.'

"So I went next Sunday to Holliton, and--would you believe me?--it had a
new smell, worse, if anything, than ours. There was a' old man in a
black gown, and a long stick in his hand, walkin' up and down the aisle.
So I says to him, 'What's up with this 'ere church? Has them candles on
the altar been smokin'?' 'No,' he says, 'not as I know on.' 'Well,' I
says, sniffin' like, 'there's a very queer smell in the place. It's not
'ealthy. Summat ought to be done to it at once.' 'Hush!' he says, 'what
you smells is the incense.' And then the Holliton clergyman! Well--I
couldn't stand him at no price--a great, big, fat feller wi' no more
religion in him than a cow--and not more'n six people in the church.
'Not for me,' I says, 'not after Mr. Abel.'

"Well, I didn't know what to do, when one day I sees Charley Shott
comin' out o' our churchyard. 'Sam,' he says, 'I've just been sniffin'
round inside the church, and there she is, all alive and kickin'!'
'What's all alive and kickin'?' I says. 'The old smell,' says he; 'come
inside, and I'll show you where she is.' So I follows Charley Shott into
the church, and he takes me round to where the old tomb is, in the north
transep'. 'Now,' he says, 'take a whiff o' that, Sam.' 'Charley,' I
says, 'it's the right smell sure enough; and if only she won't wear off,
I'll sit in this corner to the end o' my days.' 'She's not likely to
wear off,' he says; 'she comes from the old tomb. It's a mixture o' damp
and dust. Now, the damp's all right, because the heatin' pipes don't
come round here; and, besides, the sun never gets into this corner. And
as to the dust, you just take your pocket-handkerchief and give a flick
or two round the bot