ht at the church-door, excusing
himself from an invitation to tea on the ground of business which
necessitated his return to Fording.

"We must spend another afternoon in the minster," he said. "I hope you
will allow me to write to make an appointment. I am afraid that it may
possibly be for a Saturday again, for I am much occupied at present
during the week."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clerk Janaway lived not far from the church, in Governor's Lane. No one
knew whence its name was derived, though Dr Ennefer thought that the
Military Governour might have had his quarters thereabouts when Cullerne
was held for the Parliament. Serving as a means of communication
between two quiet back-streets, it was itself more quiet than either,
and yet; for all this, had about it a certain air of comfort and
well-being. The passage of vehicles was barred at either end by old
cannon. Their breeches were buried in the ground, and their muzzles
stood up as sturdy iron posts, while the brown cobbles of the roadway
sloped to a shallow stone gutter which ran down the middle of the lane.
Custom ordained that the houses should be coloured with a pink wash; and
the shutters, which were a feature of the place, shone in such bright
colours as to recall a Dutch town.

Shutter-painting was indeed an event of some importance in Governour's
Lane. Not a few of its inhabitants had followed the sea as fishermen or
smack-owners, and when fortune so smiled on them that they could retire,
and there were no more boats to be painted, shutters and doors and
window-frames came in to fill the gap. So, on a fine morning, when the
turpentine oozing from cracks, and the warm smell of blistering varnish
brought to Governour's Lane the first tokens of returning summer, might
have been seen sexagenarians and septuagenarians, and some so strong
that they had come to fourscore years, standing paint-pot and
paint-brush in hand, while they gave a new coat to the woodwork of their
homes.

They were a kindly folk, open of face, and fresh-complexioned, broad in
the beam, and vested as to their bodies in dark blue, brass-buttoned
pilot coats. Insuperable smokers, inexhaustible yarn-spinners, they had
long welcomed Janaway as a kindred spirit--the more so that in their
view a clerk and grave-digger was in some measure an expert in things
unseen, who might anon assist in piloting them on that last cruise for
which