ering, and had a wife and three
children--though for some years the letters had brought no news of them.

"Something was wrong," Parson Jack decided after a while, finding that
his messages to them met with no answer; and he felt a delicacy in
asking questions. He believed that the children had been sent home to
England--he did not know where--and would have liked to pay them a
visit. But for him a journey was out of the question. So he lived on,
alone and forgotten.

On Sundays he wore a black suit, which had lasted him for ten years, and
would have to last for another five at least. On week-days he dressed
in blue guernsey and corduroys, and smoked a clay pipe. His
broad-brimmed clerical hat alone distinguished him from the
farm-labourers in his parish; but when at work upon the church--patching
its shingle roof, or pouring mortar into its gaping wounds--he discarded
this for a maroon-coloured cap, not unlike a biretta, which offered less
surface to the high winds.

He knew nothing of architecture: could not, in fact, distinguish Norman
work from Perpendicular; and at first had taken to these odd jobs of
masonry as a handy way of killing time. He had wit enough, however, to
learn pretty soon that the whole fabric was eaten with rot and in danger
from every gale; and by degrees (he could not explain how) the ruin had
set up a claim on him. In his worst dreams he saw it toppling, falling;
during the winter gales he lay awake listening, imagining the throes and
shudders of its old beams, and would be abroad before daybreak, waiting
for the light to assure him that it yet stood. A casual tourist,
happening on him at work, some summers before, had mistaken him for a
hired mason, and discoursed learnedly on the beauties of the edifice and
the pity of its decay. "That's a vile job you have in hand, my friend--
a bit of sheer vandalism," said the tourist; "but I suppose the Parson
who employs you knows no better." Parson Jack had been within an ace of
revealing himself, but now changed his mind and asked humbly enough what
was amiss. Whereupon the tourist pulled out a pencil and an old
envelope, and explained. "But there," he broke off, "it would take me a
week to go into these matters, and you a deal longer to understand.
I'd enjoy twenty minutes' talk with your Parson. The church wants
restoration from beginning to end, and by a first-class man.
It deserves no less, for it's interesting throughout; in some po