idow Copping
were aware of them. The Parson stumbled and hesitated so badly over the
prayers that one or two worshippers felt sure he had been drinking;
which was not the fact. The Widow Copping took no interest in
collecting-boxes; and, besides, she could not read. So the innovation
missed fire. Moreover, it suggested neither popery nor priestcraft, and
only a fool would suspect Parson Flood of either.

The "Parson's Box" remained, provoking no criticism. He himself had a
little plan for its contents. He would spend the money on a journey to
his nephew and nieces, if they were anywhere in England. He would find
out. There was no hurry, he told himself, with a queer smile.

There was not. The box provoked neither ill-criticism nor effusive
charity. On Trinity Sunday, when he opened it and counted out one
shilling in silver and sevenpence in coppers, Parson Jack pulled a wry
face and then laughed aloud.

II.

_Toot--toot--toot!_

The postman's horn in the village street above him shook the Parson out
of his idleness, if not out of his dark thoughts. He sprang up, gripped
his shovel, and began spading the white river-sand into his sack.

"It is useless, after all," said he to himself. "The crack on the south
of the tower stands still, but the smaller and more dangerous one--the
one on the weather side--is widening fast. This winter, even, may
finish matters."

He took up a few more shovelfuls. "Anyhow, it will not last my time;
and since it will not--" He paused, as a thought rose before him like a
blank wall. If the church fell--nay, _when_ it fell--this comrade which
had taken possession of his purposes, his fears, his fate--this
enigmatic building of which he knew neither the history nor the
founder's name, but only its wounds--why, then his occupation was gone!
He might outlive it for years, perhaps a third of a lifetime; but he had
no hopes beyond. In imagination he saw it fall, and after that--
nothing. And he laughed--not the laugh with which he had counted out
the money in his collecting-box, but one of sheer self-contempt, and
passing bitter.

The impression had been so sharp that he flung a glance up at the grey
tower topping the grey-green rise; and with that was aware of the
postman swinging, with long strides, down the slope towards him.

He turned in confusion and resumed his shovelling. Why was the man
coming this way, by a path out of his daily beat? Parson Jack stooped