I read on the
box yonder that you are collecting towards a restoration."

Parson Jack blushed hotly.

"You have made a start, eh? What are your funds in hand?"

"Two pounds four shillings--as yet."

Sir Harry laughed outright; and after a moment Parson Jack laughed too--
he could not help it. But Clement Vyell frowned, having no sense of
humour.

"I patch it up, you know--after a fashion." Parson Jack's tone was
humble enough and propitiatory; nevertheless, he glanced at his
handiwork with something like pride. "The windows, for instance--"

The younger man turned with a shudder. "I suppose now," he said
abruptly, staring up at an arch connecting the choir-stalls with the
southern transept, "this bit of Norman work will be as old as anything
you have?"

That it was Norman came as news to Parson Jack. He, too, stared up at
it, resting a palm on a crumbling bench-end.

"Well," said he ingenuously, "I'm no judge of these things, you know;
but I always supposed the tower was the oldest bit."

He broke off in confusion--not at his speech, but because Clement
Vyell's eyes were resting on the back of his hand, which shook with a
tell-tale palsy.

"The tower," said the young man icily, "is Perpendicular, and later than
1412, at all events, when a former belfry fell in, destroyed the nave,
and cracked the pavement, as you see. All this is matter of record, as
you may learn, sir, from the books which, I feel sure, my uncle will be
pleased to lend you. I need not ask, perhaps, if in the course of
your--ah--excavations you have come on any traces of the original
pre-Augustine Oratory, or of the conventual buildings which existed here
till, we are told, the middle of the thirteenth century."

He turned away, obviously expecting no answer, addressed himself
henceforward to Sir Harry, and ignored Parson Jack, who followed him
abashed, yet secretly burning to hear more, and wondering where all this
knowledge could be obtained.

"But it is inconceivable!" Clement Vyell protested to his uncle, half an
hour later, as they rode back towards Carwithiel. "The man has had the
cure of that parish for--how long, do you say?--twenty-five years, and
has never had the curiosity to discover the most rudimentary facts in
its history."

"A hard case," assented Sir Harry. "He lifts his elbow, too."

"Eh?"

"Drinks." Sir Harry illustrated the idiom, lifting an imaginary glass
to his mouth. "Oh, it's notorious. But what t