ground, and it was but natural that all the fowls should
stray into it to feed and enjoy themselves in the grass. Amongst these
was a goodly flock of guinea-fowls, which oftentimes no little disturbed
the congregation by their peculiar cry of "Come back! come back! come
back!" One Sunday the climax of annoyance was reached when the whole
flock gathered around the west door just as my father was beginning to
read the first lesson. His voice, never at any time very strong, was
completely drowned. Whereupon old Russell hastily left his seat, book in
hand, and clattering as usual on his heels down the aisle disappeared
through the door on vengeance bent. The discomfiture of the offending
fowls was instantly apparent by the change in their cry to one more
piercing still as they fled away in terror. Then all was still, and
back comes old Russell, a gleam of triumph on his face and somewhat out
of breath, but nevertheless able without much difficulty to take up the
responses in the canticle which followed the lesson. Scarcely, however,
had the congregation resumed their seats for the reading of the second
lesson when the offending flock again gathered round the west door, and
again, as if in defiant derision of Russell, raised their mocking cry of
"Come back! come back! come back!" And back accordingly he went clatter,
clatter down the aisle, a stern resolution flashing from his eye, and
causing the little boys as he passed to quail before him. Now it so
happened that the lesson was a short one, and, moreover, Russell took
more time, making a farther excursion into the churchyard than before,
in order if possible to be rid entirely of the noisy intruders. Just as
he returned to the church door, this time completely breathless, the
first verse of the canticle which followed was being read, but Russell
was equal to the occasion. All breathless as he was, without a moment's
hesitation, he opened his book at the place and bellowed forth the
responses as he proceeded up the church to his seat. The scene may be
imagined, but scarcely described: Russell's quaint little figure, the
broad-rimmed spectacles on his nose, the ponderous book in his hands,
the clatter of his heels, the choking gasps with which he bellowed out
the words as he laboured for breath, and finally the sudden
disappearance of the congregation beneath the shelter of their high pews
with a view to giving vent to their feelings unobserved--all this
requires to have bee