ly bursting out of their cracks and crevices in every
direction. Behind them, in a corner, was a litter of dusty papers, some
large and rolled up like architects' plans, some loosely strung
together on files like bills or letters. The room had once been
lighted by a small side window, but this had been bricked up, and a
lantern skylight was now substituted for it. The atmosphere of the
place was heavy and mouldy, being rendered additionally oppressive by
the closing of the door which led into the church. This door also was
composed of solid oak, and was bolted at the top and bottom on the
vestry side.

"We might be tidier, mightn't we, sir?" said the cheerful clerk; "but
when you're in a lost corner of a place like this, what are you to do?
Why, look here now, just look at these packing-cases. There they've
been, for a year or more, ready to go down to London--there they are,
littering the place, and there they'll stop as long as the nails hold
them together. I'll tell you what, sir, as I said before, this is not
London. We are all asleep here. Bless you, WE don't march with the
times!"

"What is there in the packing-cases?" I asked.

"Bits of old wood carvings from the pulpit, and panels from the
chancel, and images from the organ-loft," said the clerk. "Portraits of
the twelve apostles in wood, and not a whole nose among 'em. All
broken, and worm-eaten, and crumbling to dust at the edges. As brittle
as crockery, sir, and as old as the church, if not older."

"And why were they going to London? To be repaired?"

"That's it, sir, to be repaired, and where they were past repair, to be
copied in sound wood. But, bless you, the money fell short, and there
they are, waiting for new subscriptions, and nobody to subscribe. It
was all done a year ago, sir. Six gentlemen dined together about it,
at the hotel in the new town. They made speeches, and passed
resolutions, and put their names down, and printed off thousands of
prospectuses. Beautiful prospectuses, sir, all flourished over with
Gothic devices in red ink, saying it was a disgrace not to restore the
church and repair the famous carvings, and so on. There are the
prospectuses that couldn't be distributed, and the architect's plans
and estimates, and the whole correspondence which set everybody at
loggerheads and ended in a dispute, all down together in that corner,
behind the packing-cases. The money dribbled in a little at first--but
what CAN you e