Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 12).djvu/708

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The one thing that Walter Gilbert could not do was to preach—and he was a preacher. He had been at St. Jerome for months, and the people were still wondering at the things which the parson offered them for sermons. It was a Devonshire parish, paying the incumbent £75—a sum for which not much was to be expected of the lungs beyond breathing. But the little congregation persisted in hoping for better things, since, in other respects, the new man had so crept into their hearts. Rumour breathed of charities eked out of those £75 stipends, of sick-bed tendernesses, long tramps over-country to see a paralytic. It was noticed that as he went with his long swing along lanes, smiting his thick stick smartly upon the ground, he was fond of glancing at the sky, always with a sort of simple half-laugh. If he met anyone, the same half-laugh, as he flung out on his hand his "How-d'ye-do?" He seemed very attached to children, and would carry a small boy on his shoulder quite a long way. He was very big, with a light-coloured moustache, and wore a short morning-coat, instead of the parson's frock. It was impossible not to be caught and won by him. But he certainly could not preach. And Farmer Brian's daughters, who had attended boarding-school at Bath, said that he was not a "gentleman"; which, in a sense, was true.

One Saturday night he sat writing the morrow's sermon. The parsonage was an old house in a mass of trees. The week had been so full that he had found excuse to put off that dreaded task till now—those two harangues, that labour of Hercules. If he had only been content to utter simply the limpid good that was in him!—but, no, he must be ornate, he must do better than his poor best. "Anything will not do," he said constantly, spurring himself. It was his sense of duty, really, which was to blame. But either his wits were not over-bright, or preaching was the one thing above all for which he was not made. When all was said and done, he was conscious that the simple congregation regarded his outpouring with a half-smile of mere tolerance. Sometimes he was near to despair; would thump his forehead, and say: "Dunce! Thick-head!"

This night he wrote till one, and then the Sunday morning task was over. He read the sermon, and seemed not dissatisfied. For the present, he rose and went to bed.

At breakfast he once more read the sheets, and this time with loathing. How little of the human heart with its yearnings and out-