Faith was not with us now, nor did she return till hay-time. She had
gone home to her father at the vicarage at Low Moor, but not without a
promise to return in the summer. And about that time too, Soldier Jack
became slack in his attendance at Powle Moor, tho' abating nothing in
his respect for Mr. Webster. He had been away for the week-end, having
said nothing of his intentions, but it turned out he had been to Low
Moor to see Faith and her father, and after this Jack began to go, in a
rather shame-faced way at first, to Church. I asked him what was the
reason of this right-about face.
"Well, yo' see, Ben," he explained, "th' service at th' Church is more
reg'lar like an' more constitutional."
"As how?"
"Well, yo' see, I'm a soldier, an' aw believe i' discipline."
"Yo' broke it often enough, bi all accounts," I ventured to remind him.
"Na, Ben, no back reckonin'! Yo' mun consider that aw wer' young then
an' lawless. Aw'n sown mi wild oats nah, an' settled down an' aw begin
to see that law an' order's a very guid thing, an' authority mun be
respected."
"Well, cannot yo' respect it as much at th' Powle as at th' Church?"
"Now, aw cannot; an' yo cannot, nother. Yo' see yo're dissenters at th'
Powle, an' heresy an' schism an' rebellion against constituted authority
are i' th' air, so to speak, on Powle Moor. Yo're all Republicans at'
heart up yonder, an' aw'll tell yo', another thing, if there'd been no
dissenters there they'd ha' been no Luds, an' George Mellor 'd noan ha'
danced out th' world on nowt."
"But Faith Booth were Church an' yet she went to th' Powle while she
wer' wi' us, an' had a class there into th' bargain."
"Faith's a woman," said Soldier, "an' women ha' no sense o' principle.
She wer' your guest, an' wouldn't pain yo' by going elsewheer. That's
what yo' call nat'ral politeness, an' we should be none the worse i'
Sloughit for a little more on it. But what we're talkin' on now is a
matter o' th' head not a matter o' th' heart, an' i' matters o' th' head
a woman's nowt to go by. Yo' shud hear her father, th' owd vicar at Low
Moor!"
"Oh! he's yo'r text, is he?"
"He put it i' this way. Th' Church o' Christ is an army--the Church
militant, he called it. Th' king, God bless him, is th' head o' th'
Church, jus' same as he's th' head o' th' army. Th' Archbishops is
commanders-in-chief, th' Bishops is generals, the Rectors an' Vicars is
colonels an' captains, an' Curates is th' lieutenants."
"And what of corporals and sergeants?" I asked.
"Th' vicar's warden, to be sure," said Jack promptly, "an' just yo' see
if aw dunnot live to be vicar's warden afore aw dee o' old age: an' if
yo' want to speer further into it, th' Collect an' th' Liturgy is th'
Orders o' th' day an' the surplice an' hood's nobbud a uniform. So
theer!"
And Jack looked at me triumphantly.
"An' wheer do th' Dissenters come in then?" I asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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