Gerald Eversley’s earliest recollections were associated with Kestercham church. Twice every Sunday, in the morning and the afternoon, he accompanied his father thither. Its simple services impressed themselves upon his mind. They represented his ideal of public divine worship. In after days, when his thoughts and feelings had become liberalised, he was fond of dwelling with a certain irony upon some quaint prehistoric customs which lingered on at Kestercham. But these very customs seemed venerable to him as a boy. The church had no vestry, but a curtain (which Mr. Eversley himself provided, for before his time there had been none) hung in front of the belfry--if, indeed, it can be called a belfry, when there was only a single bell--and behind that curtain, underneath the tower of the church, Mr. Eversley would assume his surplice before the prayers, and would exchange it for his black gown before the sermon. He had a commanding air--so Gerald felt--as he slowly walked the length of the church, joining heartily in the hymn that was being sung. He did strange things, or things which would seem strange in more modern times, for he was exempt from the fear of criticism which affects the minds of men, and especially of clergymen, living in the eye of the world. The parishioners of Kestercham did not regard or read the newspapers; they did not care to inquire what other people said. Thus it was, for instance, that Mr. Eversley would pause in his sermon and address some poor woman whose infant exhibited signs of crying, saying kindly, ‘Never mind. Stay where you are. Better a screaming baby than an absent mother!’ So, too, he has been known, in passing up the church, to ask a parishioner about his health or his family. All this would seem odd nowadays, perhaps irreverent; but nobody thought it odd at Kestercham.