"Oh, I'll manage that. I'll stand the salary. There must be numbers
of men or women who would like a small job of that sort. I want you
in my seat with me as my wife. Don't laugh! You've made me into a
regular church-goer, but I like to have my family with me, and the
fidgets of the small girls is more than I can stand. Ruffie suggests
that he might come to church. How can I manage the lot of them? You
can go to the choir practices, and play the organ as often as you like
on weekdays, but I do need you on Sundays. Are you very much set upon
being organist?"
"No, not at all. When you are away, it is awkward. I have only done it
to help Mr. Bolland. If we can get someone, and you're able to defray
the expense of it, I will willingly give it up."
Then she added: "I shall love sitting by you. We shall be able to enjoy
the services together."
"I haven't got to the enjoyable stage yet," was her husband's
rejoinder. "I'm interested in Bolland's sermons, he seems to make an
extraordinary lot out of quite a commonplace text, and he's original
and interesting; but to be frank, the service itself bores me!"
"It won't always bore you."
He shook his head sceptically, and changed the subject, but he managed
to get his way. An organist was found, and Anstice enjoyed her Sundays
more when she was no longer responsible for the church music. She
did not entirely give up the organ. Sometimes in the week, when she
passed that way, she would go into the church and have a quiet time by
herself. She could always get an organ-blower from the sexton's cottage
next the church, for there were boys there of different ages.
Ruffie got his wish, and was taken to church in his chair, but in the
sermon, he always found his way into his father's arms. The Rector had
found favour in his sight, and he expressed his opinion very quaintly
after his first experience in church.
"The organ and singing are lovely, specially when I know the words and
the tunes, but I get tired of the reading and muttering. I like Mr.
Bolland's part most."
"What do you mean by muttering?" his father asked.
"Oh, when the people put their heads down and mutter into the floor
under their seats. I s'pose it's their prayers. I used to mutter
prayers into my hands. Brenda taught me to, but now Steppie says I can
talk to God just as I like, and so I always have the window open and
speak up into the sky."
"And you like the sermon best? So do I. Your mother would tell you
worship ought to come first."
"I like it when Mr. Bolland smiles at us; he always smiles when he says
something 'ticularly nice, like God and Jesus loving us."
"Don't make Ruffie too good," said Justin to Anstice a day or two
later. "I don't want him to sprout wings and fly away from us. It's
unnatural for a small boy to be religious. I never was, as a boy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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