Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 06Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
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Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 06
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
She disappeared among the shrubs, amid which they heard the thrill of
her fresh young voice singing to herself.
"That child has a heart of gold," said Mr. Emlyn, as the two men
walked on. "I did not exaggerate when I said she was the best doctor
in the place. I believe the poor really do believe that she is a
fairy. Of course we send from the vicarage to our ailing parishioners
who require it, food and wine; but it never seems to do them the good
that her little dishes made by her own tiny hands do; and I don't know
if you noticed the basket that old woman took away,--Miss Lily taught
Will Somers to make the prettiest little baskets; and she puts her
jellies or other savouries into dainty porcelain gallipots nicely
fitted into the baskets, which she trims with ribbons. It is the look
of the thing that tempts the appetite of the invalids, and certainly
the child may well be called Fairy at present; but I wish Mrs. Cameron
would attend a little more strictly to her education. She can't be a
fairy forever."
Kenelm sighed, but made no answer.
Mr. Emlyn then turned the conversation to erudite subjects, and so
they came in sight of the town, when the vicar stopped and pointed
towards the church, of which the spire rose a little to the left, with
two aged yew-trees half shadowing the burial-ground, and in the rear a
glimpse of the vicarage seen amid the shrubs of its garden ground.
"You will know your way now," said the vicar; "excuse me if I quit
you: I have a few visits to make; among others, to poor Haley, husband
to the old woman you saw. I read to him a chapter in the Bible every
day; yet still I fancy that he believes in fairy charms."
"Better believe too much, than too little," said Kenelm; and he turned
aside into the village and spent half-an-hour with Will, looking at
the pretty baskets Lily had taught Will to make. Then, as he went
slowly homeward, he turned aside into the churchyard.
The church, built in the thirteenth century, was not large, but it
probably sufficed for its congregation, since it betrayed no signs of
modern addition; restoration or repair it needed not. The centuries
had but mellowed the tints of its solid walls, as little injured by
the huge ivy stems that shot forth their aspiring leaves to the very
summit of the stately tower as by the slender roses which had been
trained to climb up a foot or so of the massive buttresses. The site
of the burial-ground was unusually picturesque: sheltered towards the
north by a rising ground clothed with woods, sloping down at the south
towards the glebe pasture-grounds through which ran the brooklet,
sufficiently near for its brawling gurgle to be heard on a still day.
Kenelm sat himself on an antique tomb, which was evidently
appropriated to some one of higher than common rank in bygone days,
but on which the sculpture was wholly obliterated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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