Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/294

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288
Joan, The Curate.

place, with their free-trading sympathies, on the other.

By this time the little procession had started towards the churchyard, and Tregenna, bare-headed, joined it on its way.

Slowly they went, past the few remaining houses of the village, and up the hill where the Parsonage stood. The church, a weather-beaten little structure, innocent of any sort of restoration except whitewash, stood beyond, on a somewhat lower level, and nearer to the marsh.

Under the building, at the east end of the church, there was a vault, which had belonged to the family at Rede Hall for nearly a century. The way to it was by a flight of worn steps, damp, uneven and overgrown with weeds, behind the east window.

Here the vicar stood, with the great key of the vault in his hand, waiting for the arrival of the solemn little procession.

Very weird, very awe-inspiring it seemed to Tregenna—the brief service held in the keen frosty air, under the lee of the old church, whose stones had been gray and old before the ancient Faith gave place to the new. There was a dead calm that day over land and sea,