Scenes of Clerical Life/Book 2/Chapter 1
MR GILFIL'S LOVE-STORY.
CHAPTER I.
When old Mr Gilfil died, thirty years ago, there was general sorrow in Shepperton; and if black cloth had not been hung round the pulpit and reading-desk, by order of his nephew and principal legatee, the parishioners would certainly have subscribed the necessary sum out of their own pockets, rather than allow such a tribute of respect to be wanting. All the farmers' wives brought out their black bombasines; and Mrs. Jennings, at the Wharf, by appearing the first Sunday after Mr Gilfil's death in her salmon-coloured ribbons and green shawl, excited the severest remark. To be sure, Mrs. Jennings was a new-comer, and town-bred, so that she could hardly be expected to have very clear notions of what was proper; but, as Mrs Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, "Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better." An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.
"Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours," she remarked; "but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!"
"Ah," said Mrs Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, "there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs Higgins."
Mrs Higgins, who was an elderly widow, "well left", reflected with complacency that Mrs Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of.
Even dirty Dame Fripp, who was a very rare church-goer, had been to Mrs Hackit to beg a bit of old crape, and with this sign of grief pinned on her little coal-scuttle bonnet, was seen dropping her curtsy opposite the reading-desk. This manifestation of respect towards Mr Gilfil's memory on the part of Dame Fripp had no theological bearing whatever. It was due to an event which had occurred some years back, and which, I am sorry to say, had left that grimy old lady as indifferent to the means of grace as ever. Dame Fripp kept leeches, and was understood to have such remarkable influence over those wilful animals in inducing them to bite under the most unpromising circumstances, that though her own leeches were usually rejected, from a suspicion that they had lost their appetite, she herself was constantly called in to apply the more lively individuals furnished from Mr Pilgrim's surgery, when, as was very often the case, one of that clever man's paying patients was attacked with inflammation. Thus Dame Fripp, in addition to "property" supposed to yield her no less than half-a-crown a-week, was in the receipt of professional fees, the gross amount of which was vaguely estimated by her neighbours as "pouns an' pouns". Moreover, she drove a brisk trade in lollipop with epicurean urchins, who recklessly purchased that luxury at the rate of two hundred per cent. Nevertheless, with all these notorious sources of income, the shameless old woman constantly pleaded poverty, and begged for scraps at Mrs Hackit's, who, though she always said Mrs Fripp was "as false as two folks", and no better than a miser and a heathen, had yet a leaning towards her as an old neighbour.
"There's that case-hardened old Judy a-coming after the tea-leaves again," Mrs Hackit would say; "an' I'm fool enough to give 'em her, though Sally wants 'em all the while to sweep the floors with!"
Such was Dame Fripp, whom Mr Gilfil, riding leisurely in top-boots and spurs from doing duty at Knebley one warm Sunday afternoon, observed sitting in the dry ditch near her cottage, and by her side a large pig, who, with that ease and confidence belonging to perfect friendship, was lying with his head in her lap, and making no effort to play the agreeable beyond an occasional grunt.
"Why, Mrs Fripp," said the Vicar, "I didn't know you had such a fine pig. You'll have some rare flitches at Christmas!"
"Eh, God forbid! My son gev him me two 'ear ago, an' he's been company to me iver sin'. I couldn't find i' my heart to part wi'm, if I niver knowed the taste o' bacon-fat again."
"Why, he'll eat his head off, and yours too. How can you go on keeping a pig, and making nothing by him?"
"O, he picks a bit hisself wi' rootin', and I dooant mind doin' wi'out to gie him summat. A bit o' coompany's meat an' drink too, an' he follers me about, an' grunts when I spake to'm, just like a Christian."
Mr Gilfil laughed, and I am obliged to admit that he said good-by to Dame Fripp without asking her why she had not been to church, or making the slightest effort for her spiritual edification. But the next day he ordered his man David to take her a great piece of bacon, with a message, saying, the parson wanted to make sure that Mrs Fripp would know the taste of bacon-fat again. So, when Mr Gilfil died, Dame Fripp manifested her gratitude and reverence in the simple dingy fashion I have mentioned.
You already suspect that the Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch. He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking them as they came, without reference to topics; and having preached one of these sermons at Shepperton in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode hastily with the other in his pocket to Knebley, where he officiated in a wonderful little church, with a checkered pavement which had once rung to the iron tread of military monks, with coats of arms in clusters on the lofty roof, marble warriors and their wives without noses occupying a large proportion of the area, and the twelve apostles, with their heads very much on one side, holding didactic ribbons, painted in fresco on the walls. Here, in an absence of mind to which he was prone, Mr. Gilfil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice, and only become aware of the omission by feeling something mysteriously tugging at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk. But the Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/170 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/171 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/172 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/173 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/174 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/175 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/176 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/177 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/178 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/179 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/180 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/181 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/182 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/183 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/184 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/185 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/186 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/187 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/188 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/189 Page:Scenes of Clerical Life volume 1.djvu/190