Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/257

Rh a queen, a bishop and a monk, or of a sow suckling a dozen little pig's.

But Mr. Desiderius Mules had no artistic or archaeological faculty developed in him. His one object on the present occasion was to keep draught and damp from the crown of his head, where the hair was so scanty as hardly to exist at all. He did not like to assume his hat in the consecrated building, so he stamped about in the sand holding a red bandanna handkerchief on the top of his head, and grumbling at the time he was kept waiting, at the Cornish climate, at the way in which he had been "choused" in the matter of dilapidations for the chancel of the church, at the unintelligible dialect of the people, and at a good many, other causes of irritation, notably at a bat which had not reverenced his bald pate, when he ventured beyond the range of the sexton's sweeping.

Presently the clerk, who was outside, thrust in his head through the gap in the wall, and in a stage whisper announced, "They's a-coming."

The Reverend Mules growled, "There ought to be a right to charge extra when the parson is kept waiting—sixpence a minute, not a penny less. But we are choused in this confounded corner of the world in every way. Ha! there is a mildew-spot on my stole—all come of this villainous damp."

In the tower stood five men, ready to pull the ropes and sound a merry peal when the service was over, and earn a guinea. They had a firkin of ale in a corner, with which to moisten their inner clay between each round. Now that they heard that the wedding party had arrived they spat on their hands and heaved their legs out of the sand.

Through the aperture in the wall entered the bridal party, a cloud of fog blowing in with them and enveloping them. They stepped laboriously through the fine sand, at this place less firm than elsewhere, having been dug into daily by the late rector in his futile efforts to clear the church.

Mr. Mules cast a suspicious look into the rafters above him to see that no profane bat was there, and opened his book.

Mr. Menaida was to act as father to the bride, and there was no other bride's-maid than Miss Trevisa. As