Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/265

Rh them. I'll set to work at once. I'll have St. Enodoc dugout and restored, and I’ll soon, put an end to this sort of thing."

"You think so?"

"You don't know me. I'll have a bazaar. I'll have a ball in the Assembly Rooms at Wadebridge. The church shall be excavated. I'm not going in there again with the bats, to have my boots filled with sand, I can tell you—everything shall be renovated and put to rights. I'll see to it at once. I'll have a pigeon shooting for the sake of my chancel—I daresay I shall raise twenty pounds by that alone—and a raffle for the font, and an Aunt Sally for the pulpit. But the ball will be the main thing, I'll send and get the county people to patronize. I'll do it, and you barbarians in this benighted corner of the world shall see there is a man of energy among you."

"You'd best try your hand on a wreck. You'll get more off that."

"And I'll have a bran pie for an altar-table."

"You won't get the parishioners to do anything for the restoration of the church. They don't want to have it restored."

"The Decalogue is rotten. I ran my umbrella through the Ten Commandments this morning. I'll have a gypsy camp and fortune-telling to furnish me with new Commandments."

"I've heard tell," said Scantlebray, "that at Ponghill, near Stratton, is a four-post bed of pure gold came off a wreck in Bude Bay."

"When I was in the North," said the rector of St. Enodoc, "we had a savage who bit off the heads of rats, snap, skinned them and ate them raw, and charged sixpence entrance; but that was for the missionaries. I should hardly advocate that for the restoration of a church; besides, where is the savage to be got? We made twenty-seven pounds by that man, but expenses were heavy and swallowed up twenty-five; we sent two pounds to the missionaries."

Mr. Menaida stood up and went to the window.

"I believe the wind has shifted to the north, and we shall have a lightening of the fog after sunset."