Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/40

 Newbigging soon brought around a good bay gelding harnessed to a heavy-wheeled dogcart. The road to Brancepeth lay close along the shore, now high, and, it seemed, dangerously near the edge of the bluffs; now dipping suddenly to cross some willow-shaded stream. Orchards in a storm of bloom trooped almost to the water's edge. Brancepeth was sedate, respectable, very different from the rowdy, good-humored poverty of Mistwell. He left his horse in the stable of the Duke of York, a deep-porched little hotel near the church.

He was late, and had half a mind not to go in. He pushed the inner green baize door a few inches open and saw the congregation kneeling. A low murmur came from them—"That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life." . . . . Like the subdued sound of waves their voices rose and fell in solemn prayer and muffled response. Then came a scraping of feet, a relieved heaving of bodies, and they rose. Derek felt his arm grasped from behind, and a stout, determined-looking gentleman pushed him irrevocably inside, and conducted him to a pew. He took a prayer book from the rack before him, and found the place. As he mechanically sang the words of the Venite, he looked about for the Jerrolds. Then he remembered that he had no way of recognizing them except that Hobbs had told him that Mr. Jerrold was the handsomest man in the countryside. Decidedly then, he was not the man directly in front of him with the sloping shoulders, red hair, and protruding ears. Nor the one opposite with the officious Adam's Apple and nasal voice. Could it have been he who led him into the church? He thought not. . . . . Then, suddenly he saw them; considerably in advance of him, across the aisle. That was certainly the massive figure he had seen on horseback. He seemed to rise above the commonplace figures about him like a dark rock out of an