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Updated: June 10, 2025
The handwriting of a man accustomed to command, whether his own ancestral estate, or the collieries which had been carved out of its fringe, or the village spreading humbly at his feet, or the church into which he walked on Sunday with heavy tread, and upright carriage, conscious of his threefold dignity as squire, magistrate, and churchwarden. "It's my business to fight him!"
I am sorry to have to speak of such things which ladies generally see quick enough for themselves, but as churchwarden I can't shut my ears to what is matter of town talk; and more by token when a namesake of my own is concerned."
I won't describe it, because it does not look the same to any two people, and you wouldn't understand me if I tried to tell you how it looked to any one of these four. But to each it seemed the most perfect thing possible. I will only say that all round it were great arches. Kathleen saw them as Moorish, Mabel as Tudor, Gerald as Norman, and Jimmy as Churchwarden Gothic.
Yet he prayed without ceasing, and gave heavily to the poor the only thing he could not give being big ideas to his provincial and suburban deity. Pettier than an insect, and more obstinate than a mule, he had also the superior, sleek humility of a "chosen one." He was churchwarden too.
Everyone spoke in short, breathless sentences, as though they feared the final crash might come before they could finish. Churchwarden Joliffe, with pauses of expectation, muttered about a "judgment in our midst." The Rector, in Joliffe's pauses, seemed trying to confute him by some reference to "those thirteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them."
Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meant business. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour 'twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to be sitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of churchwarden clays with sealing-wax and says she: "What's the matter with your menkind?" "Restin'," says Oke with a grin.
Among his immediate surroundings a word from Churchwarden Joliffe carried more weight than an outsider would have imagined, and long usage had credited him with the delicate position of censor morum to the community.
If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county of Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life and memory. In short, I am an ignoramus, but pretty well for a yeoman.
The Vicar, finding his comfort in the practice of a Christian virtue, exercised forbearance; but he revenged himself by calling the churchwarden Bismarck behind his back. Once there had been a serious quarrel between the pair, and Mrs. Carey still thought of that anxious time with dismay.
When Humfrey had eaten and drunk, and the ruddy hue was returning to his cheek, Mr. Heatherthwayte discovered that he must speak with his churchwarden that night.
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